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160,000 Americans Call on Nancy Pelosi to Publicly Oppose Fast Tracking Secret Trade Deal
More than 160,000 Americans signed petitions urging House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to speak out publicly against controversial Fast Track legislation that would railroad through a secretive trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The petitions were delivered to Representative Pelosi's San Francisco office today by CREDO Action, Daily Kos, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Food & Water Watch, and SumOfUs.
WASHINGTON
More than 160,000 Americans signed petitions urging House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to speak out publicly against controversial Fast Track legislation that would railroad through a secretive trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The petitions were delivered to Representative Pelosi's San Francisco office today by CREDO Action, Daily Kos, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Food & Water Watch, and SumOfUs.
The TPP incentivizes offshoring jobs, and income inequality would worsen with downward pressure on wages. Only 5 of the TPP's 29 chapters are focused on traditional trade issues. The TPP also undermines Internet freedom, environmental and health protections, food safety and Wall Street reforms.
California has already lost more than 432,000 manufacturing jobs since the 1994 NAFTA and the World Trade Organization agreements took effect, and nearly five million manufacturing jobs have been lost nationwide.
"In 2014, Leader Pelosi said no to fast track for the TPP and now she has a chance to be a hero again," said Murshed Zaheed, Deputy Political Director at CREDO Action, continuing "if Leader Pelosi uses her power and influence to lead Democrats in the House to stop Fast Track, that will mean the end for the TPP."
"As a website for progressive activists, Daily Kos strongly supports open and transparent government, say Paul Hogarth, Campaign Director at Daily Kos. "The TPP is a secret trade agreement that rich corporations can read, but the rest of us can't--and it will endanger American jobs and the environment. That's why we are so opposed to fast-track legislation, and urge all House Democrats to oppose it."
The Obama Administration has refused to make the contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership public until the negotiations with other countries are finished and the text is locked. Members of Congress who are allowed to read it, and are very concerned with its contents, are banned from disclosing the details.
A chapter of the draft TPP recently leaked by the Wikileaks and The New York Times revealed multinational corporations operating here would be empowered to bypass the courts to use special tribunals to demand compensation from the U.S. government for alleged lost future profits due to domestic laws that serve important functions, such as protecting the environment and safeguarding our health.
"By supporting Fast Track, Congress will all but guarantee the adoption of the corporate-driven TPP and Fast Track (TTIP), treaties that drive a race to the bottom for public health, the environment and labor standards, and enable corporations like Big Tobacco to sue governments for passing life-saving policies, says John Stewart, Deputy Campaign Director, Corporate Accountability International. "That's why hundreds of our members called Leader Pelosi to encourage her to be a true leader by opposing Fast Track and the TPP."
"Tens of thousands of SumOfUs members across America have signed petitions opposing Fast Track -- including thousands of Leader Pelosi's constituents," said SumOfUs Executive Director, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman. "Our members have made phone calls, sent emails, and showed up at Congressional offices to oppose this corporate power grab. Today we're asking Leader Pelosi to stand with working class Americans and her constituents and oppose this bill."
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has long been opposed to secret trade deals like the TPP, which include restrictive digital regulations that threaten the free, open Internet and users' rights to free expression, privacy, and innovation online," said Maira Sutton, Global Policy Analyst at EFF. "The Fast Track bill would legitimize these back-room deals to stifle the Internet. As representative of a district that is so technologically driven, we call on Rep. Pelosi to recognize how the TPP would undermine rules that protect users and innovators, and urge her to oppose Fast Track."
The Fast Track bill is modeled after the Korean Free Trade Agreement and is opposed by almost all Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Fast Track has divided Republicans on Capitol Hill, with Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell in support, while a bloc of Republican lawmakers oppose it. Recently, 152 House Democrats, including Rep. James Clyburn and Rep. George Miller signed letters opposing Fast Track. Over 2,000 organizations nationwide including labor groups, CREDO, AARP, Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Food & Water Watch, Demand Progress, National Nurses United, the Sierra Club, Democracy for America and Union of Concerned Scientists have spoken out against fast tracking the TPP.
Links to the petitions:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/pelosi_reid_tpp
https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/1212
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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GOP Cuts to Medicaid 'Will Kill People,' Advocate Warns and New Research Bolsters
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
May 16, 2025
Critics who say extensive cuts to Medicaid being pushed by the Trump administration and House Republicans will result in the deaths of people were bolstered Friday by new reporting on a recent study detailing how the key health program for the nation's poor saves live.
As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
A provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all low-income adults regardless of disability or parenthood status. The change is part of the reason that enrollment in the program rose roughly 50% between 2010 and 2021, according to the authors of the study.
The study, which used a dataset of 37 million low-income American adults, found that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points. The study estimates that people who enrolled in Medicaid were 21% less likely to die compared to those not enrolled.
"These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179,000 per life-year," according to a summary of the working paper.
The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
The Times described the research as "the most definitive study yet" on Medicaid's health effects and health economists not involved with the research described it as the most persuasive proof so far that Medicaid and other types of health insurance save lives.
Meanwhile, on Friday, efforts to pass the GOP megabill hit a stumbling block when a handful of Republican co-called "fiscal hawks" voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the reconciliation package from advancing through a key committee vote. The Republican hardliners voted no because they want more cuts to Medicaid.
After the vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, vowed that Democrats would "keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
In response to the House Budget Committee vote, Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works said on Friday: "Make no mistake, Republicans still plan to bring it to the House floor next week."
Lawson blasted the proposed Medicaid cuts, writing that "their plan will kill people."
"The ripple effect of these cuts will hit every single person in this country," he added. "Unless you are a billionaire, your standard of living and your health care will get worse if this despicable plan becomes law."
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'No Family Should Have to Endure This': Georgia Doctors Keep Brain-Dead Woman Alive Under Abortion Ban
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," Adriana Smith's mother told an Atlanta news outlet.
May 16, 2025
Eight months after Georgia's abortion ban was reported to be the first post-Dobbs law under which a woman died because she was unable to get standard reproductive care, the state's so-called "heartbeat law" is back in the news as a family is being forced to keep a pregnant woman on life support to ensure her fetus can be delivered—even though she is legally dead.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse, was declared brain-dead in February when she was nine weeks pregnant, after she had suffered intense headaches and woke up gasping for air one night. Doctors at Northside Hospital in Atlanta found that she had blood clots in her brain.
She has been hooked up to breathing tubes and other life support devices, and doctors say they can't remove the machines for another three months, when they plan to deliver the fetus with which she is now 21 weeks pregnant.
Smith's mother, April Newkirk, has described the experience of watching her daughter remain alive despite her brain death "torture."
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," she told local news affiliate WXIA.
Smith's five-year-old son is among the family members who continue to visit her in the hospital as they wait for her to reach 32 weeks of pregnancy.
"No family should have to endure this horror," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which has filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia's abortion ban, in a statement. "Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing."
The family is angry that Georgia's law, which bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, when fetal cardiac activity—not a heartbeat—can be detected, does not include a provision allowing families a say in whether a pregnant person is kept on life support after being permanently incapacitated.
Doctors have told the family that the fetus may also suffer health problems due to fluid that's been detected on the brain.
"She's pregnant with my grandson," Newkirk told WXIA. "But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born."
Smith's fate after she became brain-dead "should have been left up to the family," Newkirk added.
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said laws like the ban that went into effect in Georgia after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade show that the Republican Party doesn't "see women as human beings, but as incubators."
"Georgia bans organ donation of those who died without their consent—but Georgia's six-week abortion ban is now forcing a brain-dead woman to stay alive without her consent because she was nine weeks pregnant at time of brain death," said Rashid. "A corpse in Georgia has more rights over its body than do women. Horrific cruelty."
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-7) said that "Adriana and her family deserve better."
"Even in death, Georgia Republicans have denied women bodily autonomy," she said. "This is cruel and inhumane."
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Charter-Cox $34.5 Billion Megamerger the 'Last Thing' Consumers Need: Watchdog
"However troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
May 16, 2025
Charter Communications and Cox Communications on Friday announced a $34.5 billion merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create the largest cable television and broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, sparking a flurry of monopoly concerns.
Charter, which uses the branding Spectrum, is already the second-largest publicly traded cable company, but coupling with the privately held Cox would push it ahead of the current industry leader, Comcast. According to a statement from the cable giants, the combined company would be known as Cox Communications, with Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
"The last thing American consumers need is yet another megamerger, as giant internet service providers and cable companies claim they need to get yet-larger to keep up with their industry peers," said John Bergmayer, legal director at the watchdog Public Knowledge, in a Friday statement.
"More consolidation won't fix the cable industry, and introducing new sets of competitive problems is no way to address existing ones," he continued. "As always with cable mergers, the question is as much a loss of opportunities for content creators and programmers to reach an audience, as the loss of choices to subscribers."
As NBC News—whose parent company is Comcast—reported:
On a Friday call with investors, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey called the deal "good for America" and said it will "return jobs from overseas and create new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."
The commentary comes as corporate deal activity has been slower than expected since President Donald Trump took office.
After Trump won the election, Wall Street rallied as many expected the regulatory environment to loosen and the floodgates to open for dealmakers and corporate leaders. But in the months following the election, companies have been contending with other factors rather than dealmaking, such as the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and the outcome of Trump's tariffs.
The Charter-Cox deal could face scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Journalist George Chidi said on social media that "in a sane world, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the FCC would block the merger of Cox Communications and Charter."
"Do I need to even complete this thought?" Chidi asked. "For the next three years and six months—assuming we are still having actual elections, it's corporate Christmas."
Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said that "however troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
Trump has a long record of forcefully going after his critics, and experts—including Daniel Stockemer, a professor at Canada's University of Ottawa, in a commentary published earlier this month in the journal Politics & Policy—have warned that with his second term, the president is pushing the United States toward autocracy.
"Will the companies drop cable channels critical of this administration, or agree to censor online content or sites that the administration disapproves of—something the loss of Title II and net neutrality makes all the more likely?" Bergmayer wondered. "Given FCC Chairman Carr's proven willingness to use the agency's power to 'further the president's agenda,' and the willingness of companies to agree to get deals done, what could once be dismissed as paranoid speculation becomes frighteningly plausible."
"From walking back—even reversing—company policies designed to promote diversity and inclusion, to pulling back on news coverage critical of the administration, far too many companies have already put the short-term interest of currying favor with the White House over the public interest, and over the interests of their employees and the communities they serve," he added. "Hopefully that does not happen here."
Emarketer analyst Ross Benes toldReuters that "antitrust concerns are legitimate. But in this era of deregulation, the merger would probably pass as long as they don't upset the president."
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