monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

They had Clinton under the scope for about 6 years before Clinton gave them Monica.

I think you guys are actually skeert of them finding something incriminating.

Quote:

Does anyone here believe that two honest people could make $100 million in 15 years just by giving speeches?

Sure. I'm happy to answer your question.

It's pretty simple. Each honest person would need to earn a little less than $280,000 a month for fifteen years. So yeah, it's not impossible. Most people at that income level have investments and well-managed portfolios so they probably wouldn't have to keep up the pace for the whole fifteen years but yeah, it's possible.
Can you give another example from world history of a pair of people who have earned $100 million or a single person who has earned $50 million by giving speeches?

Can you give another example from world history of a pair of people who have earned $100 million or a single person who has earned $50 million by giving speeches?

In other words, he told them to go **** themselves, which is what I'd have told them.

Most likely because questions never require evidence.

Sounds like Orbisson...

Pulling the United States out of the Paris climate deal would have unforeseen consequences for President Trump, his international agenda and U.S. climate policy.

It would leave the world's superpower outside an accord meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that includes nearly every other country in the world, aside from Syria and Nicaragua.

While it is not entirely clear that Trump has made up his mind to end U.S. participation in the deal, sources say that at a minimum, he is leaning in that direction.

Here's how to interpret and understand the decision.

Trump is playing to the base

Trump has called the pact a "bad deal" for the United States, and made withdrawing from it a key component of his "America First" campaign platform.

At an April rally, he called the agreement "one-sided," and said "the United States pays billions of dollars while China, Russia and India have contributed and will contribute nothing."

Given his past statements and promises, it isn't hard to see why Trump would want to pull the United States out of the deal.

Yet the decision has provoked a furious internal battle within the White House, pitting Trump's family members Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner against adviser Steve Bannon and EPA administrator Steve Pruitt.

Pulling the United States out of the deal means Trump is siding with Bannon and his base over the objections of centrists in his government - and the business community.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and many large American businesses urged Trump to stay in the deal, arguing it would maintain U.S. influence over future talks.

"By remaining a party to the Pars agreement, the United States will maintain a seat at the negotiating table to ensure a level playing field so that all energy sources and technologies are treated equitably in an open, transparent and competitive global market,"
Exxon CEO Darren Woods wrote in a May 9 letter to Trump.

By pulling out of the Paris accord, Trump would be signaling he's willing to take on supporters of the deal who are usually his allies - in order to back his core base of supporters.

Many Republicans on Capitol Hill are likely to support pulling out of Paris - 20 leading Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asked Trump to do just that last week.

Withdrawing from Paris would greatly please conservative groups, who have orchestrated an all-out push in opposition to the pact.

"Without any impact on global temperatures, Paris is the open door for egregious regulation, cronyism, and government spending that would be disastrous for the American economy as it is proving to be for those in Europe," said Nick Loris, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"It is time for the U.S. to say 'au revoir' to the Paris agreement," he said.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Trump wants his presidency to be about jobs and his decision to be viewed as an economic win for the United States.

A recent report commissioned by the oil industry-backed American Council for Capital Formation found that the deal would eliminate $3 trillion in GDP and 6.5 million jobs by 2040. A Heritage Foundation paper last year didn't go quite as far. It predicted that Paris would prevent 400,000 jobs and cause a GDP loss of $2.5 trillion.

Yet there are also economic arguments for staying in the pact.

The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated recently that the pact would make the world $19 trillion richer by 2050.

The Department of Energy says 3 million Americans worked in clean energy last year, a number that would be threatened by a Paris pullout.

To environmentalists and other Paris supporters, Trump would be ceding American international dominance in clean energy industries like wind, solar and carbon capture technology to other major powers like China and Europe.

"If the Trump administration fails to show leadership on domestic climate actions and support the Paris Agreement on climate change, it will cede a competitive economic edge to nations like China," Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief under Obama, wrote Wednesday in Foreign Policy.

But that's just economics.

With President Donald Trump reportedly poised to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, right-wing media are encouraging the move by misleading about the accord. They're claiming that it is a job killer and “anti-Western,” that it would lead to "economic devastation," and that it amounts to an "international regulatory scheme.”

But leaving the Paris agreement would go against the overwhelming will of the U.S. business sector, not to mention the American public and the global community. Many of the most powerful corporations and institutional investors in the United States are calling on Trump to stay in the pact, as are some of his fellow Republicans. Dropping out of the global climate accord will satisfy only a handful of coal and mining interests and Trump's most ideological aides and backers.

Oil and coal companies that support Paris agreement

ExxonMobil, the nation's biggest oil company, is in favor of the Paris agreement. The firm's CEO, Darren Woods, sent Trump a personal letter urging him to keep the U.S. in the agreement. Woods' predecessor, Rex Tillerson, now secretary of state, has also argued for remaining in the climate deal.

Other major oil companies that want the U.S. to stay in the agreement include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell. Many oil companies believe a concerted push for climate action will give them the opportunity to sell more natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal when burned to produce electricity (though leaks in natural gas drilling and transport infrastructure can neutralize that climate advantage).

Even one major coal company, Cloud Peak Energy, is asking Trump to stay in the accord. "By remaining in the Paris Agreement, albeit with a much different pledge on emissions, you can help shape a more rational international approach to climate policy," Cloud Peak CEO Colin Marshall wrote Trump in a letter. Marshall argued that remaining in the Paris agreement could encourage support for technologies that reduce and capture CO2 emissions from coal plants. Two other coal companies, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, have not publicly called for staying in Paris, but they have reportedly told administration officials that they would not object to remaining.

Fortune 500 corporations that support Paris agreement

At least 69 Fortune 500 companies have voiced support for the Paris accord.

Twenty-five large U.S. companies, including digital powerhouses Apple, Facebook, and Google, recently ran full-page ads in major newspapers urging Trump to remain in the climate accord. "Continued U.S. participation in the agreement benefits U.S. businesses and the U.S. economy in many ways," they wrote in the ad, including by "strengthening competitiveness," "creating jobs, markets and growth," and "reducing business risks."

Separately, more than 1,000 companies, big and small, signed a letter calling for the U.S. to “realize the Paris Agreement’s commitment of a global economy that limits global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius.” Altogether, businesses backing the Paris climate agreement represent more than $3.7 trillion in annual revenues and employ nearly 8.6 million workers, according to Ceres.

Here are some of the Fortune 500 companies that signed onto the ads or letter or have otherwise expressed support for Paris:
Amazon
Apple
Bank of America
Berkshire Hathaway
Campbell Soup
Citigroup
Dow Chemical
DuPont
eBay
Facebook
Gap
General Mills
General Motors
General Electric
Goldman Sachs
Google
The Hartford
HP
Hilton
Intel
Johnson & Johnson
Kellogg
Microsoft
Monsanto
Morgan Stanley
Nike
NRG Energy
PG&E
Salesforce
Staples
Starbucks
Symantec
Walmart
Wells Fargo

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told a constituent last week that God can solve the problem of climate change if the global phenomenon truly exists.

The 66-year-old Republican, who is a climate change skeptic, made the remark at a town hall in Coldwater, Michigan, on Friday.

“I believe there’s climate change,” Walberg said, according to a video of the exchange obtained by HuffPost. “I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time. I believe there are cycles. Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.”

“Why do I believe that?” he went on. “Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.”

...Trump has called the pact a "bad deal" for the United States, and made withdrawing from it a key component of his "America First" campaign platform.
...

Even if you are a card carrying Christian of which there is nothing wrong with being, you can still believe in climate change

No man can serve two masters:

for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Trump Budget Chief Suggests Dem Mole Behind CBO O’Care Repeal Score
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney took it a step further this week, by questioning the abilities of Holly Harvey, the head of its health analysis division, to be non-partisan.

“At some point, you’ve got to ask yourself, has the day of the CBO come and gone?” Mulvaney told the Washington Examiner Wednesday. “How much power do we give to the CBO under the 1974 Budget Act? We’re hearing now that the person in charge of the Affordable Health Care Act methodology is an alum of the Hillarycare program in the 1990s who was brought in by Democrats to score the ACA.”

Prior to coming on to the CBO in 2009, Harvey served in the Clinton administration’s Health and Human Services Department, according to the Examiner.

The CBO director, Keith Hall, who signed off on the CBO score of the GOP health bill, was the chief economist for the Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush White House and was handpicked by then House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price (who is now Trump’s HHS secretary) to lead the CBO.