All Things Trump

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah, like the armed first responder at Parkland who ran away. The lone armed hero saving the day is a myth and a Hollywood fiction.

[Animavore]

We joked, on the Oprah for President thread, about her nominating Dr. Oz for some administration role in medicine.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump ... e=facebook

[Brian Peacock]

Revealed: Trump team hired spy firm for ‘dirty ops’ on Iran arms deal


Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a “dirty ops” campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal.

People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to “get dirt” on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obama’s top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.

The extraordinary revelations come days before Trump’s 12 May deadline to either scrap or continue to abide by the international deal limiting Iran’s nuclear programme.

Jack Straw, who as foreign secretary was involved in earlier efforts to restrict Iranian weapons, said: “These are extraordinary and appalling allegations but which also illustrate a high level of desperation by Trump and [the Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, not so much to discredit the deal but to undermine those around it.”

One former high-ranking British diplomat with wide experience of negotiating international peace agreements, requesting anonymity, said: “It’s bloody outrageous to do this. The whole point of negotiations is to not play dirty tricks like this.”...


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... _clipboard

Yeah, but everybody does it, right? And nobody really cares, do they?

[Rum]

Yeah, like the armed first responder at Parkland who ran away. The lone armed hero saving the day is a myth and a Hollywood fiction.

Trump the Cunt.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Yeah, but everybody does it, right? And nobody really cares, do they?

Close, but I think this is how it's done: Is it illegal to to take steps to discover negative or compromising information about people who negotiated an agreement with which you disagree? The claim that this is 'chillingly authoritarian' is over the top.

[Brian Peacock]

When he rips up the negotiated settlement with Iran next week, and by that reimposes sanctions, then there will be nothing in place to stop Iran perusing nuclear arms development. With all his talk of how halting Iran's nuclear weapons program by negotiation was actually a terrible deal, such a bad deal, the worst deal etc for the US (as if Iran having nukes is somehow a better kind of deal) Trump is just trolling for domestic effect. But with no effective break on irsn the Arab potentates he admires so much will have every reason to pursue their own nuclear ambitious - which, in the short term, will probably mean buying-in old stock from the US.

I actually think he would plunge the world into a nuclear winter just to stop people talking about his pathetic serial philandering.

[Tero]

”I’m new, no idea how many women he fucked and paid off”
http://theweek.com/speedreads/771762/gi ... -necessary

[Forty Two]

USA sucks! Raising import taxes 10% here and 24% there! My god! Think of the world economy! Trump will plunge us into a great depression!

EU raises taxes up to 73%, and it's fine. Nothing to see here!

Yeah, what do experts know anyway?

They know that the EU raising tariffs is fine, and the US doing it is a global catastrophe waiting to happen, apparently. Or, at least, they don't bother writing about the EU's catastrophic tariffs.

[Forty Two]

Was Carter selling peanuts to overseas countries when he was Prez?

True wouldn't know an ethical principle if it bit him on the arse...

Sure, Carter's peanut farm sold to any willing buyer. It would be discrimination based on national origin to do otherwise. Are you suggesting Carter's peanut farm would not sell to a "damn furrener"?

[Brian Peacock]

USA sucks! Raising import taxes 10% here and 24% there! My god! Think of the world economy! Trump will plunge us into a great depression!

EU raises taxes up to 73%, and it's fine. Nothing to see here!

Yeah, what do experts know anyway?

They know that the EU raising tariffs is fine, and the US doing it is a global catastrophe waiting to happen, apparently. Or, at least, they don't bother writing about the EU's catastrophic tariffs.

The 1000+ economists are concerned about Trump's undetstanding and approach to the US economy and international trade, not the EU, but yeah, what do experts know anyway eh?

[Forty Two]

They specifically said - - “Today, Americans face a host of new protectionist activity, including threats to withdraw from trade agreements, misguided calls for new tariffs in response to trade imbalances, and the imposition of tariffs on washing machines, solar components, and even steel and aluminum used by US manufacturers."

They are experts, so they should know that the EU has used all of those protectionist activities, and imposed tariffs on the same products. The EU claimed to be scandalised by Trump threatening a 10% tariff on German cars into the US, when the EU itself imposes a 10% tariff on US cars into the EU. As always, when the EU does it, it's reasonable, and when the US does it, it's not. The EU imposes very high tariffs on agricultural products from non-EU countries. The EU puts tariffs on more than 13,000 types of goods imported into it.

Trump stated unequivocally - “If they drop their horrific barriers & tariffs on US products going in, we will likewise drop ours." What do the experts say? Should the EU also drop its barriers and tariffs, or is it just the US that has to do that?

[Animavore]

[quote="chango369";p="2629820"]

Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a “dirty ops” campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal.

People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to “get dirt” on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obama’s top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.

The extraordinary revelations come days before Trump’s 12 May deadline to either scrap or continue to abide by the international deal limiting Iran’s nuclear programme.

...

Revealed: Trump team hired spy firm for ‘dirty ops’ on Iran arms deal[/quote]

[Forty Two]

How bad is it to hire a private firm to investigate political opponents and obtain negative information on them to use against them? Is it really really bad, or just bad bad?

[JimC]

Was Carter selling peanuts to overseas countries when he was Prez?

True wouldn't know an ethical principle if it bit him on the arse...

Sure, Carter's peanut farm sold to any willing buyer. It would be discrimination based on national origin to do otherwise. Are you suggesting Carter's peanut farm would not sell to a "damn furrener"?

In any normal farming business, he would sell to some corporate middleman, who buys peanuts from lots of farms, and then sells them wherever; Carter would have no contact or influence with other nations.

The point about Trump being directly involved with commercial deals with overseas countries is the undoubted possibility of serious conflicts of interest...

[Forty Two]

Selling condominiums "to Russians" is not having commercial deals with overseas countries. He hasn't been accused of having commercial deals with countries, much less being "directly involved" with them. What you just wrote simply says that you think Carter wouldn't make deals with other nations -- not sure why you assume that. Middlemen come from all over.

What's the alleged conflict of interest? Aren't we really just talking about a specific distrust of Trump, rather than any sort of specific allegation?