Hey kids, let’s give Lame Duck Barry a bunch of new, secret powers
On Thursday, the GOP-led US Senate blessed the fast-tracking of the Obama-negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
agreement. It passed pretty much along a party line vote — with Ted Cruz, Richard Burr, Lindsey Graham, and Tim Scott all voting in favor.
Here’s the kicker:
There is a huge paradox surrounding what is supposed to be the crowning achievement of Obama’s second term, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a bill whose contents virtually nobody is familiar with or will be before it passes into law.
That’s not the paradox: the paradox is that back in October 2009, the White House Press secretary said that “the President has returned to a stance of transparency and ethics that hasn’t been matched by any other White House…. the President believes strongly in transparency… that transparency in that way in the best policy.”
Or to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
And yet while everyone seems to have an opinion on the final formulation of the TPP bill, especially Elizabeth Warren and her circle of progressive democrats who have emerged as the bill’s most vocal critics, the truth is that none have actually read it for the simple reason that anyone who is familiar with its text could be jailed for disclosing its contents.
Most transparent administration indeed.
We won’t even comment that those who don’t care to have their opinion made public and do have access to the bill have also not read the massive bill which layers giveaway upon giveaway to mega corporations: in fact the only ones who are intimately familiar with the TPP’s
contents are those who drafted it: America’s multinational corporations whose shareholders will be the biggest beneficiaries of the TPP.
And yet someone appears to have finally read Obama’s TPP: that someone is Michael Wessel, a cleared liaison to two statutory advisory committees and a commissioner on the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission, as well as the international trade co-chair for the Kerry-Edwards Presidential Campaign.
Earlier today, Wessel wrote an article in Politico titled “I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned” which we agree with wholeheartedly because while one may or may not disgree whether the US economy will benefit from a trade agreement which anecdotally benefits large multinationals, it should be unanimous that America’s transformation into a secretive, klepto-fascist state controlled by corporations is catastrophic for not only the republic but America’s people, or at least those who are not among the 0.001% who stand to benefit from the TPP. [,,,]
That’s right. The SAME crew that fussed about having to vote on ObamaCare without even knowing what’s in it pushed through a major Obama bill that can get you thrown in jail if you publicly divulge its contents.
Matt Drudge rightfully blew a gasket over this whole deal.
Of course Richard Burr voted for President Obama on this. What do you expect? Paul Shumaker is Burr’s consultant, the very same Paul Shumaker who is helping us in the hard core environmental movement get President Obama’s green energy policies passed in the NC General Assembly.
No international trade agreement has ever helped the American people only the oligarchs that are running our government and the multinational corporations ever benefit. It is time to take our country back.
The TPP includes Mexico and Canada, not just Asian countries. I have a feeling that part of what is being hidden is that it will solidify the North American Union arrangement, complete with open borders, without actually declaring it. And we won’t know until it is passed and the text is public. This thing also has a “living ageement” component and will continue to evolve.
http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2015/5/sessions-sends-letter-to-obama-on-trade-pact-make-living-agreement-provision-public-before-fast-track-vote
When they ask you to vote for Richard Burr next year, remember that he voted to enable Obama on this pile of crap. Conservatives need to be gearing up to replace Burr as our nominee in the primary. Burr, like McConnell, is an Obama enabler.