* The DOW daily closing stock market average rose more than 15% since the election on November 8th. (On November 9th the DOW closed at 18,332 – on March 1st the DOW closed at 21,115). * Since the Inauguration on January 20th the DOW rose 6.5%. (It was at 19,827 at January 20th and reached 21,115 on March 1st.) * The DOW took just 66 days to climb from 19,000 to above 21,000, the fastest 2,000 point run ever. The DOW closed above 19,000 for the first time on November 22nd and closed above 21,000 on March 1st. * The DOW closed above 20,000 on January 25th and the March 1st rally matched the fastest-ever 1,000 point increase in the DOW at 24 days. * The US Stock Market gained $2 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected! * The S&P 500 broke $20 Trillion for the first time in its history. * In the history of the DOW, going back to January 1901, the DOW record for most continuous closing high trading days was set in January of 1987 when Ronald Reagan was President. The DOW set closing highs an amazing 12 times in a row that month. On February 28th President Trump matched President Reagan when the DOW reached a new high for its 12th day in a row!
President Trump decreased the US Debt in his first 100 days by $100 Billion. (President Obama increased the US debt in his first 100 days by more than $560 Billion.)
The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high in this period which were the best numbers since 1983 under President Reagan.
President Trump added 298,000 jobs in his first month alone (after President Obama said jobs were not coming back!).
Housing sales are red-hot. In 2011, houses for sale were on the market an average 84 days. This year, it’s just 45 days.
Illegal immigration is down 67% since President Trump’s Inauguration.
NATO announced Allied spending is up $10 Billion because of President Trump.
After being nominated by President Trump, Constitutionalist Judge Neil Gorsuch was confirmed and sworn in as Supreme Court Justice in early April.
The President has signed 66 executive orders, memoranda and proclamations as of April 19th, including:
* Notifying Congress of a strike on Syria after it was reported that the country used gas on its citizens. * Dismantling Obama’s climate change initiatives. * Travel bans for individuals from a select number of countries embroiled in terrorist atrocities. * Enforcing regulatory reform. * Protecting Law enforcement. * Mandating for every new regulation to eliminate two. * Defeating ISIS. * Rebuilding the military. * Building a border wall. * Cutting funding for sanctuary cities. * Approving pipelines. * Reducing regulations on manufacturers. * Placing a hiring freeze on federal employees. * Exiting the US from the TPP.
In addition to all this, the President has met with many foreign leaders from across the globe including Xi from China, Abe from Japan, Putin from Russia etc.
The President also pointed out numerous times that the MSM (Main Stream Media) reports only on a made up Russia conspiracy story and ignores these accomplishments. These actions are making the majority of Americans aware of the tremendous bias in the media in the US and abroad. This too is another major Trump accomplishment.
Oh ya .... gitmo may be getting some new blood .... MORE WINNING!!!!!
Hillary is always promoting being the first woman....this would be an excellent start for Hillary and Lynch being the first women criminals in gitmo! Lock them up!
Foreign Policy Magazine • Michael Carpenter • 7 hours ago By almost all accounts, President Donald Trump got played like a fiddle in his more than two-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, on the sidelines of the G20 summit. It was clear from their opening press statements that both leaders really wanted to establish a good rapport. Putin said he was “delighted” to meet with Trump personally, and Trump said that he looked forward to “a lot of positive things happening.” But it was evident that most of the “positive things” in the meeting happened only to Putin, including Trump’s reported declaration that the two sides needed to “move forward” from the discussion of Russia’s interference in — and possible manipulation of — the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Whether Trump agreed with Putin’s assertion that Russia had not in fact interfered in the election, as the Russian side claimed, or merely agreed to put the issue behind him, one thing is painfully clear: The Trump administration appears to have no intention of imposing costs or consequences on Russia for carrying out one of the most brazen covert influence operations against the United States in its history.
According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s account, the two leaders didn’t see value in “re-litigating things from the past,” and Trump instead “focused on how do we move forward from something that may be an intractable disagreement.” Even this admission sounds like a sugarcoated version of the actual discussion, given that only a day earlier in Warsaw, Poland, Trump said that Russia may not have been behind the attack at all. Indeed, Trump falsely implied that only four of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had agreed that Russia was behind the cyberattack, reducing the Kremlin’s unprecedented assault on U.S. institutions to little more than a difference of opinion. In fact, however, all 17 agencies concurred with the assessment, which was coauthored by the four lead agencies with the primary responsibility for analyzing the matter: the Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and National Security Agency. Given Trump’s distortions of these facts, it would truly be surprising if his disagreement with Putin (if there was one at all) had been “intractable.”
The implications for U.S. national security are profound. Despite Trump’s equivocation, the U.S. intelligence community was and remains unanimous in its assessment that Russia directed a covert operation to skew the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. And while no one expected Putin to admit Russia’s culpability in directing this operation, Trump had an obligation to defend U.S. national security by informing Putin that he was aware of the Kremlin’s interference and that there would be consequences for Russia’s efforts to undermine U.S. institutions. Particularly as evidence mounts that Russia’s intelligence services are continuing to collect information on U.S. electoral databases, systems, and procedures, a clear message to cease and desist (with consequences implied) was absolutely necessary to safeguard the integrity of future U.S. elections.
Instead, Trump appears to have been duped into the futile exercise of creating a joint U.S.-Russian working group on cybersecurity. The outcome of such a group is predictable: Experts will agree to disagree on what happened in the past and seek to develop some sort of code of conduct for the future. This is a well-worn Russian approach that promises to produce a document affirming the inadmissibility of interfering in the elections of other countries, perhaps together with a crisis communication channel in case of suspected interference. The problem is this: Russia has entered into a plethora of such agreements in the past, particularly in the area of arms control and confidence building, and yet none of these agreements have checked Russia’s violations of international norms or other countries’ sovereignty. For example, Russia is today violating the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Treaty on Open Skies, the Medvedev-Sarkozy ceasefire in Georgia, and the two Minsk agreements on Ukraine. The fact that these obligations are codified on paper is meaningless. Exhibit A is the U.S.-Russia working group on “Threats to and in the Use of Information and Communication Technologies,” established under the Obama-Medvedev Bilateral Presidential Commission, which sought to codify confidence-building measures in cyberspace.
According to Tillerson’s readout, Putin and Trump also agreed on the parameters of a ceasefire in southwestern Syria. At first glance, this seems like a promising development. Previous U.S.-Russian interagency talks in Amman at the working level, and between Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the ministerial level, had laid the groundwork for this agreement. But, as with previous U.S.-Russian attempts to agree on a ceasefire in Syria, it is not at all clear that words will translate into deeds. More troubling, however, is the fact that Putin no doubt capitalized on this agreement to try to entice Trump into broader cooperation against extremist groups in Syria. As his speech in Warsaw demonstrated the day before he met with Putin, Trump largely views the geopolitics of the Middle East through the prism of a conflict of civilizations in which the West is pitted against the rest. This simplistic and Manichean view provides a golden opportunity for Putin, who has long sought cooperation with the United States in Syria.
But such cooperation would be a disaster for the United States. While there is potentially some merit in pursuing an agreement with Russia on geographic deconfliction of operations in Syria — under which the United States would essentially agree to stay out of western Syria in return for Russia’s pledge not to interfere with counter-Islamic State operations in and around Raqqa — any actual coordination between United States and Russian forces on the ground or in the skies over Syria would implicate the United States in Russia’s toxic alliance with Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Such “coordination” of operations — in addition to being prohibited by the National Defense Authorization Act — would have disastrous ramifications for U.S. policy in the Middle East and make the United States complicit in Russia’s widespread attacks on civilian targets across Syria. Furthermore, joint targeting of the Islamic State through intelligence sharing — as opposed to the current practice of waging parallel but separate operations — offers no significant advantage to U.S. commanders on the ground.
On Ukraine, it seems apparent that Putin hewed to his long-standing interpretation of the Minsk accords. He holds that Ukraine must first grant the Russian-occupied regions of the Donbass a “special status” akin to that of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and only following this political concession would Russia withdraw its troops and equipment from Ukraine. By contrast, almost all other countries (including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) interpret the 2015 Minsk agreement as it is actually written, with the first three steps entailing a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, and full access for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to the occupied territories. Given Tillerson’s recent statements about the possibility of seeking a solution to the conflict outside of the Minsk framework, however, it is unlikely that either Trump or Tillerson would have insisted on this strict sequence of actions. Moreover, Foreign Minister Lavrov’s readout of the discussion echoes a comment he made only a few days earlier expressing the (absurd) view that Russia is merely a guarantor of the Minsk accords, and that Ukraine and the separatists are the only parties bound by their terms.
Despite the administration’s appointment of a highly capable diplomat (Kurt Volker, former ambassador to NATO) to serve as special envoy for Ukraine, no progress on this issue can be made so long as Moscow continues to shirk its obligations under the Minsk accords and cynically assigns responsibility for their implementation to its proxies. Indeed, it is likely that with the reciprocal appointment of envoys Russia will try to bury the Ukraine file in mid-level diplomatic talks while continuing to wage a simmering war using its proxies in eastern Ukraine, where some 100 Ukrainians have been killed this year alone. This is similar to the approach the Kremlin used following its invasion of Georgia in 2008, when Russia agreed to the establishment of the open-ended Geneva International Discussions, which continue to this day without any progress on the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bottom line here is that without significant leverage brought to bear against Moscow, no progress on resolving the Ukraine conflict will be possible.
On the burning problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, it does not appear the two leaders made any progress either, with the Russian permanent representative at the U.N. having publicly questioned whether Pyonyang’s recent missile test involved an intercontinental ballistic missile at all. On this issue, what might appear to be overlapping interests in a denuclearized Korean Peninsula mask a great power competition in which the Kremlin actually relishes Pyonyang’s potential ability to undermine America’s extended deterrent in East Asia.
In sum, it does not appear that Trump got any concrete results out of his meeting with Putin, aside from the agreement on a ceasefire in southwestern Syria — but gave Putin everything he could have wished for by agreeing to move on from Russia’s interference in the 2016 election without further consequences. Thus undeterred, why would the Kremlin stop now?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
You can go and live with our oldest allies if you want but they have completely screwed up their own Nations.
Their people are losing their national identities and are in constant danger of terrorism. They can't seem to keep up with their share of paying for self defense or NATO.
The EU bureaucrats recently told England they can not negotiate any trade deals on their own.
I like our America First plan, I don't want to be Europe!
By ROB GILLIES Published July 08, 2017 Associated Press
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TORONTO – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday defended his government's apology and multimillion-dollar payment to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
The deal with Omar Khadr's lawyers was based on a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Canadian officials violated his rights at the U.S. base on Cuba, and Trudeau said that when the government violates anyone's constitutional rights it has to pay.
"The charter of rights and freedoms protects all Canadians, every one of us, even when it is uncomfortable," Trudeau told reporters at the G20 leaders' summit in Hamburg, Germany. "This is not about the detail of the merits of the Khadr case. When the government violates any Canadian's charter rights, we all end up paying for it."
Details of the settlement are confidential, but an official familiar with the deal has said it was for 10.5 million Canadian dollars ($8 million). The official was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
News of the multimillion-dollar payout to Khadr, whose case received international attention after some dubbed him a child soldier, has angered many Canadians who consider him a terrorist.
The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and charged with war crimes by a military commission.
Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 murder and other charges and was sentenced to eight years. He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.
The Supreme Court ruling held that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence from Khadr under "oppressive circumstances" such as sleep deprivation during interrogations at Guantanamo and then shared that evidence with U.S officials.
Khadr's lawyers filed a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit seeking $20 million Canadian dollars (US$15.5 million), arguing that the government violated international law by not protecting its own citizen and conspired with the U.S. to abuse Khadr.
how can you claim you care about american lives when you voted for someone who is trying to take healthcare away from 22 million people?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
how can you claim you care about american lives when you voted for someone who is trying to take healthcare away from 22 million people?
22 million people who does not work or pay for health care. Contrary to liberal opinions everything costs money.
do you have a link that says all 22 million people don't work?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
When word of the government's multimillion-dollar settlement with Omar Khadr was first reported Monday night, Jason Kenney, the former defence minister, was quick to condemn.
"This confessed terrorist should be in prison paying for his crimes, not profiting from them at the expense of Canadian taxpayers," Kenney tweeted.
That much is consistent with a Conservative government that resisted repatriating Khadr, opposed his release on bail and might still be fighting Khadr's lawsuit if it were still in office.
For a counterpoint — and for a hint that a settlement was perhaps inevitable — one can turn to the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on Jan. 29, 2010, that found Khadr's human rights were being violated at Guantanamo Bay.
In that case, the court dealt with the visit of CSIS and Foreign Affairs officials to the prison in 2003 and 2004, under the previous Liberal government.
"The deprivation of [Khadr's] right to liberty and security of the person is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice," the court ruled.
"The interrogation of a youth detained without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges while knowing that the youth had been subjected to sleep deprivation and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects." ■
Ottawa set to pay $10.5M to Omar Khadr, government source says
■Ottawa drops appeal seeking to overturn Khadr's bail
Whatever Khadr did or did not do as a teenager on a battlefield in Afghanistan in July 2002, whether he deserves to be described as a "terrorist" or a "child soldier," he was and is a Canadian citizen with rights. And, as determined by no less than the Supreme Court of Canada, the Canadian government was complicit in the violation of those rights.
It is for that reason, presumably, that the Canadian government is now preparing to apologize and pay him $10.5 million, according to reports confirmed by CBC News.
Precedents for Khadr
Conservatives are now in high dudgeon. But they should be familiar with both the 2010 ruling and a related judgment by the Supreme Court in 2008 that dealt with Khadr's access to documents.
Conservatives should also be aware of their own precedent for such compensation: it was Stephen Harper's government that agreed to pay $10 million to Maher Arar in 2007, acknowledging the Canadian government's actions may have led to his torture by Syrian officials in 2002.
Three months ago, the Liberal government agreed to compensate Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin after an inquiry found the actions of Canadian law enforcement officials had indirectly led to their torture in Syria and Egypt between 2001 and 2004.
Of course, there is no argument now that any of those men are guilty of anything.
Khadr, on the other hand, pleaded guilty in 2010 to murder in the death of American Sgt. Christopher Speer, as well as attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists and spying.
'The illegal process in place at Guantanamo Bay'
The military prison at Guantanamo Bay and its associated proceedings have always been an extralegal concern and stand now as a symbol of George W. Bush's war on terror (ISIS has taken to dressing its captives in orange jumpsuits reminiscent of those worn by Guantanamo detainees).
Khadr has argued that his guilty plea was the compelled result of a "hopeless choice." He saw it as his only chance to one day return to Canada.
But regardless of how one judges the evidence against him — indeed, even if one is convinced Khadr is guilty — there seems no dispute that he was mistreated.
"As held by this Court in Khadr 2008, Canada's participation in the illegal process in place at Guantanamo Bay clearly violated Canada's binding international obligations," the Supreme Court wrote in 2010, noting that Khadr had been denied access to counsel and was unable to challenge the legality of his detention.
Omar Khadr CP 5182412 Omar Khadr is shown in a Guantanamo Bay interrogation room in this image taken from a 2003 surveillance video. (Handout/Canadian Press)
Khadr has alleged he was tortured on several occasions, and the Supreme Court actually addressed one of them.
For three weeks ahead of an interview with a Foreign Affairs official in 2004, Khadr was subjected to the "frequent flyer program," a method of sleep deprivation in which Khadr was moved to a different cell every three hours. The court said the Canadian official knew about this before conducting the interview.
Sleep deprivation is widely viewed as a form of torture. Indeed, members of the Canadian Forces are prohibited from using sleep deprivation as a tactic of interrogation.
Khadr sued for $20M
When Khadr re-launched his lawsuit against the Canadian government in 2014, he sought $20 million in damages. His lawyers alleged a half-dozen sections of the Charter of Rights had been violated.
If Stephen Harper were still prime minister, it's possible the federal government would continue fighting the suit. In light of the Supreme Court's ruling in 2010, the government might well have eventually lost, potentially resulting in a payout of more than $10 million (not to mention years of legal fees).
In that case, of course, the outrage would have been directed at the courts. But the issue would be the same.
Ultimately, Khadr's case is another part of the story about how Western nations have grappled with the threat of terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.
So often that story has been about how far political leaders and the public are willing to go to meet the apparent threat: which rights can be set aside and under what conditions.
Different people draw the line in different places.
Omar Khadr stands as a reminder that the unjust treatment of a person — any person — can prove very costly.
how can you claim you care about american lives when you voted for someone who is trying to take healthcare away from 22 million people?
22 million people who does not work or pay for health care. Contrary to liberal opinions everything costs money.
I work and pay for healthcare.
Despite the fact that my healthcare is provided for me, I work. Always have, always will. The idea that people can be forced to choose between life and finances is frightening.
how can you claim you care about american lives when you voted for someone who is trying to take healthcare away from 22 million people?
22 million people who does not work or pay for health care. Contrary to liberal opinions everything costs money.
I work and pay for healthcare.
not according to Day you don't.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
how can you claim you care about american lives when you voted for someone who is trying to take healthcare away from 22 million people?
22 million people who does not work or pay for health care. Contrary to liberal opinions everything costs money.
I work and pay for healthcare.
And all I've ever seen u do is tell us how bad oBUMa care is for u ... yet now your on board with it ... ... one of the reasons i think so highly of u .... ...
do you actually ever pay attention to what Eve says with regards to this topic?
she doesn't like the ACA, but she already explained she won't tolerate anything worse than it, either.
like the majority of americans.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Are you, are you, coming to the train, Led by a man who wants to break the chains, The Establishment is terrified, they can't control his reign, Lets meet, this year, on the Trump Train.
Are you, are you, coming to the train, Where brave men called out, for a wall built by crane, Media is terrified, they can't control his reign, Lets meet, this year, on the Trump Train.
Are you, are you, coming to the train, Where brave men called out, the fools who lead in vain, Lobbyists are terrified, they can't control his reign, Lets meet, this year, on the Trump Train.
Are you, are you, coming to the train, Wear a hat of hope, side by side with me, Make America Great Again, break the chains, Lets meet, this year, on the Trump Train.
Are you, are you, coming to the train, To take our great country, back again, Join the Revolution, break the chains, Lets meet, this year, on the Trump Train.
How come you guys want to coal industry saved by not the retail industry?
Sears is closing a whole bunch of stores. So is jc penny and k mart, who I thought already died.
Why aren't you guys advocating saving that industry?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Trump did not necessarily "save" the Coal industry, he took away all the government red tape holding it down. It is now free to compete equally in the energy world. It is doing better now.
The Retail industry sinking is a new phenomenon as the world changes under Amazon and a new way of doing business is upon us. This is natural, like buggy whip makers of the past. The business world must be allowed to grow and change without much government interference. Great companies will overcome and survive while others go under.
Would you ask us to save the buggy whip makers so they were still around today, supported by your tax dollars? Nah.
How come you guys want to coal industry saved by not the retail industry?
Sears is closing a whole bunch of stores. So is jc penny and k mart, who I thought already died.
Why aren't you guys advocating saving that industry?
You can't force people to shop there. Have you seen a Kmart parking lot lately?
You mean the parking lot so empty I can do donuts at 2 in the afternoon?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Coal industry is dying because of the market. Stop playing games.
If trump doesn't want the market to allow coal to die, then there's some other industries that need some help, too.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
I'll chalk this comment up to you having nothing to counter.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Natural gas is almost twice as expensive as coal right now. It should drop when the demand for coal increases again. Exporting coal will increase because of it's cheap price.
Mining coal brings back good paying jobs albeit temporarily because the industry will eventually die. When that is, I don't know. Let the industry compete like 40 said and put those people back to work who depend on it. We'll make the transition to renewable energy.
Trump always said the reason most businesses go under is not because of market or business plan. It's because of government regs.
Brick and mortar retail is dying for a couple reasons; we have waaaay to many stores compared to other countries. People are shopping online.
It's a market change. We just need to figure out what to do with these vacant buildings
Or, we can focus directly on transitioning as many coal miners as possible to other positions, hopefully priority in renewable energy sector, instead of delaying the inevitable.
Even china is going another direction. At some point the GOP needs to tell these coal miners the truth instead of playing mind games.
.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
... I'm not .... so heres a few more .... 
...
