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Trade Deal Votes to Divide Democrats
Congress is poised to pass trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia on Wednesday in a series of votes that will divide House Democrats.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said the FTAs will “facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs overseas and fail to adequately protect the environment.” (File) House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday predicted that the trade agreements would garner support from many Democrats, despite strong opposition from some in the caucus.
"I don’t know what the numbers are — we’re not whipping these bills, per se — but I do expect them to pass with bipartisan support,” said Hoyer, who supports all three bills.
The House on Tuesday approved the rule governing the three proposals, while the Senate Finance Committee also cleared the bills for floor consideration. Both chambers are expected to vote on the measures Wednesday, and President Obama has said he’ll sign them when they hit his desk.
The trade agreements, which were first negotiated during the George W. Bush administration, have languished for years over concerns that they will hurt American workers and kill jobs.
The deals were supposed to be dispensed with earlier this year, but votes were delayed as White House and congressional leaders jousted over the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, a decades-old initiative providing health insurance, retraining and other help to U.S. workers negatively affected by free-trade agreements, or FTAs.
An extension of TAA benefits is expected to pass Wednesday along with the trade deals.
But it won’t happen without a fight. Many liberal Democrats have argued for years that the trade pacts will benefit multinational corporations at the expense of U.S. workers. And on the eve of the votes, most of those concerns haven’t been alleviated simply because a Democrat has taken residence in the White House.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said the FTAs will “facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs overseas and fail to adequately protect the environment.”
Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) has warned the deals “will undermine U.S. manufacturing at a time when we need to rebuild it.”
And Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the agreements would lead to “phenomenal job creation — the only problem is the jobs are being created in foreign nations.”
Many liberals are also concerned the bills don’t go far enough to protect workers overseas, particularly in Colombia.
Late last month, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka urged the president to reconsider his support for the Colombia deal due to that country’s history of anti-union violence. He attached to the letter the names of 22 union leaders who have been killed in Colombia’s labor wars.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.), an outspoken critic of the FTAs, has signaled in recent months that she remains concerned about the impact of the deals. Still, the California liberal has declined to say how she’ll vote Wednesday.
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a fierce critic of the FTAs, said the wildcard Wednesday wouldn’t be Democrats, but freshman Republicans, many of whom campaigned against trade agreements that subject the U.S. to international trade rules.
The fate of the South Korea deal, she said, hinges on “whether the freshman Republicans vote like they campaigned, or vote like the big-business lobbyists want them to.”
Failure of the Korea deal would be a huge embarrassment for Congress and the Obama administration, since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is expected to address a joint session of Congress before being feted at a state dinner at the White House.
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39 Comments so far
Show AllFind rope.
Tie said rope on thumbs.
Find trees with strong branches.
Why does Trumka continue to attempt to communicate with Obama since Obama has ignored him for three years ?
If you are a union member, tell your union leadership to stop sending money to the Democratic Party and redirect those funds to help sustain OWS through the winter.
These trade agreements should help the OWS movement grow.
"Hoyer, who supports all three bills."
Has he asked the people of Maryland--you know, the people he is supposed to represent--how they feel about the fact that he "supports all three bills?" Or does he just consider himself an autonomous lawmaker, not beholden to the people who voted him in? Have the years of getting away with this sh** convinced them all they can legislate as they please?
I do believe the Representatives-and-Senators-for-Life should think twice. That goes for the President who is orchestrating this decline of America. Don't you dare pass this, you money-grubbing monsters. Don't you dare.
I want to see Obama's and Hoyer's faces flushed with the "huge embarrassment for Congress and the Obama administration, since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is expected to address a joint session of Congress before being feted at a state dinner at the White House."
Thinking of voting for the deals, Congressmen and Congresswomen? Better not.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre/
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/
---William Butler Yeats, 1919
What will be the law that you autonomously decide to pass, Congress, that causes the barricades to break?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ ---William Butler Yeats, 1919
Beautiful! Thanks, lefttown, for these lines from THE SECOND COMING!
Your post reminded me that:
1) 99-1, "we the people" were strongly against the bank bailouts
2) Between 60-72% (again, of "we the people"), depending on the poll, wanted, and needed, some kind of universal single-payer health care, or an improved Medicare For All
3) About 66% of "we the people" believe that the rich should be taxed and pay their fair share
4) 86% of "we the people" believe that outsourcing of jobs by U.S. companies to low-wage foreign nations is a top cause of our economic woes
5) 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 53% of Republicans believe that global warming is happening
lefttown: "Has he [Hoyer, MD] asked the people of Maryland--you know, the people he is supposed to represent--how they feel about the fact that he "supports all three bills?" Or does he just consider himself an autonomous lawmaker, not beholden to the people who voted him in? Have the years of getting away with this sh** convinced them all they can legislate as they please?"
Great questions!! However, our voices are unheard -- and we the people are invisible to our very own representatives. The article stated that Nancy Pelosi is critical of the bills, but she is NOT telling anyone how she will vote. So, how critical is she, really?
Is it any wonder that OCCUPY WALL STREET is a growing movement, spreading like wildfire across the U.S. -- in every state, and in more than one city in many states? BTW -- This has been a big issue down at Zuccotti Park/Liberty Square over the past two or three weeks.
Thanks, VP, for your thoughtful response!
"Question of the day: Is there a general strike in your future?" -- Visiting Professor
Excellent question!
If not now, when?
Meanwhile president arsewipe peddles them as a job plan.
Free Trade Agreements are only free for Capital and Corporations -
It's decidedly NOT free for Labor or the Environment.
This should point out the Absolute Bullshit that is the democratic Jobs Plan.
The fact that they have a program that is supposed to help those workers that are hurt from these deals like NAFTA and the others that keep coming is plain evidence that this is criminal.
When workers lose their jobs because of outsourcing it hurts the whole economy, a war economy, and more.
If we ended the war, we could work our way out of this mess.
Don't you get it? It's not about ending wars or growing jobs. The whole thing is nothing but lies. Absolute, positive, nothing but lies. These people (our so-called government) are global players and we are the cash cows they are using to finance all of these wars all over the globe. These people are LYING to us. Don't you get it???
The only game they've got going is imperialism. They want control of ALL of the assets in ALL of the countries around the world and they are using us to do it. They have NO intentions of being fair with us under any circumstances. Obama throws the occasional crumbs from the table to keep us believing in him. He's a complete liar and so are all of these people in DC (with the exception of people like Sanders, Kucinich or a Grayson or a Warren.) The whole thing is a scam and a sham and until we REALIZE this, they are going to keep screwing us. And the only way they WON'T use our military and police on us is when the military and police realize that they mean to screw them, too, so that they join the 99-ers and don't kill us for the liars.
So once again, we get it shoved down our throats that WE don't matter at all, MONEY does. Business is great, but PEOPLE suck. Good God, EVERYONE knows these "free trade" deals are nothing but a complete SCREWING of EVERY)ONE but the top 1%. And THEY ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION. Why in the FLYING HELL is ANY of this even being considered? The "free trade" deals we have now should be scrapped and sent to the trash heap of history like they belong, not increased.
Damn, the STUPIDITY and CORRUPTION in our government has NEVER been higher. We have had policies that have RUINED the country for 99% of us, and yet we don't undo any of it, we do MORE of it! The insipid stupidity and greed behind this is palatable and obvious.
V for Vendetta seems to make more and more sense to me, these days.
We must keep building the OWLS coalition. How much more evidence do we need of the duplicity going on with our so-called government? We need millions in the street and we need them there BEFORE 2012, NOT AFTER!!! We can't do another four more years of getting betrayed and stabbed in the back. We need to be on the move and we need to move now. They aren't listening. They don't give a damn. They figure they have all the weapons on their side. Obama has never rescinded posse comitatus because he knew he was going to betray us at every turn. He sends out these video clips talking about jobs for Americans and then turns around and says he will sign these three trade agreements as soon as they hit his desk which will ship MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of US jobs overseas. As long as we keep bending over, they are going to keep shafting us. What size building do we have to have fall on us before we wake up?
WJM, If I may, a small expansion on your thought;
They have ruin the world for 99% of US, all of US, not just in the u.s..
V stuck at the media first.
If a politician told a lie in the woods ....
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.), an outspoken critic of the FTAs, has signaled in recent months that she remains concerned about the impact of the deals. Still, the California liberal has declined to say how she’ll vote Wednesday."
Since when does voting FOR NAFTA make you an outspoken critic of FTA's? And keeping mum about your position, rather than encouraging others to vote no, as she did with CAFTA? Now she's going to do the same thing again. She might pull her yes vote, but only after she knows that this bill will pass.
Do we really believe that she's a "liberal"? A millionaire property owner whose employees are non-union, who voted for every war appropriations bill, who took impeachment off the table. She must be the one Rahm was talking about in his famous "effing retards" comment. I'd have to agree with that assessment.
Obama, half the (D)s and all the (R)s are not representing the 99%. Never have and never will. Bush could not get these trade deals passes! Protest are not going to change the minds or actions of congress. What comes next only time will tell.
To the OWSers, NYC winters are cold and wet. The young occupiers have my support and admiration. The Nov 5 bank switch is something we all can do. The four banks to leave are: BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. No self respecting lefty should have accounts in those banks. Other US banks and credit unions are the way to go.
"No self respecting" person of the 99% "should have accounts in those banks.
There. Fixed it for you!
"The trade agreements, which were first negotiated during the George W. Bush administration, have languished for years over concerns that they will hurt American workers and kill jobs."
The only thing the republidems can unite on is how to screw the american people just one more time, over and over. Those bastards just don't get it.
Tell me obama is not worse than bush, I dare you. And where does the author get off calling pelosi a liberal. GRRRRR
See, there you are, stuck in a continuing of outsourcing of OUR jobs. Screw you congress. You go right ahead and do that and then there will be another million people in the streets...IN THE STREETS. Keep doing these dastardly things to Americans and pretty soon you won't have an alley to hide in. Congress, you are messing with the lives of too many for too long, and I wonder who your boss really is. Kind of scary to think you have sold out to giant Fascist warmongering criminal whorporates who build more and more war machines to kill more and more people.
Congress is DEE SPICKK ABLE...it is controlled by the efforts for the One World Order...and it must end now before we destroy the entire planet.
Well. Looks like USAns are about to be subjected to some more trickling down.
Our gov. is a corporation, the biggest corporation, not a democratic government. We obviously don't live in a democracy. States were "incorporated" into the union or the big corporation that is our gov.
Protesting in the streets does nothing. Our "leaders" and the lobbyists/corp. interests couldn't care less about protesters.
Force wins, who ever brings overwhelming force gets their way. How do police "clear the streets"? With force. How does the US get its way all around the world? with overwhelming force and the threat of using it. Talk is cheap, force wins, history is written by the winner. How was Hitler stopped? With force. Did the protests in Seattle against the WTO do anything to stop or even slow free trade agreements? No. Has the "peace" movement since the Vietnam war era done anything to slow down the US war tendencies? No. We go to "pre-emptive" war now and spend 3, 4, or more times as much on the military.
We will get more of the same from The Corporation forever, unless its operators are stopped with overwhelming force.
Luckily everyone in this great country is armed, or can quickly be armed with a loaner from a good neighbor.
Valid points, indeed, but violence begets violence. How about encouraging people to start the general strike by shutting down commerce? More potent then guns or brute force is the force of withholding our labor.
The general strike in Iran led to the fall of the Shah, and he had a brutal army and the Savak (which we trained) to intimidate, torture, and put fear into the lives of the Iranians but when people from all walks of life joined the general strike, Pahlavi and his cronies high-tailed it out of the country.
Colombia has the worse human rights record for murdering trade-unionists, and the Republican/Democrats are numb when confronted with substantiated information about it and usually have an excuse about that oppressive regime for public comment.
So-called liberals and progressives keep voting for Democrats and the low-information, uninquirying , superstitious, working-class will vote for Republicans who look down upon them, and people wonder why things are rapidly deteriorating. Oh well.
This is one of the few posts that actually has some teeth. Force wins 99% of the time.
just watch what happens to the ows movement once the oligarchs tire of the distraction. All this horseshit about legislative solutions is a waste of time. You can not appeal to these peoples better angels. They have no better angels. They must be forced to act in our behalf. They will not do it willingly. Just a few days ago Obama was talking about his big jobs plan that everyone knew would never pass in the house and low and behold it didn't even make it through the Senate. I doubt if that was even the intention. So while all the twice bitten suckers are thinking Obama is out to help them the insiders are putting the finishing touches on 3 FTA's that are destined to destroy more American jobs. Here comes that giant sucking sound again. Pretty savy political move and an effective distraction from the true agenda of giving the moneyed interests everything they want at the expense of working class Americans.
Wise up people. These pols are sociopaths playing you for patsies. Both parties are tainted and rotten to the core. Sorry, forgot the Liberatarians. Yeah, Ron Paul is going to make it all better. Fuck! Wake up
"The Powers That Be know that these “trade agreements” couldn’t get the support of two-thirds of the Senate. In fact, they probably couldn’t get past a filibuster. So they just renamed them. They’re not treaties, they’re just “trade agreements.”" - Alan Grayson
The pigs are still feeding at the trough!
At a Senate committee hearing last week, the Republicans said because the Korean agreement assured that Korea would ship automobiles to the U.S. duty-free, the agreement would be good for American consumers because the cars would have lower prices. Not a word about all the jobs being created there instead of here.
They apparently didn't hear the opposition from the left pointing out that if the cars were BUILT here, American workers could buy them because they'd have jobs. A little embarrassment might be darn good for the president and for any member of the Congress who votes to pass these bills. Yarrrgghhh.
1. Obama has to be challenged for a second term at the Democratic National Convention.
2. Every Senator and Congressman, regardless of party affiliation, that has failed to support American workers and the American economy has to be called out by a massive effort to stop their re-election.
3. Support Dylan Ratigan and his colleagues in their movement to get money out of politics.
4. Every incumbent politician should be presumed to be lying until proven otherwise.
Believe only what you can see and trust only what you can verify.
.
www.informationclearinghouse.info published a poignant article, relevant to the "Occupy Movement", by Scott Cruickshank, titled:
'Warning To Occupy America
Beware Of Token Olive Branches And Empty Words'.
A history lesson and some guidelines for the 99 % of us . Check it out.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ on toast. The fucking empirical evidence is in... These fucking trade deals kill jobs. WTF is wrong with these assholes?
Call your representative. Use the Capitol SWITCHBOARD (202) 224-3121
When I called Barbara Boxer's office they said all calls have been for her to vote against these free trade agreements, however she has not announced her position and will decide today during the vote.
Boxer campaigned against these agreements during her 2010 election.
"No Tariff" Free Trade Agreements have cost 5 million US jobs (net) - http://epi.3cdn.net/58f222c3caaded4953_r8m6iv1t8.pdf
10 years of high tech job losses as reported in the WSJ - http://www.ourfuture.org/institute/public-pulse/2010083215/our-worsening-technology-trade-deficit
Free Trade will hit college educated middle class hardest - http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=2720
16 years of worsening trade deficits after NAFTA passed - http://www.epi.org/page/-/BriefingPaper308.pdf
Lobbyists distort record of Free Trade Agreements - http://www.citizen.org/documents/FTA%20Penalty%20Paper%20FINAL1.pdf
Columbia, Korea FTA just as bad as NAFTA - http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/12-8
and the US will lose 214,000 more jobs - http://epi.3cdn.net/87da5b7ec4f5677422_o9m6bh6nv.pdf
Do you want housing prices to fall further?
My guess is your favorite food is the pretzel.
Your feigned argument, that Americans who don't want any more of their jobs shipped overseas, are out to "shaft workers in other countries", is just so much hooey.
These trade agreements have NOT helped workers in other countries, contrary to your bullshit contention. I say bullshit, because I can see a disinformation agenda in your post. It is so bloody easy to see.
Ask the average mexican worker how NAFTA has worked out for them. And those Chinese workers, who get locked in the dorms at night, or locked in the factories during the day......the children. Ask them how they are doing?
Then you wrap it all up, with an insinuation, that global corporations, who find the countries with the most lax labor and environmental laws, so they can exploit human beings as cheap labor, are engaged in "solidarity with other workers around the globe".
How deep is your vat of rhetorical crap?
Why do they keep doing this?! (I'm not looking for an answer here - I just wanted to yell my dismay.)
The Democratic Party, has been instrumental at every step of the way in hurling Americans head long into Global Economic oblivion. The richest 1%, don't give a rat's ass in what country they operate, or which kids they hire as slave labor, just as long as they can keep having hot steamy sex with their uber wealth.
My focus on the Democratic Party doesn't make me a Koch troll, so shove it.
related gov't activity:
"Yes, Alabama will have to go that route. In fact, it already has. Not only will this law supply fresh inmates to private detention centers in the state – like the one operated in Decatur by LCS correctional corporation – but it will also feed an already bloated national private prison system controlled by two major corporations, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) and the GEO group, which have a combined profit of more than $5bn a year. CCA, for example, runs the largest facility in the nation in neighboring Georgia and may potentially take a good portion of the detainees in Alabama. Charging $200 a night, this is an opportunity they'll jump at.
The difference between Alabama and adjoining states is that it is willing to go further down this track. Recently, John McMillan, agriculture commissioner, proposed that the farm work left behind by immigrant workers be supplied with inmate labor. Decatur, a private detention center about 50 miles to the north-west of Alabama, which had been unable to find jobs for inmates, has now witnessed record numbers of requests for labor (for an estimated 150 detainees a day).
So, here is how it goes. First, the state passes a harsh immigration law. Then, it detains large numbers of immigrants. Third, private prisons (LCS, CCA, GEO) receive fresh inmates. And finally, the artificially created labor shortage is supplied by the new inmates. Does this sound like modern-day slavery to anyone?" from the guardian
How can there be ANYONE left who thinks the Democrats can or will do anything to promote peace and freedom, or to support the people as Kay Johnson pointed out? (response to leftown 10/12, 10:03am)
PS It's not just labor that gets destroyed here, I don't have the details now but there seems to be a real plum for Monsanto in this one--apparently, last Spring, 10,000 people were in the streets of Seoul protesting GMOs--their voices were ignored too.
My union leadership bows to the Democratic Party leadership. I've debated with them for years to back third party candidates and I might as well talk to the wall.