Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 16, 2015 4:59 pm

Oh shit. It's happening.

Fast Track to Hell: Trade Bill Officially Introduced in Congress

'Congress shouldn’t throw Americans under the bus by giving up its authority over this unprecedented giveaway to multinational corporations.'
by
Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Image

The fight over Fast Track just got real.

U.S. House and Senate leaders announced Thursday afternoon that they have reached a deal on legislation aimed at jamming the Trans Pacific Partnership through Congress.

The so-called Fast Track bill (The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, TPA-2015), which would make it easier for President Barack Obama's administration to negotiate trade deals by preventing Congress from amending them, includes compromise provisions added in order to "win over" Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

According to the New York Times:

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, had to agree to stringent requirements for the trade deal to win over Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the finance panel. Those requirements included a human-rights negotiating objective that has never existed in trade agreements, according to lawmakers involved in the talks.

The legislation would also make any final trade agreement public for 60 days before the president signs it, and up to four months before Congress votes. If the agreement, negotiated by the United States Trade Representative, fails to meet the objectives laid out by Congress — on labor, environmental and human rights standards — a 60-vote majority in the Senate could shut off “fast track” trade rules and open the deal to amendments.

In a statement, Wyden—who watchdog groups had targeted as a key vote on Fast Track—defended his support for the bill.

"Opening foreign markets, where most of the world’s consumers reside, is critical to creating new opportunities for middle-class American jobs," Wyden said. "I'm proud this bipartisan bill creates what I expect to be unprecedented transparency in trade negotiations, and ensures future trade deals break new ground to promote human rights, improve labor conditions, and safeguard the environment."

The legislation is expected to pass the Senate Finance Committee and land on the Senate floor next week. The House Ways and Means Committee will formally draft its version of the bill next week.

Timing is important. As Reuters noted before the deal was announced on Thursday:

Introducing the bill this week would send a positive signal about the Trans-Pacific Partnership ahead of a planned visit to Washington in late April by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Japan and other TPP partners have said having fast track—which gives trading partners certainty agreements will not be picked apart—is vital.

But clearing committees doesn't guarantee the bill's success. The Hill reported earlier this week that Democratic support for Fast Track is falling away in the House, and senators like Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have argued vehemently against the legislation.

Looking forward to what it predicts will be "one of the toughest legislative battles" of Obama's final 19 months in office, the Times reports that even with the reported concessions, "the fight to get the trade promotion bill to the president’s desk will be difficult and emotional, badly dividing the Democratic Party’s labor base and putting Hillary Rodham Clinton in a quandary. Many prominent Democrats have come out against one of the biggest priorities of their president. Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, was notably absent from trade negotiations."

Those who oppose Trade Promotion Authority say it would help advance industry-backed trade deals like the TPP, which experts charge would have negative impacts on everything from public health to workers' rights to climate change.

"This bill is a climate disaster, and amounts to nothing more than a taxpayer-funded handout to corporations," 350.org executive director May Boeve said Thursday. "We've seen leaked text showing that TPP would allow fossil fuel companies like Exxon to sue any member country that dares to act on climate, and hold up any law or regulation that hurts their bottom line. That's an irresponsible giveaway that lets Big Oil handcuff our political systems even more, and would be a giant step backwards in the fight against climate change."

Critics like Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said the deal unveiled Thursday is merely a spiffed up version of the "old unacceptable Fast Track process."

Noting that the bill would still make it easier for corporations to offshore American jobs, undermine U.S. wages by forcing Americans to compete with Vietnamese workers making less than 60 cents an hour, and expose consumer and environmental safeguards to attack by foreign corporations in extra-judicial tribunals, Wallach explained further:

Instead of establishing a new "exit ramp," the bill includes the same impossible conditions from past Fast Track bills that make the mechanism to remove an agreement from Fast Track unusable. The bill's only new feature in this respect is a new procedure that would be usable only after an agreement was already signed and entered into and that would require approval by 60 senators to take a pact off Fast Track consideration, even though a simple majority "no" vote in the Senate would have the same effect on an agreement. In contrast, the 1988 Fast Track empowered either the House Ways and Means or the Senate Finance Committees to vote by simple majority to remove the pact from Fast Track consideration with no additional floor votes required, and such a disapproval action was authorized before a president could sign and enter into a trade agreement.

Now that the bill has officially been introduced, progressive advocacy groups, and labor organizations opposed to Fast Track and the TPP are gearing up for a full-court press in opposition to the corporate-friendly trade policies.

In addition to a national Stop Fast Track day of action—spearheaded by the AFL-CIO and taking place this Saturday, April 18—groups are calling on constituents to demand their elected officials vote against the legislation.

"Congress shouldn’t throw Americans under the bus by giving up its authority over this unprecedented giveaway to multinational corporations," said Murshed Zaheed, deputy political director for CREDO, which has played a key role in the fight against Fast Track and the TPP. "Like the Trans-Pacific Partnership itself, the deal to grant the White House Trade Promotion Authority was negotiated in secret behind closed doors. It is time for Democrats in Congress to stand up to corporate shills in Washington and do everything in their power to stop this secretive corporate power grab."
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 16, 2015 5:11 pm

A Trade Rule that Makes It Illegal to Favor Local Business? Newest Leak Shows TPP Would Do That And More

The leaked text is full of dense legal jargon. But a close reading makes its corporate agenda crystal clear.
by
David Korten

Secret negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and investment agreement involving 12 nations of the Pacific Rim, are coming to a close, and President Barack Obama will soon submit the final agreement to the U.S. Congress for approval.

Presumably, he will urge the deal’s passage with the same unsubstantiated and misleading claims his administration has offered all along: that the TPP will support Made-in-America exports, enforce fundamental labor rights, promote strong environmental protection, and help small business.

But a newly leaked document belies those claims. The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s text consists of a number of chapters, among the most important of which is the one on investments. On March 25, WikiLeaks released a confidential draft of that chapter dated January 20. The draft contains instructions indicating that it will be declassified only “Four years from entry into force … or, if no agreement enters into force, four years from the close of the negotiations.”

A quick reading of the leaked chapter makes it clear why TPP sponsors have gone to great lengths to keep their negotiations secret. The document substantiates claims by opponents that the TPP is a corporate-rights agreement designed to facilitate the export of U.S. jobs, allow corporations to sue governments for enacting labor and environmental protections, make it illegal for governments to favor local businesses, and advance the colonization of national economies by global corporations and financiers.

As problematic as this chapter is, we can be thankful that it is out in the open. Now the need is to understand what all the legalese means.

The leaked document includes many technical details decipherable only by trade lawyers. Here are the Cliffs Notes in simple English.
1. Favoring local ownership is prohibited

Let’s start with the Investment Chapter’s section on how the TPP’s member countries should treat foreign investors:

Each Party [country] shall accord to investors of another Party treatment no less favorable than that it accords, in like circumstances, to its own investors with respect to the establishment, acquisition, expansion, management, conduct, operation, and sale or other disposition of investments in its territory.

Put in plain English, the above paragraph means that signatory countries renounce their right to favor the domestic ownership and control of the lands, waters, and other productive assets and services essential to the lives and well-being of their people.

The 12 countries further renounce their right to favor locally owned businesses, corporations, cooperatives, or public enterprises devoted to serving their people with good local jobs, products, and services. They must instead give equal or better treatment to global corporations that come only to extract profits.
2. Corporations must be paid to stop polluting

Another provision limits what member countries can do in regard to corporate investments:

No Party may expropriate or nationalize a covered investment either directly or indirectly through measures equivalent to expropriation or nationalization (“expropriation”), except: (a) for a public purpose; (b) in a nondiscriminatory manner; (c) on payment of prompt, adequate, and effective compensation [emphasis added] … ; and (d) in accordance with due process of law.

This provision may sound reasonable, until you look at the chapter’s definition of “investment,” which includes “the expectation of gain or profit.” This odd definition means that a corporation can sue a signatory nation if the country deprives the corporation of expected profits by enacting laws that prohibit the company from selling harmful products, damaging the environment, or exploiting workers. Other language in the chapter makes it clear that this applies to actions at all levels of government.

In other words, a country in the TPP has every right to stop a foreign corporation from harming its people and the environment—but only if the country compensates the corporation for the expense of not harming them.

Similar provisions are already on the books in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). According to Public Citizen’s Trade Watch,

Foreign firms have won more than $360 million in taxpayer dollars thus far in investor-state cases brought under NAFTA. Of the 11 claims currently pending under NAFTA, demanding a total of more than $12.4 billion, all relate to environmental, energy, land use, financial, public health and transportation policies—not traditional trade issues.
3. Three lawyers will decide who’s right in secret tribunals

The leaked chapter also describes how disagreements will be settled:

Unless the disputing parties otherwise agree, the tribunal shall comprise three arbitrators, one arbitrator appointed by each of the disputing parties and the third, who shall be the presiding arbitrator, appointed by agreement of the disputing parties.

The arbitrators are private lawyers who are not accountable to any electorate. They are empowered by the TPP to order unlimited public compensation to aggrieved investors. The proceedings and the identities of the tribunal members are secret, and the resulting decisions are not subject to review by any national judicial system.

According to The New York Times, NAFTA tribunals, on which the ones in the TPP are modeled, even have the power to overturn judgments of national courts—including the U.S. Supreme Court. John D. Echeverria, a law professor at Georgetown University, has called this method of dispute settlement “the biggest threat to United States judicial independence that no one has heard of and even fewer people understand.”
4. Speculative money must remain free

Yet another provision prohibits restrictions on movement of money from one country to another:

Each Party shall permit all transfers relating to a covered investment to be made freely and without delay into and out of its territory. …

Forms an investment may take include: (a) an enterprise; (b) shares, stock, and other forms of equity participation in an enterprise; (c) bonds, debentures, other debt instruments, and loans; (d) futures, options, and other derivatives.

Thus, the TPP guarantees the right of speculators to destabilize national economies through the manipulation of exchange rates and financial markets, without interference from national governments.

In so doing, the TPP strips national governments of the right to limit speculation in favor of investment in strong, stable, and productive national economies.
5. Corporate interests come before national ones

Another passage assures that corporations need bear no obligation to serve the interest of the people who live in the countries where they do business:

No Party may ... impose or enforce any requirement or enforce any commitment or undertaking: (a) to export a given level or percentage of goods or services; (b) to achieve a given level or percentage of domestic content; (c) to purchase, use or accord a preference to goods produced in its territory, or to purchase goods from persons in its territory.

The article continues on with six additional provisions, which together prohibit governments from requiring that a foreign investor be under any obligation to serve the host country’s people or national interest.

Obama administration officials say these provisions are needed to level the playing field for American companies doing business abroad. This raises an important question: What is an American company?

The Institute for Policy Studies reports that U.S. corporations and their subsidiaries currently hold $2.1 trillion in profits offshore to avoid paying taxes to the government of the United States. These include highly profitable companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, General Electric, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron. One wonders on what basis we should consider these globe-spanning, tax-dodging, job-exporting corporations to be American.

Approval of the TPP means sacrificing our democracy and our right to manage our markets and resources for the public good. And for what gain? To secure rights for corporations—which claim an American identity only when convenient—to exploit the peoples and resources of other countries that have signed the same nefarious agreement.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Harvey » Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:21 pm

The reason for my earlier post was just to say, don't forget, there are at least three of these bad boys. Bottom line, the last thing any of them are about is ordinary people.

TPP. TTIP. TISA
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:40 pm

That Obama hasn't listened to the reasonable arguments from those quoted in articles above, I take that personally.

Obama chides Democrats criticizing trans-pacific trade deal: ‘I take that personally’

Reuters
23 Apr 2015 at 19:49 ET

President Barack Obama fought back on Thursday against the biggest domestic obstacle to the Pacific trade pact he wants to conclude before he leaves office: the trade skeptics in his own Democratic party.

Trade unions, environmental groups and high-profile Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have come out swinging against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it would send American jobs overseas.

“When people say that this trade deal is bad for working families, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Obama told a group of about 200 volunteers and donors with Organizing for Action, an advocacy group formed by his former campaign team. “I take that personally. My entire presidency has been about helping working families.

“The Chamber of Commerce didn’t elect me twice – working folks did,” he said.

Obama argued it would be illogical for him to sign a trade deal that would hurt middle-class jobs given his efforts to expand health care insurance, bail out the auto industry and overhaul Wall Street regulations.

“I spent a lot of time and a lot of political capital to save the auto industry,” Obama said, banging the lectern with a pointed finger for emphasis. “Why would I pass a deal that would be bad for U.S. auto workers?”

Obama is seeking fast-track authority from Congress to finalize the TPP deal, which would link a dozen economies and cover a third of global trade.

The Senate could vote on the fast-track legislation next week, but it may face a tough ride in the House of Representatives, where many Democrats oppose it.

Democratic opponents say the deal would cause a repeat of the factory closures and job losses seen after the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico was approved in 1993.

Obama said he understands the fears, but said the criticism was out of date, arguing the new deal will include strong protections for labor and the environment, and warning that a failure to pass it would cede economic power to China.

“You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,” he said, urging his supporters to spread the word.

“We can’t just oppose trade on reflex alone.”
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Nordic » Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:39 am

Obamas a fucking criminal and domestic enemy. TPP is, literally, treason. It creates "Corporate Nationhood", thus ending this little experiment called the United States. He "takes it personally". Fuck him. Send him to jail and throw away the key. This man has destroyed more of the Constitution than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby NeonLX » Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:17 pm

Blowbama.

All the thousands of libsters around here still proudly display "Obama" bumper stickers on their Subarus and Priuses. NPR keeps telling them how good Obama is.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:14 pm

NeonLX » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:17 am wrote:Blowbama.

All the thousands of libsters around here still proudly display "Obama" bumper stickers on their Subarus and Priuses. NPR keeps telling them how good Obama is.


Fucking NPR. It is the reason I can't reach many people in my geographic area whose lives are affected by this shit.

It has become Rush Limbaugh for liberals, all told in that calm and authoritative voice that the announcers all must cultivate as the anti-Limbaugh. I had co-workers over the years who affected to be high brow for listening to it rather than pop music. I think I got more pissed from having to listen to their calm lies than I ever did from being forced to listen to Katy Perry...
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Nordic » Sat Apr 25, 2015 12:15 am

Twyla LaSarc » Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:14 pm wrote:
NeonLX » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:17 am wrote:Blowbama.

All the thousands of libsters around here still proudly display "Obama" bumper stickers on their Subarus and Priuses. NPR keeps telling them how good Obama is.


Fucking NPR. It is the reason I can't reach many people in my geographic area whose lives are affected by this shit.

It has become Rush Limbaugh for liberals, all told in that calm and authoritative voice that the announcers all must cultivate as the anti-Limbaugh. I had co-workers over the years who affected http://www.wisdompills.com/2015/01/22/1 ... n-culture/ be high brow for listening to it rather than pop music. I think I got more pissed from having to listen to their calm lies than I ever did from being forced to listen to Katy Perry...


Rush Limbaugh for liberals. That's great. I'm gonna steal that. Hope you don't mind.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:11 pm

Not at all, have at it... :thumbsup

About a decade ago,IIRC, someone tried the AM thing with 'liberal talk' format. Of course it mostly failed, I think the remnants are now on Sirius XM or some other subscription radio ghetto.

NPR has a bit more cachet and lives on, but I don't understand why. I stopped listening in the early 90's because of their biased coverage of the 'action' in the former Yugoslavia. They have been the propaganda wing of the DLC, or whatever they call themselves these days- in the end, they are just as corporatist as their competition on AM, but more insidious for the philosophical cloaking of the message.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby justdrew » Sat Apr 25, 2015 8:21 pm

Twyla LaSarc » 25 Apr 2015 11:11 wrote:Not at all, have at it... :thumbsup

About a decade ago,IIRC, someone tried the AM thing with 'liberal talk' format. Of course it mostly failed, I think the remnants are now on Sirius XM or some other subscription radio ghetto.

NPR has a bit more cachet and lives on, but I don't understand why. I stopped listening in the early 90's because of their biased coverage of the 'action' in the former Yugoslavia. They have been the propaganda wing of the DLC, or whatever they call themselves these days- in the end, they are just as corporatist as their competition on AM, but more insidious for the philosophical cloaking of the message.


actually, I think it's a bit of a joke that people "assume" NPR is somehow "pro democratic party" - that is total hogwash. They are simply a semi-official State News Organ (you guess which organ is most closely resembled, hint: it's one of the most important, overlooked and seldom seen). They're news coverage totally skews republican, in that that is virtually ALL THEY COVER. Listen to a half-hour news roundup at say 5 or 6pm of 'all things considered' - they will spend significant portion of the time rephrasing republican talking points and giving air time to republicans. Rarely will you hear a democratic politician saying a fucking thing, nor do they generally refute obvious blatant lies. If by some chance they do present a 'democratic' viewpoint, it will be BALANCED by an equal timer talking head from some right wing think tank. Their whole stick is they they suck in an audience the limbow's can't, but they get fed nothing beyond the Official Story.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby 82_28 » Sun Apr 26, 2015 2:37 am

I swore off npr the day the Iraq "war" started. The day before was the "debate" and then I wake up that fateful morning to "serious discussion" about the US had launched attacks and not the questions. I do listen to KPLU because it is nonstop jazz until "all things considered" comes on. But KUOW can go fuck themselves. NPR totally and completely made this forever war possible -- at least in the minds of liberals. I have no doubt that there are good people that work there and fantastic reporters and storytellers. But the men who call the shots sorta need to go to hell, but before they do so admit that they contributed to obvious war crimes because anyone that knows anything knows they are now full of shit.

Sure, there might be an interesting in depth story here and there, but the overall narrative must be wrested away from those who ultimately control it. NPR is not fooling anyone who are of "our bent". This American Life is still good though.

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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby conniption » Sun May 03, 2015 5:24 pm

Reverend Billy exorcises a corporate law firm in London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tAztBns9jg
Global Justice Now

Published on May 3, 2015

A law firm that has represented numerous multinational corporations in controversial court cases against national governments was targeted in April 2015 by a creative protest involving US-based performance activists Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. The protest was part of the ongoing campaign to prevent the EU and USA from enacting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal that would massively increase the abilities of corporations to sue governments through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism.

King & Spalding is a law firm that specialises in international arbitration court cases where corporations sue governments outside of national judicial systems. The company is currently representing Veolia in a court case against Egypt for increasing the minimum wage and has represented Chevron in appealing against the ruling in Ecuador that would force the oil company to pay for decades of leaks and pollution.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Harvey » Tue May 05, 2015 3:46 am

UN calls for suspension of TTIP talks over fears of human rights abuses

Phillip Inman Economics correspondent, The Guardian

Monday 4 May 2015

A senior UN official has called for controversial trade talks between the European Union and the US to be suspended over fears that a mooted system of secret courts used by major corporations would undermine human rights.

Alfred de Zayas, a UN human rights campaigner, said there should be a moratorium on negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which are on course to turn the EU and US blocs into the largest free-trade area in the world.

Speaking to the Guardian, the Cuban-born US lawyer warned that the lesson from other trade agreements around the world was that major corporations had succeeded in blocking government policies with the support of secret arbitration tribunals that operated outside the jurisdiction of domestic courts.

He said he would be compiling a report on the tactics used by multinationals to illustrate the flaws in current plans for the TTIP.

De Zayas said: “We don’t want a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots. We don’t want an international order akin to post-democracy or post-law.”

The intervention by de Zayas comes amid intense scrutiny in the US, Europe and Japan of groundbreaking trade deals promoted by Barack Obama. The European commission, which supports the talks, believes an agreement that would lower tariffs and establish basic health and safety standards would boost trade and add billions of euros to the EU’s income. UK ministers estimate Britain could benefit from a rise in GDP of between £4bn and £10bn a year.

Under the proposed agreement, companies will be allowed to appeal against regulations or legislation that depress profits, resulting in fears that multinationals could stop governments reversing privatisations of parts of the health service, for instance.

The investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) scheme that includes the secret tribunals is already a cornerstone of a trade deal between the EU and Canada and is scheduled to be included in the TTIP deal, as well as a trans-pacific deal being negotiated between the US and Japan.

EU officials said the ISDS would be part of the package when it is put to a vote in the EU parliament later this year.

Cecilia Malmström, the European trade commissioner, has sought to dampen criticism by publishing discussion documents submitted to the TTIP talks. Following growing calls from environmental groups, unions and MEPs for the deal to be scrapped, she has put forward a series of suggestions to “safeguard the rights of governments to regulate” and protect public service provision from demands for competition. More than 97% of respondents to an official EU survey voted against the deal.

However De Zayas, the UN’s special rapporteur on promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, said that while these were helpful initiatives, the adoption of a separate legal system for the benefit of multinational corporations was a threat to basic human rights.

“The bottom line is that these agreements must be revised, modified or terminated,” he said.

“Most worrisome are the ISDS arbitrations, which constitute an attempt to escape the jurisdiction of national courts and bypass the obligation of all states to ensure that all legal cases are tried before independent tribunals that are public, transparent, accountable and appealable.

“Article 103 of the UN charter on human rights says that if there is a conflict between the provisions of the charter and any other treaty, it is the charter that prevails.”

De Zayas, who issued a statement last month demanding unions, health experts and environmentalists be included in the TTIP talks, conceded that the UN has had little impact on the debate so far, but hoped the publication of his report in August before the EU parliament vote could alert policymakers to the flaws in the current plan.

Disputes have already cost governments hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation. The Swedish nuclear energy group Vattenfall is suing the German government for its decision to phase out nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster, while the French waste and energy group Veolia sued the Egyptian government when it raised the minimum wage.

“There have been more than 600 such cases and most of them have been decided in favour of the corporations,” he said. “Why? Because the arbitrators are highly paid corporate lawyers, today working for the corporation, tomorrow as advocates, day after tomorrow as lobbyist, the day after that as arbitrators.
“These are classical situations of conflict of interest and lack of independence.”

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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby coffin_dodger » Tue May 05, 2015 5:14 am

German secret service suspected of deleting search words used by NSA spies DW.de 1 May 2015

Germany's secret service, the BND, has been accused of deleting search terms used by the NSA to spy on EU countries. The discovery came to light last week when media reported the BND colluding with the US secret service.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's secret service, allegedly deleted several thousand search terms used by the US' National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on governments in Europe, der Spiegel reported on Friday.

The information was part of a series of revelations that began last week, when Der Spiegel, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported on the NSA using the BND's monitoring stations in Bavaria's Bad Aibling to spy on high-ranking French officials, the Presidential palace in France, the EU Commission in Brussels and the European aerospace company Airbus.

cont - http://www.dw.de/german-secret-service-suspected-of-deleting-search-words-used-by-nsa-spies/a-18423557


I'll wager this is tied in with the TPP. The Germans spying on the other Europeans and feeding info to the US. LOL - talk about Fifth Column activity.
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Re: Fuck the TPP. And fuck Obama for pushing it so hard.

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri May 08, 2015 3:54 pm

The clown car expands still further: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cf8737a0 ... ab7de.html

May 7, 2015

Former military chiefs press US Congress on trade deals

Some top US former military leaders have called for Congress to give President Barack Obama the fast-track authority he needs to complete ambitious trade deals in both the Pacific and Atlantic, warning of “harmful strategic consequences” if they are not successful.

The intervention from 17 former secretaries of defence and retired military leaders including Colin Powell, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld and David Petraeus in a letter sent on Thursday to congressional leaders from both parties comes amid a volatile debate over trade in Washington.

“The stakes are clear. There are tremendous strategic benefits . . . and there would be harmful strategic consequences if we fail to secure these agreements,” the military leaders wrote. “In both Asia-Pacific and the Atlantic, our allies and partners would question our commitments, doubt our resolve, and inevitably look to other partners. America’s prestige, influence, and leadership are on the line.”
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