Working Life

The gloves have to come off when it comes to individual members of Congress who vote for “fast track” and the Trans Pacific Partnership. I’m talking seriously funded primaries in 2016. I’m going to start laying out the case for specific challenges (and a little plan is percolating in my brain) and I know there will be a debate about this.

BUT…a no-brainer has to be this: Debbie Wasserman Schultz cannot vote in favor of “fast track”–which she has declared her support for–and remain head of the Democratic National Committee. Impossible.

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Let’s be clear: The Senate is not where the action ultimately is going to be when it comes to defeating “Fast Track” and the TPP. It will be in the House. Eventually, in my estimation, “fast track” and TPP will pass the Senate–the Senate has always been much more pro- so-called “free trade. But, today, […]

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You’all know what “Fast track” is. I like to think of it as the “Corporations Get More Say Than Congress” Act. And it’s sucking wind, on life support, headed for the trash bin. Hey, just call me an optimist two days in a row, starting with believing Bernie Sanders can win this thing. But, first things first: Fast track ain’t got the votes.

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It is not enough to simply say the deal on “fast track” is a bad one. We need to understand, in the details, why what is being sold as a new “improved” fast track is just utter nonsense.

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There are a ton of bad ideas out there in the world of economic policy–mostly, those are dumb ideas having to do with the complete comfort with class warfare, from “trickle down” to “CEOs are job creators” to so-called “Free trade.” It is one of the great astonishing things that, despite the fact that all […]

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Well, a tip of the hat to some people in labor for reaching down and remembering they have a few cojones left–or maybe it was reaching deep into their pockets and remembering that they have the money, and there are a lot of people (read: politicians) who will do just about anything to get a check. Like vote against fast-track and the Trans Pacific Partnership.

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Good to see Elizabeth Warren taking on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Aside from her terrific leadership opposing Wall Street, her views on some other issues (for example, her fairly mainstream blindly pro-Israel views) have been less clearly progressive. But kudos on this.

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From talking to people here and there, I think there is a pretty strong chance that “fast track”–and, perhaps, even TPP–will be defeated in the House thanks to a left-right alliance. That alliance is nothing new, however. Even if The New York Times has just discovered it.

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Sometimes, it’s hard to connect the dots between things that happened twenty years ago–because we don’t teach real history in schools and Crazy Birds is more popular than reading a book. So, people who are correctly suspicious/opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership don’t necessarily get the connection to the phrase “fast track” and don’t remember NAFTA which passed, thanks to Bill Clinton, back in 1993 (it came into force January 1994). So, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch lends a hand today with a really great piece of analysis.

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Over the years, the Democratic opposition in the House to so-called “free trade” has grown, with more members opposed to so-called “free trade” than say back in the 1990s; the Senate has continued to be a disaster when it comes to building opposition to trade deals–basically, if you can’t stop it in the House, it’s […]

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