Disappointed' in Obama, Sanders Calls on Top Dems to Drop Lame Duck TPP Push

[villager]

Hillary Clinton may not have heeded progressives' call to clearly say she'll urge the White House and her fellow party members to oppose a "lame-duck" vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership, but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has done just that, calling on Democratic Congressional leadership to publicly oppose a post-Election Day vote on the "job-killing trade deal."

On Friday, as Politico reports, the White House sent lawmakers a draft, as required by "fast track" or trade promotion authority, that "describes the major steps the administration will take to implement any changes to U.S. law required by the deal." That notification comes a week after Obama said he expected Congress to pass the deal in the lame duck session.

Sanders said in his statement that he was "disappointed by the president's decision to continue pushing forward on the disastrous Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement that will cost American jobs, harm the environment, increase the cost of prescription drugs, and threaten our ability to protect public health."

"In my view, it is now time for the leadership of the Democratic Party​ in the Senate and the House to join Secretary Clinton and​ go on the record in opposition to holding a vote on this job-killing trade deal during the lame-duck session of Congress and beyond," he added.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group that has campaigned against the deal, said the president's "continued insistence on holding a lame-duck vote on the TPP is hurting Democratic chances of success this November—and helping Donald Trump's chances with blue collar voters."

<snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/08/12/disappointed-obama-sanders-calls-top-dems-drop-lame-duck-tpp-push

[msongs]

1. is bernie waking up from his post-convention sleep? nt

[villager]

2. Well, TPP's rise from the near-dead could be considered a rude awakening. nt

[CentralMass]

3. No. He is obviously reacting to Presidents push to have the dems sign the TPP

[ananda]

4. Thank you, Senator Sanders!

Where's Warren on this?

[FreakinDJ]

26. +1000

[doc03]

5. Why the hell is Obama bringing this up again? My guess is he knows the Republicans will

vote for it but there won't be enough Democrats willing to vote for it to pass it. It will show the hypocrisy of the Republicans, just like when they voted for NAFTA but now disown it and blame it on Bill Clinton.

[villager]

6. You're saying his actual reason for bringing up a policy he clearly advocates...

...is to (actually) discredit Republicans?

[doc03]

7. I don't get it with Trump against TPP and Sanders, Clinton, Warren and

probably the overwhelming majority of Democrats opposing it why would he want to open that can of worms now? That kind of puts
Hillary and Democrats running for re-election in an awkward position.

[Egnever]

13. Because he thinks it is the right thing to do?

You may disagree but that has little bearing on his thinking.

I have yet to hear a substantive case for what is wrong with the tpp besides so and so says it is bad so it must be.

[doc03]

15. You haven't noticed we have lost all our good paying manufacturing jobs? nt

[Egnever]

36. What does that have to do with the Tpp?

[doc03]

42. From what the opponents to TPP say TPP is NAFTA on steroids that's what. Everyone made

Ross Perot out to be crazy but in my opinion he was dead on about that giant sucking sound.

[Egnever]

46. From what the opponents say...

This is exactly why I don't take these posts seriously.

The majority of. People posting how bad the tpp is only do so because they have heard how bad it is based on nothing more than opinion.

Forget that sexy headlines get clicks no matter how full of shit the article is.

Thing is I actually wondered why Obama would push something so seemingly awful.

Till the actual text was released it was like shadow boxing. Because the claims of it's evilness spread based on snippets of text supposedly from the tpp describing the corporate give away.

Then a funny thing happened and the text was released and almost over night the stories mostly disappeared..

I found that incredibly odd so I sat down one evening and started reading it... I had trouble finding any of the nonsense posted about it. It is full of legal language and is not the easiest read but it pretty quickly became apparent that most of those articles were bullshit.

So then I started reading the studies that were being done on its predicted effect and once Again the doom and gloom time after time came out just untrue in the models they ran on it.

One would think since the text is public it would be pretty easy to write out an article that says hey look at this section right here it is full of evil incarnations read them yourself.. The common theme in all the articles I have read on it so far is none of them do that.

It all relies on well so and so claims it would be bad... Before the actual text was released... Blah blah

So bottom line I am open to hearing why it's so bad but the text is available point it out just don't say it is bad based on your opinion and expect me to buy it.

I watched too much uninformed bs over the ACA like death panels to take opinion pieces at face value any more. Especially when they are a vehicle to bash Obama.

[doc03]

47. Let me see a list of labor unions that back TPP n/t

[Egnever]

48. Again not an argument of it's ills

Trade unions oppose lots of things just because a trade union is against it does not mean it is necessarily bad.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/20/why-are-unions-so-focused-on-fighting-trade-deals/

Half of all U.S. workers represented by unions work for governments, and another 12% are in education or health care. Trade has very little direct impact on them. Another 20% of workers represented by unions are in construction, wholesaling, retailing or transportation doing jobs that are largely immune from import competition. Less than 10% of all the workers that U.S. unions represent today are in manufacturing or agriculture, the industries most exposed to harm from globalization. Trade creates winners and losers; a small fraction of union workers are among the obvious losers.

So with states passing right-to-work laws, Congress pressuring the National Labor Relations Board, the tax code rewarding big corporations that move overseas, funding for education, training and infrastructure under pressure middle-income wages stagnating across the whole economy, why so much union energy devoted to fighting TPP?

At this point union workers are mostly immune to trade agreements as most manufacturing already shed the unions years ago. Blame that on right to work states and republican propaganda against the unions. Bottom line though is the vast majority of union members will be almost entirely unaffected by the TPP when it comes to job impacts which by the way from almost all models run on the TPP impacts have been negligible.

If the models are to be believed the impact of TPP on jobs overall should be small gains mostly from an increase in trade world wide or worst case small losses. With that however you get much better environmental and labor standards along with mechanisms to resolve disputes in countries where the court systems are less honorable than supposedly ours are.

I am all for unions and think they need to become much more prevalent than they are today that does not mean i think they are infallible or that their desires necessarily reflect what is best for the country.

[FreakinDJ]

27. Can't beleive you missed the 100s of threads here at DU illustrating all thats wrong

with the TPP

Selective reading doesn't make it right

[Egnever]

35. Oh I have seen hundreds of posts decrying how evil it is

Not a single one of them able to point to any actual text and lay out the case. Lots of its secret so it is bad or here is a leaked snipet we think is bad.

Having said that the text has been available for a couple of months now and since it's release there have been crickets.

Should be quite simple to lay out all the horror of the tpp since the full text is there to be picked apart yet it just isn't happening.

What I see instead is lots of baseless nonsense posted over and over by people I would lay money have never actually bothered to look at it.

Same thing happened with Obamacare lots of reports of others opinion with little or no citation of actual legislation.

I get it people have busy lives they don't have time to read the actual agreements so they go with the opinion of sites they usually agree with.

That said I have read most of it and I have read the studies on its projected impact and I am not seeing the evil empire people keep trying to profess. Quite the opposite actually. I see a lot of labor and environmental protection being added to places we are already trading with.

I am happy to read any article you care to provide me with that has something in it besides doom and gloom with no citation of the sections they find so troubling.

I look forward to seeing one.

[amandabeech]

19. He wouldn't push it unless he thought that he could get it through.

Last edited Mon Aug 15, 2016, 12:13 AM - Edit history (1)

Obama is excellent on many things.

His insistence on the TPP is NOT one of them.

The TPP does not allow disputes to be settled in a court of law.

Instead, disputes go to non-court "arbitrators" in which international corporate lawyers who are called "arbitrators" will rule on cases, not real judges.

There almost is no appeal of the corporate lawyers' decisions to a real court with real rules on evidence and procedure.

The little guy or small company or your town that wants to buy local will lose every time and the big international corporations will always win.

The TPP should be called the Corporate Profits Protection Treaty 'cause that's the only thing that it does.

[grubbs]

31. Ahem

No US company has ever lost a case with these arbitrators. Has it occurred to anyone that we have only 5 percent of the worlds population and without trade agreements we would be crushed like bugs in the dust? We are not fascists. Companies can do business from anywhere.

[amandabeech]

33. Ahem. The big companies will sue the small companies and state and local

governments here and in the other signatory countries.

Big US multinationals have nothing to fear.

The Big US companies' friends are the arbitors.

[Egnever]

40. Aaand not a word of that true..

Not sure where you are getting this stuff from but it is provably false.

The text is available. I would suggest you stop listening to whoever is telling you this stuff and go actually read it.

[Egnever]

38. more ahem

Those arbiters are picked on a case by case basis. Each side gets to pick one and the third has to be agreed upon by both parties.

Hardly a stacked court.

It's garbage like you posted above that leaves me unable to take most of what is posted on here about the TPP seriously.

Don't know where you got the notion what you posted is correct but here is actual text from the TPP

Article 28.9: Composition of Panels
1. A panel shall be composed of three members.
2. Unless the disputing Parties agree otherwise, they shall apply the
following procedures to compose a panel:
(a) Within a period of 20 days after the date of delivery of the request
for the establishment of a panel under Article 28.7.1
(Establishment of a Panel), the complaining Party or Parties, on the
one hand, and the responding Party, on the other, shall each
appoint a panellist and notify each other of those appointments.
(b) If the complaining Party or Parties fail to appoint a panellist within
the period specified in subparagraph (a), the dispute settlement
proceedings shall lapse at the end of that period.
(c) If the responding Party fails to appoint a panellist within the period
specified in subparagraph (a), the complaining Party or Parties
shall select the panellist not yet appointed:
(i) from the responding Party’s list established under Article
28.11.9 (Roster of Panel Chairs and Party Specific Lists);
(ii) if the responding Party has not established a list under
Article 28.11.9 (Roster of Panel Chairs and Party Specific
Lists), from the roster of panel chairs established under
Article 28.11 (Roster of Panel Chairs and Party Specific
Lists); or
(iii) if the responding Party has not established a list under
Article 28.11.9 (Roster of Panel Chairs and Party Specific
Lists) and no roster of panel chairs has been established
under Article 28.11 (Roster of Panel Chairs and Party
Specific Lists), by random selection from a list of three
candidates nominated by the complaining Party or Parties,
no later than 35 days after the date of delivery of the request for the
establishment of a panel under Article 28.7.1 (Establishment of a
Panel).
(d) For appointment of the third panellist, who shall serve as chair:
(i) the disputing Parties shall endeavour to agree on the
appointment of a chair;

And it goes on to lay out how they can equitably come to agreement on the chair.

Nothing at all like you described.

[Egnever]

39. Aaand since I am aheming Here's more of it.

"The TPP does not allow disputes to be settled in a court of law."

Again not true.

Actual text from the TPP

1. Parties may at any time agree to voluntarily undertake an alternative
method of dispute resolution, such as good offices, conciliation or mediation.
2. Proceedings that involve good offices, conciliation or mediation shall be
confidential and without prejudice to the rights of the Parties in any other
proceedings.
3. Parties participating in proceedings under this Article may suspend or
terminate those proceedings at any time.
4. If the disputing Parties agree, good offices, conciliation or mediation may
continue while the dispute proceeds for resolution before a panel established
under Article 28.7 (Establishment of a Panel).

[tritsofme]

8. Obama will clear the deck for Clinton in the lame duck. TPP will pass and Garland will be confirmed.

[doc03]

9. Then the Democrats will have to wear TPP around their neck just like NAFTA.

Could he leave TPP for Clinton to sign?

[Egnever]

10. Just like they have to wear the ACA

to hear the people here tell it at the time that was also a disaster. Hard to buy the talking points those same folks are spreading now.

[villager]

12. More like their Iraq war votes. nt

[amandabeech]

20. And the problems in Libya and Syria.

It's just wonderful that we now have boots on the ground in Libya.

Talk about disasters.

Wasn't Iraq enough?

[villager]

22. Hey, when disasters are *this* profitable...

Not only from the war contracts, and excess spending, but by keeping the country on a "war footing," you get to keep those troubling "civil rights" in abeyance. Certainly on the "surveillance" side...!

[amandabeech]

23. We're not much better than our enemies with this surveillance.

If we were not involved in these crazy adventures, there would have been much less reason to watch us as we surf the net.

It is just appalling.

[villager]

24. But... we're "free!"

I mean, not actually, but it sure makes a good slogan!

[amandabeech]

25. If they say so.

Sometimes its easy to identify with dissidents in the Soviet Union.

[tritsofme]

11. Obama negotiated the agreement...Why would he want to kick the can down the road?

[yurbud]

14. if Dems wanted to win , they'd vote this down BEFORE the election

That would assume that winning is more important than kowtowing to Wall Street and corporations.

[Faryn Balyncd]

43. The 2 most important priorities are (1)winning this election, & (2) defeating TPP.

and, while burying the TPP will definitely help with the most important priority, keeping a Lame Duck vote on the TPP on the table is damaging the top priority.


You are absolutely right.

[yurbud]

44. When DLCers lose, they blame progressives but ignore the gun in their own hand and the holes in

their feet.

[villager]

45. "Guns don't kill our election chances -- those pesky liberals do!" nt

[nationalize the fed]

16. k&r

Candidate Obama: "NAFTA Was A Mistake"

Sir James Goldsmith tried to explain this. It's not rocket science. If China makes everything are there enough hamburgers to flip or insurance policies to sell? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[amandabeech]

21. We're having problems with China and their navy in the South China Sea.

If we go to war with them, there will be nothing in our stores.

I don't like to cowtow to them, but granting Most Favored Nations Trading Status to them was a real mistake.

[FreakinDJ]

28. China won't go to war because they can't afford it

China collects 25% tax plus 10% VAT on all those goods sold to the USA

[amandabeech]

29. They take the long, long, long view.

They'll take the hit commercially if they think that their existence is threatened, or if they think that they will come out better in the long run.

The only thing I learned in world history class was that the Chinese think that they are the Middle Kingdom and the rest of us are barbarians.

Commercial ties don't always mean peace. The European powers traded with one another all the time before WWI. Ships and railroad cars were moving all over, except with the Russians, the goods had to be transferred to very wide gauge Russian cars at the frontier. You know how that turned out.

So I don't hold with the theory as much as many people do.

[Doremus]

17. Once again proving he's still got our backs. Thank you Sen. Sanders.

Wish your integrity and intelligence would rub off on a few more Dems.

[villager]

18. Exactly. On both counts. nt

[riderinthestorm]

32. Yup. K&R nt

[UMTerp01]

30. Rolling my eyes...LITERALLY!!!!

[nolabels]

41. Yea, but all those that wish for the monstrosity are only seeing is rolls of cash

When you give someone the choice of self-dignity or wealth, nine times out of ten they seem to chose the money .

[Faryn Balyncd]

34. DFA PETITION to Hillary Clinton: Ask White House to oppose Lame Duck TPP Vote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028099028

[cali]

37. He's not alone. John Conyers wrote a very strong piece about his opposition to an LD vote