FORD's Issues Poll #1: Do you support the Trans Pacific Partnership?

[FORD]

[Satan]

[FORD]

And here's more proof that the TPP really isn't about "Trade" at all........

Obama Nominates SOPA Lobbyist for TPP Trade Post
Lee Fang on February 27, 2014 - 5:28 PM ET
This post was originally published at RepublicReport.org



This morning, President Obama nominated Robert Holleyman as deputy US trade representative. If confirmed by the US Senate, Holleyman will help lead the effort to pass the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

Notably, Holleyman is a former lobbyist who led efforts to pass the Stop Online Privacy Act legislation, better known as SOPA, when he was leader of the Business Software Alliance. The SOPA debate (along with its sister legislation, PROTECT-IP, in the Senate) brought a spotlight on industry efforts to undermine Internet freedom through what many considered to be draconian intellectual property policy.

Critics have pointed out, the leaked TPP documents relating to TPP negotiations reveal that the United States is seeking to resurrect portions of the SOPA bill through the TPP, namely, holding Internet Service Providers liable for hosting copyright infringement and extending the copyright life of certain corporate-owned copyrights. As Washington Post blogger Henry Farrell noted, the proposed TPP provisions suggest the deal will advance intellectual property rules that “could not [be] achieved through an open democratic process.”

During the SOPA debate, Holleyman was chief executive of the Business Software Alliance, a trade group for software companies including IBM. Holleyman commended then–Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith for his work in sponsoring SOPA and for pushing for its passage. In 2012, as the bill worked its way through Congress, the BSA spent over $1.6 million on lobbying. After widespread outrage against the bill, which eventually failed, BSA withdrew official support and sought similar policy changes through other legislation.



If the Senate approves Holleyman as the next deputy trade representative, he will have another opportunity to advance SOPA-style policy.

Last week, Republic Report broke several stories regarding the TPP, including bonuses paid by CitiGroup and Bank of America to officials also tapped by the administration to lead the TPP deal. We also reported on media companies and their lobbying efforts on the bill—which have been extensive, despite the lack of coverage media outlets are devoting to the issue.

[Nitro Express]

What the hell is that?

A big secret they don't want you to know about.

[Nitro Express]

The TPP is about taking the regulatory authority away from our elected officials (not that they actually do their jobs but we still can replace them with elections). In other words, it's another gimmick to steal our republic from us.

The problem is the Federal Reserve Bank and it's participating corporations have bought up about half of the the companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The congress participates in insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission probably could throw a good chunk of the US congress in jail if they did their jobs. It's monopoly on steroids and it's bought up all the media so the average person doesn't know a thing about it.

There is no free press in the United States anymore and a lot of things aren't being exposed. If you actually do some investigative reporting, your car blows up with you in it.

It's to the point where we probably are going to have to have the states call a constitutional convention and clean sweep the federal government and start over. It's too riddled with corruption to fix itself. I think this is why they are trying to push us into a war. They need a distraction and an excuse to clamp down. Our meddling in the Ukraine has me concerned. We just need to stay out of it.

[FORD]

[Southpaw]

Why waste our time discussing this? If the real owners of this country want this to take place, and they do, it will happen. Its funny how all of us, me included, want to think we can have a choice or make a difference. Just hope that you are not one of those personally affected. Unfortunately everyone reading this will be affected. Empty pockets never stopped me from singing a blue streak...

[FORD]

Well then maybe it's time we solved the problem of the assholes who proclaimed themselves to be the "real owners of this country" while having no right to do so



99 vs 1? I like those odds.

[DONNIEP]

It's to the point where we probably are going to have to have the states call a constitutional convention and clean sweep the federal government and start over.

This will never happen because the vast majority of the country wants everything handed to them. Freebies. Entitlements. Hell, most people in this country will fight to get to the front of the line for the free train ride and complimentary "spa treatment"..

[sadaist]

Fuck me...this site is hard to read on a smartphone. Especially with already bad eyes.

[FORD]

I wouldn't want to see a Constitutional Convention in this country unless there was a way to block any participation from corporations AND from idiots who have no idea what the fuck they are talking about, and cannot possibly add any ideas of substance to save the country.

Most of the reason this country is fucked up right now is because the first of those groups has already fooled the second into voting against their own self-interests for the past 33 years.

[FORD]

Fuck me...this site is hard to read on a smartphone. Especially with already bad eyes.

Isn't everything hard to read on a smartphone?

The main reason I haven't bothered to get one.... My "dumb" phone is fine for phone calls, and a smart phone is inadequate for net use. And so far, I've resisted becoming a "texting" junkie. Shit, it's hard for me to type on a standard laptop, let alone a goddamned phone.

[Nitro Express]

Well then maybe it's time we solved the problem of the assholes who proclaimed themselves to be the "real owners of this country" while having no right to do so



99 vs 1? I like those odds.

I would just like to push them out of an airplane over Antarctica and say,"Ok assholes, you wanted to own a country here's a whole continent for you. I hear there is a lot of mineral wealth under that ice pack here, here's a shovel for you."

[FORD]

What did the penguins ever do to you?

[FORD]

Congressman Alan Grayson responds to Cokehead Roberts of the "liberal" media RE: TPP

<div class="post-message">
Recently, ABC infohack Cokie Roberts, doyenne of the D.C. Establishment, attacked me in her nationally syndicated column. Why? Because <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">I dared to speak the truth about the Trans-Pacific Partnership</a> (TPP), a so-called "free trade agreement" that has lobbyists and Washington insiders alike <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">clamoring to stuff their pockets with corrupt corporate cash.</a> And because <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">I dared to speak the truth about “Fast Track,” legislation whose sole purpose is to cram TPP and other corporate rip-offs down our throats.</a>
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<br />By attacking me, Cokie Roberts unintentionally has provided a fascinating case study in how Washington, D.C. really works. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank"> Her attack on me was really an attack on the American middle class. Her attack on me was an attack on you.</a>
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<br />Let’s look at the facts. Our corporatized “free trade” policy has been an abject failure. It began with NAFTA, which impoverished workers in both the United States and abroad, solely for the benefit of wealthy corporate special interests. So has every “free trade” deal since. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">For the past dozen years, every year, the United States has run the largest trade deficits of any country, anywhere in the world, at any time in history.</a> Since NAFTA went into effect, our trade deficits total $10,000,000,000,000.00, or one-sixth of our national net worth. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">We are buying foreign goods and assets, putting foreigners to work. Instead of buying our goods and services, they are buying our assets, driving us deeper and deeper into debt.</a> We lose – twice.
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<br />For five years now, our so-called “Trade Representative” has conspired in secret with multinational corporations to give away our sovereignty, refusing even our elected representatives access to negotiations. “Fast Track” legislation simply is a ploy to jam the resulting surrender to multinational corporations through Congress, without hearings, without mark-ups, without amendments and even without significant debate. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">The real problem today is our towering trade deficit, and both “Fast Track” and TPP would make that worse. </a>
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">But that’s not how Cokie Roberts, the daughter of two Members of Congress and a consummate Washington insider, sees it.</a> She quoted some of what I’ve said, and then she said: “Liberal ideologues like Grayson are flat-out wrong.”
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<br />Let’s take a look at the evidence that Cokie Roberts offers to try to prove that she’s right and I’m wrong. She touts the fact that the United States exports $2 trillion in goods and services each year. While she ignores the fact that the United States has been importing nearly $3 trillion in goods and services each year. (Note to Cokie: three is more than two.) She touts the “fact” that trade supposedly “supports” almost 10 million jobs in the United States. While she ignores the fact that imports cost us even more jobs; in fact, we’ve lost five million manufacturing jobs to “free trade” during the past two decades.
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Are you disgusted by this crooked and underhanded attack by Cokie Roberts? Do you oppose “free trade” giveaways? If so, please pledge $10 per month to our campaign now</a>, to “honor” of the “almost 10 million jobs” that Cokie Roberts claims "free trade agreements" support in the imaginary world that she lives in.
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<br />To top it all off, Cokie Roberts then quoted this vapid and inane remark by the U.S. Trade Representative: "Trade is critical to America's prosperity." It would be far more accurate to say that trade is critical to the prosperity of America’s lobbyists. Lobbyists like Cokie Roberts’s brother, for instance.
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<br />And now we get to the heart of the matter, today’s lesson in how Washington, D.C. works – for people like Cokie Roberts. And her brother.
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<br />Why is Cokie Roberts ignoring the trade deficit, that 800-billion-pound gorilla in the room? Could it possibly be because <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">her brother’s law firm represents a slew of multinational corporations and foreign governments who stand to benefit from the TPP?</a> In just the Middle East, that firm’s client list includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">That was good enough for Cokie’s brother’s firm to take in a whopping $40 million in lobbying fees in 2013 alone.</a>
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<br />Cokie’s brother’s firm has represented scads of multinational corporations who just can't get enough of "free trade agreements." Last year alone, Goldman Sachs poured $480,000 into the coffers of that firm. Citigroup tossed in another $300,000. And Halliburton and Exxon Mobil shelled out tens of thousands of dollars, too.
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<br />(If you question whether Cokie Roberts would bend over backwards to help her brother’s lobbying firm, then consider this: Dianna Ortiz is an American nun who was tortured and raped by the Guatemalan junta. Cokie Roberts’s brother’s law firm represented the Guatemalan junta. Cokie Roberts claimed on the air, with no basis whatsoever, that Ortiz had fabricated her story. Ortiz then proved it in court, and won a $5 million judgment.)
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Cokie Roberts's attack against me is designed to discredit not only me, but also to discredit the concerns of ordinary Americans -- like you -- in order to protect the Washington elite</a>: corporate lobbyists, corrupt insiders, millionaires and billionaires, multinational corporations, big banks, the Halliburtons and Exxon Mobils of the world, and other economic aristocrats who would benefit from these "free trade" giveaways. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">In short, the people who think that they own us.</a>
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<br />The D.C. Establishment doesn’t know what to do about me, because I am unbossed and unbought. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Lobbyists don't like me, because I stand against their "free trade" giveaways, their bailouts, their no-bid contracts and their tax breaks. Billionaires fund my opponents' campaigns. Not mine.</a>
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<br />If you don't like the TPP and other "free trade" giveaways, then invest in our campaign right now. If you don't like multinational corporations who try to buy laws that benefit them, then invest in our campaign now.
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Washington's corporate elite relies on people like Cokie Robert to attack people like me, because I'm speaking for people like you.</a> If you think that Cokie Roberts is wrong, that the way that the Washington, D.C. elite do business is wrong, then invest in our campaign now. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">With only $10 or $25 or $50 from you, every month, I can afford to keep standing up for us.</a>
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Monday marks our Federal Election Commission report cut-off date.</a> We are under attack. And when I say “we,” I don’t just mean “me.” I mean that the American middle class is under attack. I mean that you’re under attack. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">When I say “we,” I mean you and me.</a>
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<br /><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">We are fighting for justice, equality, and peace.</a> We are paying attention, we are working hard, and we are getting things done. And because of that, <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">I am under attack. I need your help</a>, and I need it today. Every dollar counts. Our deadline is midnight on Monday. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cokierobertstpp?refcode=CWG032914%%listtracking%%& amount=20.14&recurring=48" target="_blank">Please contribute today.</a>
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<br />Courage,
<br />
<br />Rep. Alan Grayson</div>