The Environment

An excellent opinion piece in the WaPo - with some pertinent facts on the Paris Agreement:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-the-caricature-of-the-ugly-american-demeans-us-all/2017/06/02/d2043a70-478a-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.26ff103665b5

Some highlights:

"For the last fortnight, Trump has presented himself to the world as the caricature of the ugly American: loud, boorish and ill-informed. For nine days in Europe and the Middle East, Trump shoved, hectored and lectured, betraying confidences and demonstrating an ignorance of world affairs."

"Trump seemed to know little about the accord he was trashing. He proclaimed, “I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to . . . negotiate our way back into Paris.” Was he unaware that he had to negotiate with world leaders, not his domestic opponents? “And we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people that represent either the Paris accord or something that we can do that’s much better,” he added."

"The president served a buffet of dubious assertions and statistics about the costs and benefits of compliance while all but ignoring the central fact that the Paris accord is voluntary. Trump could have scaled back U.S. commitments to whatever he wished without pulling out of the accord or demanding renegotiation. It’s not binding. It needn’t have cost America anything."

In foreign affairs, Trump’s undue bullying is breaking down alliances, undermining intelligence, economic, military and diplomatic cooperation. Trade, travel, tourism and foreign investment will inevitably suffer. Business leaders know this, which is why Trump’s climate move brought bitter protests from top U.S. corporations.

That point, Mr. President, is now. America, under Trump, has lost its seat at the table. Yes, this is the point at which America gets demeaned.

 
Scott Pruitt, outspoken and forceful, moves to the center of power within the Trump administration: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/scott-pruitt-outspoken-and-forceful-moves-to-the-center-of-power-within-the-trump-administration/2017/06/02/a1b4d298-46fa-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html?utm_term=.9491a5546962

Less than four months ago, Scott Pruitt arrived in Washington with few connections to President Trump’s inner circle and took the helm of an agency where many employees were openly hostile to him.

But the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as one of the most influential policy architects in the president’s Cabinet, a skilled and sometimes brash lawyer who is methodically taking apart a slew of regulations and agreements affecting a range of issues, from manufacturing operations to landfills.
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Whether you cheer or recoil at this depends very much on your politics, of course.

For me, Pruitt represents the greatest dangers of a Trump or any Republican administration: highly competent administrators of their horrifically ill-conceived and dangerous agenda.

 
The unfortunate thing is that he completely is -- and is far from alone.

We didn't reach this sad, self-defeating juncture as a country without that.

 
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