NYTimes: Cotton, Rubio try to blow up bipartisan Iran nuclear agreement with Obama.

Post #401,517 by Another Scott 5/5/15 10:38:03 PM Reply	NYTimes: Cotton, Rubio try to blow up bipartisan Iran nuclear agreement with Obama. NY Times: Mr. Cotton, a first-term Republican from Arkansas, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida employed a rare procedural move to push amendments to end Iran’s nuclear program and call for Iran to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, which appeared to be a transparent effort to undermine the whole deal. That forced Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to move to cut off debate on Tuesday evening and bring the bill to a final vote — perhaps as early as Thursday — without other amendments that members of his party strongly desired. “I think it’s unfortunate that we got to this point,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. “Unfortunately, the maneuver left the majority leader with no choice on a bill that had bipartisan support.” Asked if Mr. Cotton’s move was the wrong one, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who was among the 19 senators to vote unanimously to move the bill out of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Yes.” He added, “I would have said he should wait for the leader before you offer your amendment.” Mr. Cotton remained unapologetic. He berated his colleagues from the floor last week, saying if they did not want to vote on the amendments offered by him or Mr. Rubio they should “host a talk show” or find another occupation. If they didn't try to destroy everything they touched, then maybe the leadership would be willing to offer them a chance to make amendments... Cheers, Scott.
Post #401,519 by boxley 5/5/15 11:26:58 PM Reply	call me naive, let them make all the amendments they want regardless of parties give em 5 minutes to discuss then vote on it. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #401,520 by Another Scott 5/5/15 11:45:33 PM Reply	It's hard to do that with international agreements. On things like that, they should get an UpperDown vote, maybe, but that's it. Foreign relations are the Executive's bailiwick, so it's impractical to go back to other countries and say - "well, these other guys want to add these other conditions, so what do you say?" Negotiations would never end. Cotton and Rubio and the rest of the Teabaggers don't want an agreement. They want to play cowboy and throw around ultimatiums. After all, they think war with Iran would be a cakewalk, so we should be able to demand anything. What's the problem? :-/ Cheers, Scott.
Post #401,529 by mmoffitt 5/6/15 8:05:11 AM Reply	So, secret TPP negotiations with the Prez and multi-nationals are okay too, then?
Post #401,530 by Another Scott 5/6/15 10:14:16 AM Reply	They'll see the text before voting on it. If they don't like it, vote it down.
Post #401,537 by mmoffitt 5/6/15 11:47:22 AM Reply	So the People can't see it because they won't be affected by it?
Post #401,538 by Another Scott 5/6/15 12:12:04 PM Reply	Eh? Text of NAFTA treaty Text of CAFTA treaty Etc. Of course the text is going to be public before they vote on it. Why wouldn't it be? Cheers, Scott.
Post #401,540 by mmoffitt 5/6/15 1:24:04 PM Reply	Why can't we see it now? While the details are being ironed out? You can't make the claim that this is purely an intergovernmental treaty. There are lobbyists and members of large multinationals that are negotiating the terms of this treaty with NO input from the American people at all. I can't see how you'd defend this. U.S. Corporate "Persons" being permitted not only read permissions, but write permissions when U.S. actual Persons are prohibited from seeing it or even hearing directly about the contents from their elected members. NAFTA, CAFTA, how'd those work out for the American People?
Post #401,543 by Another Scott 5/6/15 2:12:43 PM Reply	I really don't understand this line of argument at all. Similarly with Cheney's "OMG! Secret oil policy meetings!!11". What matters is the policy proposals that come out at the end. If the proposals are bad, then Congress should vote them down. If you don't like the proposals, then elect people who will negotiate better ones. That's the way our system works. https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/economy/trade My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #401,565 by mmoffitt 5/7/15 10:31:41 AM Reply	Maybe this will help. We might agree that elected officials should not have to expose the details of an in-process treaty negotiation, but that is NOT what is going on with these trade deals. Corporate lobbyists and Corporate Board of Directors are negotiating these deals on behalf of the American People. If you're going to say that it is okay for Corporate [SIC] Citizens to write these deals I can't see how you can argue against allowing Human Citizens to see what these Corporate Citizens are up to in process. Particularly when these Corporate [SIC] Citizens are negotiating in the Human Citizens name.
Post #401,572 by Another Scott 5/7/15 11:33:19 AM Reply	Did you visit the WhiteHouse linky that talks about the process?
Post #401,574 by mmoffitt 5/7/15 11:47:10 AM Reply	The propaganda site? All you need to do is read the first paragraph to realize that everything on that site is worse than anything Правда ever dared to print. President Obama’s trade agenda is dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses. That’s why we are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 21st century trade agreement that will boost U.S. economic growth, support American jobs, and grow Made-in-America exports to some of the most dynamic and fastest growing countries in the world. Translation: President Obama's trade agenda is dedicated to expanding the already obscene wealth of the top 1% and even more to the top 0.01% by having the wealth of the American workers, farmers, ranchers and small business employees funnelled up by forcing those workers to compete with the low wages and oft times inhumane working conditions of developing nations. That's why we are having some of the world's largest multi-national corporations negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 21st century trade agreement of, for and by the world's largest multi-national corporations that will boost shareholder value, further depress the wages of American jobs and export those jobs to some of the poorest countries in the world, just as NAFTA did before it.
Post #401,576 by Another Scott 5/7/15 12:11:17 PM Reply	It has verifiable assertions. Things like they're getting input from labor unions, etc. Stuff you don't hear about if you only read sites that think that any trade agreement is designed to enslave us all, or something. What does the AFL-CIO say? I’ve heard “labor” has a seat at the table and gets to see the TPP texts. Is this true? No. Under U.S. law, there are several trade advisers—private citizens appointed by the President—who advise on trade policies. Of these advisers, the vast majority (85% according to the Washington Post) represent businesses. About 5% of the advisers represent labor. The other 10% represent local and state government officials, academics, think tanks and non-governmental organizations. Labor advisers are allowed to review and advise on draft U.S. proposals—advice that the United States Trade Representative (USTR) can freely ignore. But we are locked out of the negotiating room and cannot see the actual negotiating texts, which combine the proposals from all 12 countries and evolve over time as negotiations progress. Nor can we share what we learn with members without violating national security laws. What's the beginning of the answer? "Under US Law". Obama is following the law. Unpossible. So, they do have input on the proposals. But they're not negotiating and they're not sitting at the actual negotiating table. Does anyone really think they should be at the actual negotiating table? I don't - that's not their role. Similarly, big business is advising. State and local governments are advising. The actual people at the negotiating table are official negotiators. FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #401,577 by mmoffitt 5/7/15 12:16:31 PM 5/7/15 12:17:17 PM Reply	You meant "Unsurprising" not "Unpossible." Who writes those laws? The same corporate lobbyists that are sitting at the TPP table deciding how much more of the world's wealth they can divide among themselves. Edits: It loses so much when snark has to be edited. ;0) Edited by mmoffitt May 7, 2015, 12:16:49 PM EDT Edited by mmoffitt May 7, 2015, 12:17:17 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #401,579 by Another Scott 5/7/15 1:48:11 PM Reply	rofl. :-)
Post #401,532 by boxley 5/6/15 10:51:41 AM Reply	yup Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep

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