monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

As he struggles to define a response to the attacks against key elements of Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, President Donald Trump has insisted that he has many options.

He has already chosen to employ one of them, ordering stepped up economic sanctions against Tehran - which denies carrying out the attack - and doubling down on the policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran which the US insists is having a significant impact.

The problem is that many critics of the administration believe that it is this very policy, President Trump's decision to abandon the international nuclear agreement with Iran and step up economic pressure, that has brought us to this current point. So what can the Americans do? What really are the options? Is this really America's business? And if so, what is the likelihood of some kind of military response to an attack which the Americans clearly believe came from Iran?

First it is important to realise that any action can be immediate or it can play out over time. It can be overt, in the full glare of publicity, or it can be covert, hidden from public view. First though, the US and the Saudis need to make the public case; to establish clearly what happened and to provide corroborating evidence that places responsibility firmly with Tehran. This will provide the public and legal case for any response and it will help to garner wider international support for any steps taken.

The problem is he did listen to Bolton initially. Obama negotiated a treaty with Iran, and Iran kept to the treaty. Trump broke it and now Iran is manufacturing weapons grade nuclear material.

Trump's main purpose in becoming President is to undo and erase all of Barack Obama's achievements.

Describing the North tower of the WTC as a “very, very strong building”, he suggested that twin bombs could have caused it to collapse.

Speaking about the tower's demise, he said: “It wasn’t architectural defect.

“How could a plane, even a 767 or 747 or whatever it might have been; how could it possibly go through that steel?

“I happen to think that they had not only a plane, but they had bombs – bombs that exploded simultaneously.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/9-11-donald-trump-twin-16892937

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday acknowledged that the current crisis with Iran was a "direct result" of actions taken by President Donald Trump.

Since Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, his administration has engaged in a "maximum-pressure" campaign against Tehran, Iran's capital, in an effort to cripple the Iranian economy with harsh sanctions. The end goal of this is to squeeze Iran into coming back to the negotiation table to agree to a more stringent version of the nuclear deal that prevents Iran from building nuclear weapons.

But so far, Trump's hard-line strategy has not been successful, and there's little evidence this is changing.

Pompeo defended this approach to reporters traveling with him to Saudi Arabia, saying, "There is this theme that some suggest that the president's strategy that we allowed isn't working. I would argue just the converse of that. I would argue that what you are seeing here is a direct result of us reversing the enormous failure of the JCPOA."

He was referring to the formal name of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The rapidity of this decline has surprised even me.

Re: blatham (Post 6899811)
You're so right.

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that Israeli officials "played" President Donald Trump in their conversations with him, warning that a "healthy amount of skepticism" is needed in dealings with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The comments came during a panel discussion at Harvard University in which Tillerson, who was fired by the president last year, touched on a variety of themes from his tenure, including Iran, his hiring freeze at the State Department and the unpredictable nature of Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu.

"They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,’" Tillerson said, according to the Harvard Gazette. "We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played.’”

He cautioned that skepticism is necessary when dealing with Netanyahu, whom Tillerson called "a bit Machiavellian."...

He cautioned that skepticism is necessary when dealing with Netanyahu, whom Tillerson called "a bit Machiavellian."...

Senate Democrats released on Thursday a report outlining dozens of times the Trump administration has censored or minimized climate science across the federal government at agencies including the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, also publicly released a list of more than 1,400 climate studies that Department of Agriculture researchers have published during the current administration after POLITICO reported that USDA buried its own research and failed to release its plan to study the issue. The matter is increasingly urgent for farmers and ranchers dealing with erratic and extreme weather.

The trove of studies by USDA researchers carry warnings about climate change that the government is largely not communicating to farmers and ranchers or the public. The list published includes research showing that climate change is likely to drive down yields for some crops, harm milk production, and lead to a drop in nutrient density for key crops like rice and wheat.

But what about something fer when you're wrong?

You're ******* kidding me, right?

Trump's approval rating on Wednesday was 44.3 percent, according to a Real Clear Politics average of more than a half-dozen major polls. That is higher than Obama's average approval rating of 43.9 percent on September 18, 2011, by the same measure.

The 45th president's average approval rating surpassed that of his predecessor on Monday and stayed on top for the next two days. Trump's average approval rating on Monday was 44.1 percent compared to Obama's 43.9 percent on September 16, 2011, and 44 percent on Tuesday compared to Obama's 43.8 percent on September 17, 2011.