Bend over bend over trade deal on the way...

BREAKING NEWS Thursday, April 16, 2015 2:37 PM EDT

Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama on Pacific Trade Pact
The leaders of Congress’s tax-writing committees reached agreement Thursday on legislation to give President Obama “fast track” authority to negotiate an ambitious trade accord with 11 other Pacific nations, beginning what is sure to be one of the toughest legislative battles of his last 19 months in office.
The “trade promotion authority” bill — likely to be unveiled Thursday afternoon — would give Congress the power to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, had to agree to stringent requirements for the trade deal to win over Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the finance panel. Those requirements included a human-rights negotiating objective that has never existed in trade agreements, according to lawmakers involved in the talks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/obama-trade-legislation-fast-...

What will Hillary say?

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gulfgal98's picture

They finally gave the last keys to our government away. Who gives a flying fruitcake about voting when it no longer makes one whit of difference. Sad

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

That was only the committee. It still has to make it past the Senate

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shaharazade's picture

the Senate stop it. The Senate is by-partisanly owned by the 'powerful interests' who want to override the sovereignty of their trading partners. Will they put on a kabuki show or just fast track this corporate obscenity.

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gulfgal98's picture

Honestly, I wish you were right, but I doubt that this will be stopped now. It is like a runaway freight train running over all of us on its way to the profit temples of Wall Street.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Shahryar's picture

one of our Senators. He sent me (and everyone else on his list) an email just a short time ago telling me (and everyone else) how he's protected us by making sure....well, let me grab that email.

First of all, he's got the nerve to title it "Trade Done Right".

Shahryar,

This week, Congress is taking the most definitive steps yet towards approving Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), or what you might have heard referred to as “fast-track authority.”

It’s important because it will determine how President Obama and future Presidents negotiate an important trade agreement – the Trans-Pacific Partnership – as well as future trade deals.

I know that trade is always controversial, but I can report to you that I have successfully fought to include critical new protections as part of the TPA.

oh thanks Ron. It's "trade" that's controversial, not that this is secret and will remain so even when it's passed. And what are these "protections"?

This new TPA framework means that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will represent a real opportunity for workers in Oregon and around the country. We know that tens of thousands of small businesses depend on exports to succeed.

Foreign companies have a much easier time selling goods here than Oregon businesses do selling their goods overseas. That needs to change, and I’ve fought to ensure the TPA will take us there.

sorry, I don't see any "protection" there. Did you leave something out?

But we didn’t stop there.

you want me to scream? You didn't do anything!!! to have stopped at that point. Ok, what else?

I fought to level the playing field between American businesses and global competitors, so that everyone involved upholds our progressive values and basic American principles.

that is called something that I can't say. Shaharazade could, though. What's that word, shaz? Starts with a "bull".

To that end, I helped secure critical protections for labor rights, the environment, and fundamental human rights as part of the TPA. We can demand a trade deal that protects our values in a measurable and enforceable way, rather than merely paying lip service to them.

Need shaz again to describe the above.

This TPA instructs the President that human rights are a core negotiating objective of our trade agreements – for the first time in history.

It requires our trading partners to adopt and maintain international labor standards, raising the bar for workers around the world.

Trade deals we make will insist that other nations live up to international environmental agreements, attacking overfishing, illegal logging and other threats to the planet.

Defending and expanding a free and open internet becomes central to our trade policy – ensuring that we don’t allow repressive regimes to break up the internet into country-sized pieces, and rejects policies like those found in PIPA and SOPA.

And finally, this TPA requires that no trade agreement can override U.S. law without congressional approval, and that trade agreements are made available to the public for 60 days before the President signs it – a level of transparency that we’ve never had before.

On balance this agreement represents trade done right for workers and businesses here in Oregon and all across America.

if he's saying the TPP will be made public before Obama signs it, then good (although he doesn't say if it will matter). However I don't think that's what's going to happen so he's either referring to something else, or lying. In either case, time to get rid of him.

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smiley7's picture

Corps can sue for apparently losing future profits. Wish I could do that.

Thanks for the email Shahryar.

Plus, leading environmentalists strongly oppose TPP for it's probable costs to our earth.

Once again repugs are salivating; they know this will drive a large wedge into the Democratic Party. I can't wait for a good reporter to put the question to Sec. Clinton. Do you support TPP?

If this isn't classic fascism, I don't know what is...

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shaharazade's picture

is my description the free flowing part is my addition. Eric doesn't swear ever, nohow, noway so he uses me as the designated house swearer. He did say crap one time in the car when a horrible disco song came on the radio. I was shocked but the tune did suck. What a asshole weasel Wyden is. Yet no Democrat ever primaries his weaselly ass.

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shaharazade's picture

how to delete a double post?

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mimi's picture

amazing. I wonder who formulates those letters. They all sound similar. All those letters you get to make contributions for a candidate sound alike and they are too long, often two pages. I can't read more than two paragraphs, then I give up and they go in the trashcan.

The only guy who sends out short letters is Bernie Sanders. And his thank you postcards have been the same since years. Short and sweet and no money wasted.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

Senators--it's WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY past time for him to go.

Sadly, he'll probably be around long enough to destroy our tax system by slashing taxes on the wealthy and corps, and cutting entitlements as the 'offset' for those tax breaks.

*Sigh*

UL

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

joe shikspack's picture

hillary won't say much, so as not to draw fire from the left, i would imagine. secretly her shriveled little heart will be rejoicing though since it's another step towards authoritarian rule by neoliberals.

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smiley7's picture

And I've grown to see President Obama's stubborn side, he won't back down either, so with the WH pushing, the Dems in the house will provide the 'needed votes.'
However, were I in the repug leadership, I'd play this game out until election time; nothing to lose politically and a lot to potentially gain.

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shaharazade's picture

about the Senate repugs the political side kabuki show must go on. I sometimes wish that I had not spent the last 9 years online being a wonk of sorts. I need a memory wipe to be any kind of Dem. partisan after learning all I have learned about the by-partisan meltdown/destruction of our system. I was so naive that I thought the Bushies had crossed a line and that once they were gone the Democrat's could/would restore the lawless damage done. Electoral politics and the three branches are nothing but a wrestlin' match put on for the punters who are so deluded they believe this is a democratic representational republic that operates under the rule of law. From the demagogue bible thumping Republican's to the so called progressive Democrat's our duly elected representatives are simply thespians. Not even very good actors at that.

There is no way that the Democrat's cannot own this. Will they push it through now because of the election in 2016 and then the Dems. like Wyden will go on a mission to sell this pig as an 'affordable' job creating trade deal that will lift all the workers boats and get everybody covered? Do we the people have all have amnesia? I'm beginning to think lilke Big Al let it rip and eventually it will topple. Something this top heavy and made of cards will fall of it's own volition. The last thing I intend to do is consent to this farce with my vote. I will vote but not for any freaking Dem. they are dead to me. Not that they care one less fucking re#**d to have deal with. not that they really ever bothered to deal with the democratic wing anyway.

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JayRaye's picture

between me (and plenty of other working class Americans) and the Democratic Party. This is where 46 years of supporting the lesser-evils approach has gotten us. Have we had our fill yet?

If not now, when?

Are we waiting until every neighborhood is policed by a corporate-owned police force? We are headed further and further down that road back to our future. But this time it won't be the company town, bad as that was, it will be the Corporate Nation-State ruling over us, USA Inc.

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

Big Al's picture

comrades, do not worry your little serf selves.

Um, I could be sarcastic here and say something like, vote for Bernie, but I won't.

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mimi's picture

why would it be sarcastic to say vote for Bernie. I kind of think right now that's who I would support. I just don't know if it's impossible for him to run as independent or with a third party. Do people want to work on a movement to support Bernie? Are you against Bernie? You mean "the world order would also be wunderbar", if one would vote for Bernie, because nothing will change, no matter what and who we ever you support?

As always... confused...

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Big Al's picture

won't stop the quest for the New World Order. I'm certainly not against Bernie, I just don't believe that voting
for him will do any good. His candidacy might bring some discussion of the issues that we might not have without
him running, but in the end voting for him won't change a thing.
Keep in mind that I've gone as far as Regional Runner-up in the National Cynicism Tournament so you're talking to
quite the accomplished cynic. I plan on winning Regionals next year, Smile

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mimi's picture

and you could be a sure winner and not only a runner-up for Presidential candidate. Run, run, Big Al. Smile

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JayRaye's picture

Guy Miller, President of the Telluride Miners' Union of the Western Federation of Miners:

"The end justifies the means," nay, more, it determines the means. When the rights of the many are to be subserved in the interest of a few, a combination of force and fraud is necessary. The combination has been effected and used, whether successful or not, and if so, how long, belongs to the future.

[Emphasis added.]

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

Big Al's picture

I hate that. It's like every generation has to go through the same thing then time runs out and
it's the next generation's turn.

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chuckvw's picture

with each generation, at least in my lifetime.

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You should only listen to both sides when one side isn't totally full of shit. -Jim Jefferies

shaharazade's picture

in a sick way to watch my now 'adult' granddaughter come to the same conclusion her grandmother has. It's rigged she says Oh Boy. And yet her love of life and humanity and all that's good is kicking in. Will she take to the streets and take it down? No but the human spirit will prevail. May be we're in for hell on earth but seriously I do believe we will overcome someday. Both she and I have some kind of faith in this as do many humans globally. It's everybody's turn to stand up to this. Generations come full circle they have to to survive.

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JayRaye's picture

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

chuckvw's picture

I know my two very "liberal" senators, Cantwell and Murray, will support fast track. They are never primaried. But... gay marriage... I mean no offense here, but issues like gay marriage and gun control are used to establish progressive bona fides when our pols are selling us out on the, at this point, existential issues of economic fairness, war, and the environment.

If she says anything at all, Clinton will express concerns that "workers will be protected", but that she feels confidence that dems like Wyden and Obama will do the right thing. This will actually be a good test of her recently arrived at populism. I'm pretty sure it's a test she'll fail, not that the faithful over at dkos will care.

I repeat, we don't have a party.

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You should only listen to both sides when one side isn't totally full of shit. -Jim Jefferies

shaharazade's picture

it's now nothing but a propaganda arm for the Dem. establishment and the status quo they once challenged. Just forget about them other then entertaining yourself by tweaking the brainwashed morons that now own and stalk the site. Was it ever for real? I now doubt it. Who knows if nothing else in this strange world I have learned it's to let go of what you thought was real and turns out to to be the opposite. Back out and find a new route to where you want to go. Dkos is nowhere a dead end for the koolaide drinker's on the Democratic side of pig ignorant idiots. It's all through the looking glass time at this point. Read it and weep. Where can you find any relief not even on say Digby where the Dems are still touted as the only solution. They are not. Do not believe the fictitious storyline offered. Don't accept their view of history or current events they freaking twist and lie. Everyday I read the news and everyday regardless of the source I have to read between the lines and try top sort the bs out. How does MacJoan sleep at night or even MB for that matter. What Quislings they are who cloak their propaganda, fear and misdirection behind useless fear. The only reason I can figure out is that Marcos pays them for this garbage. Who knows perhaps they always we're brainwashed lemmings and I was too hepped up on my own trip to notice.

I read the news today, oh boy

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gulfgal98's picture

You keep channeling my own thoughts with so much more clarity than I ever could! Thanks, Shaz!

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

shaharazade's picture

to sort out anything these days. Up is down and people globally and here just seem so divided by the lines the masters of the universe have drawn. You can try online to look for some truth, some humanistic overriding viewpoint but they all just abide by what is happening. It's all reactionary because no one can figure out how to challenge or contradict the reality that has been carefully constructed. We puny humans have no chance against the powers that be so give in and stop resisting. It's so strange to me as an artist that the artist's globally are not fighting this 'world as we find it'. Maybe they are and have no access to get it out there. I think people everywhere are demoralized and overwhelmed as it's too damn big to take on, They stick to the reality that is more comforting, palatable and tells them that if we slay the dragon of extremist Islamist's or Republicans it will be a groovy corporatist world with out end. I don't think or believe that humans will except this new world order both here or globally. It may take time but the dark side is pushing it's limit with the reality we all live in. I hope the reality they have created will be their down fall.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

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Big Al's picture

International Court of Justice. Bring a lawsuit and a petition with over two billion signatures on it with
the simple demand that the planet, all countries, must end rule by the rich. It's always been that way,
always will be that way unless the human race can come together and decide basically collectively that it
must end.

I know, fantastical, but the problem is fantastical. We have to come up with something big or just let it happen
the way it's going to happen.

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Shahryar's picture

a lot of her critics (43+ / 0-)

have such an obvious visceral hatred of her that they are impervious to reason. and then there's also the republicans.

note the 43 recs. They're all bots**. So that's Turk's new group.

Hey, there's more!

hillary is no neoliberal (0+ / 0-)

she's not even close.

at least that comment got ignored

** - Radiowalla, Iberian, high uintas, virginislandsguy, Gator Keyfitz, Curt Matlock, Lying eyes, xaxnar, Pacifist, cpresley, Lysis, puakev, gchaucer2, OIL GUY, roberb7, TomP, Tchrldy, pamelabrown, BoiseBlue, Denise Oliver Velez, joe from Lowell, cassandraX, gramofsam1, Susan Grigsby, petesmom, Front Toward Enemy, xarkGirl, StellaRay, Jerry056, ridemybike, NoFortunateSon, isabelle hayes, katesmom, jan4insight, Smoh, suka, CwV, paulex, WI Lurker, Kincaid Brock, mallyroyal, orlbucfan, poco

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Shahryar's picture

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1378042/56140056

there follows a whole lot of lack of understanding of a point that's made.

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Big Al's picture

"Hillary is no neoliberal" Period the end.

I bet he's won him some debates along the way.

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JayRaye's picture

over there at DK. "Not even close." ???

1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a modern politico-economic theory favouring free trade, privatization, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services, etc
2. (Economics) a modern politico-economic theory favouring free trade, privatization, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services, etc

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

cybrestrike's picture

That last comment was in response to me, when I showed him concrete evidence that Clinton was a neoliberal. Just like Obama and every member of the Democratic leadership.

I wanted to respond with more evidence, but it wouldn't have mattered. He's like Armando, who doesn't think that the deregulation of Wall Street didn't lead to the meltdown in 2008.

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gulfgal98's picture

and it blew me away that he could be so willfully blind. It is one thing to rationalize her candidacy, but another to completely declare that she is not a neo liberal. Turkana was a fairly cool guy, but Lawrence Lewis has become just another party shill over there. The whole place has already gone crazy and blinded to reality. In early 2014, I predicted that if Hillary wins, dkos will become totally irrelevant. I was wrong. They already are except their role as the most visible propaganda site for Third Way Democrats.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

mimi's picture

explaining neo-liberalism. Thanks for that in hindsight. They were helpful to me. What is the Sam Seder Majority Report site? Is that something you follow regularly? Did Sam Seder post on DK? Again something I completely missed?

I can't believe how difficult it seems to be for many Americans to support a black or female candidate for their policies and forget about their gender and race.

That's a man trying to be very reasonable. I can't help thinking he wouldn't go through this whole thought process, if the black or female candidate would be one of those crazy Republicans, wouldn't he? (Bachmann? Alan West?)
So, why does the gender and race play such a difficult role, when it comes to Democratic candidates? Among both, black and female democratic voters, there are disputes about what kind of policies and ideology to follow, but then people start thnking and behaving like they don't exist. They seem to make their decision about whom to vote for or against based on their moral loyalty "obligations" to their gender/race. That seems to be hard to overcome.

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mimi's picture


What Hillary Clinton Should Remember as She Courts Black Voters

The seductive power of ONE visual or ONE clip in a video on the internet is just mind-boggling, but to millions of people who live in misery pretty irrelevant.
How much are we all unaware of the bubbles we create, live in and believe are "the real thing"?

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lotlizard's picture

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