WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY
HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR ONE
YEAR TWO
YEAR THREE
YEAR FOUR
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OBOF YEAR FOUR INDEX
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-01
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Jan. 02, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-02
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Jan. 09, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-03
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Jan. 15, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-04
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Jan. 24, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-05
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JAN 30, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06
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Feb. 06, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06 EXTRA
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Feb. 09, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-07
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Feb. 13, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-08
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Feb. 21, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-09
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Feb. 27, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-10
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Mar. 08, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11
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Mar. 13, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11 EXTRA
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Mar. 15, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-12
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Mar. 21, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-13
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Mar. 29, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-14
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Apr. 03, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-15
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Apr. 12, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-16
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Apr. 19, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-17
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Apr. 26, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-18
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May 03,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-19
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May 10,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-20
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May 20,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 21
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May 28, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - Ho 22
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June 10, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 23
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June 20, 2014
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noteOBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 24
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July 04, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 25
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Aug. 04, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 26
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Aug. 25, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 27
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Sept. 03, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 28
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Sept. 10, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 29
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Sept. 14, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 30
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Sept. 21, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 31
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Sept. 29, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 32
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Oct. 10, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 33
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Oct. 31, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 34
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Nov. 09, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 35
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Nov. 16, 2014
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Agenda
1.
Marine Corp - 239th Birthday.
2.
The President & Internet.
3.
Just look at this.
4.
Immigration - Impeachment - Insanity.
5.
TPP trade talks missed 3rd. deadline.
Note: The last posting, #34 was not sent until late
Sunday the 9th. If you didn't see OBOF until now you may have
missed #34. It had some very interesting
material that you might want to see.
"Today
we reflect on who we are, what we do and why we do it."
November 10, 2014
THE UNITED STATES MARINE
CORP
CELEBRATED IT'S
239 BIRTHDAY.
From Floyd:
I am 90+ years old. I spent 4 years in the Marine Corp during
WWII. I did what they told me to do and
I did it to the best of my ability. I
was 18 at that time. I was never sent
into combat. I admit I have always felt
a little guilty about that, but as I say, I did what they told me to do. I was a photographer. I had already spent 4 years doing a great
deal of photographic work so maybe that is the reason. The point is, I didn't question what they
told me to do, I just did it. I was a,
what was called then, Buck Sergeant when I was honorable discharged.
You may have heard one
time or another, that once you are a Marine you are always a Marine. The point I want to make here is, that to
this day, and every day since I was in the Corp, I have lived as I was taught
in the Marines. I can testify to the
fact that you will always be a Marine once you are there and it is a tremendous
way to live.
The pride that is
instilled in you, about yourself, the Corp, your fellow Marines, and most of
all why you are there - for your Country and all that our Democracy
means. In all the suits that I have ever
had since, were tailored with a knife-cutting crease and not all wrinkled at
the bottom either. You could shave your
face using my shoes as a mirror. The one
thing I have not always been able to do that the Corp taught me, was to have a
place for everything and everything in its place. I have tried hard for that, but haven't
always lived up to that. I AM PROUD THAT
I AM A MARINE, TO THIS DAY. ANY OF YOU
THAT HAVE BEEN THERE, KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
HAPPY 239th
MARINE CORP
Floyd
~~~
The President
wants you to see this:
This morning, President Obama asked
the FCC to put in place strong rules to protect the Internet.
Every day, the Internet unlocks
countless possibilities for creation and innovation. And one reason it's been so successful is a
level playing field: Most service providers have traditionally treated all
Internet traffic equally.
That's the principle of "net
neutrality." It's an idea that says
an entrepreneur's fledgling company should have the same chance to succeed as
established corporations, and access to a high school student's blog shouldn't
be unfairly slowed down to make way for advertisers with more money.
As the FCC considers new rules, we
simply can't take that principle for granted.
~~~
JUST LOOK AT THIS.
From Floyd:
I have no idea how the computer will
treat the layout below. I can't know
until after it is sent. If it doesn't
show correctly, I will provide the information in a different form next week.
WHY, WHY IN THE HELL
DIDN'T OUR STUPID DEMODRAT CANDIDATES, RUNNING AND LOST, DIDN'T PUT STUFF LIKE
THIS OUT. INSTEAD, THEY RAN AWAY FROM
THE GREATEST PRESIDENCY WE HAVE HAD IN MODERN TIMES THAT ACCOMPLISHED A TREMENDOUS
AMOUNT IN SIX YEARS WITH AN OBSTRUCTIONIST CONGRESS.
THESE CANDIDATES DESERVED
TO LOSE AND THEY ARE HURTING THE REST OF US.
THE DCCC AND THE NATIONAL COMMITEE DROPPED THE BALL. YOU BLEW IT. IF JED BUSH RUNS FOR THE REPUBLICANS, YOUR
GOING TO LOSE THE PRESIDENCY IN 2016.
GET WITH IT.
This is what a successful
Presidency looks like:
|
President Obama Took Office
(January 2009) |
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Today
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7,949
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The Dow Jones Index
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17,573
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7.8%
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Unemployment
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5.8%
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-5.4%
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GDP Growth
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3.5%
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9.8%
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Deficit GDP %
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2.8%
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37.7
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Consumer Confidence
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94.5
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In 6 years under President Barack Obama, we’ve made
incredible progress as a country.
~~~
~~~
Immigration,
Impeachment and Insanity on the Republican Right
Author: Joe Conason |
NationofChange
Published: November 15, 2014
Obstructing,
denouncing and demonizing Barack Obama are so central to the existence of the
Republican Party today that its leaders simply ignore the real purposes of the
president’s proposed immigration orders. So someone should point out that his imminent
decision will advance priorities to which the Republican right offers routine
lip service: promoting family values, assisting law enforcement, ensuring
efficient government and guarding national security.
Much of
the argument for immigration reform — and, in particular, the president’s
proposed executive orders — revolves around the imperative of compassion for
immigrant families. That is a powerful
claim — or should be, at least, for the self-styled Christians of the
Republican right. If they aren’t moved
by empathy for struggling, aspiring, hardworking people, however, then maybe
they should consider the practicalities.
Instead, the Obama administration aims to
relieve the terrible pressure on immigrant laborers and their children and to
direct resources where they will best accomplish national objectives, by
deporting serious felons who came here illegally and other entrants who may
endanger security. By insisting on those
broad yet clear distinctions, the president will protect the innocent and
prosecute the not-so-innocent — exactly what he should be doing with the
support of Congress.
Those wise objectives don’t interest
legislators in the congressional majority, compared with the chance to rile
their base by muttering threats against Obama. Just the other day, a tweet appeared under the
name of Chuck Grassley, long among the dimmer members of the Senate, warning
that the president is “flagrantly violating his oath” and “getting dangerously
close to assuming a Nixonian posture.” For the Iowa
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In case you missed it, he was blustering about
impeachment, and he isn’t alone.
Like so many of the familiar accusations against
the president, complaints that his executive orders on immigration are “Nixonian”
or “lawless” lack merit. Such orders are
well within the recognized authority of his office and considerably more
conservative than the official conduct of some of his predecessors, such as
George W. Bush — who issued about 100 more
executive orders than Obama has done so far.
With respect to constitutional principle — the
camouflage favored by Obama’s antagonists — their flexibility is telling. The separation of powers only matters when
they say so. They say nothing when the
president uses executive orders to tighten immigration and deport more people
than all his predecessors combined. Indeed,
when the outcome pleases Republicans, then nobody needs to worry about
executive overreach, let alone high crimes and misdemeanors.
Nor does a presidential executive order — even one
granting “amnesty” to immigrant children — trouble the Republicans when a
Republican president implements that kind of reform. When President Ronald
Reagan and then George H.W. Bush took action to keep immigrant families together
during their respective administrations, refusing to wait for Congress to move,
there was no barking from the likes of Grassley. (The two GOP presidents made those adjustments
after the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which created
a “path to citizenship” for about 3 million undocumented workers. It was signed
by the sainted Reagan.)
Republicans in the Senate and House have
rejected every legislative opportunity on immigration, including measures to
strengthen border security. That’s
because they prefer partisan confrontation — and that is what they will get.
The consequences for their party promise to be politically devastating — and
still worse if they are foolish enough to believe their own rhetoric about
impeachment.
From Floyd:
There were 14 comments pro and con regarding this article. Only one made much sense to me and I have
listed it below.
Obviously, your family were never immigrants to the
USA Northern Italy decades ago. However, at one time they
were considered to be Italians first, and Americans last. The level of discrimination leveled against
them took many years to overcome.
The entire point of immigrating to another country is the pursuit of a better life. America is still a nation of immigrants, you just don't happen to like their skin color or the "foreign" sounding language they might be speaking. Many of the immigrants from
The right wing's refusal to do anything about immigration is so they can continue to obfuscate any real progress and slander Obama simultaneously. That is their intention regardless of how one feels about him.
What is "wrongly framed," is your refusal to put the onus where it belongs-problems with immigration are specifically the responsibility of the supposedly "Christian" ultra right wing politicians. Either
Immigrants are NOT creating the lack of income equality, etc. That is a preposterous statement. All one has to do is look no further than the corporate whores sitting on their collective asses in
~~~
As TPP Trade Talks Miss Third Deadline, Opponents Claim
Momentum
I am a
member of Public Citizen, which has been taking a hard look at the Pacific
Partnership trade agreement for a long time. I share their concern over the TPP
allowing/causing "lower wages,
higher medicine prices, more unsafe imported food, and new rights for foreign
investors to demand payments from national treasuries".
Email below comes from Sierra Club list which opposes the
TPP.
WASHINGTON, Nov 11 2014 (IPS) - For the third year in a row, government negotiators for 12
And though negotiators for the accord, known as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), say the process is nearing completion, critics of the deal are expressing optimism that both public opinion and political timing are increasingly against the deal.
“TPP proponents know they’re under the clock. The resistance against the TPP is as strong as it’s ever been, and is only growing stronger.” -- Arthur Stamoulis of the Citizens Trade Campaign
“The reason the Obama administration keeps missing deadline after deadline, year after year, is that it’s pushing an extremely unpopular agenda that benefits a handful of big corporations at the expense of the economy, environment and public health in each TPP country and beyond,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, an advocacy group that opposes the TPP, told IPS.
“People and parliaments across the
TPP negotiators confirmed the news on Monday at a regional summit in
President Obama has made the TPP a central part of his attempt to reorient the
“During the past few weeks, our teams have made good progress in resolving several outstanding issues regarding a potential agreement. Today is an opportunity at the political level for us to break some remaining logjams,” the president told trade ministers in
“To ensure that TPP is a success, we also have to make sure that all of our people back home understand the benefits for them – that it means more trade, more good jobs, and higher incomes for people throughout the region, including the
The president said the TPP talks have the possibility of resulting in a “historic achievement”. A <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/10/trans-pacific-partnership-leaders-statement>statement released by the 12 countries party to the talks suggested that “the end” of the negotiations is “coming into focus”.
Yet disagreements remain, with media reports pointing to agricultural protectionism as proving to be particularly thorny. Others say that substantive frustration remains over a raft of disparate issues, many far from traditional trade concerns – including environmental impact, labour safeguards, medicinal pricing, patent rules and investors’ ability to circumvent national law, among other concerns.
In many ways, it is the broad scope of issues on which the TPP touches that is responsible for strengthening public concern. Now, with President Obama down to his final two years in office, critics are increasingly confident in their ability to stave off agreement.
With the
“TPP proponents know they’re under the clock,” the Citizen Trade Campaign’s Stamoulis says. “The resistance against the TPP is as strong as it’s ever been, and is only growing stronger.”
Corporatist concerns
Last week’s national election here in the
Because trade agreements typically touch on so many domestically sensitive issues,
Yet due to concern among
The issue could now come down to a debate that is taking place within the Republican Party, which increased its majority in the House of Representatives and in January will take over control of the Senate. Yet while the House has consistently opposed passage of fast track authorities for President Obama, the new Republican Senate leadership has suggested that such legislation could now be a key priority early next year.
“Most of [President Obama’s] party is unenthusiastic about international trade. We think it’s good for America,” Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate and the figure who will set the body’s agenda this coming year, said at a press conference following last week’s election.
“And the president and I discussed that … and I think he’s interested in moving forward. I said, ‘Send us trade agreements. We’re anxious to take a look at them.’”
The new potential movement on fast track authorities has sparked a furious debate among conservatives, particularly between those who have traditionally supported big business and those increasingly concerned about globalisation’s impact on
“It’s only in the past few years that we’ve seen a small cabal of internationalist, Big Business-allied Republicans emerge, and it is this corporatist wing that has pushed for free trade,” Curtis Ellis, a spokesperson with the American Jobs Alliance and executive director of ObamaTrade.com, a conservative watchdog site, told IPS.
“If we’re going to move all of our factories overseas, the American people are going to get stuck with the short end of
the stick. And really, even supporters of the TPP
admit that it’s not about trade, but
rather about investment – about securing overarching global governance rules on
investment.”
Indeed, of the TPP’s 29 proposed chapters, just five deal directly with trade, according to Public Citizen, a consumer interest group here.
“[T]he non-trade provisions would promote lower wages, higher medicine prices, more unsafe imported food, and new rights for foreign investors to demand payments from national treasuries over domestic laws they believe undermine the new TPP privileges they would gain,” Lori Wallach, the head of the group’s Global Trade Watch programme, said Monday.
“Despite the intense secrecy of the negotiations … many TPP nations have woken up to the fact that the deal now on offer would be damaging to most people, even if the large corporations pushing the deal might improve their profit margins.”
Edited by Kitty Stapp
Indeed, of the TPP’s 29 proposed chapters, just five deal directly with trade, according to Public Citizen, a consumer interest group here.
“[T]he non-trade provisions would promote lower wages, higher medicine prices, more unsafe imported food, and new rights for foreign investors to demand payments from national treasuries over domestic laws they believe undermine the new TPP privileges they would gain,” Lori Wallach, the head of the group’s Global Trade Watch programme, said Monday.
“Despite the intense secrecy of the negotiations … many TPP nations have woken up to the fact that the deal now on offer would be damaging to most people, even if the large corporations pushing the deal might improve their profit margins.”
Edited by Kitty Stapp
(and bg)
_______________________________________________
The CTC-field list provides trade reform advocates with timely information for organizing field activists outside of
The Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC) is a national coalition whose members include Americans for Democratic Action, Communications Workers of America, Friends of the Earth U.S., Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, National Family Farm Coalition, National Farmers Union, Pubic Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Sierra Club, TransAfrica Forum, UNITE HERE, United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, United Mineworkers of America, United Steelworkers, United Students Against Sweatshops and Witness for Peace, as well as regional, state, and city-based coalitions, organizations, and individual activists throughout the United States.
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and the
creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next week.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
Floyd
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