The art of the deal!
- Thread starter Viennacock
- Start date
Either number 9 is ten feet tall or the defender is three feet tall. And there are two soccer balls near #9's feet. The reptilian alien has also been completely airbrushed from the frame to the right of the players.
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I think painting the reflecting pool was probably unnecessary, but some unhinged people are acting like repainting the bottom of a reflecting pool is akin to tearing down the Washington monument. I voted for Trump three times, but I haven't agreed with everything he has done and I think some things he has done are foolish. However, there is a large number of people with acute TDS that would attack Trump if he invented a cure a cancer, ended every war on Earth to every sides satisfaction and managed to completely halt climate change.
I'm not one of them. I agree with a good many of his policies as i'm naturally a conservative. That said, the implementation, communication of his plans have been embarrassing. Some of his key hires have been head-scratchers to say the least.
The pool is a great example. I was ok with beautifying the pool. No-bid to a joker that grew up in the same town as me in Ohio was crazy, given his background. Again, the implementation, communication and hiring practices once again put egg on his face. Blaming this screw-up on someone other than himself is laughable.
I agree with all of that. He may be the most thin skinned human alive. He cannot accept any criticism without having to deny any responsibility and place blame on others. He is the worst spokesman ever, yet he cannot help but want to be out front talking about how great he and his ideas are.
I agree with his overall vision, but he gets caught up in the oddest tangents that make him look ridiculous. I have to say, I have been terribly disappointed in his second term. The Iran thing was something that really had to be done (stopping them from getting nuclear weapons), but he doesn't seem to have the spine to stick with a plan when things don't go perfectly. Israel and Iran played him like a fiddle. He appears to have no stomach for a real fight and Iran picked up on that. We'll see if Iran gives up any uranium, I'll be surprised if they do. They will wait until the midterms are over and, when the Republicans lose the House and/or Senate, Iran will ignore everything they agreed to in the MOU. They know Trump will not have any power at all after January.
Outside of the Big Beautiful Bill, he really hasn't accomplished much of anything this term. The tariffs were a terrible idea and turned out to be a total disaster. All they did was raise prices on consumer goods and food. I guess the border security is a win, but the next Dem president will simply undo everything he has done. Once again, he has not taken advantage of having both houses of Congress with a Republican majority to push through substantial legislation. Everything has been executive orders, which feel good but really don't make any lasting changes.
I believe there are many people out there like yourself who feel betayed but don't have the courage to publically admit it. I am no Trump fan, and you will get no grief from me.
It bears repeating that not being a Trump fan does not automatically make one a Biden fan.
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From my perspective, this is probably one of the most objective, measured assessments of Trump I have ever read. No name calling, etc. Well done.
I imagine the lining failed due to poor application; then agitation of the cleaning probably did not help either. I say just fill it with dirt, plant trees and grass and move on, enough money has been wasted already.
I'm beginning to question the situation with the pool itself. After looking into a whataboutism that was cited, I looked it up.
Now, 2 very recent, very different administrations, one from each party, have spent 34 and 14 (so far) million and neither ended up really fixing the situation.
Maybe its simply the age of the pool, or the massive size, and its going to need something more extensive than either administration has tried.
Anyone who owns a swimming pool will tell you that keeping a large volume of the same water clean and clear is a pretty tall order.
Serious question. Would turning the pool to saltwater help? We have a saltwater pool and we don't have much trouble keeping the water clear.
The only difference in a saltwater and non saltwater pool is where the chlorine in the pool comes from. Both rely on chlorine to keep the water clear. Saltwater pools use a chlorine generator that breaks the chlorine out of salt and puts it in the water. Non saltwater pools rely on the owner to add chlorine to the water.
Reflecting ponds are basically huge pools. Outside of treating them with chlorine or some other chemical, I don't know how you could ever keep them from growing algae if the water was over about 55 degrees.
Now that it's become a political flashpoint, I doubt we'll ever really know the "truth". Liberals are going to say it was a stupid idea doomed to fail. Conservatives are going to say it was vandalized.
It is both plausible and likely that there was some vandalism involved. Certain people just wanted the renovation to fail for some reason. I'd be surprised if there wasn't vandalism.
There is also the reality that it's a 6.5 million gallon pool of stagnant water with an extremely shallow depth of 1.5-2.5 feet which heats up rapidly and that gets pooped in by birds. If you were designing an incubator for algal growth, it would be the reflecting pool. There is probably no cost-effective way of preventing algal blooms. One theory is that painting the pool blue fueled algal growth by making it retain more heat, but it's not likely that was much of a factor...b/c algal growth has always been a problem. Painting might have raised the temperature slightly, but not enough to have really impacted algal growth.
It's no mystery how to get rid of the algae and prevent future growth, but doing it on a scale of nearly 7 million gallons and maintaining it is the trick.
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Please give up on the vandalism. There is 24 hour cameras. Trump claimed this liner couldn't be cut with a knife. Now he's saying 200+ feet was cut. If someone cut 200+ feet of this super lining, there would be plenty of video evidence. The only evidence that has been provided is the peroxide being poured in by the grounds crew (which i don't believe contributed to the issue) and random people taking pieces of the peeled off paint.
I agree that plenty of people wanted to see this fail but it would be nearly impossible to do this damage and not be detected. There would be a better chance of a college football team to do what Oklahoma did in baseball. 10,000 lifetimes.
Understand. We have a salt cell. I do know that i spend about 95% less time and money on my pool than folks w/o salt. We have never had a clarity issue. I was just curious if salt water would make things easier to control the variables.
I never linked the vandalism to the algae problem. It's simply more likely than not that there has been some vandalism. There have been multiple presidential assassination attempts in the last couple of years. For a party that's willing to murder, I wouldn't put vandalizing a pool past these people. Cameras wouldn't prevent vandalism. Simply document it.
Cutting a 200+ hole in the impenetrable liner would certainly be caught on camera. The would take many, many hours and a team of people. Anyone can look at the paint that has peeled away and see that these pieces weren't cut.
If someone poured a large amount of toxic substance in the water to create the damage, it would need to be a huge amount. There would certainly be video evidence.
Only Trump and his sheep believe the pool was vandalized. Every non-political expert suggests this was a result of shoddy work.
We are getting screwed by democrat run big business when democrats are the president and in office. The same is said for the republican side. We are all pawns in the chess game of life, and like pawns, are used and sacrificed for the sake of the king. Anyone that flies a donkey or elephant flag blindly is doing themselves and the country a disservice. Money and greed is the name of the game, not the constituents. To believe otherwise is folly
I think that if you mowed several 15 foot numbers into the grass just 50 feet away, that there would be video of it as well. But there isn't. And no one is contending that wasn't done.
So considering that a large scale vandalism took place 50 feet away, and no one is calling people sheep for acknowledging it, then I dont think its a huge stretch to believe vandalism of the pool.
Edit: I looked it up to see a picture.
Giant '86 47' found marked in the grass on the National Mall
Park Police investigating what it calls vandalism after the numbers 86 and 47 were found marked in National Mall grass, near the site of Trump's UFC event this weekend.
abcnews.com
It was way larger than 15 foot numbers, and it wasn't mowed, the grass was browning in the pattern of the numbers. So they probably were spraying chemicals to kill the grass in that pattern.
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They have live cameras. I guess for the letters you would need to determine the cause. Mowing? Round-up? Round-up could take a week+ to show as could mowing at a low level. Certainly they have footage of the incident but they just can't determine who it is?
Could it be vandalism? Sure it could. Could it be trying to deflect from the fact that a "no bid" contract went out to one of Trump's Palm Beach cronies who is a convicted felon and political donor? Sure it could. I would not jump to conclusions making a snap judgment. I would just wait to see what, if any, evidence they have.
I thought it was mowed at first, but the article i linked said the grass was "browned".
Two things pop out to me. Browning implies chemicals, and the size and distinct shape of the numbers mean this wasnt a dude running around in the dark spraying out numbers haphazardly. They were sharp and consistent across 4 areas.
So we have absolute proof that someone used chemicals to vandalize the area right next to the pond. And it was not a 30 second job, but very involved.
I can't accept the idea that no vandalism could have possibly taken place, because there are cameras there. When right next to it we KNOW vandalism took place, and still no video has come out.
To your point, they could just not be able to identify the perpetrators. The cameras might not be all encompassing as we think. (Which would surprise me) They could just still be in the process of cementing the case before arrests (unlikely, imo).
But I dont think we can dismiss vandalism with this clear cut case of very involved vandalism at roughly the same time, in roughly the same place.
Obviously people can still commit crimes in places under video surveillance. It happens all the time.
DID it happen? I don't know. COULD it have happened? Of course.
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Agreed. That said, every article i have read by scientist / engineers suggest this couldn't be vandalism. Of course they could be wrong. The pool certainly wasn't cut as Trump suggests because it is peeling off the walls. They should be able to tell within 24 hours if the water has been heavily contaminated. It would take an *** of chemicals to peel adhesive.
The experts seem to believe it was related to shoddy work or a one off reaction between the coating and surface. I don't know that we'll ever know the root cause for certain. If it was vandalism, there should be some solid proof (contaminated water, knife cuts in the coating etc). The brown grass is certainly proof the grounds were vandalized. I am certainly not an expert but i'm wondering if drones / AI and chemicals could have been the culprit for the grass?
If it is shoddy work, and it could be, wouldn't the contractor have some responsibility to make his work good? If I paid for a new liner for my pool and within a week or two, it collapsed into the pool, I wouldn't shrug and say "oh well, I guess I have to get another liner". I would expect the company who did the work to come back and repair it.
Any decent lab could do a test of the water and determine if there was enough chemical in it to cause a problem with algae or to damage the liner. Cutting the liner, no matter how long the cut was, wouldn't cause algae to grow.
A government contractor doing shoddy work isn't some sort of great revelation.
Just want to comment on something different here. You quoted Gerald Posner's comments on the Iran MOU. I did not know he was still alive. I, like many others, was a skeptic of the Warren Commission's Report conclusion on the JFK assassination (that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy). His book "Case Closed", which concluded that the Warren Commission got it right, convinced me that Oswald acted alone. I don't mean to start something else. Just wanted to comment on Posner. His book was written over 30 years ago.
The reason I think Oswald acted alone is that I don't think there is any way a conspiracy of that size and scope, which would have had to involve a lot of people, could have been kept a secret for 62+ years.
You don't have to be a fan of any of them. I will be the first in line to say that I am not a Trump fan. The biggest reason is I always sensed that he doesn't really stand on anything. He was a liberal until he was not. He pounced on the fear some people felt in Obama being elected and started with all this bring America back talk without telling what he was bringing it back to. With that being said, my life hasn't fundamentally changed that much with any of them. I am keeping my eye on this talk of raising the full retirement age to 69 because I have already made my plans around closing everything up after my 67th birthday. However, that is about it. I have done what I can do. It's time for the next generation to step up. My issue with Trump now is he is always talking tough to ultimately back down. Thus, the nickname TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). I may not like you as a Conservative, but I will respect you if you stand on it. Don't back down because you receive pushback.
Believe it or not, I know the contractors family relatively well. Went to school with them. They were big developers in my home town. This is one of their younger boys. I didn't know him personally. They are big Trump donors. $14m isn't going to break the government or the contractor's family. I almost guarantee you Trump is pissed and will hold them accountable but he has too much pride to do it publicly because he personally picked this cronie. I know the photos on the internet make the contractor look crazy (he very well could be based on his track record). That said, he comes from a good, well respected family.
But being a government project, "we" will pribably pay that contract double to fix it, even if it was his fault.
wow, that's surprising to learn the handpicked contractor is a big trump donor, that's just so shocking (sarcasm).
The more you hear all of the bs tough talk trump and his bunch spewed about the previous agreement made by Obama, then you learn more and more about this agreement, you just can't make this stuff up. This is an international embarrassment to our country. Iran owns this administration!