[mpen-dayton4] Special e-Newsletter against TPP
FYI. Best, Munsup
P.S. "He who dares not offend cannot be honest" - Thomas Paine
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· FW: Get ready for a National Call-In Day to stop Fast Track!
· FW: RSN: "TPP: The Case for Treason" by Marc Ash
· FW: Stand With Warren and Sanders Against the TPP
· FW: Sign the petition: Don't let Wall Street carve out special protections in TPP
· FW: Unions
· FW: The Insecure American - Krugman/NYT
· FW: Kansas Model: Kansas-republicans-finally-admit-tax-cuts-wealthy-failed
· FW: Sign the petition: Let the public know what trade deals mean for Dodd-Frank
· FW: Sign the petition: No Fast Track for toxics
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From: Andrew Tierman
Subject: FW: Get ready for a National Call-In Day to stop Fast Track!
Every Call Counts
Join in the June 3 National Call-In Day and Help STOP Fast Track!
Last week, the Senate voted 62-37 to pass Fast Track. The fight now moves to the real battleground in the U.S. House of Representatives. Currently they don't have the votes to pass Fast Track. We need to keep it that way as the pressure builds. You have been working your Representatives for months with calls, letters, petitions, meetings and action. It all has come down to the next few weeks – and we are ready to end Fast Track now!
As the U.S. House prepares to take on this issue in June, it is critical that they continue to hear from us. Keep talking to your members, families and friends about what passage of a Fast Track bill means: trade policies adopted under Fast Track have cost us millions of jobs, contributed to more than 60,000 factories shutting down, given even more power to giant corporations and driven income inequality here in the United States and around the globe
Make Your Call for the June 3 National Call-In Day
The work you are doing and have done has been amazing. The fact that the votes aren't currently there in the House is proof of that. We thank you! The next few weeks will be more important than ever to remain engaged, so be sure to stay tuned to Rapid Response to stay in the loop on next steps following the call-in day!
This is our moment, and we intend to take it! As our Representatives return to D.C., we want to welcome them with a stark reminder of where we need them to stand. Steelworkers and our allies from across the nation will be participating in a national call-in day on Wednesday, June 3. This needs to be a big effort to send a strong signal. Call your Representative and tell him or her to oppose Fast Track!
Make sure that your local is ready to participate:
- Download and make copies of the ActionCall HERE.
- Share this with your Rapid Response Team and others who can help get the information around.
- Take advantage of break times, shift changes and any other times when members can make calls.
- Encourage everyone in your workplace to take part. Help inexperienced callers by walking through the process. Remind your members that it only takes a moment of their time and that each and every call matters right now. Our toll-free number will guide callers to the right Representative's office.
Call your Representative by dialing our toll-free number:
866-202-5409
Say who you are and where you're from
Tell them to OPPOSE Fast Track!
Help your co-workers and family to make a call!
From: Judy Burnette
Subject: FW: RSN: "TPP: The Case for Treason" by Marc Ash
Reader Supported News: "TPP: The Case for Treason" by Marc Ash
" ... For the record, peace leads to stability, which in turn leads to security. But not to profit. Therein lies the motivation for perpetual war.
What makes the TPP treasonous is its betrayal of America's natural resources, vital economic interests, military service members, and national security as a whole.
The TPP seeks to directly subjugate and invalidate American law, granting to multinational investors and to the agreement itself and its dispute resolution process ultimate authority, literally, over American home rule. All while American service members fight and die to protect the interests of whoever the investors are.
The Obama administration is not the first to memorialize an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) agreement system in the form of a trade agreement. The Clinton administration's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) granted the same rights to MNCs. But ISDS agreements have been incorporated in literally thousands of international treaties over the past half-century, resulting in hundreds of lawsuits by MNCs against nation states – with the the result that the nations being sued choosing to comply with the dispute panel's decision in an overwhelming majority of the cases.
What is at stake is who will govern America – Americans, or multinational investors and their arbiters? Without any doubt, ceding this vast authority to foreign actors, state-sponsored or otherwise, amounts to a wholesale betrayal of the principle of American self-rule, the very thing our U.S. service members are laying down their lives to protect. Or so they believe. .... "
Read More
From: tbacane
Subject: FW: Stand With Warren and Sanders Against the TPP
The TPP is NOT good for American workers therefore I stand with Senators Sanders and Warren.
Sorry Mr. President YOU are on the wrong side of this issue!
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From: John Sellers via Other 98%
Hey all — by now you've heard that our elected officials are trying to ram a giant corporate trade deal through Congress with zero public input.
We're joining forces with CREDO because it's crucial to bring full transparency to the TPP. Last week, the Senate voted in favor of fast-tracking the bill; this week, the bill goes to the House. This is our last chance to stop Fast Track and to convince the President to release the full text of the TPP to the public.
-John Sellers, the Other 98%
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From: Murshed Zaheed; Deputy Political Director, CREDO Action from Working Assets
Stand with Senators Sanders, Warren, and Brown: President Obama must release full text of TPP
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Our campaign to pressure President Obama's administration to immediately make all secret trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) public has gotten a massive boost. Add your name:
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From: Monique Teal; Daily Kos
Subject: Sign the petition: Don't let Wall Street carve out special protections in TPP
As Congress debates the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal you and I aren't allowed to read, a growing group of academics and policymakers are warning of a sleeping giant within the trade negotiation–this deal could threaten rules protecting consumers against Wall Street recklessness.
Adding concern is that the lead TPP negotiator for the United States, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, was an executive at Citigroup before joining the Obama Administration and continues to have deep ties to the very banks that would benefit from rolling back consumer protections against Wall Street's excesses.
Join Daily Kos and a large coalition asking U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman: Release any correspondence between you and Wall Street while negotiating the trade deals you say won't threaten financial reform.
As a senior member of the 2008 presidential transition team, Froman helped staff the Obama Administration with bank-friendly officials while he was still getting a salary from Citigroup. Then he received millions from the bank when he went into government–all while his former employer Citigroup took in millions of bailout money.
Now, consumer financial protections laws are being attacked by Wall Street bankers–who have previously tried to weaken key safeguards by hiding language in other legislation–and countries like Canada–who challenged consumer financial protections based on an existing trade deal, NAFTA.
Knowing what Froman has been discussing with Wall Street is critical to knowing how to safeguard necessary consumer financial protections.
Join Daily Kos and a large coalition asking U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to reassure Americans that trade deals won't hurt financial reform, by revealing his communication with Wall Street.
From: Robert Reich via MoveOn.org Civic Action
Subject: Unions
There is one solution to skyrocketing inequality that most of the TV talking heads love to ignore: Unions! It's no surprise.
Without unions, big companies like Walmart or Amazon can cut benefits, allow unsafe working conditions, slash wages, and pocket the massive profits.
Well, I'm not afraid to talk about how unions are essential—and I'm relying on you to get the word out. Please watch and share now:
More economic growth, higher wages, shared prosperity—all by strengthening unions. 50 or 60 years ago, it was considered obvious; today, folks are afraid to talk about it. That's what decades of right-wing propaganda will do.
The first step is to spread the word by sharing this message right now, because MoveOn will be campaigning for the idea that gets the most traction in our Big Picture series.
This video is the latest in the "Big Picture: Ten Ideas to Save the Economy" series I'm working on with MoveOn. And MoveOn has committed to campaigning on the ideas that get the most traction. So if you believe in fair pay for a hard day's work, you won't want to skip watching and sharing this video.
This is the seventh idea in our series "The Big Picture: Ten Ideas to Save the Economy." In case you missed the first six, once you've watched Strengthen Unions, be sure to check out the rest of the videos.
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 8 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Start a monthly donation here or chip in a one-time donation here.
From: khalfani718
Subject: The Insecure American - Krugman/NYT
The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Insecure American
MAY 29, 2015
Paul Krugman
America remains, despite the damage inflicted by the Great Recession and its aftermath, a very rich country. But many Americans are economically insecure, with little protection from life's risks. They frequently experience financial hardship; many don't expect to be able to retire, and if they do retire have little to live on besides Social Security.
Many readers will, I hope, find nothing surprising in what I just said. But all too many affluent Americans — and, in particular, members of our political elite — seem to have no sense of how the other half lives. Which is why a new study on the financial well-being of U.S. households, conducted by the Federal Reserve, should be required reading inside the Beltway.
Before I get to that study, a few words about the callous obliviousness so prevalent in our political life.
I am not, or not only, talking about right-wing contempt for the poor, although the dominance of compassionless conservatism is a sight to behold. According to the Pew Research Center, more than three-quarters of conservatives believe that the poor "have it easy" thanks to government benefits; only 1 in 7 believe that the poor "have hard lives." And this attitude translates into policy. What we learn from the refusal of Republican-controlled states to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government would foot the bill, is that punishing the poor has become a goal in itself, one worth pursuing even if it hurts rather than helps state budgets.
But leave self-declared conservatives and their contempt for the poor on one side. What's really striking is the disconnect between centrist conventional wisdom and the reality of life — and death — for much of the nation.
Take, as a prime example, positioning on Social Security. For decades, a declared willingness to cut Social Security benefits, especially by raising the retirement age, has been almost a required position — a badge of seriousness — for politicians and pundits who want to sound wise and responsible. After all, people are living longer, so shouldn't they work longer, too? And isn't Social Security an old-fashioned system, out of touch with modern economic realities?
Meanwhile, the reality is that living longer in our ever-more-unequal society is very much a class thing: life expectancy at age 65 has risen a lot among the affluent, but hardly at all in the bottom half of the wage distribution, that is, among those who need Social Security most. And while the retirement system F.D.R. introduced may look old-fashioned to affluent professionals, it is quite literally a lifeline for many of our fellow citizens. A majority of Americans over 65 get more than half their income from Social Security, and more than a quarter are almost completely reliant on those monthly checks.
These realities may finally be penetrating political debate, to some extent. We seem to be hearing less these days about cutting Social Security, and we're even seeing some attention paid to proposals for benefit increases given the erosion of private pensions. But my sense is that Washington still has no clue about the realities of life for those not yet elderly. Which is where that Federal Reserve study comes in.
This is the study's second year, and the current edition actually portrays a nation in recovery: in 2014, unlike 2013, a substantial plurality of respondents said that they were better off than they had been five years ago. Yet it's startling how little room for error there is in many American lives.
We learn, for example, that 3 in 10 nonelderly Americans said they had no retirement savings or pension, and that the same fraction reported going without some kind of medical care in the past year because they couldn't afford it. Almost a quarter reported that they or a family member had experienced financial hardship in the past year.
And something that even startled me: 47 percent said that they would not have the resources to meet an unexpected expense of $400 — $400! They would have to sell something or borrow to meet that need, if they could meet it at all.
Of course, it could be much worse. Social Security is there, and we should be very glad that it is. Meanwhile, unemployment insurance and food stamps did a lot to cushion unlucky families from the worst during the Great Recession. And Obamacare, imperfect as it is, has immensely reduced insecurity, especially in states whose governments haven't tried to sabotage the program.
But while things could be worse, they could also be better. There is no such thing as perfect security, but American families could easily have much more security than they have. All it would take is for politicians and pundits to stop talking blithely about the need to cut "entitlements" and start looking at the way their less-fortunate fellow citizens actually live.
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From: albert baca
Subject: FW: Kansas Model: Kansas-republicans-finally-admit-tax-cuts-wealthy-failed
KANSAS REPUBLICANS FINALLY ADMIT
THAT THEIR TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY HAVE FAILED
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/30/kansas-republicans-finally-admit-tax-cuts-wealthy-failed.html
Here is one of the comments:
Since this seems to be a case of unrequited love for the republicans for the rich, I think a word or several from Loudon Wainwright would be apropos:
Ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho
Chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle
Snigger snigger snigger snigger
Guffaw Guffaw Guffaw Guffaw Guffaw Guffaw
Yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk
My personal opinion is that that comment pretty well sums it up. How can the people in Kansas be so damn stupid? I do wonder which red state will be the next state to follow the Kansas red state utopia model. I suspect that state will suffer the same fate as Kansas.
From: Kurt Walters; Rootstrikers
Subject: Sign the petition: Let the public know what trade deals mean for Dodd-Frank
A growing group of experts and policymakers are warning that free trade negotiations could threaten the Dodd-Frank Act and other rules protecting against reckless behavior on Wall Street.
The Obama Administration claims there's no way trade deals could threaten financial reform—but a recent fact check by Bloomberg News calls that "wrong." The same fact check says "a number of constitutional scholars and other legal experts" disagree.1
If the Administration wants the American people to believe this isn't an issue, the first step it should take is make public what lead trade negotiator Michael Froman—a former executive at banking giant Citigroup—has been saying to Wall Street in private.
Click here to tell U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman: release any emails and other correspondence between you and the biggest Wall Street banks while you were negotiating the trade deals you claim won't threaten financial reform.
Michael Froman has always been close to Wall Street. He was a top executive at Citigroup before joining the Obama Administration—the same bank that Elizabeth Warren called out, saying "Citi has risen above the others [on Wall Street] in exercising a tight grip over the Democratic Party's economic policymaking apparatus."
Then, Froman took a Citigroup paycheck and a golden parachute worth more than $4 million while he was on Obama's transition team, doing what he could to place Wall Street-friendly officials into the administration (and often succeeding).2
Froman even successfully pushed to put Timothy Geithner, the chief architect of the bank bailout, in as Treasury Secretary—all while his employer Citigroup took in history-shattering amounts of bailout money.3
Now, lobbyists from Citigroup and other Wall Street banks continue to push hard to weaken Dodd-Frank—all while lobbying extensively on "fast-track" Trade Promotion Authority to make it easier to force trade deals through Congress. Let's see what they've been telling Michael Froman.
Tell Michael Froman to make his communications with Wall Street public.
We know Wall Street banks will use any opportunity they can to try to weaken the rules holding them in check.
It was only December when Citigroup snuck a lobbyist-written Dodd-Frank rollback into the "CRomnibus" over the loud objection of financial reformers who want strong rules protecting against risky dealing on Wall Street.4
We all deserve to know what Froman has been telling these big banks—and what they've been telling him—privately.
Click here to tell USTR Michael Froman to reassure Americans that trade deals won't hurt financial reform, by revealing his communications with Wall Street.
For anyone who doesn't think this is a real threat, consider one last fact: Canada recently challenged Dodd-Frank based on an existing trade deal, saying that the key Volcker Rule is invalid under NAFTA.5 Anyone who supports accountability for Wall Street should be concerned—very concerned.
Sources:
1. "Why Obama Is Wrong and Warren Is Right on Trade Bill Quarrel," Bloomberg Politics, May 15, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=304469&id=118406-1195276-18Ubhix&t=4
2. "Obama Admin's TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks," Moyers & Company, February 20, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=304559&id=118406-1195276-18Ubhix&t=5
3. "Fed Official Is Said to Be Choice for Treasury," The New York Times, November 21, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22policy.html?_r=2&
4. "Why Citi May Soon Regret Its Big Victory on Capitol Hill" American Banker, December 11, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=304564&id=118406-1195276-18Ubhix&t=6
5. "Canada Just Threw A Grenade Into Elizabeth Warren's Trade Fight With Obama," Huffington Post, May 14, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=304560&id=118406-1195276-18Ubhix&t=7
This petition was created on MoveOn's online petition site, where anyone can start their own online petitions. Rootstrikers didn't pay us to send this email—we never rent or sell the MoveOn.org list.
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 8 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Start a monthly donation here or chip in a one-time donation here.
From: Murshed Zaheed; Deputy Political Director, CREDO Action from Working Assets
Subject: Sign the petition: No Fast Track for toxics
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End of MPEN e-Newsletter
posted by lucas at 7:46 PM
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