What is "FWIW"

Mrs. Clinton will not be placed in the uncomfortable position of signing it into law if President Obama has his name on it.

As a Union supporter, fair not free trade is what I support. Damn NAFTA, CAFTA and the TPP, this issue is a priorty for me.

part of the lame duck session too

A number of those who claim to know what's going on in DC say TPP will not pass. I am skeptical.

NAFTA, TPP, etc can be exited with a 6 month notice. Too bad we have a president where we have to hope for a future very long shot to make things right.

All I can find news on is Enbridge and Gateway - and the news is that their approvals were overturned in court.

Meanwhile, I wonder if they will just re-name Keystone and try again....

disappointment of my voting career.
I know there are some here who still love him, but he has mixed an untoward level of venality, lack of sense of urgency, and unconcern with such an incompetence that he is indeed like the second coming of Reagan 1987.

The TPP itself is just one of many bad trade deals, but it is the underlying ISDS that is really evil and attempts to bypass the US court system for corporate admin courts to which the defendant cannot directly appoint a member. I have taken to calling them corporate Star chambers after the English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber. As these courts will be administered by people paid for by corporations on a pro-rata basis, accuser gets to select one, the federal government another, and a 3rd appointed by the 1st two; the defendant does not get pick any directly. It is rife with potential for abuse, particularly when a corrupt federal government can take bribes (e.g. gifts or foundation contributions) from a corporation or foreign government.

It is indeed a step back in time to 1531 England or earlier.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! What better way to explain to your constituents as to why you basically fail to pass anything than to point at your opponents! If the Democrats had a 50 state strategy, it might cause them to win enough that they'd have to find another excuse.

ridiculing Ross Perot's opposition to it. They made fun of his charts (facts) like playground bullies marginalizing the weird kid with glasses. They are still the playground bullies who know how to enlist most of the kids who don't really understand what's happening as the kid who does know is isolated and rendered powerless.

When Clinton won in '92 I said that they'd out Republicaned the Republicans, meaning that they'd avoided being bullied into ineffectiveness. Little did I know that they were just another playground bully come to push us around.

The WTO and IMF, still destroying the world. I guess they'll keep going until nothing is left. Reality bummer.
Objective Reality vs. Perceived Reality By John Perkins

My success as chief economist at a major international consulting firm was not due to the lessons I learned in business school. It was not due to the competence of my staff of brilliant econometricians and financial wizards.
[...]
As described in my book The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, my job was to convince heads of state of countries with resources our corporations covet, like oil, to accept huge loans from the World Bank and its sister organizations. The stipulation was that these loans would be used to hire our engineering and construction companies, such as Bechtel, Halliburton, and Stone and Webster, to build electric power systems, ports, airports, highways and other infrastructure projects that would bring large profits to those companies and also benefit a few wealthy families in the country, the ones that owned the industries and commercial establishments. Everyone else in the country would suffer because funds were diverted from education, healthcare and other social services to pay interest on the debt. In the end, when the country could not buy down the principal, we would go back and, with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “restructure” the loans. This included demands that the country sell its resources cheap to our corporations with minimal environmental and social regulations and that it privatize its utility companies and other public service businesses and offer them to our companies at cut-rate prices.

It was a strategy of using perceived reality to change objective reality. In these cases, Objective Reality 1 was that the countries had resources. The Perceived Reality was that using those resources as collateral on loans to finance the building of infrastructure projects would create economic growth and prosperity for all the citizens. Objective Reality 2, however, was that economic growth occurred only among the very wealthy. Since economic statistics (GDP) in such countries are skewed in favor of the wealthy, the fact was that only our companies and the wealthy families benefited. The rest of the population suffered. In many cases this has led to political unrest, resentment, and the rise of various forms of radicalism and terrorism.

So when reading the LA Times this morning Despite fears, Mexico's manufacturing boom is lifting U.S. workers
I can't help zeroing in on the one word "some":

The bottom line, say economists and company executives, is that what’s good for Mexico’s factory workers is good for some U.S. workers too.

"some" would be one in this case.

Degenhardt began as a machine operator, making about $5.50 an hour plucking plastic parts from an injection molding machine. He quickly realized that the influx of robots onto the factory’s floor might pose a threat.

“You want to be managing the new automation and technology, and not worried about ‘something is going to take my job away,’” Degenhardt says. So he got an associate degree in electronics, and then in 2006, a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering.

Today, Degenhardt earns around $120,000 per year as the plant’s automation manager, supervising about 20 people.

At Evco’s Wisconsin plants, robots do the work Degenhardt once did, pulling just-made plastic from its mold.

“The robots do my [old] job, and I am managing people that manage them,” he says.

LOL the part where it says "So he got an associate degree in electronics, and then in 2006, a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering." because of course that is what every displaced worker can and should do! (drippy sarcasm)

What "a lot of folks don't know", here it is: Hillary Clinton rallies supporters in Las Vegas

Clinton: I'll tell ya something a lot of folks don't know, more than the half of all jobs in 2020 and that's not too long from now, will not require a four year education.

(applause wtf?) Everyone else eat cake?

So, here's how I'm fitting all the pieces together. I wanna make college affordable in fact I want to make it debt free. (applause) I want to help people who already have debts and the families that are burdened by those debts, to be able to pay them back at a lower interest rate, and have them forgiven after a certain period of time.

That is some strange reality where "pay them back at a lower interest rate" means "debt free", meh. " forgiven after a certain period of time". Yeah right, like the period of time it takes to go bankrupt working two full time jobs for crap wages to pay for your worthless degree (see above regarding what "a lot of folks don't know").

Cake!

Edit: fix to/too typo, add link to TPP corruption because of course! Cut it out.

On McLaughlin group last week, the bobbleheads all agreed that TPP was no big deal and would pass and everyone would just be okay with it..

Except for the detestable-on-all-subjects-but-trade Pat Buchanan, who stated that working class voters on the left and right will tear the system apart if this betrayal takes place, because they just can't give up any more of what little they have left.

The rest of the 1% panelists tried to shout him down, because of course they don't know or care about working people, and they've all got plenty of cake, even if the peons don't want some....