about what is in that document.

Trading in unknowns in boxes and behind curtains is a TV game show.

It's not the transparent government you promised to deliver.

the citation that proves what you say!

weren't involved, Obama is selling us down the river, the dispute mechanism that has been in effect since 1959 in most trade agreements is something new, and much more boarding on outright lies.

Surely, you can respond to one of the inaccuracies I mentioned.

I'll just quote the response I made to you in a different thread, where you were pointing to the official membership of the Labor Advisory Committee as a purported indication of the close involvement of the unions.

I direct your attention to "Labor's So-Called 'Seat at the Table' at TPP Negotiations" on the AFL-CIO website.

The whole piece is very much worth reading but I'll note only the highlights. A couple specific questions are answered:

The part that I will quote in full addresses the Advisory Committees that you make so much of:



So, as to these window-dressing Advisory Committees, the old joke applies: Labor is holding the reins but they're not attached to the horses.

Here's the view of the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on the current relevance of the process:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/trans-pacific-partnership-state-laws-117127.html

But, even with those increases, few are successful, and the countries just keep asking for more agreements because they want and need trade.

They especially want companies to feel secure opening operations, with jobs, in their countries. So the dispute mechanism is not going away.

It seems, however, to be an issue whose solution will need to be more than tweaking.

Specifically, it is clear that the Investor-State Dispute Resolution process within agreements that are nominally "trade" agreements have evolved (and are continuing to evolve) into vehicles that can bypass all manner of regulations (including but not limited to environmental law, labor law, intellectual property law, safety and health regulations, labeling regulations) by all levels of governmental entities including federal, state, and local.

The fact that an agreement with such broad consequences, which invalidates federal, state, and local laws and regulations, can be presented as merely a "free trade agreement", and that it is considered appropriate for Congress to enact a process in which such a broad agreement be handled in a special, expedited manner (one which surrenders in advance Congress's ability to amend, backed up with the power vested in Congress's ability to threaten filibuster) seems almost impossible to reconcile with a respect for democratic governance.

Any SINGLE AREA so effected (revising labor laws, revising environmental laws, revising labeling regulations, revising intellectual property laws would, each on its own merits, be an issue that BY ITSELF would rightly generate intense debate, and be inconceivable to be considered appropriately granted a path to law which eliminated, in advance, Congress's ability to amend or, in the absence of being able to reach a satisfactory consensus, threaten filibuster.

If anyone were asked (by, for example, a representative of interests that would prefer to eliminate "regulations&quot how to formulate a vehicle in which to enable a bypass of such multiple forms of democratic regulation by all levels of government, to also set up an extrajudicial, essentially sovereign dispute resolution system, and a method of enactment that would allow many issues to be bundled and framed under a nice label, such as "free trade", could one possibly even think of a more effective way to do this than by the ISDR process that has evolved within recent "trade agreements"?

And, even if you are confident that issue that you agree with (the problematic extrajudicial tribunals in the TPP) can be fixed by Obama "tweaking" the TPP, how can you be comfortable with giving whoever may happen to be president for the next 4 years the power to expedite through Congress whatever that president wants to hide within a "trade treaty", and be able to do so with a weakened Congress that cannot amend, whose minority cannot threaten to filibuster, and whose majority cannot even remove any future proposed "trade agreement" for the next 6 years from the Fast Track process without a supermajority?

What are your thoughts on that?

Last edited Tue Apr 21, 2015, 08:23 PM - Edit history (1)

violate trade agreements to protect domestic industries.

The fact companies are using the dispute mechanism more doesn't mean the basic mechanism is wrong. If it were, countries wouldn't be signing these agreements with aribitration clauses that are pretty much the same as originally used in 1959.

Most of the disputes are unsuccessful.

Here's what Obama says, and he reiterated it today:
https://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/02/26/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds-questions-and-answers

dems, labor, liberal economists are right.

The President allies in this are some of the ugliest stains on the body politic and multinationals. Scum

Brookings Institute, government officials, etc.

And that's just for starters with the misinformation.

Elizabeth Warren acts like she's never heard of the arbitration aspects that have been in mist trade agreements since 1959. Maybe she hasn't heard of them, but they were right there all the timen

She talks about digging into the details of a "secret agreement." Well if the darn thing is "secret," where did you find those details.. She has spoken that the thing would be classified for 4 years after enactment, when that applied only to the negotiation documents and she should have known it.

She acts like all the countries involved, including the European Union are stupid or devious.

Truth us, she's playing politics with something very important.

At least Clinton laid out goals that it must meet for her to approve it. Warren is just spreading junk.

I sure as shit did not say that

And no, the organizations you claim were involved were not. Pulling shit out of your...... what is contemptible.

<snip>

The draft TPP text was kept secret from the general public. Who has seen it and why?

<snip>

The United States Trade Representative and the Obama administration have kept the treaty texts secret from the public. However, they have shared texts with 700 or so “cleared advisers,” all of whom come from intellectual property rights holders’ industries. Members of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights have had access to texts all along. These members include representatives of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Entertainment Software Association, as well as firms such as Gilead Sciences, Johnson and Johnson, Verizon, Cisco Systems, and General Electric.

Select members of Congress have had very limited access to the draft treaty texts. After Thursday’s leak of the intellectual property chapter it is obvious why the USTR and the Obama administration have insisted on secrecy. From this text it appears that the U.S. administration is negotiating for intellectual property provisions that it knows it could not achieve through an open democratic process. For example, it includes provisions similar to those of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that the European Parliament ultimately rejected. The United States appears to be using the non-transparent Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations as a deliberate end run around Congress on intellectual property, to achieve a presumably unpopular set of policy goals.

snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/15/five-key-questions-and-answers-about-the-leaked-tpp-text/

for you to see, if you care to look.

The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation
Africa-America Institute
Alliance of Western Milk Producers
American Butter Institute
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF)
American Sheep Industry Association, Inc.
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Audubon Naturalist Society
Boston University
Brookings Institution
Business Software Alliance
Commissioner, Miami Dade County
Consumers Union
Council of Great Lakes Governors
Council of State Governments
Dept. of Economic Dev. & Commerce
Duke University
Florida Farm Bureau Federation
Georgia Agricultural Commodity Commission for Peanuts
Institute for International Economics
Land O’ Lakes, Inc.
Maine House of Representatives
Maryland Department of Agriculture
Maryland Port Administration
Mayor/ Orlando, Florida
Mayor/City of Doral, Florida
Mississippi Development Authority
National Association of Attorneys General
National Center for State Courts
National Conference of State Legislatures
National Governors Association
North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
North Carolina Farm Bureau
Office of Governor of State of Washington
Office of Governor/New Jersey
Princeton Healthcare, Inc.
South Carolina Farm Bureau
South Carolina State Ports Authority
State of Arizona
State of Nevanda Global Trade & Investment
Supreme Court Chief Justice/Wisconsin
Texas A&M University
Texas Department of Agriculture
Texas Farm Bureau
Texas House of Representatives
The Humane Society of the United States
Treasurer, State of Nevada
United Auto Workers
United Farmers USA, Inc.
United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW)
Washington State Potato Commission


And there is also a Trade Labor Advisory Committee that includes the major unions.

USTR Labor Advisory Committee Members

Clayola Brown National President, A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI)
Thomas Buffenbarger International President, International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM)
Jim Clark President, International Union of Electronic, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers (IUE)
Leo Gerard International President, United Steelworkers (USW)
Raymond Hair President, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM), AFL-CIO/CLC

Joseph T. Hansen President, United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW)
Mary Kay Henry International President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Ed Hill International President, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
James P. Hoffa General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
Ken Howard President, Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
Gregory Junemann International President, International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE)
Richard Kline President,Union Label & Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Lee Moak President, International Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), AFL-CIO
Jorge Ramirez President, Chicago Federation of Labor
Cecil E. Roberts, Jr. President, United Mineworkers of America (UMWA)
Arturo Rodriguez President, United Farm Workers of America (UFW)
Sara Nelson International President, Association of Flight Atendants, AFL-CIO (CWA)
Lee Saunders President, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Richard Trumka President, American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Baldemar Velasquez President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
Randi Weingarten President, American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Dennis Williams President, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)
Forthcoming President, Transportation and Trades Department, AFL-CIO

stop making shit up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6543334



Here is what you said,

"here is a list of who did {have input into TPP}.

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/06/29/insider-list


Now, go to that link you provided trying to prove it was just a bunch of corporations -- I think you had read one of Bernie Sanders mistakes.

Go down about halfway and there is a link called "spreadsheet." Click on that and download the spreadsheet. YOU WILL FIND EVERYONE OF THOSE I POSTED ABOVE included on that list (you linked to).

Perfect example of what's going on here -- too many people who are quick to believe Obama is selling us down the river, and folks who will spread junk because they know very few -- if any -- are going to look it up. Or in your case, someone who believes junk they read without verifying it before providing links.

"More important than quantity of access, however, is quality of access. A seat on the LAC [Labor Advisory Committee] is not a seat at the negotiating table, much less an assurance that labor’s policy proposals will be incorporated into either the U.S. proposal or the final agreement. Because LAC members do not have access to the full negotiating texts, or to information regarding USTR priorities and choices, we cannot effectively influence the inevitable trade-offs in ways that would build the middle class and protect our democratic systems. And because we cannot share what little we do know with our membership or the larger public, we cannot use the traditional tools that civil society uses to offset the power of economic elites: education, organization, and mobilization of the public.

Perhaps the best proof, however, that the LAC has not been a valuable tool in creating people-centered trade agreements is the actual content of the final agreements. The AFL-CIO has criticized the vast majority of trade agreements since NAFTA. If these trade agreements worked to create good jobs for workers, the AFL-CIO would be fighting for them as hard as or harder than Wall Street and the global corporations do. The tragic fact is that—despite some marginal progress over the years in some chapters—the model hasn’t changed. This flawed model has led to many trade agreements that skew their benefits toward the 1% and have exacerbated trade deficits, wage suppression, the dismantling of our manufacturing sector and income inequality."

http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/Fast-Track-Legislation/Labor-s-So-Called-Seat-at-the-Table-at-TPP-Negotiations

Warren is a prominent legal scholar, and is among the most cited in her field.[4] She is an active consumer protection advocate whose scholarship led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren has written a number of academic and popular works, and is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and personal finance.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She later served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Barack Obama. During the late 2000s, she was recognized by publications such as the National Law Journal and the Time 100 as an increasingly influential public policy figure.



In 2009, the Boston Globe named her the Bostonian of the Year,[20] and the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Lelia J. Robinson Award.[95] She was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009, 2010, and 2015.[96] The National Law Journal repeatedly has named Warren as one of the Fifty Most Influential Women Attorneys in America,[97] and in 2010 it honored her as one of the 40 most influential attorneys of the decade.[98] In 2011, Elizabeth Warren was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.[99] In January 2012, Warren was named a "Top-20 U.S. Progressive" by the New Statesman, a magazine based in the United Kingdom.

In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's The Sacks–Freund Teaching Award for a second time.[101] She delivered the commencement address at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark in May 2011, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree and was conferred membership into the Order of the Coif.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

Alan Grayson

... till the final draft \ signed docs \ etc come out

said they did not have the expert information he had which was more modern etc than what those lefties were in possession of. That is 'regarding the safety of Oil Rigs'.

Guess he and his experts were wrong, as we found out not that we doubted it, 18 days after he admonished those who turned out to be right.

He trusts some pretty disreputable people as we have discovered.

75% of Americans oppose the TPP and some of our most credible Democrats.

So, I'll pass on his 'adisers', their record isn't so great so far.

Would it be that that many Americans didn't support it.

Let everyone see what's there. Then we'll talk about who is right and who is wrong.

More about spin - and trusting him as a champion for the middle class.

We'll see...

understand what the man is saying?

Not for me.

Do we all look stupid to the people in DC?

Someone says to me 'just give me a $1,000 and I will turn it into a million for you'. Naturally I ask 'how'? If they tell me to trust them, hand it over, I can find out how later how they did it, I know I'm talking to a not very good con artist. It's insulting to think we can be fooled like this.

Just SHOW us the entire 'agreement' BEFORE we believe the minority who are pushing this over the majority who want it stopped?

No transparency for you!

I trust Warren. I trust Sanders and I trust every other Democrats fighting this TPP. I do not trust Obama and the republicans who want to ram this through, sight unseen.

credible Democrats, along with economists like Stiglitz.

It could all be settled by putting it all out there before Congress and letting the public see what is in this secret deal, and allowing THEIR Reps to actually represent them without giving up their Right, as Legislators, to do so.

IF this passes, Congress will have given up its right to negotiate Trade Bills to the Executive Branch.

And if that happens, imagine what a 'President Bush/Ryan/Cruz would do with that power.

So short sighted of those who are blindly willing to give up even more of our rights, because this time it's 'our team' and 'we trust them'.

When Bush tried this, I don't think there was a Democrat who was for it, or asking us to 'wait and see'.

There must be something about the TPP that is going to help America, yet the others can't figure out what it is yet.

So many oppose it. But Obama likes it so there MUST be something that no one else knows. Because otherwise.....

Yet Obama's TPP will be different.

post in the mineral springs posting on DU from his little iPhone sure does look familiar. I think I know who it is. How did you get a picture of him?

while every single -- not just most, but all -- unions oppose, as do Warren and Sanders.

Says he'd welcome the opportunity to "knock down" the arguments against it.

Bring it on!

NBC?

reads: I'm willing to claim it's the most progressive but haven't been willing to tell you why I believe that's so and not willing to tell you now. And let's face it, when am I going to sit down and debate it???