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.

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.

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.

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.

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.]