So now we are all focused on the recent horrific murder in Minneapolis and now the subsequent events that are happening in many parts of the nation, with Minneapolis the epicenter. This is serious, and I have an idea how it will end. This has even distracted us from the usual pandemic and economic issues, which are historically serious.
But while all this has been going on, just in the past week or so our president has been engaging in a series of serious actions that will have long run serious consequences people are barely aware of if they are not undone. It is almost as if he is just outright melting down his presidency and taking the nation with him, although we are too busy looking at the flames in Minneapolis to notice.
Here is a list without comment. The US will withdraw from the Open Skies agreement, first proposed by President Eisenhower, that has 35 other signatories. The administration claims the Russians are breaking the treaty, although the specific offenses publicized seem to have nothing to do with this treaty at all. This follows Trump withdrawing us from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord, the the TPP, and the Iran JCPOA nuclear deal that Iran was adhering to. Today it was announced that the US will withdraw from the World Health Organization. The administration is proposing changing the status of Hong Kong in connection with the US as well as possibly forcing Chinese corporations to leave the New York stock exchange, not to mention that the daughter of the CEO of Huawei is about to be extradited to the US to be prosecuted for fraud in connection with violating US sanctions against Iran. Another round of EPA regulations are to be ended. Trump refuses to provide aid to the US Postal Service, which might go bankrupt later this year, with Trump declaring that voting by mail is a rigged fraud. He has also issued an executive order to allow the FTC to make social media subject to lawsuits by his conservative allies. And then also today it was announced that his official pandemic task force is now effectively not functional.
There is more, but all that is more than quite enough.
Barkley Rosser
Thanks, Susan Sarandon.
“Susan Sarandon is like a lot of Bernie backers: She finds the Vermont senator to be a paragon of probity, doesn’t totally trust Hillary Clinton, and she’s upset about the status quo in the United States, which she fears Clinton would perpetuate.
Unlike most Bernie backers, Sarandon is an Oscar winner who owns a chain of ping-pong lounges. But it turns out those are not the only ways she is atypical.
Sarandon appeared on Chris Hayes’s MSNBC show Tuesday night, where she made her case for Sanders, citing his record on free trade, prisons, genetically modified foods, and more. Hayes pointed out that elections are choices, and asked whether she would vote for Clinton in a general election matchup against Donald Trump.
“I think Bernie would probably encourage people [to vote Clinton], because he doesn’t have a lot of ego in this,” she said. “But I think a lot of people are, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to do that.’” As for herself, “I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens.”
“Really?” an incredulous Hayes asked.
“Some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately,” she replied.
Hayes accused her of adopting “the Leninist model of ‘heighten the contradictions,’” and she happily agreed. Isn’t that dangerous, he wondered?
If you think it’s pragmatic to shore up the status quo right now, then you’re not in touch with the status quo,” she said.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/susan-sarandon-bernie-sanders/475875/
How are you enjoying the revolution, bitch?
Barr is going all Reichstag fire on us!!!!
Thank you for listing the international agreements that the United States no longer supports. I imagine that if you are an important person in Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and Seoul this must look like a withdrawal from world leadership. A leading nation binds others to its course by trade, reciprocal agreements, mutual undertakings, and treaties. Obviously, in time some of these things become antiquated, but leaders use that as an opportunity to devise new agreements. Walking away is not strength. The art of the deal lies in having the other guy think he got a good deal.
EMichael:
You seem to have some pathological hatred for Susan Sarandon.
If in 2016 she lived in NY or CA, for example, her vote didn’t contribute in the slightest to Trump’s victory, although Bernie-bashing Hillarybots keep claiming that anyone who didn’t vote for her was guilty of bringing it to pass.
I never believed that Trump’s election would “bring the revolution immediately,” but I was disgusted at the thought of voting for Hillary, so I didn’t. Since I live in Illinois, I knew that it would not make the slightest difference in the outcome of the election.
BTW, the b-word is generally considered sexist.
Bob:
I am going to add something to this conversation. While Illinois, New York, and California did not swing this election to the Trump column; it was the “anybody but Trump or Clinton” which did swing the vote to Trump in swing states. There were 5 times as many votes for the “Others” running or written-in which defeated Clinton by narrow margin and it was a historic high. A preponderance of repeated lies, innuendo, supposition, conjecture was fed to America’s voters by Trump, his lackeys, political and business interests swaying that small minority of voters who choie not to recognize where it was coming from and why. You got what you wanted, no Clinton, and you settled for Trump.
Denis you already know this as I have stated it enough times.
Bob,
Your using the electoral college excuse? BS. Your thoughts affected others. Sarandon’s thoughts, and actions, affected many others.
She and you both deserve responsibility for trump.. Just as much as a trump voter.
That is the way it works.
EM-
Your last comment is entirely devoid of evidence, or even of plausibility, with respect to me. It is conceivable that Sarandon’s published opinions might have affected a very small set of voters, but – to beat a dead horse yet again – the election was obviously lost by Hillary’s blunders, and miserable same-old positions.
Your comment is typical of hillarybots.
Yeah, well that ignores that I worked on the Sanders campaign in 2016 and voted for him.
Meanwhile, watch the DNC again, and tell me how small a set of voters there were. Or read the numbers that Run supplies.
Got it that Clinton did not run the best of campaigns and that the FBI sabotaged her, that does not allow the berniebros a pass.
And I am not giving them one.