It's Hard Staying Focused On Issues In The Midst Of Trump's 10-Ring Circus-- But Bernie Is Staying On Message

How does Trump get people to not think about his disastrous economic policies, built on an entirely wasteful deficit that has nearly doubled to a trillion dollars since he occupied the White House? His pathetic circus routine has done the trick in a general sort of way. No one seems to be paying attention, for example, to his trade agenda with new outages come out every day, often more than one a day.

Yesterday, for example, Jake Tapper broke the news that a senior White House source-- probably Kushner-in-law or someone trying to get Kushner-in-law in trouble-- leaked the news that Trump told the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan that he would grant him a pardon if he were sent to jail for having border agents illegally block asylum seekers from entering the U.S. Another Hair on Fire Friday moment! (And, by the way, since then Trump named McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.)

Active Shooter by Nancy Ohanian

Doing his best to leave Trump's constant, insane and attention-grabbing provocations to the media, Bernie keeps focusing on his core issues of income inequality and a rigged system. Yesterday he followed up on his trade agenda by releasing the video below, itself an update of the video above from last year. Bernie's key points about Trump's soggy trade deal with Mexico and Canada-- currently in no man's land in Congress where it has virtually no chance of being ratified-- are that:

• the deal would continue to ship U.S. jobs to Mexico because Mexico's workers make as little as two dollars an hour, which the deal doesn't address
• the deal doesn't protect the enironment
• the deal is a give-away to pharmaceuticals and other big corporate special interests

Last November Bernie told his Vermont constituents exactly why he opposes Trump's deal too replace the same NAFTA that Bernie has always opposed and feels needs to be replaced.

As someone who not only voted against NAFTA, but walked on the picket lines against it, there is no question that this unfettered trade deal needs to be fundamentally rewritten. In my view, a re-negotiated NAFTA must stop the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, end the destructive race to the bottom, protect the environment, and lower the outrageously high price of prescription drugs. Clearly, Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 does not meet these standards and I will strongly oppose it in its current form. Unless strong enforcement mechanisms are written into the text of this agreement, corporations will continue to ship U.S. jobs to Mexico where workers are paid as little as $2 an hour.

Further, this deal includes some outrageous giveaways to the fossil fuel industry and big pharmaceutical companies that will harm the environment and increase prices for life-saving prescription drugs. Before this deal is sent to Congress for a vote it must include strong enforcement mechanisms to increase jobs and wages and all of the riders that benefit big fossil fuel polluters and pharmaceutical companies must be taken out of it. Trade is a good thing-- but it has got to be fair.