Mitch McConnell Pledges Fast Action For TPP & TTIP

[RiverLover]

Mitch McConnell Pledges Fast Action For Secretive Trade Deals
1/7/15

The last grant of fast track authority, formally known as Trade Promotion Authority, expired in 2007. It allowed the president to negotiate trade deals without consulting Congress and to sign the agreements on his own.

...Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) adamantly opposed granting that power to Obama in the last Congress while he was majority leader, but McConnell said Wednesday that he would make TPA a priority.

I’m happy the president has now become a born-again free trader. It’s high time," McConnell said. "He’s only got two years left, and we think this is an area where we can make progress and you can look for us to act on TPA."

The negotiations over and proposed contents of the two huge deals that TPA would facilitate are secret, except for leaks about the deals that have sparked alarm from labor and environmental advocates, among others.

But McConnell said giving Obama the power to proceed would be an example of Republicans coming together with Democrats to accomplish the goals of the American people, much in the way he said the Senate will pass with some Democratic support the controversial Keystone pipeline bill and new curbs on Obamacare.

He did concede that many Democrats oppose fast track authority, but said it would be up to Obama to keep them in line.

"This is an area where I think we can do something important for the country," McConnell said at his Capitol Hill news conference. "The big challenge for the president is going to be to get his own members to give him the authority to negotiate this deal and to send it up to us. He’s going to have to stand up to the AFL-CIO. He’s going to have to stand up to the political left of his party and help us do something important for the American people in the middle, the moderate center."

"What the American people are saying is they want us to look for areas of agreement, and this certainly is one of them," McConnell said....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/07/mcconnell-fast-track_n_6432118.html

An 'area of agreement'...yeah, to help corporations gain sovereignty over local governments. I love how he frames this. The Moderate Center...utter BS.

The problem is the only way they'll bring it to vote is WITHOUT the people WHO VOTED to be able to know what's in it, or our REPRESENTATIVES to have a say in what's in it.

If it was good for us at all, there'd be no need to "fast-track" it.

[randys1]

1. America is under attack

[RiverLover]

4. Yep. It's a corporate takeover. Just one ex of the ramifications~

[raouldukelives]

8. Yep, by Americans who claim to stand for democracy but fund & assist the attckers against it.

It'd be like an ASPCA member who would profit from dog fighters to fund animal rescues.
No amount of donations to the cause could ever reverse the downward trend they are directly responsible for.
At the most. it makes them feel good. Luckily for them, that is all that matters.

[Vincardog]

2. Feck them and a plague on their house

[villager]

3. "I’m happy the president has now become a born-again free trader. It’s high time"

Pretty much tells you all need to know about the White House position on this.

[RiverLover]

5. He's been working on it for six years. nt

[B Calm]

6. Of course he will. Republicans want these trade deals, then they sit on their

hemorrhoid ass and point their shit stained finger at democrats for the next 30 years, just like they did with NAFTA.

[pampango]

7. Not that you will care, Mitch, but your base will not be happy about that.

Poll: conservative and moderate republicans oppose fast track (for the TPP) by a ratio of 85 percent or higher.

On the question of fast-track authority, 62 percent of respondent opposed the idea, with 43 percent “strongly” opposing it. Broken down by political affiliation, only Democrats that identify as “liberal” strongly favor the idea. Predictably, a strong Republican majority oppose giving the president such authority, with both conservative and moderates oppose it by a ratio of 85 percent or higher.

http://www.ibtimes.com/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-poll-only-strongest-obama-supporters-want-him-have-fast-track-1552039

As with NAFTA where some conservative Pat Buchanan-style nationalists saw a transnational corporate threat to U.S. sovereignty, some normally pro-corporate members of Congress are adopting an oppositional stance. The Republican opposition to the TPP includes Tea Partiers Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and over 20 others. According to Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign which is leading opposition to the TPP, the stance of these Republicans goes beyond their seemingly-reflexive opposition to any Obama initiative.

While a number of Tea Party Republicans voted in favor of the three Obama-promoted free-trade agreements in 2011, they are viewing the TPP differently because of its magnitude and due to pressure from the Republican base. “Because of its massive size, the TPP has captured a lot more attention from the Right than the Korea pact ever did,” Stamoulis says. “With Republicans’ base much more engaged on the TPP—the Tea Party Nation and others opposing it—I expect to see a lot more Republican opposition this time around, and indeed, we already are seeing that.” The visceral dislike of Obama by many on the Right may add fuel to rightist opposition to the TPP and the fast-track procedure, Stamoulis concedes, but he points out that opposition to corporate-style globalization has been mounting among Republican voters for some time. “Polls showed that Republican voters’ opposition to free-trade agreements existed back during the Bush administration as well,” he notes.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/22547-obamas-pacific-deal-would-deepen-income-divide