Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

Apparently, Hillary Clinton read my blog right after I posted it and decided to withdraw her support for TPP.  The headlines, in my view exaggerate her lack of support compared to what she really said.

As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it...I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set.

She also acknowledged that she had not read it.  She has left herself a lot of wiggle room to change her mind when she is not under any pressure from the left.  It was a particularly good political move in terms of putting Vice President Biden in a bad position.  He is a supporter of TPP (and in his current position must be).  If he enters the race now, he will be the only Democratic candidate supporting TPP which will cause him problems with labor unions and liberals.

Bernie Sanders and I are both delighted that she has apparently changed her position.  Of course, as he said, it would have been more useful if she had come out against TPP when we only needed to stop granting fast track authority by preventing a 60 vote majority in the Senate.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

As you know, the negotiators have reached agreement on the terms of the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Congress granted fast track authority, with the provision that the President must give 90 days notice of his intent to sign the agreement and release the agreement to the public within 30 days thereafter.  Since he obviously intends to sign this agreement, why hasn't he given the notice and started the clock running?  Right now the President can say whatever he wants to about the TPP without fear of being contradicted because so few people have access to the entire agreement.  Once TPP is made public, a real debate can be had.  I suspect the President would like to have the 60 days of public scrutiny during a time when he thinks that the public will be distracted by other things.  We will see what he does.

Bernie Sanders along with Elizabeth Warren are leading the fight to defeat TPP for all the reasons I have written about here, here, here, here, here and here.  Hillary Clinton, while no longer saying that she is in favor of TPP, has not said what her position on TPP is.  She has also distanced herself from any part of the negotiations even though the State Department has been involved including while she was Secretary of State.  I certainly hope that she will break with the Obama Administration on TPP as she has on Shell drilling in the Arctic and the Keystone XL Pipeline.  It would be great if she would do so now.  This issue is not new; we are entitled to know where she stands on it. Maybe we will find out at the debate on October 13th.

In doing some reading today, I came across an article in The Atlantic (here) by Alan Morrison entitled "Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Unconstitutional?", originally published in June of this year.  While I was aware of provisions that would force international arbitration that would have no judicial review that could overturn individual government laws, this article was an eye opener as to how the provision would work.

The article starts with a hypothetical of the city of San Francisco passing a $16 per hour minimum wage requirement which a Vietnamese company that owns several San Fransisco restaurants challenges because it violates the investor protection provision of TPP.  The action is brought by the Vietnamese company against the United States for damages caused by the San Francisco minimum wage law.  San Francisco can only participate with the consent of the United States.  The case is heard by three independent international arbitrators who decide the case without any judicial review.  If damages are awarded, they are paid by the United States, undoubtedly prompting Congress to overrule the San Francisco minimum wage act to prevent further damages from being awarded.  The article does not contend that the Vietnamese company would be successful but points out how the TPP arbitrators, unaccountable to anybody, could effect a change in United States law.

Since there are other treaties with similar provisions in them, the world has some experience to look at.  The article states

Indeed, in a similar situation Canada reversed a toxics ban and published a worldwide advertisement that the chemical was safe in order to avoid the possibility of having to pay substantial damages.

The article goes on to explain that the Constitutionality of such a provision has not been addressed by the Supreme Court but argues that prior rulings on other cases could lead to a finding of TPP being unconstitutional.

It is worth reading the whole article.  President Obama, his Republican allies and big business will want you to just listen to the sound bites and assurances.  This issue is to important not to force a real debate with access to the facts.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama Bullying on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

Last week President Obama traveled to Nike headquarters to make his case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to try to bully members of his own party who oppose the TPP. See here and here.

There are so many things wrong with President Obama's approach it is hard to know where to start.  Let's start with giving the speech at Nike headquarters.  Nike clearly states that it is not a manufacturing company, it is a marketing and distribution company.  About 1% of its products is made in the USA.  Nike has always and continues to search for manufacturers in countries where working conditions are deplorable and wages are unconscionably low.  It moves from country to country to keep the manufacturing of its products in countries where there are no workers' rights.  President Obama claims that TPP would bring manufacturing jobs to the United States and cites a statement by the Nike CEO that it is possible that perhaps maybe if everything lines up just right that it might be possible for Nike to consider some special manufacturing that could possibly provide up to 10,000 jobs over the next decade.  How lame is that??  Nike products are currently made by almost 1,000,000 workers around the world.

After his speech in which he gives no facts and makes no substantive arguments supporting his assertion that TPP is the most progressive trade deal ever, he restarted his campaign to bully members of his own party who object to giving him fast track authority for TPP.  He may be telling the truth that it is the most progressive trade deal ever, but that is an extremely low standard and could simply mean that it will cost us fewer high paying manufacturing jobs than prior trade agreements.  Since prior trade deals have already cost us most of our good paying manufacturing jobs, there just are not that many manufacturing jobs to lose.

His argument is basically one of trust me.  He says that he has run in his last election, so what incentive would he have to enter into a deal that was bad for the American worker.  That is his only argument.  He says those opposed to TPP are just plain wrong.  He says that Senator Warren and others opposed to TPP are just spinning out hypotheticals, which is all they are legally permitted to do since they cannot disclose what they have read.  Yet he offers no specifics either about how they are wrong or about why he is right.  Of course since he has denied the American people the right to know what is in the drafts and what he is proposing, it is makes sense that his only argument is trust me.  But how can we trust him when big money and big corporations are his only advisors on the deal?  I do not know why he is so enamored with TPP, but I know that I do not trust him.

The Huffington Post published an editorial entitled "TPP: Obama's Folly" (here).  Their conclusion about why he is pushing so hard on TPP:

We cannot read the President's mind. But this unholy alliance with Republicans and their outsourcing corporate clients smells like a desperate effort to add something, anything, to his rather thin two-term legacy. 

Robert Reich wrote a great article entitled "Nike, Obama, and the Fiasco of the Trans Pacific Partnership" (here). It is a great summary of the some of the major problems with TPP.

The Trans Pacific Trade Partnership’s investor protections will make it safer for firms to relocate abroad – the Cato Institute describes such protections as “lowering the risk premium” on offshoring – thereby reducing corporate incentives to keep jobs in America and upgrade the skills of Americans.
Those same investor protections will allow global corporations to sue the United States or any other country that raises its health, safety, environmental, or labor standards, for any lost profits due to those standards.
But there’s nothing in the deal to protect the incomes of Americans.

Write your Congressional representatives and tell them to oppose TPP.  Two of my representatives, Representative Ellison and Senator Franken are vigorously opposing TPP.  Senator Klobuchar on the other hand has been quiet on the subject.  I cannot imagine why.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama has NO Credibility

Dear Friends,

Several items in the news recently reminded me why I get so cynical about politics and politicians.  I have no expectations for the Republicans to be thoughtful, logical, rational, transparent, intellectually honest or any other appropriate trait.  Yet, despite my cynicism, I still expect Democrats to have all of those traits.  Unfortunately, I am constantly disappointed.  Here are a few recent examples.

Armenian Genocide
As I wrote a few days ago here, then Senator Obama, when he was running for the Presidency, promised to officially call the Armenian Genocide, a genocide because it was.  Today is the day the world marks the 100th anniversary of that genocide and President Obama has once again refused to call the Armenian Genocide a genocide.  There is, of course, no question that it was a genocide.  It is important to call the Armenian Genocide by its proper name because the world must acknowledge these events in order to prevent them in the future.  By denying history, President Obama is enabling future generations to deny future genocides.  In my view one cannot deny history and still retain credibility.

Drone Strikes
The entire world knows that the United States uses drones to spy and kill people in a wide range of countries, yet for a long time President Obama refused to officially acknowledge them.  Then he did acknowledge them but stated that no drone strikes would be authorized without "near-certainty that no civilians would be killed or injured."  When it became obvious that the United States was not following that standard in some locations, the Obama Administration used a technicality of international law to lower that standard.  Here is the current state of affairs from The New York Times reporting (here):

Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know who they are killing, but are making an imperfect best guess.

An analysis in The Guardian in November 2014 (here) found that attempts to kill 41 men by drone strikes resulted in the killing of 1,147 civilians.

President Obama has promised more transparency about the drone program and the number of civilian casualties, but has failed repeatedly to actually be more transparent.  Here is some more from The New York Times article cited above.

But over the Obama presidency, it has become harder for journalists to obtain information from the government on the results of particular strikes. And Mr. Obama’s Justice Department has fought in court for years to keep secret the legal opinions justifying strikes.

The killing in an American drone attack earlier this year of an American and Italian hostages held by Qaeda has brought this terrible program back into the attention of Americans.  The United States did not know these two hostages were in the building at any time during the observation of the site.  In fact, the United States did not know who was in the building.  The order to assassinate the people in the building was given because they appeared to be terrorists based on observations of their non-terrorist activities and their phone calls.  

The President's apology for killing the two hostages was, I am sure, heartfelt, but he is the one authorizing a program that kills people who are targeted even though we do not know who they are and in the process we kill many innocent civilians, including children.  Why the President only apologizes when he kills innocent Americans and Europeans will be the subject of a future post.

The President has lost all credibility when it comes to being transparent and honest about how and why our government is assassinating people, including completely innocent civilians.  He says trust me we are really only killing the bad guys, but we all know that is not the case.  One cannot deny reality and still retain credibility.

Trans-Pacific Partnership

The President continues to insist that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be great for middle-class and working Americans.  This week he tried to take Senator Warren to task for her opposition to fast track authority for TPP.  He said that he welcomed a debate based on the facts.  Unfortunately, he is preventing us from knowing the facts.  Here are two tweets by Senator Warren that say it all:

The Obama Admin says I'm wrong - we shouldn't worry about TPP. So why can’t the American people read the deal?
When giant corporations see the TPP deal and; the American people don't, we all lose.

President Obama says trust me I wouldn't do this agreement if I didn't think it was good for Americans, but he lets big business be actively involved in the negotiations and prevents the rest of America from seeing what is being negotiated.  He says he wants a debate on the facts, but then prevents the facts from being known.

One cannot retain any credibility by demanding a debate on the facts and then not making the facts public.

I will not continue even though I have not touched on President Obama's lack of honesty and transparency about NSA spying or the fact that he refuses to prosecute war criminals but will prosecute the whistle blowers that disclose the war crimes.  Unfortunately, President Obama gives us no reason to believe what he says as he has lost all credibility.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

When hedging just isn't enough.

Dear Friends,

Hillary Clinton has been very busy during the first few days of her formal campaign to become President.  As I wrote here, much of what she has said has been very encouraging to me as a liberal.  Now she has made a move that gives me more hope.  She hired Gary Gensler as the chief financial officer for her campaign.

Mr. Gensler is a former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a former Goldman Sachs banker.  While that sounds like the typical revolving door story between the government and Wall Street.  Mr. Gensler is seen by many as a tough regulator who frequently clashed with Tim Geitner and Larry Summers (two terrible former members of the Obama administration).  The fact that he is in the good graces of Hillary Clinton is a very good sign.  Here is one conclusion from an article on Vox (here):

This is, for Wall Street skeptics, a huge deal: Gensler is the kind of regulator a President Elizabeth Warren would be expected to pick, not a President Clinton. But if Clinton is going to pick the kinds of regulators Warren was going to pick, then the difference between them isn't as large as many thought.

Unfortunately, Secretary Clinton's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership is one of hedging.  When Secretary Clinton was First Lady, she wholeheartedly supported NAFTA.  When she ran for President in 2008 both she and then Senator Barack Obama were anti-trade agreement.  Once Senator Obama became President Obama and Senator Clinton became Secretary of State Clinton, they both changed their tunes and became strong advocates for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Her support for the TPP is now posing some problems for her as she seeks to woo liberal voters.

The International Business Times has a good article addressing Secretary Clinton's dilemma and current hedging on the TPP (here).   The article quotes an aide to Secretary Clinton as saying:

She will be watching closely to see what is being done to crack down on currency manipulation, improve labor rights, protect the environment and health, promote transparency and open new opportunities for our small businesses to export overseas.

The article goes on to quote an opponent of the TPP who voices the exact concern that I have:

“We’re glad that Secretary Clinton is voicing concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said Murshed Zaheed, deputy political director at Credo. “But to stop secret trade deals like the TPP,  Secretary Clinton must speak out forcefully against Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority now while the debate is playing out in Congress.”

This case is clearly one where hedging is not enough.  Hillary Clinton must come out strongly against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and fast track for it.  Senator Bernie Sanders has urged Secretary Clinton to do so.  We should all do the same.  You can email her at website@hillaryclinton.com.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

Congress is moving forward to give President Obama fast track authority with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  The New York Times (here) just reported that a deal had been reached by the tax writing committees in the House and Senate on a bill to grant President Obama fast track authority.  As I have written before (here and here), the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a complete disaster for normal Americans.  It is written by and for big business.  While it appears that the bill will include some restrictions and while it requires that it be made public before it is approved (as opposed to keeping the provisions secret for two years after enactment), it is still a bad deal for Americans.

Please write your Representative and Senators as well as the President and anybody else in government that you have time to write.  Below some links to comment.

President Obama    https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Senator Klobuchar  http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/email-amy
Senator Franken     https://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=email_al

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Q: Who Controls America? A: Big Business and Big Money

Dear Friends,

Recent news articles have made it very clear who actually controls America and most of its politicians from both parties.  While the following news stories are seemingly unrelated, consider them as evidence to support the fact that big business and big money control America.  While I would expect the Republican Party today to be in favor of control by big business and big money, I am dismayed at the lack of opposition by the mainstream Democrats.

Trans-Pacific Partnership
I have written before about the TPP and how terrible it is (here and here).  Each time more information is leaked about what is in this so-called trade agreement, there is another uproar about it. On March 25, The New York Times published an article by Jonathan Weisman entitled "Trans-Pacific Partnership Seen as Door for Foreign Suits Against U.S. (here).  The agreement has many advisors from big business but nobody is looking out for everybody else.  Here are a couple of the pertinent paragraphs from the article.  Keep in mind that the provision allowing suits against the US to stop the enforcement of US laws is only one of many really bad ideas in the TPP.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s remaining economic agenda — would grant broad powers to multinational companies operating in North America, South America and Asia. Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal, state or local — before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations.
Backers of the emerging trade accord, which is supported by a wide variety of business groups and favored by most Republicans, say that it is in line with previous agreements that contain similar provisions. But critics, including many Democrats in Congress, argue that the planned deal widens the opening for multinationals to sue in the United States and elsewhere, giving greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting free trade and competition that benefits consumers. The chapter in the draft of the trade deal, dated Jan. 20, 2015, and obtained by The New York Times in collaboration with the group WikiLeaks, is certain to kindle opposition from both the political left and the right. The sensitivity of the issue is reflected in the fact that the cover mandates that the chapter not be declassified until four years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes into force or trade negotiations end, should the agreement fail.Conservatives are likely to be incensed that even local policy changes could send the government to a United Nations-sanctioned tribunal. On the left, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, law professors and a host of liberal activists have expressed fears the provisions would infringe on United States sovereignty and impinge on government regulation involving businesses in banking, tobacco, pharmaceuticals and other sectors.

Why would you require that a provision not be made public for 4 years after enactment or the end of negotiations if you were not really embarrassed about it.  Please note that the TPP has the full backing of not just big business and the Republicans but also President Obama.  Secretary Clinton was a big supporter of TPP when she was the Secretary of State, and she was an enthusiastic backer of NAFTA during her husband's administration.  The progressives in the Democratic Party including Senators Sanders, Brown and Warren are all opponents of TPP.

 Shell Oil Arctic Drilling

Shell Oil is already moving a large drilling rig to the Arctic even though it has not yet received the approvals needed from the United States government.  Shell ran into big problems last year when it began its program and had to stop drilling operations.  The Obama Administration is about to grant approval for it to start drilling.  One paragraph from an article in The New York Times on August 28, 2014 (here) summarizes Shell's demonstrated ability to drill in the Arctic.

Over the last eight years, Shell’s Alaskan Arctic efforts have been plagued by blunders and accidents involving ships and support equipment, reaching a climax with the grounding of one of its drilling vessels in late December 2012 in stormy seas. Environmental groups seized on the episodes as evidence to support their claims about the risks.

It is not only President Obama that is ignoring the pleas of environmentalist to stop the drilling.  Recently the Port of Seattle (a separate governmental unit from the city of Seattle) entered into a contract with Shell to permit Shell to use the port to service its rigs that will be used in the Arctic drilling.  As soon as that agreement was made public, the outrage began in force from environmental groups and the city of Seattle.  Why is it that all these agreements are kept quiet until they are done?  An article in The New York Times on March 13, 2015 (here) makes the issue clear in the first two paragraphs.

SEATTLE — The environmental messaging never stops here, whether from a city-owned electric utility that gets nearly 98 percent of its power from sources untainted by carbon (and is not about to let residents forget it) or the fussy garbage collectors who can write tickets for the improper sorting of recyclables.
So when a lease was signed allowing Royal Dutch Shell, the petrochemical giant, to bring its Arctic Ocean drilling rigs to the city’s waterfront, the result was a kind of civic call to arms. A unanimous City Council lined up alongside the mayor to question the legality of the agreement with the Port of Seattle, a court challenge was filed by environmental groups, and protesters, in bluster or bluff, vowed to block the rigs’ arrival — though the exact timetable is secret, for security reasons — with a flotilla of kayaks in Elliott Bay.

The fight to stop Shell from drilling in the Arctic is not over but clearly so far big business is winning.

Big Banks

In a moment of amazingly transparent honesty, the big banks have made it clear that they expect to get a huge return on their investment in buying politicians.  It has been widely reported that big banks intend to withhold contributions to Democrats if Senators Warren and Brown do not tone down their rhetoric about "too big to fail" legislation.  This action by the big banks is a clear statement of what they expect in exchange for their political contributions.  They are buying support for their policies which are not good for America.  They are only good for the banks.  The following is Senator Warren's response as quoted tin the Boston Globe on March 27 (here):

WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren took aim at Wall Street on Friday after two banks reportedly decided to halt campaign contributions to Senate Democrats unless Warren and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio tone down their rhetoric on breaking up large financial institutions.
“They can threaten or bully or say whatever they want, but we aren’t going to change our game plan,” Warren wrote to her supporters. “We do, however, need to respond.” 

Secrecy of Corporate Contributions

There was a great editorial in The New York Times on March 27 entitled "Which Companies Are Buying the Election? (here).  The impetus for the editorial was a recent Congressional hearing with the head of the SEC as the witness.  For the first 3.5 hours there were no questions about forcing disclosure of corporate political contributions from either the Republicans or the Democrats.  Eventually there was a question and the response was that the SEC does not have the time.  There are more pressing needs.  Once again clearly the Republicans do not want corporate or individual donors to be disclosed.  The Koch Brothers have done an incredible job of putting together a network of big donors that can contribute through all kinds of charades without having their names disclosed.  The response from the corporate wing of the Democratic party has been to remain silent.  Despite pressure from numerous advocacy groups President Obama is not taking any action to increase the transparency of political contributions.  Once again only the truly progressive Democrats including Senators Warren and Sanders are pushing for full disclosure of political contributions and limits.

Senator Reid and Senator Schumer

I have seldom praised Senator Reid as the Senate Majority Leader although he clearly did a lot of good things.  I recently listened to an interview of Senator Sanders who said that Senator Reid was a true progressive.  That is high praise coming from Senator Reid.  What worries me is that Senator Schumer is the heir apparent to Senator Reid as Majority Leader.  This CNN headline (here) tells you all you need to know:  "Wall Street welcomes expected Chuck Schumer promotion".

I could go on and on but I think these examples are enough, and I am sure that you can think of plenty of your own.  The United States of America is our country and our democracy is clearly in crisis as we become a plutocracy.  We, as individual citizens, are the only ones who can get our democracy back.  Get involved.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Dear Friends,
The following letter from Senator Sanders to Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative speaks for itself.  There can only be one reason to keep the proposal secret from the public is that the TPP benefits the giant multi-national corporations but not the average American.



Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Dear Friends,

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive "trade agreement" currently being negotiated by the United States and 11 other countries - Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan.  It is already huge and is being written in a way that other countries can join.  The negotiations have been going on for a decade, but they are secret.  The public only knows some details because drafts have been leaked.  The agreement contains 29 chapters and covers everything.  It is impossible to comprehend the vastness of the agreement. The Washington Post published a short and hence not very comprehensive article in December last year entitled "Everything you need to know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership" by Lydia DePillis (here).

One way to evaluate whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a good thing or not is to look at who is for it and who is against it.  There are over 500 official advisors to the United States negotiators.  They are from major corporations.  Senator McConnell has been widely quoted as saying that he and President Obama have talked about and agree on giving President Obama fast track authority to get this agreement done.  In fact it appears that the establishment Republicans and Democrats, all of whom tend to do the bidding of corporate America, are in favor of this agreement but liberals and conservative Republicans are very skeptical.

If you read the official website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (here), you will get the sense that TPP is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will make all Americans rich.  I have not read anything that refutes the contention that  TPP will be good for American businesses and the economic elite.  However, it appears that there will be a negative impact on American jobs and American startup companies.  The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a study a year ago indicating that TPP would have a negative impact on most American workers (here).

TPP is being challenged by a wide variety of groups.  One very vociferous group is Public Citizen.  The first part of its website (here) about TPP reads:

Have you heard? The TPP is a massive, controversial "free trade" agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. In one fell swoop, this secretive deal could:

offshore millions of American jobs, roll back Wall Street reforms, sneak in SOPA-like threats to Internet freedom, ban Buy American policies needed to create green jobs,

jack up the cost of medicines, expose the U.S. to unsafe food and products, and empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards.





Although it is called a "free trade" agreement, the TPP is not mainly about trade. Of TPP's 29 draft chapters, only five deal with traditional trade issues. One chapter would provide incentives to offshore jobs to low-wage countries. Many would impose limits on government policies that we rely on in our daily lives for safe food, a clean environment, and more. Our domestic federal, state and local policies would be required to comply with TPP rules.
The TPP would even elevate individual foreign firms to equal status with sovereign nations, empowering them to privately enforce new rights and privileges, provided by the pact, by dragging governments to foreign tribunals to challenge public interest policies that they claim frustrate their expectations. The tribunals would be authorized to order taxpayer compensation to the foreign corporations for the "expected future profits" they surmise would be inhibited by the challenged policies.
We only know about the TPP's threats thanks to leaks – the public is not allowed to see the draft TPP text. Even members of Congress, after being denied the text for years, are now only provided limited access. Meanwhile, more than 500 official corporate "trade advisors" have special access. The TPP has been under negotiation for six years, and the Obama administration wants to sign the deal this year. Opposition to the TPP is growing at home and in many of the other countries involved. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation does not like TPP either.  The first page of its website about TPP (here) reads:

 The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold:

(1) IP chapter: Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate.
(2) Lack of transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy. 

Joseph Stiglitz wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times critical of TPP last spring (here) entitled "On the Wrong Side of Globalization".  I have reprinted a few of his conclusions below:

There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else. The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.

One of the worst is that it allows corporations to seek restitution in an international tribunal, not only for unjust expropriation, but also for alleged diminution of their potential profits as a result of regulation. This is not a theoretical problem. Philip Morris has already tried this tactic against Uruguay, claiming that its antismoking regulations, which have won accolades from the World Health Organization, unfairly hurt profits, violating a bilateral trade treaty between Switzerland and Uruguay.

But the TPP would make the introduction of generic drugs more difficult, and thus raise the price of medicines. 

Critics of the TPP are so numerous because both the process and the theory that undergird it are bankrupt. Opposition has blossomed not just in the United States, but also in Asia, where the talks have stalled.

If you have time to listen to a podcast from Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, I highly recommend one interviewing Lori Wallach of Public Citizen here.

However, the most important thing to do is to tell President Obama (here), your Senators and your Representative to get rid of the veil of secrecy surrounding TPP, make TPP work for working Americans and have a full debate of TPP (no fast track authority).

Thank you for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal