Today’s riddle: how can Dubya’s final days produce more blessings than Obama’s finale? Answer: Dubya spawned reform while Obama aborted it. Dubya’s reign so jolted the world a multitude rose up and, swayed by campaign sizzle, elected a smiley face minority pledging systemic reform. Thus, the hardwon silver lining payoff for Dubya’s fiasco politics. When Obama, the liberal hustler who …
10 Reasons the TPP Is Not a ‘Progressive’ Trade Agreement by Ralph Nader
“We have an opportunity to set the most progressive trade agreement in our nation’s history,” it states on BarackObama.com, the website of the president’s “Organizing for Action” campaign. One must seriously question what President Obama and his corporate allies believe to be the definition of “progressive” when it comes to this grandiose statement. History shows the very opposite of progress …
Food, Water, Health, Life: UN Experts Warn of Threats Posed by Secret ‘Trade’ Deals by Sarah Lazare
Echoing the protests of civil society organizations and social movements around the world, a panel of United Nations experts on Tuesday issued a stark warning about the threats that secret international “trade” agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pose to the most fundamental human rights. “Our concerns relate to the rights to life, food, water and sanitation, health, housing, education, science …
Is US Trade Rep a Wall Street Crony? Groups Demand Transparency. – Deirdre Fulton
Noting deep ties between the country’s top trade negotiator and Wall Street banks, ten groups representing millions of Americans are calling on the White House to make public all communications between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the massive financial institutions that stand to benefit from proposed trade deals. In a letter (pdf) addressed to Froman—lead champion of President Barack Obama’s corporate-friendly …
In Search of the Democratic Soul – Richard Eskow
A Google search for the phrase “soul of the Democratic Party” yields thousands of hits, because the struggle for that soul has been a perennial subject of debate. I’ve probably used the phrase myself. But after a week spent tracking the independent left’s political progress, I’ve become even more convinced that politicians should seek the soul of the country instead. Tap into that, and the …
The Hidden ‘Betrayal’ In Obama’s Trade Agenda – Laura Barron-Lopez
As Congress prepares to give President Barack Obama expedited powers to “fast-track” trade deals through Congress, many U.S. steel mills and skeptics of Obama’s trade agenda are worried about steel dumping, the term commonly used to describe countries selling steel below market price. In an interview with The Huffington Post on Tuesday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the many …
The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Deeply Flawed Partnership – Mel Gurtov
The American people have become used to government trickery in foreign affairs—wars and interventions based on lies and falsified evidence, “national security” used to justify the whittling away of privacy, classification of documents to hide embarrassing disclosures, massaging of budget figures to mask outrageous spending on arms, and demands for new weapons when already in possession of an unmatched conventional …
Obama’s Ugly Show of Presidential Petulance – Jim Hightower
When the going got tough, Barack got in a huff, and then he got gruff. President Obama has worked himself into such a tizzy over the TPP that he’s lashing out at his progressive friends in Congress. He’s mad because they refuse to be stereotypical lemmings, following him over this political cliff called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It masquerades as a …
Trans-Pacific Partnership-Related Bill Contains A Medicare Poison Pill – Diane Archer
New disturbing information has surfaced that the House Republicans’ trade adjustment assistance bill, which supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, contains a Medicare poison pill. The bill includes $700 million in Medicare cuts at the end of a 10-year budget period to cover the cost of trade adjustment assistance for displaced workers, Americans who will lose their jobs because …
The Democratic Party Would Triangulate Its Own Mother – Matt Taibbi
Barack Obama made headlines this week by taking on Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a dispute over our latest labor-crushing free trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The president’s anger over Warren’s decision to lead the Senate in blocking his authority to fast-track the TPP was heavily covered by the Beltway media, which loves a good intramural food fight. It was quite …