After spending time watching what felt like the shortest Super Bowl in the history of the game, I am left with a few takeaways that I think I should share with you. For those of you who missed the game, or elected not to watch it, the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams, and the game was largely underwhelming. Most points scored were from field goal kick which leads to my first thought; if I spent the proper time training and really invested in making it happen, I firmly believe that I could become an NFL kicker by the end of this year. This is not meant to discredit the athleticism of special-teams athletes, but I think, if there is a position on a team in a sport most accessible to someone like myself, becoming a kicker would be it.
I’ll hold for the applause, and here’s what you missed in the news over the weekend.
Trump Goes Nuclear
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday that the United States will formally begin the process of withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War-era armistice agreement with Russia that has served as the most significant piece of anti-nuclear proliferation legislation in recent history. Pompeo said that “Russia has refused to take any steps to return to real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days,” and because of this, the U.S. wants out.
“To this day, Russia remains in material breach of its treaty obligations not to produce, possess or flight test a ground-launched intermediate range cruise missile system…The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty effective February 2, and we will provide Russia and other treaty parties with formal notice that the United States is withdrawing from the INF Treaty effective in six months pursuant to Article 15 of the treaty.”
–U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
In perhaps the most embarrassing geopolitical example of “if they don’t have to, why should we?,” the Trump administration decided that the US no longer wishes to be unilaterally bound by the INF treaty, and Russia is to blame. For you non-history buffs out there, my apologies for glazing over the explanation of the INF. The treaty was signed back in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which prohibited the US, and Russia, from fielding ground-launched cruise missiles capable of flying between 310 and 3,420 miles. Following the nastiness of the Cold War, the INF treaty was the white flag both countries needed to see to calm things down a bit.
Please Don’t Sign My Yearbook
Over the weekend, it was revealed that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam may have been a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux kLan in the mid-80. Several unanimous calls from several politicians including Rep. Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, who said that the Governor “does not understand the seriousness of his actions.” Though Gov. Northam has yet to admit to the media why he was dressed in the infamous white robes, he did apologies for appearing in the photograph on his yearbook page.
