This is a truly vile agreement. I dare anyone to read it and stay an Obama booster:
WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday sent a letter to President Barack Obama’s nominee to head U.S. trade negotiations, expressing concerns about the administration’s lack of transparency in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade deal being negotiated largely in secret.
Labor unions, public health advocates and environmental groups have long decried so-called free trade policies for undermining important regulations in the pursuit of corporate profits. The letter signals that Warren’s tough stance on bank regulation extends to other major consumer and public interest matters.
What the public does know about the TPP has been learned through leaked documents. According to those documents, the Obama administration is seeking to grant corporations the ability to directly challenge regulations in countries involved in the talks — a political power that was typically reserved for sovereign nations until the 1990s. Obama opposed such policies as a presidential candidate in 2008. The leaked intellectual property chapter of the deal includes provisions that would increase the costs of life-saving medicines in poor countries.
Warren’s letter does not take issue with specific terms of the negotiations, but rather the secrecy surrounding the process. Members of Congress have been allowed to see TPP negotiation texts. Some have said they were insulted by the complex administrative procedures the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, or USTR, imposed to actually access the texts — barriers not imposed on unelected corporate advisers.
Thanks to DUI Attorney Karin Porter.
“Warren’s letter does not take issue with specific terms of the negotiations, but rather with the secrecy surrounding the process.” Doesn’t Warren understand that nothing our government does is suppose to be open for public debate? The way it works is that our government does stuff and then sells us on how good it will be for us now that they’ve done it. Or sells us a pack of lies to make us think that it’s something that we must do to protect ourselves. Lately I’ve even heard liberals and progressives say that what Obama’s NSA is doing may not be Constitutional, but it is legal. WTF?
This is what the filibuster nuclear option is really about. Step:
1. Obstruct nominees (R)
2. Exercise filibuster nuclear option to majority rule (D)
3. Reauthorize “fast track” legislation with simple majority giving up-or-down votes on treaties (R+D) so that Bernie Sanders et al cannot filibuster step 4, which is:
4. Pass TPP without debate, maybe on a voice vote (R+D)
Ta da! Republicans get to filibuster everything D’s want for 5 years, and eat their TPP cake too. It also portends a lot of very unpopular legislation (chained CPI anyone? “grand bargain”?) that D’s would conceivably want to filibuster.
Nice. Thanks Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Barack Obama.
Free market Capitalists (1%) couldn’t care less about our Constitution, our civil liberties, or the rule of law. They only care about getting rich by picking our pockets.
“Obama opposed such policies as a presidential candidate in 2008.”
No he didn’t. He said he did but anyone paying attention could see he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Has he supported or done anything he said he would? Anyone with eyes could see he was a Chicago machine-pol – playing elite liberals for fools.
Obama was backed by the Corporatists and is an excellent protector of their objectives and wealth.
Prediction: Several years from now, our Obama apologist friends (who will not address this issue at all now) will recognize the TPP post facto as, “perhaps not the best thing that happened during the Obama administration.” I’m looking at you, Booman.