Process this. This is the United States of america. Did you know that . Sounds like a silly question, but i mean it. Im asking whether you know this is america because little by little over the last 3 1 2 years this country has changed. Have you noticed it is not the same america we once knew . If you havent, thats part of the point. Thats how a democracy starts to slip into authoritarianism. It doesnt happen all at once. But at some point you start to realize that the values of the country that you know and love have been replaced with more sinister ideals by the people in charge. And you realize those sinister ideals are designed to keep those in power, in power. It is not about you or us. It is about them. And anything that goes against those sinister ideals, no matter how central they are to the founding of this country gets tossed aside. Rules fail, norms change. Institutions begin to crumble. This isnt some futuristic dystopian novel about america. This is america in 2020. Americ
Doubles. That is terrible, and thats where we are. In politics news, the major headline today, what will actually, i think, go down in the books in terms of president ial politics history is the fact that the president last night did just abruptly announce the cancellation of the Republican National Convention Next month to renominate him to run for a second term. One day after that surprise announcement from the president , were about 24 hours after that announcement now, its still unclear as to whether there will be anything that looks like a Republican Convention at all next month. I mean in american president ial campaign history, there have been good conventions. There have been bad conventions and boring ones and scary ones. In modern times, though, theres never been one they just couldnt get it together to actually do, and it seems like that is a real risk here. Well see what they pull off, but the republicans and the white house being in denial about the coronavirus, first in N
Candidate may have had a loan for 60 million from a Russian Oligarch, as an economy guy, that sends up red flags. If you dont focus your entire career on the economy, i suppose that sends up a lot of red flags as well. It just seems weird. Yeah. Well, its also strange that its undisclosed this far into this investigation, and this far into all the public scrutiny that manafort has had. One of the interesting things in this reporting from Richard Engel tonight is not just the size of the financial relationship between this putinlinked oligarch and Paul Manafort, its that the manafort spokesman withdraw part of his statement to nbc news after he had initially given a statement saying manafort had never been indebted to his clients and wasnt at the time of the president ial campaign. Rescinding the statement after initially giving it to nbc is yet another red flag. Its very, very good shoeleather reporting from richard. Incredible. Indebtedness to a foreign adversary while running a presi
Likely to go up for everyone. So thats worth paying for, thats a heck of a bargain. This is not repeal or replace when it comes to obamacare, this is just paying a lot of taxpayer money to make the Health Care System work more poorly and cost more and insure fewer people. Sure, why not . That news from late last night. And that was followed today by the president flinging another wrench into the iran nuclear deal. That nuclear deal was not just between the United States and iran. It was between all of the countries and the u. N. Security council and the eu and germany and iran. The president s remarks today making clear that he doesnt think the United States should be party to that agreement anymore, even if everybody else is staying in it. He said hes basically against the deal. That was followed by the state department coming out and saying, dont believe those silly tv headlines you might be seeing saying were abandoning the iran nuclear deal. Those silly tv headlines were written by