During his big economic policy speech Monday in Detroit, Donald Trump spoke out forcefully against so-called free trade deals.

When he wasn't being interrupted by protestors, he promised to reject the TPP, renegotiate NAFTA, and even leave NAFTA altogether if Canada and Mexico refused to play ball.

"If the TPP is actually approved it will be catastrophic. That's why I have announced we will withdraw from the deal before that can ever, ever, ever happen...

"I have previously laid out a detailed 7-point plan for trade reform, available on my website. It includes strong protections against currency manipulation, big problem, tariffs against any countries that cheat by unfairly subsidizing their goods, and it includes a total renegotiation of NAFTA which is a disaster for our country. A total renegotiation. And if we don't get a better deal, we will walk away."

When he talks like that, Trump sounds a lot like, well, Trump.

No serious Republican presidential candidate has talked that way on trade in at least a generation.

But when Trump talks about renegotiating NAFTA he also sounds like someone else.

He sounds like a certain junior senator from Illinois who way back in 2008 made criticism of NAFTA, CAFTA and other so-called free trade deals a big part of his presidential campaign. One of the reasons why I voted for him.

It's easy to forget now, but when then-Senator Barack Obama first ran for president, he did so as an opponent of corporate-managed trade policies.

This is what he used to sound like:

Keith Olbermann: Scrap NAFTA, Senator Obama, or fix it?

Senator Obama: I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labor agreements in that agreement right now.

Senator Obama: NAFTA needs to be amended and I've already said that I would contact the president of Mexico and the prime minister of Canada

It's absolutely critical for us to understand that NAFTA was an enormous problem. The permanent trade relations with China, without some of the enforcement mechanisms that were in there, that you voted for, was also a significant problem.

Flash-forward eight years though, and President Obama now sounds like this:

"As I've said before, it means that we have to do everything we can to make sure that everybody shares in prosperity, that we have strong rules to protect workers, to promote high wages, to make sure that our citizens are getting the education and the training that they need.

"But the answer cannot be to back away from trade and the global economy. It is here to stay. It's not possible to cut ourselves off."

So what happened?

Read more here.

-Thom

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Karen Shragg, "Move Upstream: A Call to Solve Overpopulation" (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

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Wednesday's Daily Stack 

Article: "Teaching kids empathy: In Danish schools, it's ... well, it's a piece of cake" by Jessica Alexander.

Book: The Danish Way of Parenting; What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids by Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Sandahl.

Article: "Donald Trump Suggests 'Second Amendment People' Could Act Against Hillary Clinton" by Nick Corasaniti and Maggie Haberman.

Article: "New Deal" by Wikipedia.

Book: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

Book: "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

Article: "American Greed: Trump's Economic Team Is a Who's Who of What's Wrong" by Richard Eskow.

Article: "New Evidence Suggests That Big Oil Didn't Borrow Big Tobacco's Playbook to Lie to the Public About Climate Change-They Actually Wrote It" by Reynard Loki.

Article: "Read Donald Trump's Economic Speech in Detroit".

Article: "Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement" (TPP) by EFF.

Article: "House Speaker Paul Ryan Wins GOP Nomination to Run Again" by Scott Bauer.

Article: "White man fatally shoots black man after calling 911 over 'hoodlums'" by RT.

Quote: "The small minority of adults who are unable rather than unwilling to work, have to rely on voluntary charity; misfortune is not a claim to slave labor; there is no such thing as the right to consume, control, and destroy those without whom one would be unable to survive." - Ayn Rand.

Article: "Here's Why Libertarians Are Mostly Men" by Kevin Drum.

Book: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany" by William L. Shirer.

Article: "Ohio's Questionable Voter Purge" by David A. Graham.

Case: "Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus".

Site: Media Matters for America

Article: "Paul Ryan does an about-face on Ayn Rand" by Husna Haq, August 14, 2012.

Article: "Opus Dei" by Wikipedia.

Article: "What Do the Koch Brothers Want?" (1980 Libertarian Party platform) by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Bible: "Matthew 25:35 (New International Version)" "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in".

Bible: "Matthew 25:31-46 (New International Version)". "All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats."

Hour Two: Has Trump Legitimized the White Supremacists...?
- Angelo Carusone, Media Matters For America    

Article: "Top Nazi leader: Trump will be a 'real opportunity' for white nationalists" by Peter Holley.

Article: "Southern strategy" by Wikipedia.

Video: "Ronald Reagan States' Rights Speech in Philadelphia, MS", August 3, 1980.

Article: "Mississippi civil rights workers' murders" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Donald Trump, Jr. makes curious campaign detour" by Rachel Maddow.

Article: "Top adviser to Richard Nixon admitted that 'War on Drugs' was policy tool to go after anti-war protesters and 'black people'" by Adam Edelman.

 

Book: Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare.

Article: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Empathy" by Leon F Seltzer Ph.D.

Article: "Kennedy: Kagan Will Change High Court's 'Dynamic'" by Jim Meyers.

Video: Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand (1959) (full interview).

Article: "Gov. Rick Scott: 4 more people diagnosed with Zika virus in Miami" by WPBF.

Article: "Novel Finding: Reading Literary Fiction Improves Empathy" by Julianne Chiaet.

Article: "Sharron Angle" by Wikipedia.

Article: "2011 Tucson shooting" (incl. Gabby Giffords) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Pic Of The Moment: So Apparently The Party Of Lincoln Is Now The Party Of John Wilkes Booth" by EarlG.

Article: "Prisoner's dilemma" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Dunbar's number" ( suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships) by Wikipedia.

Book: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Luke Vargas 

Article: "Court backs Obama's climate change accounting" by Timothy Cama.

Article: "The Nauru files: cache of 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention" by Paul Farrell, Nick Evershed and Helen Davidson.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Site: Governor Free Don Siegelman 

Article: "Quick Morning News - Trump suggests '2nd Amendment' against Clinton - August 10, 2016" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "Quick Morning News - 50 GOP Officials Warn: No To Trump - August 9, 2016" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "Rising Ocean Temperatures Are Making Us Sick" by Dominique Mosbergen.

Site: The Satanic Temple.

Book: "The Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes, 1651.

Article: "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win" by Michael Moore.

Book: What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank.

Article: "Susan Collins becomes latest GOP'er to oppose Trump" by Justin Duckham.

Law: "Voting Rights Act of 1965".

Law: "Civil Rights Act of 1964" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator" by Wikipedia.

Site: "RedRover Readers".

Book: The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand.

Article: "How Ayn Rand became a big admirer of serial killer William Hickman" by Mark Ames.

Article: "Paul Ryan easily wins GOP primary" by Eric Bradner and Deirdre Walsh.

Article: "Paul Ryan Busted For Staged Photo-Op At Soup Kitchen Where He Pretended To Wash Dishes" by Henry Blodget.

Article: "Newly released Clinton emails shed light on relationship between State Dept. and Clinton Foundation" by Daniella Diaz.

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010).

Site: Roots of Empathy.

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