https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=94&v=NKkRDMil0bw
UPDATE: Still not enough votes in the House.
Alan Grayson keeps saying it won’t pass the House. I hope he’s right, because we don’t have the votes to hold the Senate:
WASHINGTON — Senate leaders reached a deal Wednesday to push ahead with votes on President Barack Obama’s trade deals.
The agreement came after Democrats blew up an earlier agreement Tuesday over fears that key measures they have sponsored would fail, or never get votes.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday afternoon that leaders had found a way around the impasse by agreeing to let Democrats have votes on key trade enforcement measures before holding votes on the fast-track authority that Obama needs to finish new massive trade deals with Pacific Rim countries and Europe.
“I think that we’ve come up with something that is fair,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.
McConnell called the agreement “serious and bipartisan,” and said it gave a chance for trade legislation to proceed without allowing “poison pills” to be attached to the legislation.
Under the agreement, the Senate will vote Thursday on an African trade deal, and then a customs and enforcement measure that includes many of the trade protections Democrats feared would be lost, including a provision that targets currency manipulation by China and trading partners.
“The announcement today will drive home the importance of the message that the pro-trade Democrats sent yesterday,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who helped craft the compromise after he helped filibuster the trade bill that he supports. “That enforcement, enforcement of the trade laws is a prerequisite to a modern trade policy, a trade policy that sets aside once and for all the NAFTA playbook. Suffice it to say that was the message conveyed yesterday by pro-trade Democrats.”
(My) Senator Wyden will be unemployed next year.
After usual pointless kabuki Dems fold like a cheap, smelly T-shirt. What a surprise. Corporatist whores. @ Ten Bears Ditto mine, I hope: Bennett. At least our presumptive Dem nominee for president displayed her profile in courage on this issue. OH, wait…. what was Hill’s position again? Next stop, House. I’ll bet Nancy will really put Barry through the wringer on this one.
Once again, as on Bowles-Simpson (deficit scare) Social Security/Medicare reform, our only hope is that enough far right wingnuts will oppose TPP to join with a few actual progressives to thwart the sleazy “leadership” of both parties on this monstrosity.
All the DEMOCRACY money can buy.
This isn’t going to pass in the House.