Pops wrote:wow, blue collar republicans and most democrats joined together to reject the latest transnational corporate takeover of Asia led by Mr. O
Indeed, quite stunning.
I'm not often surprised by things, but I am surprised that it looks like this TPP may really go down. Because ALL of the american-based global corporations, were pushing for it, and corporations obviously have enormous power in government.
This is a very, very rare case of voters and people actually thwarting the will of the corporations and 1%. Our Constitution, working as intended. The Senate (always has been / intended to be the house of elites) voting for it, the Executive pushing it, hell I'm sure even the Roberts supreme court probably loves TPP --
but it crashed in the House. They just do not have the votes. From the peoples' chamber, the one closest to the voters, by design.
By the way, Constitution says declarations of war are supposed to come from the House, too, and
it was never intended for the executive to just be a King-Emperor with all power in him, Congress just writing
blank checks for war and blank checks for whatever trade deals and world government the Executive wants to pass for the next 6 darn years, without ever even telling anyone what the details of any future trade agreements are.
Our government was never supposed to work like that in the first place,
well here you see with the House today it working the way it was supposed to, for once. The 99% still has some voice left, after all, against the massive power of all the corporations.
Drudgereport (right wing) has a very nice picture of Nancy Pelosi on the front page and a headline praising her bravery for standing up for America. So yeah, I've seen it all now!
Some actually fair journalism (or headline-picking journalistic editing) from Matt Drudge -- because actually this WAS a "brave stand" by Pelosi. Hillary Clinton won't even take a position, just won't say anything at all. But Pelosi is in the House and has a vote and she had to vote on this, one way or another, and as leader the pressure on her was enormous to just vote for the thing and go along with the President.
She had indicated she may have to vote for it. I'm surprised, she has voted against in the end, but that's a good thing -- how COULD she have voted for it, you can't just vote for something that's against every last bit of all your values you've ever been for. From environment to labor.
And Republican tea party in the House -- good for them, too. I'm sure they didn't like all the world government in this TPP and outright ceding sovereignty and a 6 year long BLANK CHECK where Obama and the next president could have done whatever free trade deals they want, with whatever soverignty-ceding world gov they want, and never even tell anyone what is in any of the future deals either,
this one fast track covering not just TPP but all future deals as well for the next 6 years. By the way -- the trans atlantic partnership deal caused a chaos in the EU parliament. Everyone wants to add amendments to it. Well shucks, isn't that nice, Europeans actually GET TO AMEND things and have some democracy in their parliament, regarding the trade deal, while we were not allowed this at all in our congress. Just secret total authority for the president to do whatever he wanted to.
(I'd be okay with trans atlantic free trade, my only issue would be trade tribunals and world government, but the pacific deal is the one that was going to suck many millions more jobs out of the US, at least with Europe you can say that was free trade between equals)
WASHINGTON, June 12 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement after the House scuttled a trade bill:
“As one of the Senate leaders in the fight against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I applaud the House of Representatives for the vote today. While the fight will no doubt continue, today’s vote is a victory for America’s working people and for the environment.
The trade deal pushed by corporate America and Wall Street is the continuation of disastrous trade policies which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs as large corporations shut down in this country and move to low-wage countries abroad. We need a new approach to trade, an approach which benefits the working families of our country, and not just the CEOs of multi-national corporations. The House vote is an important step in the right direction."
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-statement-on-trade-bill_--
Bernie Sanders: Hillary’s TPP Stance a Cop-Out"I do not understand how someone can be a major candidate for president of the united states and not have an opinion on an issue."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFZ6xcaGOnQ
(be aware though folks, this thing will still probably get pushed through somehow. There's a lot of Kabuki theater in Washington -- on unpopular votes, they bargain with each other for who can get to vote against something and then who has to actually vote for it. Safe seat people taking the unpopular vote, etc. People in riskier seats allowed to vote no, etc. That's why things always "just barely" pass, it's not really "just barely," they plan it all out.
The thing will likely still pass, they're just going to keep coming right back to the house with this thing trying every angle possible, they'll figure some way / trick to get it through.
A Pelosi may get to vote "no" but only for show, kabuki theater, if it's been figured out how to ram the thing through in some other way.
A lot of times in legislatures, there will be a lot of drama and just a big show about fighting something, and THEN they vote for it and you see it pass by "one" or a "few" votes.
Or, another thing they do is make some cosmetic change that really is not a change at all, like with the spying thing and changing the Patriot Act to the USA Freedom Act and then they make it looks like they did something different and then vote for it, but really it's not different at all.
However -- I think once they do finally ram this thing through with some trick, it will be at the cost of quite a bit of bitterness and populist backlash. It could strengthen the populist wave, going on right now, even more. Another thing, by the way, that could defeat these trade deals are actually the OTHER countries. Maybe this can get this pushed through in congress, but actually not those OTHER foreign governments, in the end.
Really, nobody likes to lose sovereignty, it means legislators handing over eco and GMO food and food safety and labor standards and everything, over to the new tribunals.)
And P.S. to Republicans -- this TPP thing is world government stuff, with the tribunals. Republican base is always against world government new world order stuff. If we're ever gonna have a world government, then at least have a EU style parliament with representatives that the people can vote for,
but not a world government of secret trade tribunals with magistrates that nobody ever voted for or knows who the heck they are.TPP could have all kinds of rights infringement on Republican base voters, that they would not like -- who knows, it could get into gun rights, etc., really anything. Because the trade tribunals have the power to regulate all trade and practices across the board in all the countries.