bill that would cut money from Medicare. Icing on the cake.

This whole mess will determine my voting and support - for every politician - from here on out.

that TPA and the ensuing trade agreements are much more important to him.

This is a done deal and TAA was and is just a cover for certain Dems.

He said he's republican, so it will fit right in with his belief system.

Who cares if more jobs move from the US to Vietnamese slave-wage workers, really. And all that's left are minimum wage jobs, and who needs training for that?

And the environment will get pissed on some more. And drug prices in poor countries will rise...

What's important is PROFIT MARGINS.

He can tell Democrats if they dont vote for TAA he will sign TPA without it and he can tell Republicans he wont sign TPA without the TAA. He got both sides cornered. Lovely situation.

He's cornered himself in by his own words. The Repukes know he'll sign it prior to any House vote on TAA.

we will see.

and a face-saving bone to throw labor.


The whole thing is just a bunch of phony baloney at this point.

It never was an effective hostage, because everyone recognized it didn't have any value.

the whole thing has past the point of political absurdity. But I think the President is so deeply invested in getting TPA that he'll do whatever he thinks he has to do to get it.

But if you try to give me X--which I really, really want--without giving me Y--I will refuse to accept delivery of X."

Come on.

The fallback plan was to ram it through on a partisan vote. Democrats concluded it was worth sacrificing the TAA to avoid putting their fingerprints on it, so here we are.

A TAA bill can be passed as a separate issue at any time. He wants the fast track authority so some sort of trade agreements can be completed by the participating nations. Without it, Congress will load anything up with all sorts of amendments and bollix up the works, forcing the negotiations to go on endlessly. That's why fast track authority exists in the first place.

Congress still gets to vote on the agreement in all of these fast track authority deals. But they have to accept or reject the whole thing, as it is. From a negotiating point of view, that makes sense. It's already almost impossible to get a group of nations to agree on any damn thing, and usually takes years.

TPP? I haven't seen the entire thing...just some leaked sections. There's much more to the entire agreement. That's why I have no particularly strong opinion about it. Trade agreements are necessary. What is in them depends on what the participating nations have manage to agree upon. It's a multinational thing, after all. I'm amazed that any agreement every is reached.

itself, which governs all trade agreements forged under it, is a actually a governing law that is already loaded up with crap such as the example pertaining to climate change that I referred to in the OP.

You also don't seem to grasp that a vote the the TPA is a vote to pass TPP/TTIP/TISA. If the votes are there for TPA, they're there for the agreements themselves. Want to know the historical record on that? 100%. Every single time. Period. This is hardly breaking news. Everyone knows it and that's why it's recognized that TPA is where the war would be fought.

TPP? It's a corporate giveaway that vests increasing power over people and governments in corporations. Not only do the leaked draft chapters tell us that, but so do other leaked process documents and the facts regarding who staffs the USTR office, who was in on the negotiations and who was left out.

What do you think of climate change being completely shut out of all future trade agreements reached under this TPA for the next 6 years? I'm assuming that you think that this is an important issue and one that is clearly pertinent regarding trade.

I believe him. I believe everything my politicians tell me.

Obama got this.

TAA seems to be pretty worthless anyway, so no great loss there.

One (small) bright spot: Once the TPA is signed, we'll at least get to see what we're about to be screwed over by.