Thursday, October 8, 2015

OBOF TYMHM & MORE Vol 15 - No 19


 

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

YEAR THREE

YEAR FOUR

YEAR FIVE

 

OBOF YEAR FIVE INDEX
 
OBOF TYMHM
Jan. 07, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1
Jan. 19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2
Feb.  03, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 3
Feb.  23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 4
Mar.  02, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 5
Mar.  06, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 6
Mar.  13, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 7
Mar.   23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8
Mar.  28,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9
Apr.  13,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 10
May  02,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 11
May  09,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 12
May  19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 13
May  26, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 14
May  29, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 15
July   28, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 16
Sept.  15, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 17
Sept.  20, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 18
Sept.  27, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 19
Oct.   07, 2015

 

Agenda


 

1.  FROM FLOYD

 

2.  SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS

and his take on the

TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

TRADE AGREEMENT

3.  The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose.


 

4.  Rachel Maddow exposes Kevin McCarthy,

 speaker-in-waiting

 

PLEASE,

PLEASE

PAY  ATTENTION

TO WHAT IS HAPPENING.

THIS IS TRULY IMPORTANT.

 

FROM FLOYD

 

Last April and May there was a  strong push to Fast Track the "Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)" trade agreement through Congress with no hearings and without Congress being given an opportunity to see what was in the TPP.  At that time there was enough known from leaks of the, so called, Trade Agreement, to create enough resistance to stop the process. 

 

Since that time there has been no talk at all about this trade agreement, which has bothered me, because I felt that President Obama and the others wanting this agreement passed, were up to something and sure enough it has now surfaced.

 

The first article sets the stage as to what is now happening.  Again, they are trying to push this trade agreement through before resistance mounts to stop it.  In addition, I am printing a couple of articles that I included in April and May postings, which brings you up to date again as to what this trade agreement really is and does. 

 

For whatever it is worth, I think that maybe a new trade agreement is needed, and the trade part of TPP may have some very good points.  I am not well enough versed to know.  BUT you will note that in one of these articles, it is reported that of the 29 chapters that make up this TPP, only 2 chapters refer to trade.  The problem is, what is in those other 27 chapters.

 

In addition, there now are protests in Europe, and I think will be here too, about the Trans Atlantic Investment and Trade Partnership (TAITP), which is being negotiated in secrecy just like TPP and appears to be along the same lines as TPP.  It is said that TPP controls one half of the World's commerce and financial systems and the TAITP will control the other half.  Thus, the NEW WORLD ORDER.  SCARES ME.

 

I strongly urge you to contact you legislators, Senators and Representatives, and ask them to be sure as to what is being said in the other 27 chapters.  Also, pull up Senator Bernie Sanders e-mail and sign his partition.  I am unable to transfer his link here. 

 

Our sovereignty is at stake here.

~~~

 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS

and his take on the

TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

TRADE AGREEMENT

 

 


Dear Floyd,

Wall Street and big corporations just won a big victory to advance a disastrous trade deal.  Now it's on us to stop it from becoming law.

This morning, negotiators announced an "agreement in principle" for something called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), meaning it will soon move to Congress for approval.

The TPP would expand the same failed "free trade" policies to 12 other nations that have already cost millions of jobs and shuttered tens of thousands of factories across the United States.

Make no mistake: if TPP passes, it will further hurt consumers and cost American jobs.  So, we must stop it, together.

In the Senate, I will do all that I can to defeat this agreement.

But I need you at my side in this fight, because we will be going against some of the biggest, strongest corporations in the world.


The TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that have been supported by corporate America and that cost America millions of decent-paying jobs.

 

Since 2001, nearly 60,000 manufacturing plants in this country have been shut down, and we have lost almost 5 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs. NAFTA alone led to the loss of almost three-quarters of a million jobs — the Permanent Normalized Trade Agreement with China cost America four times that number: almost 3 million jobs.  These agreements are not the only reason why manufacturing in the United States has declined, but they are important factors.

 

The TPP would also give multinational corporations the ability to challenge laws passed in the United States that could negatively impact their “expected future profits.” Take, for example, a French waste management firm suing Egypt for over $100 million for increasing the minimum wage and improving labor laws. Egypt’s “crime” in this case is trying to improve life for their low-wage workers.  Or Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company, has used this process to sue Germany for $5 billion over its decision to phase out nuclear power.  Should the people of Germany have the right to make energy choices on their own or should these decisions be left in the hands of an unelected international tribunal?

We face the same threats here at home if the TPP passes.

Virtually every major union and environmental organization in the United States is against the deal. Major religious groups are as well because they know what it could mean for some of the poorest people on the planet.

Wall Street, corporate America and their representatives in Congress will try to pass this bad trade deal.  This is our chance to make our voices heard.


I feel candidates should use their campaigns to  influence 789 legislation being considered in Congress.  Some candidates haven’t even expressed an opinion on this critical issue, which, frankly, I don’t really understand.

But as I’ve said before, this campaign is not about Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or Jeb Bush — it’s about the needs of the American people.

And we need a new approach to trade in this country — one that benefits working families and not just the CEOs of multinational corporations.

Thank you for standing with working families.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

~~~


The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose.


 

By Elizabeth Warren February 25

 a Democrat represents

 Massachusetts in the Senate.

 

The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries.  Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?

One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft.  The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled.  Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations.  Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.

ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work.  Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences.  If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court.  But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators.  If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges.  Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next.  Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments.  If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?

If the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, big corporations.  So if a Vietnamese company with U.S. operations wanted to challenge an increase in the U.S. minimum wage, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the union would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts.

Why create these rigged, pseudo-courts at all?  What’s so wrong with the U.S. judicial system? Nothing, actually.  But after World War II, some investors worried about plunking down their money in developing countries, where the legal systems were not as dependable.  They were concerned that a corporation might build a plant one day only to watch a dictator confiscate it the next.  To encourage foreign investment in countries with weak legal systems, the United States and other nations began to include ISDS in trade agreements.

Those justifications don’t make sense anymore, if they ever did.  Countries in the TPP are hardly emerging economies with weak legal systems.  Australia and Japan have well-developed, well-respected legal systems, and multinational corporations navigate those systems every day, but ISDS would preempt their courts too.  And to the extent there are countries that are riskier politically, market competition can solve the problem.  Countries that respect property rights and the rule of law — such as the United States — should be more competitive, and if a company wants to invest in a country with a weak legal system, then it should buy political-risk insurance.

The use of ISDS is on the rise around the globe.  From 1959 to 2002, there were fewer than 100 ISDS claims worldwide.  But in 2012 alone, there were 58 cases. Recent cases

~~~

Rachel Maddow exposes Kevin McCarthy, speaker-in-waiting, channeling Sarah Palin


 

by Egberto WilliesFollow

 Thu Oct 01, 2015

Rachel Maddow took a closer look at Speaker of the House-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy.  It was difficult to discern any major differences between McCarthy and Sarah Palin. They share the same proclivity for gaffes and misspeaking. Most importantly, their actual political accomplishments are negligible.

Just like Sarah Palin was being ushered into the vice presidency unprepared, Kevin McCarthy is as well. His ascent seems to be based on tactical expediency instead of competence.  The expectation is that Kevin McCarthy will keep the right flank in check.  The pundits think he won't.  The fact that there is little opposition to him becoming speaker likely means he will be given a probation period by the tea party and right wing factions.

Rachel Maddow pointed out that Kevin McCarthy has only gotten two bills passed. Both bills named a structure.

Maddow then played snippets from a recent McCarthy speech on foreign policy.  Many of his sentences were simply incoherent.  This guy is to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  He will be  third in line for the presidency.  For a party that loves to pride itself on national security, having a stream of incompetent people in office (or attempting to get into office) does little to bolster credibility.

One of Kevin McCarthy's first attempts to show his speaker bonafides gave Hillary Clinton and Democrats a huge boost.  McCarthy went on Fox News to brag about his party's responsibility in bringing down Clinton's poll numbers via the Benghazi hearings. In effect, he confirmed what Democrats have been saying all along: Republican denials that the Benghazi hearing was a political stunt were but a lie.

Comedians will love Kevin McCarthy.  Sadly, it will be at the detriment of the country.  Rachel Maddow asked the appropriate question: Are you sure you want this guy to be your speaker?

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again later this week or first of next.

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America

Floyd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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