Pres. Obama: Why are you pushing the Koch Supported Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

[TheBlackAdder]

This is going to make NAFTA look like a joke.

Why is Obama trying to Fast-Track this Pacific NAFTA?

Started by GWB... finished by Obama?


It will further weaken the US, add to more fracking, allow sketchy food imports and virtually eliminate GMO labeling.


Canada is banning fracking in some of their territories and are being sued bu oil and gas companies. This TPP agreement will invalidate those fracking restrictions and open up their territories for almost unrestricted fracking.


===

This is NOT the Hope and Change I was hoping to change.

===


Say no to a corporatist state:


You MUST open up a browser session and paste the link below to petition, the hotlink does not work.

https://secure3.convio.net/fww/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=623

[leftstreet]

1. Because a Republican could never pull it off

DURec

[FiveGoodMen]

28. THE real answer, I'm afraid.

[TheBlackAdder]

32. Unfortunately, you've hit the nail on its head. n/t

[rhett o rick]

37. The Powers In Charge knew that they needed a Democrat in the WH to

do this. That's why they made sure Obama had little competition in 2008. Think about it, John McCAin and what's her name? Really? They figure after 8 years of Obama, the public will be begging for another Bush. Not really, but maybe a Chris Christie.

[AverageJoe90]

40. I'm not convinced of that. Remember when their henchman Rove threw a huge hissy fit last year?

They definitely were hoping for a Romney win.....or Rove wouldn't have reacted like he did.

[rhett o rick]

41. Yes and I agree. They were only going to give Obama 4 years. Point taken. nm

[freedom fighter jh]

51. But who are "they"?

Rove may not be that high up on the hierarchy of those who are really in charge, I'm guessing. He did seem to think Romney had it in the bag. Since it didn't turn out that way, maybe the people who really run things didn't want a Romney win.

Maybe.

Or maybe Rove had good reason to believe he was working for the PTB, but he got outsmarted. Which would mean I agree with you.

I don't know. All this stuff happens out of sight, so one can only speculate.

[Dustlawyer]

57. "They" controlled both candidates so they were not worried. "They" also control most

Senators and Congressmen, many Judges/Justices, and the national media! They do it with campaign money. They make installment payments at those fundraisers that take place 24/7/365. This is also where they get their marching orders. I have been to many of these on the Democratic side. Sometimes I wonder why it is so hard for many to believe. "Do what we want and you stay in office where it is legal for you to trade on the inside info that we give you." "Go against us and you will have a primary opponent with more money than God!"
We need Complete Campaign Finance Reform (CCFR) including Publicly Funded Elections!

[AverageJoe90]

65. "maybe the people who really run things didn't want a Romney win." I'm sorry. But No. Just no.

Sorry, but it was pretty fucking obvious from the get go that TPTB didn't want Obama to win. Mid-level people like Sheldon Adelson were throwing practically endless bundles of cash at Romney and yet, even with Rove and yet another attempt at election fraud, they STILL lost. Why would they WASTE all that effort?!

Or maybe Rove had good reason to believe he was working for the PTB, but he got outsmarted. Which would mean I agree with you.

I'm sorry, but that's not in agreement with me, or the facts of the matter for that matter. I'm sure they would LIKE us to believe that they were in total control the whole time, as, after all, it'd help feed their illusions of unlimited power, but when you look at things from the correct angle, you'll understand, as I do, that this was a crucial crack in their "Armor", so to speak. This is OUR time to keep pushing for the changes that need to be made, and not of defeatism(remember what happened to the environmentalist movement!).

I hate to come off as harsh, but this kind of stuff you've written is not only not contrary to the truth but it is, unfortunately, even HARMFUL to those of us fighting the good fight, especially those with a far greater impact than I.

[freedom fighter jh]

67. You need a chill pill.

You want me not to express my opinion because you think that's harmful to whatever cause it is that you're fighting for?

This is a discussion board. For discussion. If there's a list of things that are not allowed to be said, I doubt that my speculations about Karl Rove's place in the hierarchy of the powers that be are on it. But if my speculations are, I imagine that yours are too.

If TBTB didn't want Obama to win, then how did he win? Please enlighten me about the correct angle from which to see the crucial crack.

[sabrina 1]

70. Rove is just a workhorse. He is not even liked by Bush Sr. 'They' are way above the likes

of Rove who merely works for them. Like a butler works for the prince.

He was genuinely upset. He failed to deliver what they paid him for. But to those who have bought our government, it really doesn't matter any more so long as they get what they want.

Obama received millions of dollars from many of them, equally as much as Romney. Why do you think that happened? I was always nervous when I heard that Bush's former donors were donating to Obama.

We need campaign finance reform, REAL reform forbidding these Corporate donations completely or this country will just keep getting worse and worse and it will be too late to do anything.

Even a good person with good intentions, has to get millions, a billion now it seems, to get to the WH. Once they take that money, they owe people. And if they take it from unsavory people, like Wall St Bankers, then we know who will be demanding decisions that benefit them, not necessarily the rest of us.

It isn't about individual politicians any more. It's about a system that is corrupt and that benefits the top most wealthy individuals and Corporations, and does little any more for the people.

[cui bono]

43. I disagree about the begging for another Bush.

I think they needed a Dem because they have him doing what the MIC and banksters want and there is little dissent to be heard from the Dem Party as a whole. Definitely the elected Dems. And the media is corporate so you won't hear opposing views on there very much, if at all.

The general public was so sick of GWB that they felt Obama was a breath of fresh air and got either complacent or just stayed on his bandwagon no matter what he does. So they get a Dem to enact/further Republican policy with barely a peep against it.

Look at SS. How many Dems defended Obama putting that up for slaughter? You know that IOKIYAR, well IAOKIYAD (it's also okay of you are Dem) with too many Dems. PBO is doing a lot of the same GWB did, and more of it, and we have to listen to a bunch of DINOs defending it. Sad.

[rhett o rick]

48. I dont disagree. What I said was TPTB figured after Obama, the country would accept a Republican in

2016. I just hyperbolized a little with "begging for another Bush". I think Ms. Clinton will be running against Gov Christie in 2016 but I am not sure which will be in which party. I think they can switch and no one would know the difference.

[SammyWinstonJack]

49. heh

I think they could switch and no one would know the difference.

[rhett o rick]

62. What we will find is that the one that wins will appoint (?) the same intelligence leaders, the

same economic leaders, etc. The Powers To Be transcend the presidents.

[cui bono]

61. True. Makes no real difference anymore. n/t

[AverageJoe90]

66. "I think they needed a Dem" No, they didn't.

Obama winning was the LAST thing they wanted. Why do you think Karl Rove threw such a massive hissy fit after he won a second term? Their efforts to steal the election for Mittens FAILED. What's been happening now, is damage control. Okay? Let me spell this out for you: Damage. Control.

Benghazi was just the beginning. Turning Syria into a quagmire is next. We need to keep fighting, and amongst the LAST things we need is feeding TPTB's illusions of infinite power.

[cui bono]

68. Don't agree. That's the theater they want you to see.

In reality they don't care who is in power since both parties do their bidding. The good cop bad cop show is for the people, so they can feel good about continuing to vote, thinking it actually makes a difference.

They needed a Dem because that's the only way that they could not have liberals up in arms, moderates as well. People felt so relieved that a Dem, and an extremely charming, educated and articulate Dem who they felt they could trust and depend on, after whose election they breathed a sigh of relief about, that they got complacent. They just believed that with Obama in office it was going to be okay. And that's the perfect scenario for TPTB to start implementing what they want.

Look at the policies... Obama expanded and "legalized" warrantless wiretapping, orders more drone strikes, let the banksters off the hook, put Wall Street right smack dab in the middle of the WH and offered up SS. You think TPTB aren't happy with this? And now they're probably going to get more military contracts over Syria. What's not to like? They are doing great under Obama and there's no outrage from the people. Remember what happened when Bush tried to privatize SS?

[AverageJoe90]

69. So what if both parties have problems? I don't deny THAT, not at all.

Doesn't disprove what I said, though, not in the least.

The good cop bad cop show is for the people, so they can feel good about continuing to vote, thinking it actually makes a difference.

This is, undoubtedly, what they want us to think. Apathy is their best friend, and we had to learn this the hard way back in the '60s when LBJ lost to Nixon(sure, many of the youngsters were out on the streets for the Dems, but guess who won anyway?).

They needed a Dem because that's the only way that they could not have liberals up in arms, moderates as well. People felt so relieved that a Dem, and an extremely charming, educated and articulate Dem who they felt they could trust and depend on, after whose election they breathed a sigh of relief about, that they got complacent. They just believed that with Obama in office it was going to be okay. And that's the perfect scenario for TPTB to start implementing what they want.

Again, here's the problem with this: they actively TRIED to steal the 2012 elections, not just through outright fraud but with voter suppression and other tactics. And if it hadn't been for the dedicated push, and the fact that someone actively interfered with said election theft attempts, we might be discussing President Romney today. When you look at all the evidence, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that I have: They didn't want Obama to win another term and now they're doubling down on the damage control and contingency plans, since Plan A failed so badly.

We may have a long way to go, but we're far from doomed, as of yet. And frankly, much of this NSA hoo-hah ended up being used more of a distraction, anyhow.....and sadly, it looks like the same thing may have been true for the economic issues as well; where they've been trying to hit us the hardest, is really on the social front, and if we were to ever lose that battle, then we'd run a truly great risk of losing the war as a whole. On the up side, if we *win* on that front, then our other battles will be easier to fight.

[cui bono]

75. True. They did actively try to steal 2012. Perhaps there's 2 levels of "they".

The real PTB, the banksters and corporations, and then the lower level "they", the GOP. The GOP is in it for ego as much as anything, but TRPTB know it doesn't matter and push for more with a Dem for the reasons I outlined earlier.

I just really believe it took a Dem to put SS on the table, we see that from what happened when GWB did it compared to the reaction when Obama did it. Night and day. All of a sudden it was okay to put SS on the table. Why? As I said, because there's little outcry when a Dem does it. Dems are still trusting of Obama, still supportive of him, mostly simply because is is a Dem - and a lot of it because he is not GWB - so they either aren't paying attention or are blindly supporting/defending him when he does things that GWB couldn't get away with.

End result is that SS is now negotiable where as it used to be the third rail. Obama made that happen. GWB failed to do so. Because of the reaction to them, not necessarily because one was better at it than the other. I think it's because a Dem did it.

[grasswire]

77. the real tragedy is that Obama has taken traditional Dem issues away.

Social security tampering
Making war, not peace
Privacy and surveillance
Wall Street greed

Those are some of our Democratic values that we campaign on. Every time Obama capitulates or "negotiates" on a Democratic value, that issue is no longer available for us to run on.

[cui bono]

78. Exactly. Since the Dems are now proposing these things

with excuses and support from Dems in congress, it will be hard to protest when the Republicans do it. So we can pretty much expect SS to be cut in the near future as well as more civil rights losses, more erosion in consumer protections, etc...

Have a Dem propose/enact/expand what you listed made it easier for it to become an actuality and continuing policy no matter which party is in office.

[NorthCarolina]

45. First response to the OP nails it. nt

[bunnies]

2. *authored by Hillary.

Dont forget that part.

[OhioChick]

3. She certainly did help draft this POS

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101667554

[bunnies]

5. Her hubby must be proud.

This garbage makes NAFTA look pathetic. Yes, lets give giant corporations the power to ignore all our laws and sue us on our dime. Such a wonderful use of taxpayer money.

[OhioChick]

6. I agree

NAFTA decimated Ohio. I can't even fathom the thought of what the TPP will not only do to Ohio, but the rest of the US, as well. The last thing we need is for the major corps to have even more power than they already have.

[bunnies]

8. Yep.

More money and power for them. More punches in the face for us. I did not expect this kind of thing from President Obama at all. Hillary? Yes. But Obama?

[avaistheone1]

13. It looks like launching disastrous treaties for American workers run in the Clinton family blood.

I learned something today.

[bunnies]

19. Imagine what she'd do as President.

[avaistheone1]

20. This seriously adds to my growing list of reservations about Hillary.

I am surprised, but this is not completely unexpected.

[bunnies]

21. Thats what makes it so infuriating.

This kind of thing is exactly the reason I didnt support her in 08. Its expected. We know damn well shes a pro-corporate Dem. Didnt see it coming from Obama, though. What a let-down.

[Plucketeer]

50. Her hubby

will be VERY influential if she wins the oval office.

[glinda]

11. This is only one reason why I will not vote for her.

[OhioChick]

16. Same here n/t

[Raksha]

74. Same here. No way will I vote for Hillary...her time has come and gone.

I voted (with reservations) for Obama in 2008, but in 2012 I voted for Jill Stein. Same thing in 2016--either the Democrats give me a REAL progressive or I vote third party again. No more of this "lesser of two evils" bullshit.

[antigop]

31. +1000 nt

[bullwinkle428]

14. If enough of us make enough noise about this, she may lose her

"inevitable" status for a second time!

LONG way to go before we get to 2016.

[bunnies]

18. Yep.

This is a deal-breaker for me. I plan to work my ass off for a Dem in NHs primary but I can promise that theres no way in hell it will be her. Besides, people are going to be SO sick of the inevitability crap by then. I cant believe its going to be years of that shit. You'd think some people would have learned from last time.

[CrispyQ]

25. Good idea.

I will start writing to major dem orgs that send out pleas for my money.

[Berlum]

29. + 1

nt

[glinda]

35. Just hope that Amy BlueDog Klobuchar doesn't get chosen. Worse even.

Wolf killer. Sell out.

[rhett o rick]

42. I wish that were possible. We are a small minority. There are lots of DU'ers that will

follow Hillary off the cliff.

[CrispyQ]

24. I did not know that.

I will not vote for her. Even before I knew this, I would not vote for her.

I just got a DCCC plea for a contribution. I think I will send a personal reply, along with a copy of my recent County Clerk card showing my change of voter affiliation. "Who else you gonna vote for?" Guess what, the party can only take that so far before people start to say "fuck off."

[LiberalAndProud]

4. This is the biggest betrayal.

Roll back NAFTA. Remember that promise?

I do.

This has me rethinking alignments.

[TheBlackAdder]

58. At one point, I actually believed they were serious. Now, Congress Inside Trades on a Daily Basis.

Look how many in congress are plugged into the Canadian companies affiliated with Keystone XL.

They're not even investing in US companies, but Canadian ones.

[HooptieWagon]

7. Exactly. Getting TPP passed is multi-national Corps #1 priority.

They don't give a fuck about gay marriage, woman's health, and other social issues. They want to dismantle decades worth of environmental laws and worker protections. Everything else is just tools used to divide us.

[woo me with science]

9. Huge K&R. Thank you for keeping this on the front page.

There are so many massive betrayals happening right now that you know they hope to slip this one through quietly.

[mick063]

10. Needs to stay on the first page a bit.

n/t

[colsohlibgal]

12. This Is A Big Deal

The maddening thing is that it is getting almost no play even on liberal media. By being all in on this, both Obama and Hillary Clinton show that they are truly neo liberal, i.e. republican lite. Come on down Elizabeth Warren, we need you to remind people what democrats are supposed to stand for.

I believe her populist plain talk can appeal to a lot of folks.

[mick063]

17. Rachel is stuck in "LBGT rights" mode.

Who else might bring it up?

Maybe Ed?

Doubt it.

Will no television "journalist" properly address this?


Nope.

Hillary had a hand in writing it.

That is why.

[caseymoz]

23. I think you're right.

And if not her, I don't know who.

[blkmusclmachine]

15. Next time, let's vet our candidates for high office a bit first, okay???

[caseymoz]

22. I call it Post-Marxist Liberalism.

I think like the Clintons, is a liberal who rejects the very notion of class struggle. They reject it as a concept, and refuse to accept that any part of it might describe a real social phenomenon.

I believe that happened because in the age the Clintons were being educated, the brutality of Bolshevik-derived Marxism (Leninism, Maoism) was laid bare and was thought to have discredited Marxism itself and brought the ideology into ill-repute.

We can leave the Bolshevik branch to rot, but Marxism needs to be re-examined in light of what's happening in the country and the world now.

[truedelphi]

33. We don't necessarily need to embrace Marxism - simply the concept of

"Free Trade" that existed during the 1800's.

There was a time when Free Trade meant something. However, once the doctrine of Corporation Uber Alles began its reign in the late 1880's, and then all bets were off.

It is not surprising that Obama is doing this. Once he appointed Tim Geithner, a criminal of highest order, to Treasury, and went on to appoint Monsanto clones to positions of high trust inside the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, (plus re-appointed ben bernanke), it became apparent that he is NOT a constitutional scholar, nor is he a passionate progressive activist. Rather he is a puppet under the control of the one percent.

[caseymoz]

53. Have you read Marx?

Or are you just dismissing it without looking because it's such a bad word?

Remember, Marx wrote after Free Trade of the 1800s you cite was in effect and most of his work dates before the time in the 1880s you cite. He was addressing the problems created after your vaunted Free Trade panacea was reached. His writings had an audience because other people were suffering under those problems, in the US and Europe.

I'll tell you, when you look at how Marx predicted capitalists would behave as capitalism progressed and look at what the wealthy are doing now, I would swear they've read Marx and they're doing their level best to try to prove him right.

There's no reason for a categorical rejection of Marx as far as I can see. And really, if you think all we have to do to fix our system or nation is bring back whatever magical ideology we stumbled upon two centuries ago, you're both a part of the problem and you don't understand it.

[leftstreet]

59. +1

It's as if the wrong people got hold of Das Kapital, and never returned it to the library

[truedelphi]

63. You are making some good points. None of which

Can be refuted.

Sorry for the categorical dismissal.

[LiberalAndProud]

26. It is alarming,isn't it?

The U.S. has proposed language that will "preserve the ability" of the US to regulate tobacco and tobacco-related health issues.

The fact that a country's ability to regulate a highly specific health issue must be specifically designated in the language of the treaty raises some extreme red flags. extreme.

http://www.ustr.gov/New-Proposal-Tobacco-Regulation-Trans-Pacific-Partnership

[CrispyQ]

27. "The Corporation" should be required viewing.

An excellent movie. It's available at Netflix. Watch it. Encourage everyone you know to watch it. Corporations are the most powerful entity right now. They are an artificial construct for the rich & powerful to behave without consequence, or very little consequence. We have the power to rein them in, or we did. Our electoral process has been so corrupted & compromised, I doubt it can happen via that route.

The statements that Ray Anderson said in the movie, are very moving. If only there were more CEOs like him. The first is the one that really hit me, but everything he said was so spot on. (Anderson was the CEO of a carpet manufacturing company.)

Rest in peace, Mr. Anderson. Your words made an impact on at least one person.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/quotes

Ray Anderson: For 21 years I never gave a thought to what we were taking from the Earth or doing to the Earth in the making of our products. And then in the summer of 1994 we began to hear questions from our customers we had never heard before: 'What's your Company doing for the Environment?' And we didn't have answers. The real answer was not very much. And it really disturbed many of our people, not me so much as them, and a group in our research department decided to convene a taskforce and bring people from our businesses around the world to come together to assess our company's worldwide environment position to begin to frame answers for those customers. They asked me if I would come and speak to that group and give them a kick-off speech and launch this new task force with an environmental vision, and I didn't have an environmental position, and I did not want to make that speech. And sort of the propitious moment, this book landed on my desk. It was Paul Hawkins' book, The Ecology of Commerce and I began to read The Ecology of Commerce, really desperate for inspiration, and very quickly into that book I found the phrase, "The Death of Birth". It was E.O. Wilson's expression for species extinction, "The Death of Birth," and it was a point of a spear into my chest, and I read on, and the spear went deeper, and it became an epiphanal experience, a total change of mindset for myself and a change of paradigm. Can any product be made sustainably? Well, not any and every product. Can you make landmines sustainably? Well, I don't think so. There's a more fundamental question than that about landmines. Some products ought not to be made at all. Unless we can make carpets sustainably, you know, perhaps we don't have a place in a sustainable world, but neither does anybody else, making products unsustainably. One day early in this journey it dawned on me that the way I'd been running Interface is the way of the plunderer; plundering something that's not mine, something that belongs to every creature on earth. And I said to myself, "my goodness, the day must come when this is illegal, when plundering is not allowed. It must come". So, I said to myself, "my goodness, some day people like me will end up in jail".


Ray Anderson: Running a business is a tough proposition. There are costs to be minimised a every turn, and at some point the corporation says, you know, let somebody else deal with that. Let's let somebody else supply the military power to the Middle East to protect the oil at its source. Let's let somebody else build the roads that we can drive these automobiles on. Let's let somebody else have these problems. And that is where externalities come from, that notion of let somebody else deal with that. I got all I can handle myself.

Ray Anderson: Drawing the metaphor of the early attempts to fly. The man going off of a very high cliff in his airplane, with the wings flapping, and the guys flapping the wings and the wind is in his face, and this poor fool thinks he's flying, but, in fact, he's in free fall, and he just doesn't know it yet because the ground is so far away, but, of course, the craft is doomed to crash. That's the way our civilization is, the very high cliff represents the virtually unlimited resources we seem to have when we began this journey. The craft isn't flying because it's not built according to the laws of aerodynamics and it's subject to the law of gravity. Our civilization is not flying because it's not built according to the laws of aerodynamics for civilizations that would fly. And, of course, the ground is still a long way away, but some people have seen that ground rushing up sooner than the rest of us have. The visionaries have seen it and have told us it's coming. There's not a single scientific, peer-reviewed paper published in the last 25 years that would contradict this scenario: every living system of earth is in decline, every life support system of earth is in decline, and these together constitute the biosphere, the biosphere that supports and nurtures all of life, and not just our life but perhaps 30 million other species that share this planet with us. The typical company of the 20th century: extractive, wasteful, abusive, linear in all of its processes, taking from the earth, making, wasting, sending its products back to the biosphere, waste to a landfill. I, myself, was amazed to learn just how much stuff the earth has to produce through our extraction process to produce a dollar of revenue for our company. When I learned, I was flabbergasted. We are leaving a terrible legacy of poison and diminishment of the environment for our grandchildren's grandchildren, generations not yet born. Some people have called that intergeneration tyranny, a form of taxation without representation, levied by us on generations yet to be. It's the wrong thing to do.

Ray Anderson: (Speech to Civic and Business Leaders, North Carolina State U) Do I know you well enough to call you fellow plunderers? There is not an industrial company on earth, not an institution of any kind, not mine, not yours, not anyone's that is sustainable. I stand convicted by me, myself alone, not by anyone else, as a plunderer of the earth, but not by our civilisation's definition. By our civilisation's definition, I'm a captain of industry. In the eyes of many a kind of modern day hero. But really, really, the first industrial revolution is flawed, it is not working. It is unsustainable. It is the mistake and we must move on to another and better industrial revolution and get it right this time.

Ray Anderson: When I think of what could be I visualise an organisation of people committed to a purpose and the purpose is doing no harm. I see a company that has severed the umbilical cord to earth for its raw materials, taking raw materials that have already been extracted and using them over and over again, driving that process with renewable energy. It is our plan, it remains our plan to climb Mount Sustainability, that mountain that is higher than Everest, infinitely higher than Everest, far more difficult to scale. That point at the top symbolising zero footprint...
Title Card: Since 1995, Interface has reduced its ecological footprint by one third. Its stated goal is to be sustainable by 2020.

[truedelphi]

34. I second your idea of watching this film.

Thank you for posting it.

[TBF]

30. This shouldn't surprise anyone who has been paying attention. nt

[wildbilln864]

36. well r & k then. n/t

[jsr]

38. Recommend

[duffyduff]

39. The same reason he is trying to abolish public ed through his flak Arne Duncan.

It's because he can.

[jsr]

46. Abolish??? No, Strengthen.

Weaken = Strengthen in the new lexicon.

[woo me with science]

44. kick

[MissDeeds]

47. Disgusting, but not surprising

I can't help but notice the 'rapid fire blue link team' is strangely quiet. Maybe even they realize this is indefensible.

K&R

[jsr]

56. Very astute observation

Yep, the bullshit stinks to high heavens.

[Octafish]

52. He's Buy-Partisan

...especially on economic matters. Here are a few of the Big Wigs on Team Obama:

Larry Summers and Jacob Lew and Penny Pritzker.

Buy-Partisan to the core of money and power. Which is a sign they're buy-partisan pretty much on domestic policy and foreign policy, too.

[MotherPetrie]

54. K&R

[Ocelot]

55. I'll tell you why he's supporting TPP

Because he's always been wealthy and privileged, and could probably care less whether the poor and the middle class people in this country all lose their jobs & drop dead. His wealthy, privileged cronies will always come first.

[Kablooie]

60. What the hell goes on behind the scenes?

I'm sure this kind of deal is not what Obama on his own would approve.
What pressures do the powers wield to turn someone like O towards the dark side?
They must be considerable.

[forestpath]

64. Signed. This is such a fucking travesty. Betrayals don't come

much bigger than this.

[markiv]

71. NAFTA was started by GHWB... finished by Clinton

same old, same old

[Egalitarian Thug]

72. 100th rec. n/t

[markiv]

73. NOTHING Obama has done, has surprised me

almost 6 years ago, I read this

"I will support a temporary increase in the H-1B visa program as a stopgap measure until we can reform our immigration system comprehensively"

told me all I needed to know

corporate owned

clues have been there for years

http://pradeepc.net/blog/2007/11/26/barack-obama-on-h1b-and-immigration/

[Recursion]

76. So we can sell corn and soybeans overseas

US trade policy is always about agriculture.

[Jasana]

79. Thanks for the link. I made good use of it. nt

[DeSwiss]

80. I'm assuming this is a rhetorical question.

Since it would be evident to even the most casual observer, that our government is under the control of the 1%. No matter which ''Washington crowd'' is in power, they are elected by us to be employed by others.

''You may not get what you want, but you always get what you choose.'' ~Anon.

K&R

Ed McMahon: ''Oh Carnac The Magnificent, mystical sage that you are -- I hold in my hands a letter that has been hermetically-sealed and placed inside a mayonnaise jar, held on Funk and Wagnall's back porch until NOON TODAY! NO ONE! No one has seen the contents of this letter. But you with your strange powers of divination shall reveal to us their contents without opening it.'' {hands him the letter}

Carnac The Magnificent: {holds letter to his head and closes his eyes} ''Twerking or Congress.''

Ed McMahon: ''Twerking or Congress.''

Carnac The Magnificent: {glares at Ed, then says} ''Name anything more popular than bombing Syria right now.''

[B Calm]

81. Anything to weaken US labor and make huge profits for the ruling class.