Victory! We Stopped Fast Track (for Now)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Victory!-We-Stopped-Fast-Track-for-Now


11/21/2014 Ian Kaplan

Here’s the good news: Your hard work stopping Fast Track has paid off. We’ve told you all the many reasons Fast Track is a terrible idea for workers, our economy and our democracy. The AFL-CIO and its member unions filled Capitol Hill with ads showing how Fast Track hurts real people, as part of our “No Fast Track” campaign. Unions partnered with dozens of other organizations to fight Fast Track. Together, we organized a week of action. We asked you to do everything you could to convince Congress not to vote for Fast Track, and you delivered—more than 700,000 petition signatures, thousands of calls and hundreds of thousands of emails to members of Congress, 20 rallies and town halls in targeted districts around the country and countless posts and tweets on social media.

And it worked. Congress heard more than 1 million voices against Fast Track during our week of action, and it has taken us a long way toward making sure that the lame-duck Congress doesn’t make this mistake.

Here’s the bad news: Fast Track is being pushed by some very powerful corporate interests. There’s no doubt they’re going to try again—if not this year, then with the new Congress in 2015. With your help, we stopped them a year ago, and we’ve stopped them now. If you haven’t already, go to NoFastTrack.com and sign our petition. Tell us how bad trade deals have affected you. And read other workers’ stories.

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[spanone]

1. k&r...thanks OS

[belzabubba333]

2. k r

[pampango]

3. Congratulations! But it was not just liberals.

Strange Bedfellows Are Blocking The McConnell-Obama Trade Deal

The divide among the Washington GOP elite over trade policy is relatively new. But top Republicans have been aware of the anti-free trade base for decades. Populist attacks on foreign trade are a common theme for campaign ads from McConnell himself.

With the populist base in revolt, ambitious Republicans eyeing potential presidential runs are struggling to sort out their policy stances. The office of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told HuffPost that he generally supports free trade deals, but will have to see what's included in Obama's final TPP agreement.

Obama has faced two domestic obstacles to enacting his pact: Democrats in Congress, who worry it will exacerbate income inequality, and a bloc of House Republicans, who are up in arms about the deal's implications for executive power and national sovereignty.

But for conservative hardliners, transferring power from a Republican Congress to Obama is a big no-no. "Why does anyone trust Barack Obama?" said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, who has defended restricted voting rights to real estate owners. "Either he's incompetent, or he wants to negotiate trade deals that are bad for average Americans."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/mitch-mcconnell-tpp-tea-party_n_6182126.html

Here's the "Obamatrade" website: http://obamatrade.com/
It's full of conservatives who do not want Obama to have fast track authority.

While opposition is relatively uniform both geographically and demographically, the survey data reveals a sharp partisan divide on the issue. Republicans overwhelmingly oppose giving fast-track authority to the president (8% in favor, 87% opposed), as do independents (20%-66%), while a narrow majority (52%) of Democrats are in favor (35% opposed).

http://fasttrackpoll.info/

On the issue of trade agreements, divisions within the Republican Party are again apparent. Staunch Conservatives are strongly opposed to granting the president fast-track authority: 76% oppose, only 22% favor. Moderate Republicans and Populist Republicans also oppose this proposal; however, their opposition is more muted. Among Moderate Republicans, 53% oppose, 43% favor; among Populists, 57% oppose, 35% favor.

Democratic groups are more united on this issue. Roughly 50% of Liberals, Socially Conservative Democrats and Partisan Poor favor fast track. New Democrats are more likely than any other typology group to endorse the idea — 61% favor.

http://www.people-press.org/1999/11/11/section-6-issues/