NAFTA was a success and TPP

[alsame]

will be great...Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker on MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.com/the-daily-rundown

[villager]

1. Hope! Change!

It's just all so fucking wonderful...

[lunasun]

8. President Obama's chief 2008 fundraiser, Penny Pritzker!

[Fumesucker]

2. It's just a matter of perspective

From Ms Pritzger's point of view NAFTA was a rousing success.

[djean111]

3. Put perfectly.

We 99% just do not have the right perspective on this.......

[alsame]

4. Definitely. She was speaking from

Davos, among those who no doubt will benefit greatly from TPP.

[House of Roberts]

5. I saw her while I was listening to Stephanie Miller.

Didn't need the sound to know this shite was the topic.

[Laelth]

6. Boo. n/t

-Laelth

[KoKo]

7. Why does she have such power over PBO that she is Commerce Secretary?

So...she was a huge donor and some say she was the first to see PBO's potential as President.

But, shouldn't President Obama care more, at this point, about the Voters who put him into office and not the Big Donors who got him elected in his first term? He didn't get elected to a second term by the Big Donors/Strategists unless they control all the voting machines in the USA...and while we know that there are many vulnerable voting machines in the US... Surely not all in every state that voted for him. So WHY does he still stand with these corporatists and bankers instead of the VOTERS?

[pampango]

11. I think Obama originally envisioned this as a "high standards", European-style

agreement. It would have included strict standards for labor rights and the environment as European countries have with each other.

The agreement is not working out that way. Obama seems to know that which may be why he did not finish negotiations and submit it by the end of the year as had been the goal.

It must be difficult to jettison 5 years of work towards a European-style trading system in the Pacific but it seems to me that he has no choice. Even if he were to still able to salvage a high standards agreement, the way elections have gone in the House it is very likely to approve any international agreement that enhances labor rights or environmental protections.

The TPP is either going to be terrible (which is increasingly how it looks) and not pass because Democrats will rightly kill it. Or it will be great (meaning high standards) and republicans in the House will kill it. Obama should just put it on the shelf.

[KoKo]

18. It needs to have a stake driven through it....and a rethink of the other agreements

like Nafta which didn't get the needed revisions he promised.

I'm glad to see that you don't favor the TPP either. I had thought you were in favor of it from some of your other posts on the topic, though.

[pampango]

19. I am in favor of what it could have been. I think we need a high standards agreement like

the Europeans have. I think liberals would support an agreement that truly supported labor rights and the environment.

[KoKo]

27. Okay...I get what you are saying...

for a compromise. But, I say we trash it and start over. I don't believe the European Agreement can hold...with our pressure to bring them into our own agreements.

But...can understand what you are saying! And would be a good starting point for discussion if there were ever to be such a thing allowed. As of now ...if we trash it and work with Europeans to sort out whats gone well and what hasn't...that would be a "start" of discussion that I think Dems on the Left could see a way work with..IF it wasn't in SECRET!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Her comments illustrated

[MFrohike]

25. I am sad

I am sad because I can't rec an individual post.

[Enthusiast]

30. +1 a shit load...........nt

[antigop]

10. All in the family: Bill--NAFTA. HRC leading part in drafting TPP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101667554

[TBF]

12. Just in case folks aren't familiar with Penny -

fund-raising buddy of POTUS from Chicago. Her dad co-founded the Hyatt hotel chain.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Pritzker

Penny Sue Pritzker (born May 2, 1959) is an American business executive, entrepreneur, civic leader, and philanthropist who is currently serving as the 38th United States Secretary of Commerce. She is the founder of PSP Capital Partners and Pritzker Realty Group.[1] She is also co-founder of Artemis Real Estate Partners.[2] She is a member of the Pritzker family.

In 2012, Chicago magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful Chicagoans.[3] In 2011 the Forbes 400 list of America's wealthiest showed her as the 263rd richest person in the U.S., estimated net worth of US $1.8511 billion,[4] and the world's 651st richest person. In 2009 Forbes named Pritzker as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.


And a little about how Hyatt treats it's employees (no surprises here): http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-01-14/business/bs-bz-hyatt-nlrb-complaint-20130114_1_unitehere-union-activities-union-leaflets

[lunasun]

13. Doubt POTUS would have got to WH without her-This is the trouble with our politc$

backed his USsenate run didnt she?

imo Clinton would not have been any different on TPP as she is all in from get go on it

[TBF]

14. Yes and yes. nt

[mindwalker_i]

15. Success for whom?

Sounds like another "reporter" with a corporate d*** in their mouth.

[MisterP]

16. "you shift into R to go backward and D to go forward"

"Cabinet of Rivals!" "it's only been 2,000 days!" "do you want the Republicans to win!?"

[Union Scribe]

21. I guess they forgot to specify that forward

meant going right over a trade cliff.

[1000words]

17. Is that toast I smell burning?

Oh ... loyalist spin furiously being brain-stormed, right now.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

20. That was vomit inducing.

[Armstead]

22. I wish I had the Kool Aid Concession there in Davos

I'd make a fortune.

I will avoid the obvious rant about Obama gurgling the Kool Aid himself.

[Armstead]

23. "I was just having lunch with Jamie Diamond" .....phhhhtt spit take

Sorry that just stuck out while listening to the link

No wonder we're fucked, if Obama is listening to this crowd

[pscot]

26. He's one of them

He believes this shit.

[Armstead]

24. My Gawd. She's awful!

"All of the business people we talk to want more free trade agreements so they can export more goods."

All those business people want to do, Penny, is export more jobs, and escape those pesky regulations.

[delrem]

28. This 3rd-way Dem admin knew *exactly* who she was, who she represented,...

when choosing Penny Pritzker as commerce secretary.
Posts as powerful as that are never by accident, they are *always* strategic.

On the other hand, Pres. Obama is a "Marxist", according to the loyal opposition.

So what was that you were saying, Humpty Dumpty?

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'?" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'?"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

[Enthusiast]

29. See what we are up against? Supposedly "our" party.

Mr. Obama, we did not elect you to appoint Republicans.

[alsame]

31. "Our" party doesn't even

exist when it comes to these issues. She was confirmed 97 - 1