Discussion for article #236224
Yes, think about the logic of what Obama is saying. Hey, I couldn’t have punched you in the face because look at all the times I walked past you without punching you in the face. Duh.
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Until there’s a candidate in '16, Warren is the head of the party. And maybe even past '16.
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My concern is that Max Baucus aide Darci Vetter is still out there as the lead ag negotiator for TTP. Indeed, Baucus has had his fingerprints all over TTP from the start.
https://scontent-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/v/t1.0-9/1002617_599028086799211_1654616523_n.jpg?oh=f059008bd4274268838da808094fecc9&oe=55C55A2E
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Why is this being called a “feud”? This is a policy debate, and a damned important one. Calling it a feud makes it seem personal and irrelevant to a broader audience.
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It’s being called a feud, because the editor knows that “feud” will get you to click on it. “Policy debate” will make you skip past it.
Perhaps not you, personally. But they’ll get far more ad clicks if it’s a fight than if it’s rational people trying to work out a complex issue.
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“If the President wants to have a real debate, he should release the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and let the public and press review it before Congress grants fast track authority for him to rush it through,” Brown said in a statement.
Golly, seems reasonable, don’t it?
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Five reasons TPM is pushing the feud narrative:
- Click bait
- Click bait
- Click bait
- Click bait
- Click bait.
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Amen, release the text.
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Five ways to catch the propaganda.
One: “while Obama has aligned himself with more moderate voices”
This is not a question of moderate or immoderate and it is propagandistic to put it on this kind of sliding scale. Obama is advocating making deals in secret that likely abrogate the American Constitution. Because the American People haven’t see this thing, we base our skepticism on all of the other bad “free trade” deals that were slipped through by the neoliberal R&D corporatists who work for global companies, not the American People.
Two: "The Obama administration has said that the proposal would also increase U.S. exports in the region. "
This assumes that the American People should take this on face value. When virtually the entire GOP is backing it?
Three: “Think about the logic of that, right?” Obama told Yahoo News. “The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it? I’d have to be pretty stupid.”
This is just a trust-me statement. No verifiable facts. And the use of the word stupid, in what should be a political statement is subtly inflected toward Warren. In other words “Am I stupid? Like Warren? No.”
Four: " that the liberals he’s usually in sync with on, say, the minimum wage are now waving torches and pitchforks at him on trade"
This is a political analogy referring to the uneducated rabble of the French and other Revolutions. Warren is not waving a pitchfork anymore then Obama is pointing a gun. It’s dripping with condescension.
Five: “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now running in the 2016 Democratic primary for president, has been careful not to weigh in closely on TPP.”
This is providing a leading presidential candidate with cover, rather than just asking her to say whether she supports the deal, or not.
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I’m lovin’ every minute of this. Finally, progressives find a leader.
BTW, is the president clenching his fist? Is that a first? And at an older white woman!
It’s not “liberal base” vs. “moderate voices,” It’s liberal wing vs. corporate wing.
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Where do you get such a crazy idea?
Warren will lose and turn the Country over to a very Conservative Republican Party…You will not carry Colorado,Virginia,Florida with
the views Warren carries…sorry Progressives…
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I’m not sure this is a serious allegation. The administration claims that the Congress can see the text and be briefed by the Trade Representative any time they want. In their own offices. The notion that the TPP is a “secret” is misleading, in my opinion.
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Its a feud because Obama is denigrating a US Senator as “just a politician.”
It was meant to impugn Elizabeth Warren’s integrity.
“Massive” fight? Not one executive of the massive banks that nearly bankrupted the country through their fraud ever went to jail.
George friggin Bush was tougher on rich crooks than Obama. When Enron’s fraud was exposed Bush had his old crony Ken Lay hauled off in irons.
Obama has a real problem with coddling Wall Street.
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Shallow. Warren is more worried about the six year fast track authority and the possibility we could have a Republican by then who does a deal with a dispute resolution mechanism designed to gut Dodd Frank than the TPP itself. See Greg Sargent’s interview with her a few days back. Obama is more worried about the geopolitics, more worried about getting these countries into a trade bloc with us so they don’t end up in one in China than he is about the economic impact, which he doesn’t think is going to be all that. And neither of them will come right out and say it because those issues are too esoteric for the MSM to relay and too esoteric for the people choosing sides like it’s a sport to rally around.
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Also: “Warren has emailed supporters accusing the administration of trying to keep the specifics of the deal a secret.”
“Accusing”? Um, she’s pointing out that the administration is keeping the specifics of the deal secret.
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There is no such thing as a trade deal that doesn’t include both winners and losers. Both Warren and the President can be right about different aspects of this deal. Unfortunately, the biggest winners will probably be corporate and financial interests who stand to gain the most. While our labor force will get the scraps if they are lucky.
In the global business environment that we have today, manufacturing will always flow to the site of the cheapest labor force, unless we enact some form of protection against that. Or alternatively, we accept that we will only be manufacturing high end products that require skilled labor. Somehow we will have to provide for the workers who are left behind in that transition.
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[laugh] So because members of Congress can see it, it’s not really a secret?
Hey, you forgot to point out that some corporate officials are also allowed to see it. That means it’s really not a secret, right?
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