Mitch McConnell Pledges Fast Action For Secretive Trade Deals

[Peace Piper]

Mitch McConnell Pledges Fast Action For Secretive Trade Deals

WASHINGTON -- New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pledged Wednesday to move full speed ahead to give President Barack Obama so-called fast track authority to cut massive new trade deals with little oversight.

The last grant of fast track authority, formally known as Trade Promotion Authority, expired in 2007. It allowed the president to negotiate trade deals without consulting Congress and to sign the agreements on his own. Congress' role was reduced to voting yes or no on the resulting deal, with no amendments and none of the procedural hurdles that lawmakers can typically employ when they don't like something.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) adamantly opposed granting that power to Obama in the last Congress while he was majority leader, but McConnell said Wednesday that he would make TPA a priority.

"We're in active discussion on TPA," said McConnell, adding, "It’s an enormous grant of power, obviously, from a Republican Congress to a Democratic president, but that’s how much we believe in trade as an important part of America's economy."...

SNIP Full: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6432118.html



President Obama, Wall Street Financiers, Corporate CEOs And Members Of Congress Meet Together To Plan Strategy To Sell And Pass Free-Trade Agreements

The country's top executives from Wall Street and corporate America are working directly with President Obama and members of his cabinet and appointees on passing a free-trade agenda that is unpopular among the president's natural constituents of democrats, labor unions, environmental and consumer groups and the American public as a whole.

Obama, his staff and members of Congress met directly with CEOs of major multinational corporations in Washington, D.C., on December 11 to discuss the "ground game" -- as his aides described it -- needed to persuade Americans on the benefits of free trade and to lobby Congress on passage of Trade Promotion Authority [TPA] and the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] next year.

Under the auspices of the December meeting of the President's Export Council, Obama lambasted opponents of the free-trade agenda he adopted from Presidents Bush and Clinton, arguing that opponents are ignorant of the benefits of trade and admonished them to back off in their effort to oppose passage of TPA and TPP by stating: "Don't fight the last war. You already have."..

FULL: http://www.manufacturingnews.com/new...P-1217141.html



Obama hopes to enlist GOP in push for trade pact, despite Democratic resistance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...d25_story.html

Obama lying on the Campaign Trail



It's Buy Partisanship!

[jmdrake]

Right. Because obviously the reason the American people voted for republicans in the midterm elections is because they wanted a democratic president to have more power.

[ZENemy]

I got 20 bucks that says he does nothing, paypal ready.

[Brian4Liberty]

More crony corporatism.

[specsaregood]

Right. Because obviously the reason the American people voted for republicans in the midterm elections is because they wanted a democratic president to have more power.

makes sense though; this way they can give their cronies what they want without having to cast a vote directly for it and just blame it on a lame duck president.

disappointing though if they do give it. I know Randal has said he thinks negotiations should be prioritized; but I fully expect him to come out fully against ceding this power to the president or he'll lose a lot of my faith.

[Peace Piper]

disappointing though if they do give it. I know Randal has said he thinks negotiations should be prioritized; but I fully expect him to come out fully against ceding this power to the president or he'll lose a lot of my faith.

Rand Paul to Obama: "Prioritize" Passage of Trans-Pacific Partnership

Politics, the saying goes, makes strange bedfellows. In presidential politics, the cozy compromises with the unconstitutional seem even more unsettling.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a man whose personal popularity and political fortunes have increased in direct proportion to his spreading of his libertarian-leaning ideals, has now publicly embraced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an unprecedented sovereignty surrender masquerading as a multi-national trade pact.

Paul’s speech coincided with the TPP ministerial meeting conducted October 19-24 in Sydney, Australia.

Speaking at the Center for the National Interest dinner in New York City on October 23, Senator Paul said:

Our national power is a function of the national economy. During the Reagan renaissance, our strength in the world reflected our successful economy.

Low growth, high unemployment, and big deficits have undercut our influence in the world. Americans have suffered real consequences from a weak economy.

President George W. Bush understood that part of the projection of American power is the exporting of American goods and culture. His administration successfully brokered fourteen new free trade agreements and negotiated three others that are the only new free trade agreements approved since President Obama took office. Instead of just talking about a so-called “pivot to Asia,” the Obama administration should prioritize negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership by year’s end.

Why would Rand Paul, a man who has in the past demonstrated a remarkable adherence to the principles of the Constitution, make his own “pivot” away from those doctrines and toward a pact as pernicious as the TPP?

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...ic-partnership

When was the last time you heard Rand address this issue?

The above article was posted here and then moved behind a login. The national media won't mention this until after it has passed- and it will.

Froman says trade remains bipartisan issue

TheHill.com Vicki Needham - 12/11/14

The top U.S. trade official said Thursday that Republican support for trade is encouraging for the White House’s ambitious agenda.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said trade issues have always required bipartisan cooperation and will continue to need support from both parties in the next Congress.

Froman said on CNBC the Obama administration has been “comforted by the messages we've heard from Republican leadership” that they want to work together on trade.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who is expected to take over as majority leader in the next Congress, as well as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and conservative Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) have expressed interest in tackling trade.

Froman and his team are negotiating a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with countries from Chile to Japan, as well as a deal between the United States and the European Union.

On Wednesday, Cruz spoke about the broader U.S. relationship with the United Kingdom, saying the two nations share a strong economic partnership.,,SNIP
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbyi...partisan-issue

[Natural Citizen]

We're going to see who is who on this thing. That's a fact, jack.

[Peace Piper]

I got 20 bucks that says he does nothing, paypal ready.

If I had $20 in my paypal I'd take that bet.

The TPP is a part of both parties platforms from 2012.

So you're saying that a Government who's only real national "accomplishment" in the last 5 years was ramming a law through Congress that mandated everyone to purchase a corporate "health insurance plan" or be fined by the IRS isn't going to take action on the TPP and the TTIP- which they've been working on for the last 7 or 8 years?

Here's someone who helped write it and promote it as SOS