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Donald Trump elected as America's 45th President.

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Trump must be a busy man today.. trying to accomplish all his promises for his first 100 days today...... umm yeah!
 
President Trump’s Inauguration chair, Tom Barrack, is moving his merged Colony NorthStar company to 590 Madison Ave. The black building is conveniently connected to Trump Tower through a cheery landscaped glass atrium fitted with a coffee bar, tables and chairs.

Colony is located at 712 Fifth Ave. while North Star Realty Finance is at 399 Park Ave. The firms merged in 2016 and have $58 billion under management.

When they move at the end of the year to the entire 34th and part of the 33rd floors, the firms will inhabit 40,000 square feet facing Central Park.

http://nypost.com/2017/05/02/tom-barracks-colony-northstar-moves-to-madison-avenue/


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A family trust associated with Adam and Katherine Firestone donated $250,000 to the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the Santa Barbara Independent reported last week.

Santa Ynez Valley winemaker Tom Barrack ran Trump’s inaugural effort and sought a donation, which the family, longtime winemakers themselves in the valley, obliged.

https://www.brewbound.com/news/pres...-georgia-governor-signs-direct-sales-bill-law
 
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Given all the terrorism done in the west by Muslims with last night's tragedy at Ariana Grande's concert a perfect example, I think Donald Trump was right in wanting to ban Muslims from the west.
 
Blue Criminal said:
Given all the terrorism done in the west by Muslims with last night's tragedy at Ariana Grande's concert a perfect example, I think Donald Trump was right in wanting to ban Muslims from the west.
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You can't blame all muslim people for it. I don't understand how people can think like that.
 
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Blue Criminal - are you aware that no one on american soil was killed from any of those banned countries for over 4 decades? to ban a group of people that did absolutely nothing is segregation and discrimination at it's finest.

through history we never banned "Christians" from this country for hanging people..
 
Blue Criminal said:
Given all the terrorism done in the west by Muslims with last night's tragedy at Ariana Grande's concert a perfect example, I think Donald Trump was right in wanting to ban Muslims from the west.
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It's not a 'perfect example'... far from it. If the UK had imposed a moronic ban like the one you and Trump are proposing, it would've literally done nothing to stop this. After all, the perpetrator of last night's suicide bombing was BORN in the United Kingdom! If you go back a generation and implemented the ban that Trump tried to put in place back in January, it also would've done nothing! His parents who did immigrate to the UK weren't from any of the countries Trump tried to ban, they weren't even from the Middle East! They were from Libya! If they did a blanket ban on Muslims worldwide, that would do little but cause even more issues.

You need to think more carefully about the consequences such a ban would have on people instead of rushing to idiotic conclusions on the basis of fear. Imagine you're an American citizen, born in the country and you're a follower of the Islamic faith. You're a good citizen, you follow the law and have never had any run in's with the Police and like many people you keep your religious views to yourself. Like any sane person, you completely oppose acts of terrorism. Suddenly the Government starts persecuting your people, implementing blanket bans on only your people, implying you all are terrorists. Do you not think that'll only serve to further alienate and therefore push Muslims towards a radical point of view? If anything, that's exactly what ISIS wants!

Banning every Muslim because of 'terrorism' is like considering every single Christian to be a racist simply because the KKK affiliates themselves with the religion. Completely and utterly moronic.
 
It's radical Islam that's the problem not Muslims as a whole. Can't confuse the two. The terrorist may or may not have ascribed to radical Islam. Terrorism knows no religion, although more common coming from those with extremist views. All it really takes is one nutjob filled with hate.
 
Blue Criminal said:
Given all the terrorism done in the west by Muslims with last night's tragedy at Ariana Grande's concert a perfect example, I think Donald Trump was right in wanting to ban Muslims from the west.
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Some Muslims ? all Muslims.
Honestly, people can be so horrible that I personally believe even if organized religion didn't exist at all that this type of stuff would still be going on.
Some evil disgusting people will always find a reason to hate other people and try to justify that hate.
 
CaptainEoLove85;4195041 said:
It's radical Islam that's the problem not Muslims as a whole. Can't confuse the two.
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Absolutely. I know a number of Muslims (legitimately some of the greatest people I have ever met) and all of them absolutely abhor whatever ISIS is doing. As human beings they could not be any more different than the morons who go by the name of ISIS.

Pink Diamond Princess;4195042 said:
Honestly, people can be so horrible that I personally believe even if organized religion didn't exist at all that this type of stuff would still be going on.
Some evil disgusting people will always find a reason to hate other people and try to justify that hate.
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Yeah. I believe that ISIS and other similar organisations use Islam as a 'scapegoat', as a guise to conceal their personal agendas that have little to do with the Islamic faith.

There was a French journalist by the name Dider Francois who spent over ten months in a ISIS prison. He found the discussion there to be strictly political, not religious and even stated “we didn’t even have a Quran; they didn’t want to even give us a Quran.”

I've only skimmed over this, but this article below is written by an 18 year old Muslim American who talks about her experience as a Muslim in the aftermath of terrorist attacks where the attacker has been Middle Eastern/Islamic. She goes on to discuss how there is nothing Islamic about ISIS, but that it's roots are deeply political: https://www.bustle.com/articles/149...is-nothing-islamic-about-the-brussels-attacks
 
Blue Criminal said:
Given all the terrorism done in the west by Muslims with last night's tragedy at Ariana Grande's concert a perfect example, I think Donald Trump was right in wanting to ban Muslims from the west.
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Trump would save countless lives, if he banned privately owned rifles / firearms from the US.
 
Lets not forget the United States played a role in the development (funding and weapon supply) in what became ISIS.. than we point at a religion for the cause.. Not just blame a religion but BANNED people of nations into our country that effected thousands of people that had nothing to do with it.
 
I'm sorry for that comment. I was quite emotional after the concert attack and wrote that stupid comment in the heat of the moment. I do apologise and I agree with everything you guys have said.
 
^ That honestly was big of you to say! thumbs up by me
 
Another point I want to make is in the united states in 2015 40,105 people reported shot, 13,286 died.. On an annual bases that is more is much higher than ISIS.. There is more than 1 terror threat in this world, and I think a little more attention should be given to OUR terrorists in our own country.

Think about that for a sec.. Over 13K died by guns here in the United states in one year (40K shot).. that does not count for all the murders by other weapons, by hand, or any other method. We are killing more people than Isis yet we teach fear OTHER nations.. Keep in mind ISIS is in more than one country, so if you divide out per country, our killings even more so far outweigh theirs..


Yes ISIS is a huge problem, but not the only.. and they are not the only terrorists.
 
Is there no middle ground between blaming all Muslims and acknowledging that Islam is at least a factor in these attacks? I don't support a Muslim ban and I realise that most Muslims are peaceful people going about their lives, but statements like "there is nothing Islamic about ISIS" or reflexively blaming US foreign policy for any terrorist attacks in the West makes no sense to me either.

It is an indisputable fact that ISIS can - and do - back up much of what it is doing with a literalist interpretation of specific verses in the Quran and Hadith. Fortunately, most Muslims today don't share their interpretation but that doesn't mean it's not legitimate. Just like most Christians today don't support slavery or marital rape but one can certainly find a justification for both in the Bible.

If that anecdote from the French journalist above is meant to prove that ISIS aren't all that religious, there are many other anecdotes to prove otherwise. When two ISIS militants attacked a church in France last year and slit the priest's throat (remember that?), one of the nuns who was present stated that the attackers were preaching in Arabic from the altar before killing the priest.

As for US foreign policy in the Middle East, I don't see what that has to do with a British man of Libyan descent bombing little kids at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, UK. I'm so tired of this excuse. France vehemently opposed the Iraq war from the start. Germany let in 1.2 million Middle Eastern refugees in the past 2 years. Sweden was the first Western country to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state and its foreign policy is driven by humanitarian aid. And yet all of these countries suffered terrorist attacks in the past year alone while the US gets away relatively unscathed. How does that make sense if this is all just political? And why is it acceptable to lump together all Western countries as "the West" and punish them collectively when the same cannot be done with "the Muslim world"?

And while I'm at it, it also annoys me to no end when people say Western countries should do more to "accomodate" their Muslim communities. GTFOH -_- Nobody forced them to come here. If you decide to move to another country, it is your own responsibility to learn the local language, obey the law and find a job or otherwise make a positive contribution to society. In most WE countries, immigrants get free or heavily subsidised language classes, housing, health care, education, generous benefits, etc. I think that's a good thing. Most immigrants make use of these opportunities and integrate just fine. No other community demands to be coddled this way. Mexicans and African Americans in the US aren't committing mass murder and they've surely experienced plenty of discrimination. Religious minorities in the Middle East face persecution on a daily basis and they're not strapping on suicide belts.
 
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^^Even though I disregard all religions for the lack of evidence in what they claim, I support and respect Muslim activists who are in favor a reformation of Islam like Maajid Nawaz. Islam needs to evolve and embrace secular humanism, Muslims shouldn't live in the 7th century anymore.

Muslim moderates are not doing any favor to other fellow Muslims and their religion by negating actions done by extremists don't have anything to do with Islam. In a way they're contributing to the bad image/stereotypes Muslims get by negating what extremists do.

They are extreme in their faith. They are extreme in their devotion to the literal word of the Quran and the hadith (the literature recounting the sayings and actions of the Prophet), and this leads them to be extreme in the degree to which they believe that modernity and secular culture are incompatible with moral and spiritual health. Muslim extremists are certain that the exports of Western culture are leading their wives and children away from god. They also consider our unbelief (even if you believe in God but you're adhered to another religion, you're an infidel) to be a sin so grave that it merits death whenever it becomes an impediment to the spread of Islam.

To add this verse which I think it is relevant to the discussion:
The believers who stay at home—apart from those that suffer from a grave impediment—are not the equal of those who fight for the cause of God with their goods and their persons. God has given those that fight with their goods and their persons a higher rank than those who stay at home. God has promised all a good reward; but far richer is the recompense of those who fight for Him.... He that leaves his dwelling to fight for God and His apostle and is then overtaken by death, shall be rewarded by God...The unbelievers are your inveterate enemies. (Quran 4:95-10)
 
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I don't think anyone is denying Islam as not being a factor considering it is what these terrorists are hiding behind.. I think the argument comes in because the religion is used as THE blame when in reality it is the tool that is used.. There is a big difference there!!

The tool = the excuse for such acts
The cause = many many factors (Political oppression/harmed people harm/governments supported than pulled away from these groups).. The list goes on and on..



When the media screams 'Islam Islam Islam' when there is SO much more to it.. Islamic people (and those who know otherwise) are naturally going to feel attacked or feel bad things..

And when people bring up Christianity and the KKK - it is because it is something that people in the United States can relate to.. People that hide behind a religion that hurt because of other reasons.. (fear of other races/control in many facets... etc.)

^ And to that, like THAT - again the Untied States tries washing away the real stories, toss a sheet on it (In some ways literally) and call it something else... In this case "Islam". I do love this country, there is a lot of good and I am lucky to be here - but nothing is perfect, we (The United States) just likes to hide that fact..

Take Germany for example - they accept that genocide happened, take ownership of it and there was healing through that.. We hide it, pretend it's not there, smile and complain behind peoples back.. "It's the 60's your free", "it's the 80's, slavery was so long ago get over it", "Oh my God we have black president for Gods sake".. Just examples of giving the old "yeah yeah yeah" and turn around.. Hatred, Oppression, segregation, and racism has not fully been openly dealt with..

That is also why so many groups like 'Black Lives matter' and various others exist today in 2017.. it's not because progress has not been made, it's because we continue to pretend it doesn't exist..

The problem is much bigger than Islam - the second largest religion in the world.. When the media (and others) try to make a group of people that make .0011% as THE problem is a far cry from the truth.. With nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world!
 
LindavG said:
And while I'm at it, it also annoys me to no end when people say Western countries should do more to "accomodate" their Muslim communities. GTFOH -_- Nobody forced them to come here. If you decide to move to another country, it is your own responsibility to learn the local language, obey the law and find a job or otherwise make a positive contribution to society. In most WE countries, immigrants get free or heavily subsidised language classes, housing, health care, education, generous benefits, etc. I think that's a good thing. Most immigrants make use of these opportunities and integrate just fine. No other community demands to be coddled this way. Mexicans and African Americans in the US aren't committing mass murder and they've surely experienced plenty of discrimination. Religious minorities in the Middle East face persecution on a daily basis and they're not strapping on suicide belts.
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Speaking of...

Coptic Christians killed in Minya bus attack

Children among bus passengers targeted while going to a monastery in Minya province, prompting hunt for the attackers.

At least 28 Coptic Christians have been killed and dozens more wounded by armed men who attacked them while they were travelling to a monastery in Egypt's Minya province.

The Christians were headed on Friday to the Saint Samuel Monastery, located outside Minya city, about 220km south of the capital Cairo, when the masked attackers, who came in three pickup trucks, opened fire of them before fleeing the scene.

Egyptian security and medical officials told the Associated Press news agency that of the 28 dead, many were children.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Photos of a bus at the scene aired by state TV showed its windows shot out.

"They used automatic weapons," Essam el-Bedawi, Minya's governor, told state media.

Security forces launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of checkpoints and patrols on the desert road.

Following the attack, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a meeting with security officials.

Egypt's Christian minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the country's population, has repeatedly been targeted by armed groups.

In April, at least 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate suicide bomb attacks on churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria during Palm Sunday ceremonies.

The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Following the Palm Sunday bombings, Sisi declared a nationwide three-month state of emergency.

A bombing at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December 2016, including many women and children.

In an interview with Al Jazeera from Cairo, Timothy Kaldas, of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said Friday's attack was in all probability carried out by ISIL, also known as ISIS.

He noted that ISIL had declared in February the launch of a campaign against Egypt's Christian population.

"It is very possible that this is part of that campaign," Kaldas said, adding that ISIL has a "great deal of sectarianism in their ideology, and have targeted people based on their faith."

He said ISIL is also "trying to undermine the credibility of the government" in Egypt.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/egypt-gunmen-attack-bus-carrying-coptic-christians-170526100440001.html

Must be because of American foreign policy :smilerolleyes: I'm sure we will see mass protests in the streets all over the Muslim world condemning these attacks against Christians.

 
Just read an excellent article in the NYT that expands on my previous posts. "Why the Middle East's Christians Are Under Attack". An excerpt:

As paradoxical as it may sound, the trouble of the region’s Christians began in the modern era. First, in the deadly deportation of 1915, the Ottoman government wiped out a big portion of its Armenian population — the very Armenians who had lived and flourished under the same Ottoman rule for four centuries. Throughout the next 100 years, various waves of deportation, massacre, persecution and discrimination reduced the size of Middle Eastern Christians dramatically — from 14 percent of the region’s population in 1910 to a mere 4 percent in 2010.

A part of this modern crisis was political: The fall of the pluralist Ottoman Empire gave rise to furious nationalists and paranoid nation-states that perceived minorities as suspects, if not enemies within. Christians, some of whom were leading thinkers in developing secular Arab nationalism, often found themselves branded as the fifth column of Western colonial powers. Similarly, long-established Jewish communities in the Arab world became the collateral damage of the anger at the expansionist policies of the state of Israel.

However, a part of the modern crisis was also religious — and it was rooted in the very tolerance of classical Islam. This tolerance had been based not on equality but on hierarchy. Muslims were the superior rulers, whereas non-Muslims were protected but inferior communities called “dhimmi.” The latter had to pay an extra poll tax, their temples could not be too loud and new ones were rarely permitted, and they were subject to various social limitations. And while their conversion to Islam was encouraged, conversion from Islam to the faith of dhimmi could be a capital offense.

In the Middle Ages, this hierarchal tolerance of Islam was preferable to the alternatives at the time, such as forced conversion or mass murder. However, in the modern era, equality before law became the universal norm, and that is what the religious minorities rightly began to demand. (It is notable that the Ottoman Empire, the seat of caliphate, answered these calls with the Reform Edict of 1856, declaring Christians and Jews equal citizens of the empire.)

Yet to date, most Islamists — those who see Islam as a political system — still believe that non-Muslims must remain dhimmi. They think Christians should “know their place” as second-class citizens, and if they do not, they should pay a price. This Muslim supremacist attitude, shared sometimes even by secular yet autocratic governments in the Middle East, lies beneath many acts of persecution. It also has a “true Muslims versus the heretics” version, where the former often means Sunni.
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I've said before that I believe Muslim supremacy is a major factor in Islamic terrorism and I have no idea why it's not discussed more often. The notion that Muslims are supreme and non-Muslims are inferior is inherent to Islam. As the article explains, in true Islamic societies, religious minorities are literally relegated to second-class status if not outright forbidden. Many Muslim countries have laws against converting from Islam but not converting to Islam. This is taken for granted as something that is normal and acceptable in much of the Muslim world (Respect77 posted the stats above).

With that in mind, it's not surprising that some Muslims in the West, particularly young men, feel a sense of social alienation in a society where their religion is not prized above all others but is instead often perceived as backwards and uncivilized. Their religion is part of their identity, even if they're not particularly devout, and the fact that it's not given the reverence they think it deserves in the West aggravates them. Terrorist organisations like ISIS feed on this resentment and provide a veneer of legitimacy for their grievances ("we hate the West because they're attacking us"). When it comes to Western involvement in the Middle East, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. If we don't get involved in ME conflicts, they'll say we are standing by and letting it happen, we don't care about them, we're not using our power to stop the carnage. If we do get involved, they say we should mind our own business, we should stop exploiting them, we only care about the oil, etc. What is the right solution then?
 
Reformation to the religion discussed and agreed by Muslims seems to be the most tangible solution in the nearest future but as long as the adherents keep thinking their religion and people who interpret it literally are not A PART of the problem, they're not going to go anywhere.
 
^ I don't usually like defending Trump but that hypocrisy goes far beyond Trump.. But it is woven deep within US history..
 
I think what annoys me most about Trump is the fact that I've never seen anyone as oblivious to how ridiculous they are or are perceived.
 
respect77 said:
Trump now shot the US back to the 19th century.
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Trump is honestly such an absolute f*cking imbecile. He doesn't care, he's in his 70s and not even in the best of health. He'll be dead within a decade or two, if that, so his moronic actions these past few days will have no effect on him.

He's not even a remotely decent person, it's truly mind boggling how some people genuinely believe he is even slightly capable of properly running the country. I respect the office of the President of the United States but I haven't the slightest inkling of respect for that racist, sexist, bullying, hypocritical snob who has the vocabulary of a 4 year old.

KOPV said:
I think what annoys me most about Trump is the fact that I've never seen anyone as oblivious to how ridiculous they are or are perceived.
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That's what happens when you surround yourself with yes men. He's completely incapable of taking criticism, labelling it 'fake news' no matter how truthful it actually is.
 
KOPV said:
I think what annoys me most about Trump is the fact that I've never seen anyone as oblivious to how ridiculous they are or are perceived.
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What I find funny is that all of his aides, Cabinet members, trusted advisers ARE ALL THE SAME. Absolutely ridiculous. It's like he takes every issue and says "what's the most horrible thing we can do to make this worse than ever for most of the American people" and does it. Or looks at a list of candidates for Cabinet, etec. and says "who is the absolute worst person we could choose that has the complete opposite viewpoint than most of the American people" and does it.

A bunch of crazies in clown cars.
 
TBH, I'm not surprised by this. Nothing much surprises me about Trump anymore. And he has to undo everything Obama did, no matter what it is because he hates him that much.
 
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