The Erickson Report, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

The Erickson Report, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Okay, next up, our regular feature, Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages and we start, as usual, with the Clowns.

Lincoln, Nebraska has more than 50 sculptures installed in places around the city as a public art project called "Serving Hands Lincoln."

The sculptures each consist of a pair of hands, open and holding something like a butterfly, a field of grain, flags of the world, or the moon.

One sculpture, however, so offended one Lincoln woman that she wrote to the mayor, demanding it be removed. She described it as "two hands open, painted Red and Black, and formed into Devil Horns."

She claimed it to be anti-Christian, demonic, ugly, perverse, and a "hate crime against the church," made worse - as if that were possible - by its proximity to the Lincoln Children's Zoo.

So what could be so bad that it would get such a description? You see it to the right.

Yep, the hands were those of Spiderman.

I never thought of myself as particularly tuned into popular culture, but this is a degree of dissociation I could never dream of achieving.

Footnote: City ombudsman Lin Quenzer told the woman no, we are not removing the sculpture. 

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Mike Kelly

Next up, Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania said on July 16 that he was not offended by Tweetie-pie telling Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib to “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.”
“He does not offend me,” he said.

Kelly, pictured here, insisted that he had standing to talk about offense because, quoting him, “I’m a person of color. I’m white.”

You can’t really blame Kelly, though: He’s just trying to reassert his clown bona fides by maintaining the standard he set last year. In May 2018 he told Faux and Friends that Democrats spend too much time talking about racial inequality. “I said that's not America. We don't talk about those things."

In case the point wasn't clear, he added that the best way to “make America great” is to “stop talking about discrimination."

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Meanwhile, Tweetie-pie had managed to pull together the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement - known as USMCA, which sounds like a bad first draft of a Village People song. It is intended as a replacement for NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement and includes a few minor improvement on labor and environmental standards - on paper, at least, but it lacks any enforcement mechanism, rendering those improvements nothing more than corporate promises and we know how much those can be trusted.

Bluntly, the real purpose of this supposedly but not really new agreement, which Mexico and Canada agreed to grudgingly, is for Tweetie-pie to take credit for a trade deal and get a nice press release out of it.

However, that's not the reason I bring this up now.

This is: On July 10, dozens of House Republicans flooded Twitter with a series of tweets demanding an immediate vote on the proposed trade deal, right now, today, accusing House Democrats in general and Nancy Peolosi in particular of "harming America" by "dragging their feet" on approval.

One problem: The White House has not submitted the agreement to Congress; in fact it doesn't plan to do so before September 1.

In other words, these dozens of 15-watt bulbs - and I mean incandescent bulbs, not the energy-saver type - are demanding an immediate vote to approve a bill that literally does not yet exist.

John Stuart Mill said it for all time: In a Parliamentary debate with Conservative MP John Pakington on May 31, 1866, he said "I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid persons; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it."

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This I will say is old but it has just come to light as the result of a public records request, so in that sense it is new enough that I feel it's okay to include here.

William Latson in the principal of Spanish River Community High School in Boca Raton, Florida. In April 2018 he was asked by the mother of a student in an email how his school teaches about the Holocaust, which it’s required to do by state law.
Latson replied by saying that the school offers a one-day lesson to 10th graders but he said it’s not mandatory as some parents “don’t want their children to participate.”

The mother replied that “The Holocaust is a factual, historical event. It is not a right or a belief.”

Latson, however, persisted.“Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened and you have your thoughts but we are a public school and not all of our parents have the same beliefs so they will react differently,” he reportedly replied.

Here’s the real money quote:

I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee.

I wonder what the school teaches about the shape of the Earth and the Moon landing.

Latson added that the school presents information about the Holocaust to the students and allows them to make their own decisions about it. He said it does the same when it comes to slavery.

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Allen McCoy

Speaking of which, we have the case of Allen and Patricia McCoy,who rent out a house in Adairsville, Georgia, a town of 3000-plus about 60 miles north of Atlanta.

According to a recently-filed lawsuit, the McCoys kicked out their white tenant, one Victoria Sutton, because she invited a black co-worker and his 5-year-old son over to her home.

“Maybe you like black dogs, but we don’t. So just get your stuff and get out,” Sutton was told in a conversation she recorded. She was subjected to multiple uses of the N-word by both McCoys as well as a physical threat.

The McCoys, of course, deny all of it and we know they must be innocent because, as Allen McCoy told a local TV station, “Some of the best friends I got is colored.”

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Sebastian Gorka

Oh, and a quick one just to wrap up.

On his radio show on July 22, right wing flake Sebastian Gorka, a man whose name sounds like a monster in a Japanese sci-fi flick - you know, Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, Gorka - or better yet, from a remake of Clash of the Titans - "Release the Gorka!" - right wing flake Sebastian Gorka declared that

I think that whole trans thing started with Teletubbies. Remember? One of them wore a tutu.

No need to add anything.

16.8 - For the Record: items considered quickly

For the Record: items considered quickly

Next up, we have For the Record, our occasional feature where we cover some bits of news very quickly, just to make sure they gets mentioned. So:

For the Record, leaked documents show that Daniel Pantaleo, the New York cop who killed Eric Garner with a banned chokehold in July 2014, should have been fired long before that incident. Before he choked Garner to death over a claim of selling untaxed cigarettes, Pantaleo had seven disciplinary complaints lodged against him plus four individual allegations substantiated by an independent review board. None of them lead to any significant punishment.

For the Record, a couple of computer geeks have set up a website called MakeTweetsGreatAgain where people can sign up to donate anywhere from 10 cents up to the ACLU every time Donald TheRump sends out a tweet. So far over $1600 has been raised. They also let him know via Twitter how much each one of his tweets - which in his case really should be called twits - is worth.

Finally, For the Record, the annual African Global Economic and Development Summit, which is about trade between the US and African nations, was held in Los Angeles March 16-18. One thing was missing: Africans. Every one of the invited delegates from Africa, about 100 of them, had been denied a visa.

8.6 - Good News of the Year, 2016: peace settlement in Colombia

Good News of the Year, 2016: peace settlement in Colombia

Since we've been doing Good News, we'll start off our look back at 2016 with our choice for Good News of the Year.

The choice this year was not as obvious as it was last year. The Good News for 2015 was easily the historic Supreme Court decision saying bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. This year it didn't seem to me that there was one story that stood out so clearly from the rest.

Nonetheless, we did have some Good News this year, although at times it might not have felt that way.

We did, for example, see three developments on health and science news that we covered here.

One was a potential breakthrough in treating Alzheimer's based on the fact that inflammation of the brain, often associated with advancing Alzheimer's, now looks to be a driver of the condition rather that a result of it.

When mice with an Alzheimer's-like condition were treated by focusing on immune cells related to the inflammation, the progression of the disease was stopped.

Understand: This is not a prevention or a cure, it's a treatment that if it comes to fruition could severely retard or even halt the progression of the disease. It also needs to be noted that it's too soon for celebrations.

But it's not too soon to move to developing medications based on these discoveries, marking this as one of the most hopeful discoveries about Alzheimer's in over a decade.

Another health story was reported progress on a cure for Type 1 diabetes.

With Type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce the insulin the body needs, as opposed to Type 2 diabetes, where the body does produce insulin but can't use it properly.

Researchers have worked on a treatment involving transplanting insulin-producing cells into the patient's body, so the body can produce its own insulin. This works well - except for the fact that the body's immune system sees those cells as invaders and destroys them.

Now, researchers are trying what they call an "invisibility cloak" to keep the immune system from seeing the implanted cells as foreign bodies. In tests, this has worked in mice for nearly six months. That has lead to optimism that an improved "cloak" combined with transplanted insulin-producing cells could, within the foreseeable future, effectively cure Type 1 diabetes.

The third health and science story was progress against the Guinea worm, a parasite found mostly in Africa that rarely kills its victims but leaves them in debilitating pain.

In 1986, the Carter Center began a campaign to end the affliction. At that time, the number of people affected was around 3.5 million.

By 2012, the number of cases was down to 1100. In 2015, that number was down to 22 - and in the first half of 2016, the number of confirmed cases was two. From 3.5 million to two in 30 years.

The Guinea worm is on the verge of being only the second disease after smallpox and the first parasitic disease to be eliminated from the human population.

On a more immediate and more obviously political issue, there was the Good News that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, is dead or at minimum comatose.

There were also a number of scattered victories, too many to go through, victories legislative, judicial, and by ballot initiative, on matters like voting rights, gun control, privacy, the minimum wage, there was even a win for unions at the Supreme Court. Even where the sky seems darkest, there were a few breaks in the clouds.

But what I suspect many among us would consider the Good News of the Year would be the - again at least temporary - victory achieved by the courage, determination, faithfulness, and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness of the water protectors at Standing Rock.

I didn't devote as much time to that as I should have, partly due to my own shortcomings involving getting caught up in week-to-week events rather than following an on-going story and partly due to a sense that the story was being told well enough elsewhere.

But surely it was one of the top news stories of the year, and its true value, at least in my mind, lay not in the story itself, not just in the events themselves and not even in the success in at least delaying and perhaps killing the DAPL, but in the movement that made it a story, a movement that showed that the passion for Native American rights is still there, the passion for the environment is still there, the passion about global warming is still there, and most importantly, a passion for justice that can still drive people into the streets in large numbers for the long term is still there, a passion that showed again that people power can face down the massed might of the state.

Despite all that, Standing Rock is not my choice for Good News of the Year for 2016. Understand this, as is true of all the awards, is a personal decision, related to how I reacted to the news.

I'm often struck by how insular we are, how narrow our American worldview is, how little we know about the world around us, how unaware we are of events that do not, as far as we think, affect us more or less directly. So when I myself become aware of such a case, ruing my own ignorance I tend to feel it more strongly.

So my choice for Good News of the Year, 2016, is the peace settlement reached between the government of Colombia and the rebel group known as FARC - in English, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - putting, if all goes well, an end to a civil war that has been going on for something like 52 years. Over a quarter of a million people have been killed, I don't know how many more wounded, somewhere between 5 and 8 million driven from their homes. And now it may be ending. And how can that not be Good News.

Especially because it almost wasn't: The deal was announced in August but nearly fell apart when a national plebiscite on October 2 narrowly rejected the pact by a margin of 0.4%.

But a quickly renegotiated deal between the government and FARC was passed by the Colombian Congress in early December, putting things back on track - at least hopefully.

There are still potential snags: For one big one, the failure of the plebiscite, which had been widely expected to pass easily, threw a monkey wrench into planning for the demobilization of FARC. Originally, some 16,000 FARC fighters were to turn in their weapons by December 31 but because of the lack of government-built infrastructure at the UN-monitored camps where that is supposed to happen, which was caused by the delay, the deadline has been pushed back to January 10.

But progress is being made on that front, along with legislative issues such as the passing of an amnesty law, which was accomplished just three days before the deadline for action.

At the same time, there is another rebel group in Colombia. It's the ELN, or in English the National Liberation Army.

ELN, which is much smaller than FARC, having an estimated 1300 fighters as compared to FARC's 16,000-20,000, is now in the early stages of having peace talks with the government.

In March, both sides agreed to talks to start in October, but that broke down when the rebels failed to release a hostage. However, a fresh attempt at talks is to take place in Ecuador later this month.

All of which means that there are still hills to climb, particularly to overcome the mental scars of decades of war - but just a year ago those hills looked like mountains. Which makes the prospect of the end of 50 years of civil war in Colombia my choice for Good News of the Year, 2016.

3.2 - Good News: the TPP is dead

Good News: the TPP is dead

Next up under the heading Good News is the fact that by all appearances, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, is dead. And it's equally-evil cousin, the The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, essentially the TPP but between the US and the European Union, likely also is headed for the morgue.

On November 11, Obama's trade office announced that it is, essentially, giving up on trying to pass the deal during the lame-duck session. Matt McAlvanah, speaking for the US Trade Representative's office, which had been lobbying for the TPP for months, said in a statement that "this is a legislative process and it's up to Congressional leaders as to whether and when this moves forward."

He said that after both Senate Majority Leader Fishface McConnell and House Speaker Paul Rantin' have said that they will not take up the pact during the lame-duck session. Since they will still be in power after TheRump, who has called the TPP "a disaster," is inaugurated, there really is no reason for it to come up after that.

Except maybe there is. Because there is no such thing as untrammeled good news these days.

You have to realize that the big reason the GOPpers opposed the TPP was that it was Obama's deal. If you think they cared about the increase in corporate power it entailed, the weakening of environmental and labor protections it envisioned, or the shrinking of government ability to regulate The Market (pbui) it looked to, then you are sadly deluded. They only cared about Obama not getting it passed.

Already there are rumblings about how the TPP isn't dead, it's just "in purgatory." Ken Brady, the GOPper who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, says that the TPP shouldn't be dropped, just "renegotiated." So don't be surprised if in a couple of months from now, the TPP re-emerges with the minimum of tweaks thought necessary to justify a flip-flop by the GOPper hierarchy.

So watch this space, because as the great philosopher Yogi Berra said, "it ain't over 'til it's over." But for the moment, take a breath and the fact that we can do that, that we can take a breath, yeah, that's Good News.

What's Left #3

What's Left
for the week of November 17-23

This week:

Good News: pushback against forced arbitration
http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-scully-medal-of-freedom-20161116-htmlstory.html
http://www.consumeradvocates.org/for-consumers/arbitration
http://www.fairarbitrationnow.org/wells-fargos-use-forced-arbitration-deny-consumers-justice/
http://www.fairarbitrationnow.org/release-fan-coalition-applauds-obama-administration-restoring-rights-government-contract-employees/
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-proposes-prohibiting-mandatory-arbitration-clauses-deny-groups-consumers-their-day-court/
http://www.fairarbitrationnow.org/cfpb-arbitration-rule-receives-strong-widespread-support/
http://www.afj.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-23503.pdf

Good News: the TPP is dead
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/08/2172-more-on-three-secret-trade-deals.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-tpp-idUSKBN13629G
http://www.supplychaindive.com/news/TPP-purgatory-dead-trade/430555/
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

Good News: LAPD will not become immigration police
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-elect-trump-says-how-many-immigrants-hell-deport/
http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/11/14/lapd-says-it-wont-change-its-deportation-policies-under-trump/21605987/
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-police-immigration-20161114-story.html

Show solidarity with undocumented immigrants
http://fusion.net/story/369091/donald-trump-racist-incidents-since-election/
http://time.com/4569129/racist-anti-semitic-incidents-donald-trump/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/10/1595617/-The-architect-of-the-most-racist-law-in-modern-American-history-has-been-named-to-Trump-s-team
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-immigration-adviser-kris-kobach-wrote-book-muslim-registry-n685026
http://fox4kc.com/2016/11/14/trumps-inner-circle-includes-far-right-former-news-executive-accused-of-racism/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/07/blog-post_17.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37948762

The importance of continuing protest
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/15/1599582/-Trump-protests-calendar-and-information
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-protests-planning-idUSKBN1362E0
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/16/politics/sanctuary-campus-protests/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/16/anti-trump-demonstrators-say-nationwide-protests-are-just-a-taste-of-things-to-come/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/us/politics/democrats-house-senate.html?_r=0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-in-first-formal-talk-since-conceding-there-is-common-ground-to-build-upon/2016/11/16/180efaf8-ac1a-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/stahl-trump-is-more-subdued-more-serious/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab0g

Democrats refusing to recognize their own failures
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0

Cop who killed Philando Castile is indicted
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/16/us/officer-charged-philando-castile-killing/

RIP: Leonard Cohen
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/life/people/2016/11/11/93629432/
http://www.newsweek.com/leonard-cohens-12-greatest-songs-520637?google_editors_picks=true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkamRumVXn4

258.8 - TPP headed for lame-duck showdown

TPP headed for lame-duck showdown

I have talked a number of times about this proposed, massive, 12-nation trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP for short.

There's a great deal to dislike about it, from further empowering and entrenching transnational corporations to weak environmental and food safety rules, not to mention that, like NAFTA before it, it likely would cost the US hundreds of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs, replacing them with a roughly equal number of low-paying, benefit-poor, service jobs.

It's unpopular enough not only that Bernie Sanders was able to make it a centerpiece of his campaign to a degree that ultimately forced Hillary Clinton to come out in opposition to it but that grassroots Dems are making life difficult for the relatively small number of Congressional Dems who still try to defend it.

So why do I bring this up again, now?

Because Barack Obama is all-out for it, regarding it as a major part of his legacy. And so he has put Congress on notice that he will be sending lawmakers a bill to implement the agreement. The action establishes a 30-day minimum before the bill can be presented, but that's irrelevant because there is no way the White House is going to introduce it in the middle of a campaign where both major party candidates along with Jill Stein of the Green Party oppose it and few Dems will aggressively support it.

What this means instead is that he has in this way telegraphed his intention to try to jam the pact through Congress during the lame-duck session after the election, when political pressure from the public is at its lowest because it is the furthest point from an election and public attention will be distracted by the shiny penny of the transition to a new president.

Now, Clinton, the likely winner in the fall, has declared she is against the TPP and against voting on it both before the election and during the lame-duck session, and liberal and progressive groups are gearing up for a lame-duck fight. So there is a good chance, at least a decent chance, that a move to pass TPP then will fail, particularly since a good number of GOPpers in the House are pledged against it if only to block something just because Obama wants to pass it. A clear case of right thing, wrong reason.

But that doesn't mean the fight will be over, even then. There remain troubling questions about Hillary Clinton's true stand on TPP.

There was, for example, the statement back in January by Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue that once elected, Clinton would flip back to supporting the TPP.

More recently, there was the statement last month from Clinton bestie Terry McAuliffe that once in office, a few tweaks would enable Clinton to support the pact, a position also taken by some academic experts on international trade.

Her VP pick, Tim Kaine, is a "free trade" zealot who has been the Senate's most fanatical supporter of the TPP.

And most recently, she has picked former Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a big fan of both the TPP and fracking, to be the chair of her presidential transition team.

So gear up, folks, we are in this for the long haul. Even given Clinton every benefit of the doubt, even assuming the absolute sincerity of her current statements, the corporations and their allies, those with the inside track for access, will not stop pushing. Neither can we.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/search?q=TPP
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18695/TPP_Free-Trade_Globalization_Obama
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/08/08/grassroots-democrats-are-making-tpp-big-issue-congressional-races
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-congress-trade-warning-226952
http://www.jill2016.com/
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/291324-liberals-rally-to-sink-obama-trade-deal
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34629-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-tom-donohue-clinton-will-support-tpp-after-election
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/terry-mcauliffe-hillary-clinton-tpp-trade-226253
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/16/hillary-clinton-picks-tpp-and-fracking-advocate-to-set-up-her-white-house/

Left Side of the Aisle #258

Left Side of the Aisle
for the weeks of August 25 to September 7, 2016

This week:

Good News: Being good to employees pays off
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/11/2254-update-gravity-systems-company.html
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/10/1558819/-One-year-later-Gravity-employees-happily-flip-off-FOX-with-a-70k-gift-to-their-generous-boss
https://gravitypayments.com/thegravityof70k/#infographic-1

Good News: federal private prisons to be phased out
https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html
https://www.statista.com/chart/2755/no-country-incarcerates-more-women-than-the-us/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-goodwin/when-mass-incarceration-t_b_11554242.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_incarceration
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/03/2424-war-on-drugs-was-lie-from-start.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/a-new-department-of-justice-report-shows-private-prisons-are-especially-dangerous.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.ab209a04b3e7
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2016/08/18/roberts-feds-stop-using-private-prisons-meanwhile-arizona/88949902/

Not Good News: phaseout does not apply to "immigrant detention centers"
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/theres-monster-loophole-feds-move-stop-working-private-prisons
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-immigrant-children-20140618-story.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-immigration-family-detention-20151020-story.html
https://www.rt.com/usa/356548-border-patrol-detention-photos/
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/15/mothers-renew-hunger-strike-over-absolutely-horrendous-confinement-immigration

Footnote: The US is the only nation to imprison children for life without parole
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/life-without-parole-no-child-deserves-that/2013/06/27/d3c7db52-df45-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html?utm_term=.fdcf247e834e
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_v._Louisiana
http://eji.org/children-prison/death-in-prison-sentences

Why Turkey sent tanks into Syria
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/24/middleeast/turkish-troops-isis-syria-operation/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/24/why-turkey-finally-went-to-war-in-syria-jarablus-invasion-kurds/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/13/middleeast/syria-isis-manbij/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/29/europe/understanding-turkey-enemies/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-syria-isis-tanks-gamble-in-a-very-dangerous-game-a7207881.html

Clown Award: Jan Brewer
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/jan-brewer-clarifies-clinton-lying-killer-remark-it-was-a-st?utm_term=.fxGYoZwo6#.mrmJjL3ja
http://www.mediaite.com/online/jan-brewer-calls-clinton-lying-killer-says-arizona-wont-go-blue/

Colombia and FARC sign peace deal
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/08/24/world/americas/ap-lt-colombia-peace-accord.html?_r=0

TPP headed for lame-duck showdown
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/search?q=TPP
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18695/TPP_Free-Trade_Globalization_Obama
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/08/08/grassroots-democrats-are-making-tpp-big-issue-congressional-races
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-congress-trade-warning-226952
http://www.jill2016.com/
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/291324-liberals-rally-to-sink-obama-trade-deal
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34629-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-tom-donohue-clinton-will-support-tpp-after-election
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/terry-mcauliffe-hillary-clinton-tpp-trade-226253
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/16/hillary-clinton-picks-tpp-and-fracking-advocate-to-set-up-her-white-house/

255.9 - Fight against Trans-Pacific Partnership not over; Clinton may flip-flop

Fight against Trans-Pacific Partnership not over; Clinton may flip-flop

I have talked several times before about the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, this so-called "free trade deal" among among 12 Pacific Rim nations which together account for 40 percent of the world economy - making it biggest trade deal since NAFTA, a deal which has been responsible for the loss of millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs in the US in exchange for the creation of millions of low-paid service industry jobs.

I call it a "so-called" free trade deal because it is more like a transnational corporation bill of rights. The more people know about it, the less popular it becomes, enough so that Bernie Sanders could make his long-standing opposition to it a centerpiece of his campaign and Hillary Clinton, who once called it the "gold standard" for trade agreements, has been forced to make sounds opposing it.

Here's the thing: There is going to be a push on to ratify the monster during the lame-duck session of Congress after the election. That effort may fail - hopefully it will and I think it reasonably likely not only because of general opposition but because it would be especially politically risky to do it during a lame-duck session; Hillary Clinton is among those who have specifically rejected the idea of a lame-duck approval of TPP. The important point is that that won't be the end of it because there are persistent signs that Clinton, assuming she wins the presidency as I expect she will, will after the election or more exactly the inauguration is safely behind her flip-flop again back to supporting the deal.

Those signs include the fact that there is no opposition to the deal in the Democratic national platform despite the efforts of Sanders' supporters to get it in, the fact that she chose as a running mate a strong supporter of the pact, and most recently the statement by Terry McAuliffe - governor of Virginia and a Clinton bestie - that with just a couple of changes in pact Clinton will support it.

Put another way, once she's safely in the White House, a few tweaks would become her justification for going back on her word and returning to her classic position of supporting big business over the working public and by the way, whatever happened to asking about the transcripts of those speeches?

I'll say it again: if you live in a swing state, a tossup state, where a small number of votes could make the difference, I suppose you'll have to swallow your bile and vote for Hillary Clinton. But do it knowing what you're getting and knowing the fight is by no means over.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/search?q=TPP
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/terry-mcauliffe-hillary-clinton-tpp-trade-226253

249.2 - Part Two: Issues that won't be discussed in the fall election

Part Two: Issues that won't be discussed in the fall election

You want some examples of issues they don't want discussed? I'll give you some. But let me say at the top that the sort of political revolution I envision, which I dream about, goes beyond what Bernie Sanders has proposed. So what I will be talking about here is not my revolution, but issues, ideas, proposals, that have been brought up during the course of the primaries but which are now threatened with being disappeared because too many among our power elite don't want us to be thinking about them.

That said: What do you think are the changes that single-payer health coverage is going to be a topic in the election we now face? The Clintonites mocked the idea and mocked Sanders for advocating it; they called it impractical, impossible, pie in the sky, rainbows and unicorns, all that and more despite fact that US has been and remains almost the only industrialized nation without some sort of national health system.

And no, Obamacare is not that, not even close, not when by the estimates of even its most ardent defenders it will leave tens of millions without health insurance and an unknown number more with insurance they can't afford to use because of high deductibles and other costs. Obamacare doesn't even provide universal access to health insurance, much less what's really important, which is universal access to health care. But if we hear anything about health care this year, it will be about "preserving Obamacare" - because that is a debate the economic and political powers are willing to have.

Another example: As I've noted before, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, this secretly-negotiated trade deal looking to turn the entire Pacific Rim into a playground for transnational corporations and banks, is going to be an issue after the election, during the lame duck session of Congress. What do you think are the chances that either of the campaigns or the media will bring it up in the coming election season? Do you really think that Hillary Clinton, who once called the TPP "the gold standard" for trade deals but turned against it - supposedly and only gradually and only in reaction to its obvious unpopularity and Sanders' opposition - is going to make that part of her campaign? If you do, remember that Tom Donohue, president of the US Chamber of Commerce, has said not to worry about what Clinton is saying about the TPP now because once she is office she will flip back to supporting it.

If we hear anything about trade, it will be about the supposed "millions of jobs" free trade has created and will create - with no consideration of the type of jobs, even as evidence shows that living-wage jobs, jobs that pay enough to provide for a family, are quickly being replaced by lower-wage and less secure forms of employment such that even the Wall Street Journal admits that "many middle-wage occupations have collapsed."

This is all part of the new "gig economy," the latest corporate buzz-phrase echoing across the country. We won't have jobs, they say, we'll do "gigs." We won't be stuck in traditional jobs with moldy, old-fashioned concerns such as regular hours, middle-class pay rates, benefits, some job security, and all those other silly "traditionals" of the workplace. In fact, in the gig economy, we won't even have a workplace. Instead, we'll be "liberated" to work in a series of low-paying, no-benefits, short-term jobs in many different places, always being on-call through a mobile app on your smart phone or through a temp agency.

What do you think are the chances that the phrase "gig economy" will pass the lips of either Hillary Clinton or Donald TheRump this fall?

Meanwhile, income inequality, one of the centerpieces of Sanders' campaign and which earlier drove the Occupy Movement - which was crushed by some of the same forces now arrayed against the resurgence of those issues which Sanders has helped spark - is now the highest it has been since 1928. And it continues to worsen, as it has across several decades, including during the administration of the sainted Bill Clinton, who Hillary now proposes to bring back to manage the economy in her planned administration.

Do you really think that economic, that income, inequality will be a centerpiece of the fall campaign? Do you think it even will be addressed in any way beyond vapid bromides?

Do you think a $15 minimum wage is going to come up in this race, particularly when Clinton opposes it? Consider that a new study of all 22 increases in the federal minimum wage between 1938 and 2009 not only showed no correlation between raising the minimum wage and loss of jobs, it actually showed that in a substantial majority of cases, employment in affected industries went up. Is that going to be part of the debate? What about the fact that despite the doomsday predictions, a year after Seattle raised its minimum wage, retail prices have not risen?

Will the moral scourge of poverty be on either candidate's regular agenda? Since as I noted last week, our major media are already prepared to ignore it, to make it a non-issue, why should the candidates bring it up?

Will either the GOPpers or the Dems talk about homelessness, again, in any way more than as rhetorical devices? It's generally agreed that to comfortably afford housing, it should take up no more than 30% of your income. (Years ago, it was 25%.) Will either party address the fact that, on that basis, as a national average it takes an income of $20.30 an hour to comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment - at a time when the average hourly wage for Americans is $15.42? Will they address the fact that there is not a single state in the US where someone working full-time, year-round at federal minimum wage can comfortably afford even a one-bedroom apartment? Will they talk about how homelessness has long since spread from the cities to the suburbs, such that now school buses can been seen to drop off childen at tents and cars? They won't - because they and their backers don't want to.

Remember concerns about student debt, something else that drove the Occupy movement? What are the chances that will be a focus of the concerns of the major parties?

I have to make a quick detour here. A couple of minutes ago, I referred to the Occupy Movement as having been crushed by some of the same forces now arrayed against what strictly and solely for the convenience of the moment I'll call the Sanders movement. I want to make clear that while there actually was evidence of coordination among federal and local officials on the best ways to break the backs of Occupy encampments, I'm not talking here about grand conspiracies; I'm not talking about secret cabals Skyping each other in a weekly meeting to plan their latest outrages. It's rather agreement based on common interests, common values, common ways of viewing the world. It doesn't require conscious cooperation, in fact if doesn't require active cooperation at all. What it requires - and what it has - is a range of powerful interests all heading in much the same direction, with much the same attitudes.

But getting back to the issues, talking about student debt leads directly to something else that Bernie Sanders talked about but I'll guarantee won't come up after the convention: free college.

It is, in fact, not a particularly radical idea. Twelve nations currently offer college tuition free to their citizens: Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, and Turkey; Chile will make it 13 next year.

When last year Obama proposed a government program to make community college tuition-free for a number of students who met certain guidelines and academic standards, why the Dems were falling all over themselves with praise. Because that idea, offering some help to a limited number of people that wouldn't cost that much or change that much in the grand scheme of things but which can be made to sound like a great dramatic advance, that is the kind of debate our political establishment is willing to have.

But go beyond that, talk about four-year public colleges being tuition free? Talk about something that actually is dramatic, that actually would make a fundamental change in our educational system? Impossible! Crazy! Just promising "free stuff!" And something to be forgotten as soon as the convention lights dim.

Oh, and here's something: See if there is any talk this fall about breaking up the big banks, about actually doing something about "too big to fail." It's something else that Sanders made one of the centerpieces of his campaign and something else I guarantee you will not sully the lips of Clinton or TheRump.

But all that has happened since 2008 is the the biggest banks have gotten bigger. Just four huge banks - Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase - now hold $6.87 trillion in assets, 42.2% of the total assets held by banks in the US. They have continued to grow since 2008 and will continue to do so.

Conveniently for the Dems, the GOPpers proposing to revoke Dodd-Frank, legislation setting up regulations which have already been watered down almost to the point of irrelevancy. So see if there is any discussion about regulating the financial industry, about controlling Wall Street, beyond "preserve Dodd-Frank" - which is another debate the economic establishment is willing to have, while actually fracturing their hold on the economy is not and so will be off the table.

And then there's the elephant in the room: campaign finance reform. I noted just last week that 80% of the $76 million Clinton's Super-PAC has raised has come from just 20 donors and the so-called "Hillary Victory Fund" has acted essentially as a money-laundering scheme to get around limits on campaign contributions. The idea that she will make campaign finance reform a significant part of her campaign - in fact, that she will raise it at all - is laughable.

There is so much more, so much that has been raised over these past several months that now will be pushed to the shadows because those that have the power in our society don't want to talk about them, don't want to take them on in any actual way, because to do so would be too much of a challenge to their privileged positions, raise too many uncomfortable questions about our economy, about our society, about our culture.

See how much either campaign talks about fracking.

See how much they talk about immigration reform in any way other than vote-pandering.

See if they talk about our broken criminal justice system in any way other than that same vote-pandering.

See if they bring up Black Lives Matter; see if they talk about police brutality, particularly in minority communities; see if they talk about racism in any way other than platitudes.

And see, frankly, if foreign policy even comes up in any form other than "terrorists bad, US good."

Sources cited in links:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/insured-not-covered-problems-obamacare
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/sunday-review/insured-but-not-covered.html?_r=0
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/05/2472-some-updates-on-secret-trade.html
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/the-collapse-of-the-middle-class-job
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/what-does-it-mean-to-gig-american-workers
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2357-income-inequality-is-growing.html
http://fightfor15.org/
http://www.nelp.org/publication/raise-wages-kill-jobs-no-correlation-minimum-wage-increases-employment-levels/
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059118/after-a-year-seattles-new-minimum-wage-hasnt-raised-retail-prices
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-05-04/unicef-report-reveals-americas-childhood-poverty-is-a-global-embarrassment
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/06/2486-footnote-media-ignore-poverty-in.html
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/05/the-hourly-wage-needed-to-rent-a-2-bedroom-apartment-in-2016-mapped/484091/
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/the-hidden-homeless-families-in-the-suburbs/
http://www.deseretnews.com/top/1642/0/Countries-that-offer-free-higher-education-.html
https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-and-debt-free/
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/02/7_countries_where_college_is_free_partner/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/politics/obama-proposes-free-community-college-education-for-some-students.html?_r=0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/09/obama-free-community-college_n_6446866.html
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13598498/1/lsquo-too-big-to-fail-rsquo-bank-review-finds-wells-fargo-now-number-2.html

247.2 - Some updates on secret trade negotiations

Some updates on secret trade negotiations

Several times in the past I have made mention of a series of secret international trade deals being negotiated. Best known among them is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which would create a "free trade zone" among 12 Pacific Rim nations which together account for 40 percent of the world economy - making it biggest trade deal since NAFTA, a deal which has been responsible for the loss of millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs in the US in exchange for the creation of millions of low-paid service industry jobs.

Opposition to the TPP among environmental and labor groups, already burned by NAFTA, have lead some nations, including Canada, to have second thoughts about the deal.

But not in the US, where Barack Obama continues to push for it, so much so that he regarded getting fast track authority for the agreement - under which Congress cannot amend the deal, only give it an up or down vote - to be one of the great achievements of his second term and so much so that the State Department upgraded Malaysia's ranking on human trafficking from, in effect, "horrible" to merely "very bad" so that it could stay in the deal.

And in fact, the deal was finalized last October and was signed in February.

So why do I bring this up? For one that, because that is not the end: The deal is signed but not ratified. It still has to be approved by Congress. One reason I haven't pushed this more is that everyone knows the deal is not going to come up before the election because no one in Congress wants to deal with it: They don't want to anger their corporate donors by opposing it or their voters by supporting it.

There has been some concern about the pact's supporters trying to get it rammed through in the lame duck session in December, when there will be less political pressure because it is just after an election when most people won't be paying much attention and some members of Congress won't be coming back so they don't have to care about the voters but they still have campaign debts to pay off and so big donors to please.

That possibility brings up to the hook for today's discussion of it.

Just before the West Virginia primary, Hillary Clinton came out in opposition to a "lame duck" vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This takes her beyond her previous statements mildly opposing TPP and she also made a strong statement criticizing our trade agreements in general.

Remember, Clinton had been in favor of the TPP; in fact she called it "the gold standard" for trade agreements. But in the face of clear opposition among the public and Bernie Sanders making it an issue in the campaign, she has gradually shifted her position from support to opposition. Her latest statement is the strongest expression of opposition yet.

Which is encouraging but unfortunately, there is a question as to how sincere this new-found opposition really is. Her campaign has recently sent up a trial balloon about a VP pick, trying to cement her position as the presumptive nominee. Unhappily,  the name hanging from that trial balloon is Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a moderate Democrat with some degree of progressive cred - but who is also a "free trade" zealot who has been the Senate's most fanatical supporter of the TPP.

Which in turn brings to mind the statement a few months back from Tom Donohue, president of the US Chamber of Commerce, who said not to worry about what Clinton is saying about the TPP now because once she is office she will flip back to supporting it.

The fact is, no matter the outcome in November, coming in January if not in December, this is going to be a big deal and we have to be ready for a fight.

I should also note that the TPP is only one of three massive trade deals being negotiated in secret. Beyond the TPP there is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which looks to do for North Atlantic trade what the TPP does for the Pacific Rim, and the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA, which looks to do for commercial services what the others do for commercially-produced products.

Together they represent the creation of a world economy where the benefit of corporations, especially transnational corporations, is not just standard operating procedure, it is a legal requirement of international treaties.

The TTIP is under strenuous attack in Europe from environmental, labor, and consumer groups. Recently, Greenpeace has warned that European Union, or EU, standards on the environment and public health are at risk of being undermined by the agreement. The charged was based on 248 pages of classified documents from the TTIP trade talks that were leaked to the group.

Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss said the documents

confirm what we have been saying for a long time: TTIP would put corporations at the center of policy-making, to the detriment of environment and public health.

A serious particular issue is the proposal to replace the EU's "precautionary principle" - under which manufacturers of potentially harmful products have to show they are sufficiently safe before they can enter the market - with the less strict US "managed risk" approach, under which hazards are dealt with after they arise from a product already in the market, not before.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, there are over 80,000 chemicals now in use in products in the US, most of which haven't been adequately tested for their effects on human health. The TTIP would spread that practice to Europe.

In addition, there have been serious charges the TTIP would be used to protect the megabanks from claims by European investors who allege that they were cheated during the debt crisis. It would so this by deflecting such claims to an "arbitration panel" dominated by the same economic interests that benefitted from the fraud in the first place.

Word is that the negotiators hope to have a deal ready to sign late this year, with the timing related to avoiding it becoming an issue in the US presidential campaign.

It should anyway.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-75-part-4.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2091-update-on-fast-track.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/04/3756197/trudeau-visit-preview/
http://www.care2.com/causes/obama-pushes-tpp-despite-overwhelming-concerns.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/07/2126-outrage-of-week-state-dept-to.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/05/3709061/tpp-agreement-reached-environmental-concerns-remain/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/8/1481868/-Obama-signs-TPP-largest-corporate-coup-in-history
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Clinton-Commits-No-TPP-F-by-Dave-Johnson-Corporations_Hillary-Clinton_Issues_Tpp-Trans-pacific-Partnership-160509-882.html
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/05/188713/clinton%E2%80%99s-vp-trial-balloon-can-she-really-be-full-air
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34629-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-tom-donohue-clinton-will-support-tpp-after-election
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/08/2172-more-on-three-secret-trade-deals.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36185746
https://www.nrdc.org/
https://www.nrdc.org/issues/toxic-chemicals
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44603.htm

Left Side of the Aisle #247

NOTE: Left Side is taking a vaction. The next episode will be for the week of June 2 - 8.

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of May 12-18, 2016

This week:

Some items on LGBTQ rights
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/italian-lawmakers-begin-final-debate-on-bill-allowing-same-sex-civil-unions/
http://www.thelocal.it/20160510/italys-civil-unions-bill-gets-put-to-a-final-confidence-vote
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-11/same-sex-unions-bill-gets-final-approval-in-catholic-italy
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/05/10/eastern_europe_is_still_a_very_hard_place_to_be_queer.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/23/charlotte-city-council-approves-transgender-bathroom-ordinance-over-governors-protest.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/09/politics/north-carolina-hb2-justice-department-deadline/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article76503097.html#emlnl=Evening_NewsletterIt http://www.salon.com/2016/05/09/ag_loretta_lynch_slams_north_carolina_bathroom_bill_likening_it_to_jim_crow_laws/
http://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/article/2016/apr/22/roundup-hb2-fact-checks-north-carolinas-controvers/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/25/1519775/-Fox-News-host-calls-bathroom-bills-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/04/hb-2-deeply-unpopular-in-north-carolina-voters-think-its-hurting-state.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/10/477481119/texas-lt-gov-targets-fort-worth-schools-chief-over-transgender-guidelines
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/dan-patrick-wants-ft-worth-super-ousted-for-accomodating-for-transgender-students.html/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/13/1514823/-Louisiana-governor-signs-order-protecting-transgender-and-gay-government-workers

Some updates on secret trade negotiations
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-75-part-4.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2091-update-on-fast-track.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/04/3756197/trudeau-visit-preview/
http://www.care2.com/causes/obama-pushes-tpp-despite-overwhelming-concerns.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/07/2126-outrage-of-week-state-dept-to.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/05/3709061/tpp-agreement-reached-environmental-concerns-remain/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/8/1481868/-Obama-signs-TPP-largest-corporate-coup-in-history
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Clinton-Commits-No-TPP-F-by-Dave-Johnson-Corporations_Hillary-Clinton_Issues_Tpp-Trans-pacific-Partnership-160509-882.html
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/05/188713/clinton%E2%80%99s-vp-trial-balloon-can-she-really-be-full-air
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34629-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-tom-donohue-clinton-will-support-tpp-after-election
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/08/2172-more-on-three-secret-trade-deals.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36185746
https://www.nrdc.org/
https://www.nrdc.org/issues/toxic-chemicals
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44603.htm

Clown Award: Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/top-gun-lobbyist-calls-hundreds-child-gun-deaths-occasional-mishaps
http://everytown.org/

Outrage of the Week: Wisconsin Gov. Scott WalkAllOverYou
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/7/1523972/-Gov-Scott-Walker-to-form-statewide-pee-database-in-his-latest-attempt-to-stick-it-to-the-poors
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/06/3776097/walker-drug-test-unemployment/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/26/3624447/tanf-drug-testing-states/

Rapid-fire items
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/me-union-charter-study-20160509-snap-story.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article76747402.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/07/alabamas-top-judge-is-suspended-and-may-lose-job-after-blocking-gay-marriage/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/clinton-must-release-wall_b_9857934.html?m=false
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/san-francisco-protesters-targeting-police-brutality-end-hunger-strike-after-17-days
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/hunger-strike-san-francisco-police-shootings
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uks-long-delayed-iraq-war-report-published-july-38984787
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-chilcot-inquiry-timeline-of-the-events-from-911-to-the-announced-publication-date-of-chilcot-a7020936.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36024725
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/03/us-service-member-killed-in-northern-iraq.html

217.2 - More on the three secret trade deals

More on the three secret trade deals

I told you last week that this week I would tell you what we know about two still-mostly-secret trade deals, trade deal which if you hadn't heard about, don't feel bad, you weren't supposed to.

The Terrible Trio of trade deals now being negotiated in secret include the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, and the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA. I've mentioned the TPP several times; it's the latter two I said I tell you more about this week.

Taking the TTIP first, this is a proposed deal that has been negotiated in secret between the US and the trade office of the European Union since June 2013. In essence, it seeks to do to the Atlantic side of the world what the TPP seeks to do to the Pacific side. Or, to be more exact, I should say the North Atlantic part of the world, as no African nation is part of this negotiation.

What we know about the TTIP has come through leaks and the occasional self-serving release by one or more of the parties involved and it is more than enough to get any sane person who is not a corporate executive, flak, lobbyist, or toady to be deeply worried.

One group called the agreement a "corporate lobbying paradise" because in 2012, during the run-up to the start of the negotiations, the European Commission’s trade department had 597 behind-closed-door meetings with lobbyists to discuss the plan. 528 of those meetings (88%) were with business lobbyists while only 53 (9%) were with public interest groups. The remainder were with other actors such as public institutions and academics. So, for every meeting with a trade union or consumer group, there were 10 with companies and industry federations.

What's more, there is clear evidence that during that time the trade department actively sought the involvement of corporate lobbyists, while holding trade unionists and other public interest groups at arm's length.

Not just before, but also during the negotiations, corporations are playing a shaping role. Some formulations in draft texts which have been leaked are identical to proposals of company lobbyists.

Then there is what is in the deal. Now, in fairness I have to say that the deal is not finalized so some of this may change, but considering the history of how such secret agreements go, any changes are at least as likely to make it worse than to make it better.

A big and important issue is the inclusion of what's called Investor-State Dispute Settlement. What that means is that foreign investors and corporations would have the right to sue for damages if they believe that they have suffered losses because of laws or measures of the targeted country. This would include environmental and consumer protection laws and other such measures; the fact that they were beneficial to the society as a whole would not matter.

So, for example, Barack Obama wants to reduce our carbon output to deter the threat of global climate change. Doing so would of necessity mean reducing the use of fossil fuels such as coal. Under this provision, if it was in effect, a foreign corporation with investments in US coal mines could claim that environmental program hurt the value of that investment and sue to "recover" its "loss."

Next, under something called "regulatory cooperation," corporate groups are to be included in the drafting of any new regulations or laws which might affect their trade interests. Public interest groups and workers are not invited.

Employee rights are coming under pressure, and jobs in numerous industries are endangered. The UN's International Labor Organization has established eight core standards for labor protection and rights. In the US, only two out of the either are recognized. The TTIP provides no protection for those other rights.

Privatization and so-called "liberalization" - and I hate that word, because "liberalization" should mean making something better, improving something, but here it means giving corporations a freer hand to do what they place - but they will become one-way streets. Once some asset or service has been handed over to private industry, turning it back into a public asset would be made almost impossible by TTIP. It is a blueprint for over time turning more and more of government services provided for the benefit of the public into profit centers for the benefit of corporations and their investors,as has already happened in part of Latin America, with the predictable result of skyrocketing prices for water.

Through a process called "regulatory convergence," standards of food safety and for consumer protection for cosmetics, medical products, pesticides, and other commodities are threatened with being set at whatever are the lowest standards now in force. In many cases, that would be the US standards, because US standards are often weaker than those in Europe. For example, in Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used, while in the US, it's the other way around: a substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. So instead of us being able to improve or toughen our consumer protections, the nations of the European Union would have to weaken theirs.

Oh, but it doesn't all go one way: The financial rules, the controls on banks, are tougher in the US than in the EU. Under the rubric "regulatory convergence," European banks are pressing the TTIP to require the US to loosen its regulations. The already weak and already wounded Dodd-Frank bill could become worth less than the paper its printed on.

That's obviously not the whole agreement, but it should be more than enough to show you why so many environmental, public interest, consumer, and labor groups - particularly in Europe, when it has gotten more attention than here - are against it.

Which leads us to the last leg of this three-headed beast of corporate wet dreams.

It's called the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA, and in a nutshell it seeks to create the same kind of international corporate playground in services that the TTP and the TTIP aim to do for goods. Negotiations have been taking place - in secret, of course - since early 2013.

A year ago, WikiLeaks published the secret "core text" being used in the negotiations, which today involve over 50 nations making up two-thirds of global GDP, including the US, the EU, and nations such as Turkey, Mexico, Australia, Pakistan and Israel - nations which, by the way, do not include what are called the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which have been excluded from the TiSA negotiations, even though those negotiations purport to benefit the global economy. Apparently, some nations are not supposed to be part of that economy.

According to analysts, that core text actually looks to undermine the governments involved in the treaty in favor of multinational corporations. One way is that it would require signatories to give up their right to choose local service providers in areas like broadcasting, education, electricity, and sanitation. "Buy local" would for governments become illegal.

The text looks to limit governments’ ability to regulate national services while giving unprecedented freedom to foreign corporations. This would apply to all services, including banking, financial services, e-commerce, health, transport, and consulting. The reforms would touch all levels of government from local to national.

The draft treaty also proposes restricting the ability of governments to set size and growth limits on various economic activities, as well as institutions such as banks. The expression "too big to fail," which not only suggest that is an unfortunate condition but carries the implication that smaller institutions can be controlled and even broken up, would become as passe as poodle skirts and rotary telephones.

The rules not only apply to internal matters: Another major element is a rule restricting governments from putting controls on cross-border movements of capital, including anything related to services or inflows of capital. Options to enforce capital controls are very limited, with the result that a small nation could be potentially bankrupted if a major international investor corporation or bank just decided to pull its capital out of the country.

That's not the end of it. In June of this year, two months ago, WikiLeaks released another set of secret documents leaked by some whistleblower, showing that the intention to, as described by the group, "deregulate global financial services markets" and "assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals" is as strong as ever.

I found two revelations in this new set of documents particularly disturbing. One is that "the leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data" and privacy of personal information can go the way of the dodo. Who knew that when the Amazing Mr. O promised "the most transparent administration ever" he meant that we must be transparent to the corporations?

Oh, but wait, the draft does have a chapter on transparency. It mandates that regulators must tell transnational investors ahead of time what they are doing.

The other particularly disturbing revelation is that amendments proposed by the US would end publicly provided services like public pension funds, which are referred to as "monopolies" and limit public regulation of all financial services, freezing regulation at existing levels, so that when another 2008 happens, we won't be able to do anything about it. Except, of course, to bail out the banks again.

Heard enough? No, you haven't, not until you've heard one more thing.

- Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership began in 2008 and continued to the present.
- Those on the Trade in Services Agreement began in February 2103.
- Those on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership began in June 2013.

So the administration of what US president has been pushing for these deals?

The administration of what US president wants US consumer protection, environmental, and other such regulations reduced to the lowest common denominator?

The administration of what US president wants to slash away at our privacy rights and calls public pension plans "monopolies?"

I don't know how many times I will have to say it: These people are not on your side!

Sources cited in links:
http://eu-secretdeals.info/ttip/
http://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2015/07/ttip-corporate-lobbying-paradise
https://stop-ttip.org/what-is-the-problem-ttip-ceta/
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/lang--en/index.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/06/20/thirst-profit-corporate-control-water-latin-america
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
http://www.rt.com/news/264745-wikileaks-secret-tisa-documents/
http://www.rt.com/news/271138-wikileaks-tisa-leak-documents/
http://www.rt.com/usa/167088-wikileaks-tisa-secret-trade/