The gloves are off, the sides have been clearly drawn. It's the president, the Republican Party and business versus the people, workers, labor and most of the Democratic Party. And a top House Democrat, who is at the forefront whipping the votes against fast track and the Trans Pacific Partnership, is making it clear: the president stands with multi-national corporations against workers.
Rosa DeLauro has been a champion for workers for many years. And she's not going to mince words when it comes to whose side the president is on in the fight to defeat the Trans Pacific Partnership, via The Wall Street Journal:
“The administration is in bed with the multinational corporations,” said Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of Mr. Obama’s fiercest critics on trade.[emphasis added]
In fact, DeLauro is not making this up...as the president would likely claim, having already hurled that slander, and other entirely unsubstantiated nonsense, at Elizabeth Warren and others
from the safety of his speaking gig provided by his friends at Nike. Business is proud of its shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with the president:
From Hollywood studios to drug makers and manufacturers, such as Caterpillar Inc., some major American companies are lending key support in the complicated push to negotiate the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and to win votes in Congress. The administration’s trade quest faces an uphill battle in the House, starting this week.
“Our interests on this issue are aligned,” said Myron Brilliant, executive vice president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. [emphasis added]
And next to the president's best friends at Nike, guess who the president is in bed with?:
After Nike, pharmaceutical companies led by Pfizer Inc. are among the most active entities lobbying on the TPP issue, according to the filings. Drug maker executives and industry groups traveled to the most recent round of TPP negotiations in Guam in late May to back stronger intellectual-property protections in the TPP, a major unresolved issue.[emphasis added]
Wonder why?
Pretty simple: more profits. The president is essentially guaranteeing the drug industries massive new profits; the drug companies, along with the insurance industry, is the industry most responsible for personal bankruptcy by millions of Americans because of the criminal price of drugs. Global Trade Watch:
Longer, broader, and stronger monopolies mean reduced generic competition and higher drug costs for families and national health programs...The longer a product is under patent protection, the longer patients have to wait for low-cost versions of the patented drugs. Such delays lead to preventable suffering and death.[emphasis added]
It's DeLauro's day in the traditional media, by the way. In
this piece, she also makes clear what she thinks of the rhetoric coming from the president and where she stands, recalling the fight over NAFTA when Bill Clinton and Robert Reich tried to ram through that so-called "free trade" deal:
“Bill Clinton at the time spoke of us who were opposed as ‘thugs’ … that we didn’t really know what we were talking about and that we were wrong. That is … some of the same things that have been said this time as well,” DeLauro said. “I am for trade; I’m not for the type of trade agreements that put working men and women out of jobs.”
By the way, any position yet on fast track or TPP by the Chipotle-eating, van-driving Democratic presidential candidate? Crickets...