Author Archives: radiomeciurilive

Wednesday Was the Most Dangerous Day So Far of the Trump Presidency

by radiomeciurilive Posted on April 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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By now we all know the story of President Trump’s sudden U-turn on NAFTA earlier this week. But just to refresh your memories, here is the Washington Post:

“I was all set to terminate,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview Thursday night. “I looked forward to terminating. I was going to do it.”…At one point, he turned to Kushner, who was standing near his desk, and asked, “Was I ready to terminate NAFTA?”

“Yeah,” Kushner said, before explaining the case he made to the president: “I said, ‘Look, there’s plusses and minuses to doing it,’ and either way he would have ended up in a good place.”

The basic story here is that Trump is a child. He was all ready to pull the trigger, but then his advisors brought in a colorful map showing that lots of red states and counties would be harmed by pulling out of NAFTA. Eventually Trump calmed down and normalcy reigned for another day.

But here’s the part of the story I still don’t understand: what happened on Wednesday that suddenly put a burr up Trump’s ass to pull out of NAFTA? Just a few weeks ago he sent a list of negotiating points to Congress, and both Mexico and Canada have agreed the treaty needs some updating. Things were moving along fairly normally, and then suddenly Trump woke up one morning and decided to light off a nuclear bomb.

What was that all about? Was it really because of Trump’s obsession over having some kind of accomplishment to show for his first hundred days? Did he eat a taco that didn’t agree with him? Did Steve Bannon have a late-night talk with him?

This was the reason all along that Trump was a far more dangerous candidate than Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. From a liberal point of view, his incompetence was a bonus that might restrict the short-term damage he could do. But Trump also brought to the table a noxious racist appeal, an ugly nationalism, an appalling level of ignorance, and a mercurial temperament. All of these were on display Wednesday. Apparently out of nowhere, and for no particular reason, he just strolled into the Oval Office and decided he wanted to formally withdraw from NAFTA.

Why? And what are the odds he’s going to do this again on something more important? Something that, for whatever reason, his aides can’t talk him out of with a colorful map and another diet Coke?

I’m not sure everyone realizes that this is the most dangerous thing Trump has done so far. It was a close-run thing, but next time it might not be. And we still have 1,361 days left to go of Trump’s presidency.

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Wednesday Was the Most Dangerous Day So Far of the Trump Presidency

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The Eco-Friendly Reason Rio’s Olympic Medalists Didn’t Get Flowers

by radiomeciurilive Posted on August 23, 2016

The Olympic Games are held every four years, and although the medals change, the award ceremonies are usually very similar.

Olympic medalists typically receive a bouquet in addition to their medal, but flowers werestrangely absent from the podium in Rio. Why? Turns out it was part of the Rio Olympic Committee’s efforts to make the massive event more eco-friendly.

Flowers are not very sustainable, said Christy Nicolay, the executive producer of the victory ceremonies, told the New York Times. We give it to an athlete, and very often they just throw it away.

Even those of us who aren’t Olympic athletes know this to be a painful reality of life. We get flowers for special occasions or perhaps simply cut them from our own gardens to bright up the house, but it seems they wither and die almost instantly.

Like any crop, growing flowers is a resource-intensive process. “Seventy percent of the cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported from Latin America,” reported Diane MacEachern for Care2. “Though the hot climate is just what the flowers need, those constant high temperatures are also conducive to bugs and disease. Consequently, growers in Columbia, Ecuador and many other countries rely on pesticides that have long been banned in the U.S. to produce flowers worth selling in international markets.”

Related: Why Buying Local Flowers Is Just As Important As Buying Local Food

With all that in mind, Rio’s decision to nix the bouquets seems very noble…until you hear about what they gave athletes as a replacement souvenir.

Those who managed to finish in the top three of their events at this years Summer Games receivedsmall sculptures of the Rio 2016 logo,designed in three dimensions for the first time in history. It’s said that the figurines can double as a display stand for the medal. Sadly, the sculptures were made ofresin, polyresin and PVCnot exactly the most eco-friendly materials. It remains to be seen whether future Olympic host cities will follow this example.

While the athletes are far less likely to toss their sculpture in the trash, it’s worth noting that fresh flowers and plants were still used to decorate the podiumsI wonder, where did they end up?

Related: 5 Simple Ways To Recycle Your Fresh Cut Flowers

Image Credit: Thinkstock

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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The Eco-Friendly Reason Rio’s Olympic Medalists Didn’t Get Flowers

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