Yup. Surprised again. We all keep saying it, but end up repeating because there is literally nothing that makes and *keeps* him happy. Should have kept a list of all the weird things, but it’s too late now. None of us wants to go back through the past year and five months to make one. Compliments to Raw Story:
An ex-GOP operative flagged how Trump is killing what he once touted as his “best” deal at the expense of his supporters. During an episode of The Bulwark Podcast, Tim Miller described Trump’s plans concerning the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump negotiated and boasted about during his first term. “The Trump administration decided not to renew the USMCA,” Miller noted. “Which is pretty interesting because Donald Trump said that was the best agreement we’ve ever made, the best trade deal of all time.”
It appears it was not “best” enough, and he’s the one who did it! What is the matter *NOW*? It seemed to be fine last year, and now it isn’t? This agreement was a pretty big change from the NAFTA document. At a guess, maybe Trump thinks he isn’t extorting enough from them. He’s the source of all the problems, and he doesn’t and won’t see it! Trump charges tariffs? Then they’ll do without our products. It’s not as easy for us to do without theirs.
While “it’s strange that they would not renew the best trade deal of all time,” Miller explained, “They’re now going to do yearly reviews where Trump shakes down the leaders of Mexico and Canada…not great.” According to Miller, Trump will ditch the USMCA in favor of an arrangement where the U.S. conducts annual reviews of trade with Mexico and Canada. He predicted that the new arrangement would likely hurt American farmers, who supported Trump.
That’s just wonderful. Shake down other countries. On top of the stupid tariffs. And hurt our people. American farmers are having a rough enough time, as it is! They don’t have the help to harvest crops, and the crop yields are going to be low because the fertilizer, for us and others, couldn’t get through the damn Strait! It’s very tiring, looking every day at some new Trump stupidity.
“The farmers, it’s one hit after another for the farmers, who, it seems like, every Trump policy is like it’s almost like an elaborate plot to see how much he can p— off the farmers and still run up the numbers in rural America,” Miller said. Miller’s guest on the show, New Yorker writer Susan Glasser, agreed.
“As far as the farmers go, Donald Trump loves to provide evidence that his ride or die supporters will be there no matter how much he humiliates them,” Glasser said. “No matter how much he backs away from policies that would support him, no matter how much he fails to deliver the things that he said he would deliver. That to Trump, that’s the ultimate sort of political own, and he loves that move.”
Yep. The farmers have it much worse than those of us in suburban areas. But we can’t get any products in the store if they don’t have them to sell. Shake down our continental partners. Shake down, abuse our farmers. Abuse may be a strong word, but that’s certainly what it seems to be. As long as Trump is in office, no one will catch a break. *He* doesn’t have to worry about costs as we do. If he wants it, he gets it. Is our country going to be together by the time we get rid of him?
See you soon!
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It’s just rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow…….
Yikes! (Forgive me. I detest Mullencamp.)
Also, you have been on a ROLL lately *g*
Not a fan as well, but vaguely appropriate. The head radio played that when I was reading.
Susan, I’m not sure why you and Sock aren’t fans of Mellencamp. Unless something happened in the past few years, he’s ALWAYS been an ally to progressive causes but his major focus has also been on farmers. He, along with Willie Nelson, organized the Farm Aid concerts in the 1980s, trying to draw attention to the hardships facing the country’s farmers (and that was during the Reagan years).
He has acknowledged that, in personal meetings he had with Drumpf (back in the 1980s and 1990s), he found Drumpf to be amiable and friendly but he’s also expressed absolute hostility to Drumpf’s political agenda and beliefs. He didn’t take an active role in the 2024 election but he also allowed his song, “Small Town,” to be used when Tim Walz accepted the 2024 Democratic VP nomination.
Admittedly, I wasn’t really much of a fan of his first major hit, “I Need a Lover,” but his next couple of hits, “This Time” and “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” put me as a modest fan. (Of course, Pat Benatar’s cover of “I Need a Lover” made me re-evaluate Mellencamp’s original version.)
And, “Rain on the Scarecrow” is one of Mellencamp’s BEST songs to help put the farming crisis out to the public. John’s always had a way of writing songs that tell stories (you really need to check out his collaboration with Stephen King on the musical project, “The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County”–features songs written by King and Mellencamp and the “concept album”* featured performances by Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson, blues legend Taj Mahal, Roseanne Cash and Dave and Phil Allen, co-founders of the rock band, the Blasters).
*A “concept” album is generally a “demo” of sorts, generally featuring big-name artists to help drive interest in a potential musical though most of the artists who appear on the concept album never appear on the musical’s cast album (if it makes it that far). One of the biggest, and most well-known, concept albums was “Chess” with musicby ABBA’s Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and lyrics from Tim Rice which produced the hit single, “One Night in Bangkok” by Murray Head and also produced the song “I Know Him So Well” (not a real hit in the US but was a #1 hit in the UK for Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson and a cover was done by Whitney Houston along with her mother, Cissy, that appears on the “Whitney” album). A couple of other very well-known concept albums included the original recordings for “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita” (both of which featured lyrics from Tim Rice).
I second Joseph’s comment regarding John Mellencamp, who originally used the stage name John Cougar. Not only did his music focus on life in small-town middle America, he took action to provide assistance and relief to the family farmers being driven to ruin by mega corporate agribusiness (It’s not his fault the family farming community hasn’t yet recognized that the GOP isn’t working for their best interests). Only after looking it up did I realize that “Rain on the Scarecrow” was written in 1985 — seems just as relevant today, doesn’t it? Yeah, over forty years later, the farmers still haven’t figured it out!
Nonetheless, according to his bio in Wikipedia, the Farm Aid concerts he participated in starting have raised over $80 million in assistance for family farmers.
I’ll go now and pull up the videos for “Jack & Diane”, then “Pink Houses”.