Following his announcement yesterday that he will be supporting Wall Street's push to expand NAFTA into Peru, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has embarked on a campaign of misdirection - ironically (or perhaps, predictably) similar to the original campaign of deception that marked the original debate over NAFTA.

Here is just one example of the deception. It would be a conspiracy if the facts debunking his rhetoric wasn't so out in the open and public for all to see.

CLAIM:

"The Peruvian agreement contains the very labor agreements that labor and our allies have been asking for." - Barack Obama, 10/10/07

FACT:

Not a single American labor union has endorsed the Peru trade pact, which extends NAFTA into Peru. While the AFL-CIO has said that some language in the deal is better than old trade pacts, the AFL-CIO is nonetheless against the deal because it extends the overall NAFTA model. The Hill Newspaper just a few weeks ago once again confirmed that "The AFL-CIO is not supporting [the Peru] deal." In fact, almost every single labor, human rights, religious, environmental, anti-poverty and consumer advocacy organization has come out against the Peru pact - and that includes those organizations both in the United States and in Peru. For more on that opposition and on how this Peru deal is a 99% mirror of NAFTA, see here, here, here and here. Additionally, please recall that the Chamber of Commerce has already confirmed it has been given confirmation by the Bush administration that the watered down labor language in this NAFTA expansion is unenforceable.

P.S. To the Obama partisans who refuse to acknowledge these basic facts out of a blind sense of Partisan War Syndrome, go ahead - fill up the comments with your excuses, your misdirections, your justifications and your absurdly dishonest claims that I am working for another candidate, or that I am a "supporter" of another candidate (the horror! the horror!). I'm not picking on Obama - rest assured I'll have more to say on all candidates as we learn more about where they stand on the NAFTA expansion. Go ahead - waste the bandwith to make yourselves feel better, call me a liar even with all the facts, hyperlinks and data lined up against you. But huff and puff all you want - these are the facts, and these are the reasons why the rank-and-file Democrats in Congress like Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Phil Hare (from Obama's own state) are working hard to defeat this NAFTA expansion.

The Hill Newspaper has details here. Try not to projectile vomit.

The San Francisco Chronicle today published a great op-ed from the Washington State Senator Karen Keiser and Progressive States Network health policy analyst Adam Thompson. The piece explores how and why states are leading the way in expanding health care, while the money-drenched nation's capital remains mired in lobbyist-manufactured gridlock.

Check out the piece here.

Hot off the presses from MSNBC:

"Obama said he would vote for a Peruvian trade agreement next week, in response to a question from a man in Londonderry, NH who called NAFTA and CAFTA a disaster for American workers. He said he supported the trade agreement with Peru because it contained the labor and environmental standards sought by groups like the AFL-CIO, despite the voter's protests to the contrary. He also affirmed his support for free trade."

The voter's "protests to the contrary" are exactly right. The AFL-CIO does not support the bill expanding NAFTA into Peru, and the much-trumpeted labor/environmental standards leave enforcement up to the Bush administration, rather than empowering third parties to enforce them (like corporations have the power to enforce investor rights provisions in these same trade agreements). Leaving enforcement to the Bush administration - or any administration - is the biggest loophole possible. It is precisely why corporate lobbyists have bragged to reporters that the standards are not enforceable.

Obama is the first presidential candidate to officially declare his/her support for the NAFTA expansion moving through the Congress. His announcement is not necessarily surprising, considering he was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Hamilton Project - a Wall Street front group working to drive a wedge between Democrats and organized labor on globalization issues. His announcement comes just days after a Wall Street Journal poll found strong bipartisan opposition to lobbyist-written NAFTA-style trade policies.

Trade has been known to be a huge issue in Iowa (remember Dick Gephardt in 1988), so this announcement could very well ripple through the 2008 primary.

From the Canadian Press:

CORNER BROOK, N.L. -- U.S. oil giants ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil are accusing Ottawa of breaching the North American Free Trade Agreement by allowing Newfoundland to require them to spend millions of dollars on research in the province. The two companies plan to sue the federal government, alleging it violated a previous NAFTA agreement when a provincial-federal agency adopted a new guideline on research and development in November 2004. In notices of intent filed last month, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil say the new regulation would cost them $40 million and $10 million, respectively, regardless of the commercial need for such investment or of the resources in place to sustain it. The companies call the guideline "restrictive" as it specifies a fixed amount of money to be invested, and cite the Newfoundland and Labrador government's push for more revenues from the offshore oil industry.

You can bet that with the expansion of NAFTAs into places like Panama, this kind of attack on sovereignty is coming to a municipal, state, and federal government near you.

In the middle of a typically fulminating piece about how Democrats daring to question free trade fundamentalism will supposedly mean the Apocalypse, Financial Times' columnist Edward Luce undercuts his entire argument and reminds us of the real history behind the DLC-style revisionism about Clinton's supposed "centrism":

"Some draw parallels with Mr Clinton’s 1992 election campaign in which he promised to link the annual renewal of China’s 'most favored nation' trading status to improvements in human rights. That pledge, along with other more populist elements of his campaign rhetoric, was shelved by the end of his first term. 'There is nothing in the 2008 campaigns that is as strong as Bill Clinton’s promise to link trade with China to human rights,' says one economist."

So again, though the candidates are sounding populist, nothing they are saying is stronger than Clinton, and when Clinton was elected the Apocalypse didn't happen. Additionally, though Wall Street Democrats would have us believe Clinton ran for office in 1992 on a so-called "centrist" platform promising to sell out America's middle class to K Street and that such a platform thus is the way to win elections, it's clear that - as I have noted before - Clinton ran as a populist, and only sold out after he was in the White House.

As many of you know, I have just started writing a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column through Creators Syndicate. From the beginning, I set out to make this column different from the typical inside-the-Beltway, divorced-from-everyday-reality bromides that fill our media - and that means more than just being one of the only syndicated columnists in America anchored in and reporting from a non-DC/New York location. It means rejecting the old model whereby a columnist simply issues their edicts to the masses from Mt. Olympus. It means engaging readers in a far more serious way than the rest of the insulated Punditburo. And I feel a special responsibility to this considering I (think) I am one of the first - if not the first - syndicated newspaper columnists to come out of the Netroots.

To kick this off, I want to ask readers for some input on my first few columns. As I said, this is just the initial step - I have some more ideas on how to really try to pursue the spirit of transparency inherent in Open Source culture. I was really inspired by the OpenLeft effort to open up the legislative process a few months ago as it related to Sen. Durbin's telecom bill. I want to try to be the first OpenColumnist, if you will - and this is just the beginning.

Continue reading OpenColumnist - Asking for Input From Readers»

There is no more blatant sign that the Congress works for billionaires than this Washington Post dispatch:

"Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has told private-equity firms in recent weeks that a tax-hike proposal they have spent millions of dollars to defeat will not get through the Senate this year, according to executives and lobbyists...In response, private-equity firms -- whose multibillion-dollar deals have created a class of superwealthy investors and taken some of America's large corporations private -- hired dozens of lobbyists, stepped up campaign contributions and lined up business allies to wage an unusually conspicuous lobbying blitz...Senate leaders in general, including those on the Finance Committee, have been reluctant to advance the issue at all. 'There's no carried interest proposal in the Finance Committee at this time," Carol Guthrie, spokeswoman for Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), said via e-mail. 'We're still reviewing the many issues surrounding that topic.'"

From Maine:

"A proposed trade agreement with Peru is the latest front in Maine's Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and her Democratic challenger, Rep. Tom Allen. Allen has announced his opposition to a free trade pact with Peru, which President Bush supports. The House has fewer than 60 days to act on the legislation implementing the agreement, which Bush sent to Capitol Hill late last month. The trade deal, if approved by Congress, would eliminate tariffs and duties on most U.S. exports to Peru. At issue is whether free trade agreements create or destroy jobs and allow consumers to buy better goods at lower prices. Maine lost 3,200 jobs in the paper industry and nearly 2,000 jobs from textile mills between 2000 and 2005, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures."

Public Citizen has a very good press release and review of the Costa Rica vote here. Bottom line: The fact that roughly half of the citizens in this Latin American country said "no" to CAFTA after the massive, corporate-funded campaign of fear and intimidation shows just how little support these unfair trade pacts really have among the public. The "yes" campaign had to not only grossly outspend the "no" campaign, but had to resort to potentially illegal shenanigans just to get barely half of the vote. This is not a strong endorsement of lobbyist-written trade policy, but rather a referendum on how little support these policies really have.

From the Los Angeles Times:

MEXICO CITY -- Costa Rican voters gave an almost-certain thumbs up Sunday to a controversial free-trade agreement with the United States in a national referendum that had bitterly divided that Latin America nation.

With 90% of the votes counted, 52% were backing the Central American Free Trade Agreement, with 48% rejecting it, according to official results.

A recount is proceeding. Frankly, with the well-financed campaign of fear, and with the Bush administration putting the muscle of the entire U.S. government behind the "yes" campaign, I think it is remarkable that it was this close.

From Agence France Press:

"SAN JOSE (AFP) — Hundreds of thousands of Costa Ricans voted Sunday on whether to accept or reject a free-trade agreement with the United States, that would open local markets to US products but also boost Costa Rican exports to the United States.

Public opinion surveys, taken before polls closed at 6:00 pm (2400 GMT), indicated the measure was headed for defeat. Early official returns were not expected until 20:30 pm (0230 GMT Monday).

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, which also includes Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, will not be re-negotiated if Costa Rica rejects the measure, US officials said.

Costa Rica, population four million, is the only country to hold a referendum on the deal. The other countries have already ratified the agreement."

Preliminary results are not expected in until late tonight, though if it is close, the count could take days. What will happen? Consider this a Sunday night open thread to discuss...

Just watch this from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

This is what's known as solidarity:

"Washington, D.C. - U.S. Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva and Linda Sánchez today announced plans to introduce legislation to make permanent trade benefits for nearly two dozen countries, including Costa Rica. This announcement comes at the culmination of a nearly two year campaign by the Bush administration to use the false threat of trade preference expiration to pressure Costa Rica into ratifying the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Bush’s trade representative, Susan Schwab, made this threat again on Wednesday – the last day before a three-day media blackout in Costa Rica ahead of Sunday’s referendum on CAFTA."

Great news. This is how Democrats should be acting - they shouldn't be running from Bush, they should be running at him and going to bat for the progressive movement like Grijalva and Sanchez.

Just a quick note to follow up on my column about CAFTA - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), my old boss, has a great diary up at the Huffington Post about his recent trip to Costa Rica, the upcoming vote down there on CAFTA, and how the right-wing attack machine has unloaded on him for pushing fair trade.

Back in 2005, our Congress trampled the majority of Americans who opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and passed the pact with the strong backing of K Street lobbyists. This was a victory of the Money Party over the People Party - of buypartisanship over bipartisanship. Now, as I show in my nationally syndicated column out today, congressional Republicans and the Bush administration are trying to trample the people of Costa Rica - using threats and intimidation to try to force voters there to approve CAFTA in a national referendum this Sunday, October 7th.

Continue reading The Biggest Vote You've Never Heard About Is Happening This Sunday»

Ok, now I really have seen it all. Here is Grand Junction Sentinel political reporter Mike Saccone saying that condemning attacks on American troops will alienate conservative voters. He goes on to say that the best way for a Democrat to win is to pretend to be a Republican - as if that is the way to show you stand for something.

How truly inane and silly the current state of "journalism" really is.

Check this out from the Los Angeles Times today:

"From giant phone companies to small consumer advocates, the Federal Communications Commission is supposed to treat every group equally. But congressional investigators have found some companies and trade groups have received special treatment. FCC officials tipped them off to confidential information about when regulators planned to vote on important issues -- a clear violation of agency rules that provided an unfair lobbying advantage, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office released today. Other interested parties -- generally consumer and public-interest groups -- did not get such favorable treatment, the report said...With oversight of many aspects of telephone, TV, radio and Internet services, the FCC has a major effect on people's lives. Its decisions also can affect entire sectors of the telecommunications industry. Privileged information, leaked in violation of FCC rules, could give some companies and organizations advantages when trying to sway the commission, the GAO said."

This revelation comes less than a year after the Wall Street Journal reported that K Street lobbying firms have created an entire cottage industry to dig out insider information from Washington. Corporate interests are "hiring lobbyists -- not to influence government, but to tell them what it's going to do," the report said, adding that:

"Several lobbying firms are ramping up their "political-intelligence" units and charging hedge funds between $5,000 and $20,000 a month for tips and predictions...the SEC is trying to resolve is whether the passing of market-sensitive information by lobbyists to investors could violate insider-trading law...lobbyists only have to disclose their work for clients seeking to influence government, while hedge funds and other clients seeking market-beating tips can stay in the shadows. Increasingly, lobbyists acting as advocates for a company on an issue may also have a client looking to trade on information about the same issue...The growth in the market for political intelligence in the last 18 months has been dramatic."

Coincidence that the FCC is leaking inside information to corporate interests at the same time corporate interests are ramping up their efforts to use Washington lobbyists in a shady scheme to gather insider information? I think not.

Glancing at the Wall Street Journal and then at the Hill Newspaper, it's hard to believe some people in Congress are professional career politicians...or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's just the difference between bipartisanship and buypartisanship.

Here's the front page of the Wall Street Journal today on the national consensus against our current lobbyist-written, job-killing, wage-cutting trade policies:

"By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president...In a March 2007 WSJ/NBC poll, before recent scandals involving tainted imports, 54% of Democratic voters said free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S., compared with 21% who said they have helped...While rank-and-file Democrats have long blasted the impact of trade on American jobs, slipping support among Republicans represents a fresh warning sign for free-market conservatives."

Now here's the Hill Newspaper trumpeting a speech by Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to an assembled group of corporate lobbyists last night:

"House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday night that he was committed to building bipartisan support behind trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea that are dividing his caucus."

So to review - as polls continue to show bipartisan opposition to sellout trade deals among the general public, the Democratic House Majority Leader is working to build bipartisan support for sellout trade deals inside the U.S. Congress.

This is the difference between bipartisanship out in America, and "bipartisanship" inside the Washington Beltway. Out in America, it means consensus among citizens, in Washington it means consensus among lobbyists and the politicians those lobbyists buy. Call it Buypartisanship.

P.S. Stay tuned for my weekly nationally syndicated newspaper column out tomorrow on this topic and how it our government is now, rather viciously, trying to ram this buypartisanship down the throat of one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the Western Hemisphere.

The Los Angeles Times has the scoop:

"The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday designated nearly all of Southern California, parts of Arizona and much of the northeast as "national interest" energy transmission corridors, an action that allows federal regulators to approve new high-voltage towers and lets private utilities condemn homes and land even if a state agency won't...Utilities and other business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce and Edison Electric Institute, a national electric industry lobbying group, praised the announcement. Residents in rural areas expressed concern...Earlier this year, members of Congress tried unsuccessfully to roll back the new powers of the federal commission. And some land trust groups are considering whether to file legal challenges."

Beware America: This is your supposedly "anti-Big Government" and supposedly "pro-local control" conservative movement at work.

UPDATE: Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) offered an amendment to stop this power grab back in June. You can see how your congressperson voted here, and you can see the text of the legislation here. Hinchey today says he will spearhead a renewed legislative effort to stop this federal power grab. Will conservative lawmakers support his cause?

Something to brighten your day - watch the whole thing:

It is frustrating being part of the progressive movement these days - truly frustrating. And I say that not because I am on book deadline and exhausted, but because of what I have been reporting on for the book (which is due out in Spring of 2008, for those interested). These past few weeks have felt like a big kick in the teeth - with these last few days a gratuitous kick in the groin.

Continue reading These Are Times That Try Progressives' Souls»

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been in the news lately trying to pretend he's had nothing to do with the slow-motion economic meltdown America is currently experiencing in the housing, job and labor market. But he is still the same old Alan Greenspan - the one who opposes the minimum wage, and wants to drive wages in general into the ground. In fact, he admitted as much in a recent interview on Democracy Now. At about 39 minutes into this clip, you can hear him say this:

"We ought to be opening up our borders to skilled labor from all parts of the world because if we were to do that we would increase the supply of skilled workers that our schools have been unable to create and as a consequence of that we would lower the average wage of skills and reduce the degree of income inequality in this country."

Beyond his dishonest trumpeting of the Great Education Myth, notice that Greenspan's solution to economic inequality in America is to drive down the wages of the dwindling number of good-paying jobs that remain, by importing more foreign workers who have no basic rights to bargain for good wages, and who are thus paid much less than American workers in the same jobs.

Alan Greenspan: One of the truly great class warriors of his time.

(h/t Progressive Geek)

Someone (either Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein) once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Yet, congressional Democrats want American voters to subscribe to this very form of insanity when it comes to the Iraq War.

On Bill Maher's HBO show this weekend, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) first pushed the Innocent Bystander Fable, then, when cornered, said the only way to end the war is to elect more Democrats and a Democratic president.

Now think about that for just a second. We elected Democrats in 2006 to end the war. They are now taking to the television airwaves to brag about their refusal to use the power they have to end the war - the constitutional power of the purse. And yet, we are expected to believe the real way to end the war is to elect more Democrats. Why should anyone believe simply electing more Democrats is going to end the war? Where is there any proof that that would help end the war? Or do Democratic leaders think we are so stupid and so insane that we will believe this self-serving line of reasoning without any shred of evidence? This is the definition of political insanity: Electing the same candidates over and over and over again and expecting different results.

Getting more Democrats in Congress would probably mean a better chance to pass progressive legislation. But as it relates specifically to the Iraq War, Democrats have the power to end the war right now if they wanted to. They just don't want to take the political risk to do so - and there's no reason to think that with more Democrats they would be any more inclined to take those risks in the future (Remember - Richard Nixon campaigned in 1968 on a promise to end the war - and he only followed through many years later). The only way they are going to end the war is if they are forced to end the war, under threat of being thrown out of office. And to argue otherwise is to be blinded by Partisan War Syndrome.

Late last week, I appeared on Colorado PBS's public affairs show, Colorado Inside Out. We discussed the recent brouhaha over free speech at Colorado State University, the upcoming Democratic campaign against U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) and Gov. Bill Ritter's (D-CO) new business tax plan. You can watch the show here:

A 22-year-old man cannot get the test needed to even find out if his cancer has come back.

It's been a long week, so in the spirit of a little fun, check out this Valentine's card. If you want a musical Valentine's Day card, check out this one. They are the Best. Cards. Ever.

...at least if you are, like me, an Indiana Jones fan.

Check out this interchange between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a reporter at her press conference today:

Q: Which President Clinton was pushing for and which it became law. Do you believe that in the years since trade with China has cost American jobs, lowered wages in this country, and how do you apply those lessons to the future trade deals with Peru and the other ones?

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you for asking a question about China. Eighteen years ago we began this debate on normal trade relations with China, at the time the trade deficit with China was about $3 billion a year. We thought that that gave us great leverage with the Chinese government to free the prisoners arrested in the time in Tiananmen Square, lower tariffs on U.S. products going into China, and stop China's proliferation of weapons and technology to countries like Pakistan, for example, which they were transferring technology to. $3 billion a year. We thought that was a huge amount of money, and it gave us a tremendous amount of leverage. I lost that fight.

It didn't seem like people cared so much about human rights after a while, and we had to fight the Clinton Administration on this. And so they said that if we just engaged - which we wanted to engage anyway, we were not saying to isolate - we were saying to engage but on the basis of principle that if we engaged China then all these things would happen. Well, what happened was the trade deficit went from $3 billion a year to $3 billion a week.

Yes, I think it has had an impact on the American worker, and we see also an impact on the safety of our children and our families in terms of food supply and toys and the rest. Secondly, they still haven't lowered their barriers. That is why we have - what is the trade deficit now, close to $200 billion, maybe $400 billion a year by now. And they sufficiently proliferated weapons to Pakistan, and Pakistan was strengthened and was able to proliferate to other countries. So it didn't achieve any of the goals, but it was a big success for K Street.

Notice how she acknowledges that China PNTR was terrible for workers, terrible for our safety and a "big success for K Street" but that she then refuses to answer the question about how - if she believes that - she could be supporting the package of new NAFTAs being pushed by the Bush administration.

As promised a few days ago, my new nationally syndicated newspaper column takes a hard look at exactly why the progressive movement's strategy of focusing so much of our resources on Congress rather than the states and expecting to pass Iraq-related legislation through Congress fails to comprehend the most basic construction of America's power Establishment.

The column is entitled "Tyranny of the Tiny Minority" Taking the lead of author Thomas Geoghegan (hands down one of the best writers in America) and his terrific book The Secret Lives of Citizens, I analyze the raw numbers behind the U.S. Senate's absurd reputation as the beacon of democracy. When you see these numbers, they will blow your mind - but they will also show you where we should expect real change, where we shouldn't, and what we can and cannot expect out of Congress.

Continue reading Finding A Real Progressive Strategy: It's All In the Numbers»

Here's the Portland Mercury on the pressure Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR) is facing over his support for the new package of NAFTAs that George W. Bush is attempting to ram through Congress:

After months of trying to change Blumenauer's mind, the activists demanded that he give them an explanation. None came, and staffers informed the protestors that the congressman wouldn't be making a comment.

A day later, his office sent an email that was quasi-supportive of the Peru trade deal, saying that Democrats had successfully worked to include two major provisions in the deal that would keep it from ending up like other free trade deals with our neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere. The agreement forces Peru to abide by international labor standards and environmental protections. But those standards aren't enough for the fair trade crowd, who pointed out that only the presidents of the countries could file claims if labor standards are violated.

"I'm not entirely comfortable leaving it up to George W. Bush to file a labor claim in Peru," Daniel Denvir, a member of PCASC, told reporters at the event.

Even though the trade deal is the product of the Bush administration, the protestors picked their target—Blumenauer—in part because his yes vote seems so uncharacteristic.

"Why would a liberal Democrat from one of the most liberal districts in the country support a deal that's bad for workers?" asked Chris Ferlazzo, an organizer with Jobs with Justice, between protest chants.

The protestors are right on message, and weren't fooled by Blumenauer's spin. Any trade deal that lets any president, Republican or Democrat, have the sole power to enforce - or more likely not enforce - labor and environmental provisions is a trade deal designed to sell out American workers and the environment.

In demanding that Democrats who campaigned against NAFTA now vote for a package of new NAFTAs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that Democrats need to "take yes for an answer," according to CongressDaily. Pelosi is now on record literally plagiarizing David Broder's columns. You may recall that it was Broder who 4 months ago wrote a screed for the Washington Post demanding Democrats pass the new NAFTAs. His screed was headlined "Can Democrats Take Yes for an Answer?"

Pelosi is now on record literally plagiarizing David Broder's columns. You may recall that it was Broder who 4 months ago wrote a screed for the Washington Post demanding Democrats pass the new NAFTAs. His screed was headlined "Can Democrats Take Yes for an Answer?"

There is a tiny silver lining to all this. Knowing that the Speaker of the House clearly does not listen to labor, environmental, human rights, anti-poverty and religious groups who oppose the deal, nor does she listen to her own rank-and-file Democrats who ran against NAFTA; nor does she listen to the American people who voted against NAFTA in the 2006 election - at least we know who Pelosi does listen to: David Broder.

And so, as people like Pelosi pat themselves on the back for making Washington pundits like David Broder smile, America is once again left to savor mere scraps just months after a "change" election. Here's the Hill Newspaper on the courageous Democrats valiantly fighting the good fight:

"Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME) seemed resigned to defeat. 'I’m a realist. A Democratic administration gave us NAFTA. There’s going to be a Democratic Congress that will give us the Peru trade deal,' he said, adding that there was little time in the caucus meeting to discuss the deal. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.) said he hoped the working group could just convince enough Democrats to oppose the deal so that if it were approved, it would be with minority support in the Democratic Party." (emphasis added)

That's what we get - we get to pray that a bare majority of Democrats doesn't sell out their election 2006 promises to Wall Street's wishes. At least we have the Michauds and the Kildees, I guess, but man, this is pretty rough to watch.

Ok, ok. It's the Politico - one of the silliest, most insignificant newspapers in America. But the message about the Innocent Bystander Fable is right on.