Senate panel approves 'fast track' trade bill

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON -- A top Senate panel approved legislation to renew presidential "fast track" authority that would enhance President Obama's ability to negotiate a pending trade pact with Asia-Pacific nations.

The Senate Finance Committee voted, 20-6, Thursday evening to send the bill to the full Senate, but only after a defiant act by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to delay the hearing by invoking an antiquated Senate scheduling rule that pushed back committee action for hours.

Sanders is a leading liberal opponent of both fast track and the underlying Trans-Pacific Partnership and is considering a run for president.

"This job-killing trade deal has been negotiated in secret," Sanders said, "It was drafted with input by special interests and corporate lobbyists but not from the elected representatives of the American people."

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/22/senate-finance-fast-track-approval/26195137/

[yeoman6987]

1. 20-6?

Goodness we are in trouble. I think this mess is going to pass. Gosh this is awful.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. Was there any doubt that it would pass?

[daleanime]

26. Unfortunately....

No.

[Plucketeer]

2. I am SUPER-STEAMED about this damned TPP

and I'm retired. I hope this government give-away goes down in flames and takes the ass holes who've promoted it with it.

[jwirr]

14. I am also retired. It is about our children and grandchildren. My hope is that we can beat it on the

floor.

[Plucketeer]

23. Yes, it's about our families -

it's about our fellow Americans - even the ones disconnected from the nuts 'n bolts of our country - it's about our pride and the visions of those who set this experiment in freedom on it's way into the future. And I'll be DAMNED if I'll stand silently while it sinks under the weight of unabashed GREED!

[jwirr]

24. Exactly. We all need to take a stand.

[Hoyt]

27. I'll be retired when I can afford to stop working. TPP is for future generations.

I'm for TPP assuming it's a good deal. From what I've heard so far, I think it will be. If not, Obama won't endorse it.

We need these type of alliances and trade agreements.

We won't be doing future generations -- the ones that will actually be paying our social security -- any good by hamstringing them while the world passes us by. Good or bad, most of our kids and grand kids will work for corporations. Hopefully they'll infuse a more socially conscious managers and investors; but whatever, that's where the good paying jobs will be, not some mom-and-pop flower shop, or flea market. We won't progress -- in terms of education, health care, money for job training, welfare, etc. -- trading among ourselves.

I also think the TPP will improve conditions in poorer countries -- that's good from a humanistic standpoint and creates new markets for our special expertise. It will create jobs here, even if the employees are often working overseas building and doing big things.

[Plucketeer]

29. Open your eyes

This is an effort to put every nation on earth on one level of "prosperity". A world serfdom. I'm not ready to reassure my future lineage that they'll make less but enjoy it more. ....... Wait! Didn't I go to war to stem the tide of JUST such a movement? And NOW we're gonna turn ourselves over voluntarily??? Over my dead body.

[Hoyt]

30. Ah, the old Nationalism approach -- America first. We stole world wealth and ain't gonna give it

back.

You do realize that some poor people here would be viewed as a 1%er to most of the world.

[Renew Deal]

3. Who are the 20 and who are the six?

[840high]

8. Anybody got the list?

[Owl]

4. Damn

[DCBob]

5. Not surprised.

It will probably pass congress as well.

[zeemike]

9. Yes it probably will and our democratic president will sign it.

And by the time we vote them out of office it will be law and won't make a bit of difference because money will take care of the ones that lose their seat for the vote.

That is exactly how corruption works for the corruptors.

[JDPriestly]

6. Booooooo!

[840high]

7. Sickening. Traitors.

[project_bluebook]

12. Sold out by another Dem pres

and I thought slick willie was bad.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. https://jahanc.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/obama-laughing-on-af1.jpg

[zeemike]

11. Here are the Dems on the commity.

Democrats
Charles E. Schumer »
NY
Debbie Stabenow »
MI
Maria Cantwell »
WA
Bill Nelson »
FL
Robert Menendez »
NJ
Thomas R. Carper »
DE
Benjamin L. Cardin »
MD
Sherrod Brown »
OH
Michael F. Bennet »
CO
Robert P. Casey, Jr. »
PA

[jwirr]

15. So who are the Democratic votes for?

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. Wyden, Cantwell, Cardin, Nelson, Carper, and Bennet

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/239812-senate-panel-approves-trade-bill

Except for Bennet, all of them have large seaports in their states.

[jwirr]

22. Thank you.

[earthside]

28. Bennet is a Repuglican.

Not on the voter registration books, but that's what he is in fact.

[Freddie Stubbs]

31. CO Democratic voters seemed to think that he was a better Democrat than Andrew Romanoff

[earthside]

32. Bennet has had nearly six years now ...

... to prove his Repuglican bonafides.

That was then; this is now.

[Freddie Stubbs]

33. And after nearly six years, not one single Democrat out of the almost 900,000

registered Democrats in CO have stepped forward to challenge him.

There are three Republicans running.

[rpannier]

16. The sell-out from Oregon

Cantwell and Carper were listed in the USA Today article

[annm4peace]

17. I thought Sherrod Brown was against the fast track

I watched Cspan for awhile and they were voting on amendments to the fast track (Or that is what i thought was happening)


I thought Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey were progressives.

[thesquanderer]

18. Right, Brown is against it.

That is a list of dems on the committee, not a list of people who voted for it.

[annabanana]

19. Dollars to Doughnuts that Chuck approved. . . n/t

[Populist_Prole]

13. Republicans are all buddy buddy with this administration all of a sudden. Who'da thunk?

Surprise surprise. They'll get to marginalize the 99 percent further with no penalty.

This doesn't get the democratic senators off the hook though.

Despicable.

[Beauregard]

25. Moving right along. :(

And a similar deal with Europe is imminent.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30493297

[closeupready]

34. Sanders is really the only person who can save working people.

I think EW could, too, but she's not running.