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David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.

  • May 22, 2007 3:49 PM

    SECRET TRADE DEAL: Dem Leaders Face "Hostile" Colleagues "Angry" Over Secret Trade Deal

    This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.

    A late-afternoon update from today's news report on the secret trade deal cut 12 days ago between a handful of senior Democratic leaders and the Bush White House. Both Reuters and Bloomberg News report that House Democratic leaders today faced "hostile" rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers at a Democratic Caucus meeting forced on them after the leadership tried to prevent such a meeting from happening. These rank-and-file Democrats are "angry" that the deal fails to de-NAFTA-ize trade pacts, and that even the few standards that may be added to new trade deals will be rendered unenforceable.

    You may note that in both stories, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is claiming that opposition to the deal is coming from just a small number of Democrats at the very same time that Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) admitted to David Broder last week that he believes about three-quarters of all Democratic lawmakers could end up opposing it. To date, the legislative language of the deal remains concealed from rank-and-file lawmakers, the media and the public. Nonetheless, reporters and the politicians backing the deal continue to claim as definitive fact that the deal means strong labor and environmental standards will be put in trade deals - at the very same time the White House confirms it is working to avoid putting these new standards in the core text of the agreements, thus rendering them unenforceable.

    Posted by David Sirota
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    Tags: free trade

Discussion

  • racetoinfinity [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    Is there a petition going around that will let Pelosi, Rangel, et al know that we DON'T WANT this secret deal to go through? If anyone knows of one, pls. post a link to it!

    Posted on May 22, 2007 4:07 PM
  • waltc [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    Thanks for the update.

    Its about time some folks in congress started standing up to their "leaders" given that Pelosi and Reid have done:
    1) Capitulated to Bush on the Iraq War.
    2) Supported a corporate written immigration bill.
    3) Supported a corporate written "free" trade agreement and pushing for a floor vote on FastTrack Authority for Bush.

    Reading the comments at Dkos, the posters there are absolutley livid over this systematic betrayal by the Democratic leadership. Hopefully this will be the wakeup call needed to mobilize folks to push the congresscritters to remove Pelosi and Hoyer from their positions and pressure Reid also into leaving.

    These people need to go if the Democrats want any chance of retaining their majority and preventing a NAFTAesque blowback in '08. Failure to remove them will only further demoralize the Democratic base and drive independents away from the party, thus insuring a GOP comeback.

    Posted on May 22, 2007 5:50 PM

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