EXPLOSIVE: Hillary Pushed Columbia Trade Deal As Secretary Of State (leftover trade deal from Bush)

[berni_mccoy]

In 2008, when it came out that Hillary's campaign manager, Mark Penn was negotiating a secret Trade Deal with Columbia for the Bush Administration, he was forced to resign as her campaign manager (even though he continued to be paid by her campaign until the election was over)

Now it comes out with the latest batch of emails that not only did her campaign manager try to negotiate it in secret, Hillary continued the negotiations of this same Trade Deal when she was in office, against the recommendations of the labor unions.

http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-pushes-colombia-free-trade-agreement-latest-email-dump-2326068

Included in the 881 emails published Friday night are messages highlighting Clinton lobbying for a controversial Colombian trade deal she previously pledged to oppose.

During her 2008 presidential run, Clinton said she opposed the deal because “I am very concerned about the history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia.” She later declared, “I oppose the deal. I have spoken out against the deal, I will vote against the deal, and I will do everything I can to urge the Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”

But newly released emails show that as secretary of state, Clinton was personally lobbying Democratic members of Congress to support the deal, even promising one senior lawmaker that the deal would extend labor protections to Colombian workers that would be as good or better than those enjoyed by many workers in the United States.

Froman — a former Citigroup executive who as trade representative was lobbying for passage of the deal — responded by thanking Clinton for her "help and support.” Hormats, a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs who subsequently was hired by Clinton at the State Department, later chimed in, telling her “terrific job” and “GREAT line on Columbian [sic] workers!!!!!”

More at the link, especially how The Unions objected and how only a couple of months later, reports of abuses of the Columbian workers started to come in.

This is the VERITABLE PROOF that Hillary is a LIAR and WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING TO THE VOTERS SIMPLY TO GET ELECTED. Nothing she says during this election can be believed to be carried out as policy.

Looks like the Unions are going to get FUCKED again and they made a HUUUUGE mistake in endorsing Hillary, someone who HI-FIVES Wall Street Executives as she BETRAYS labor and the unions for Trade Deals that favor the wealthy and corporations.

[brentspeak]

1. That's ok. She was just following orders. n/t

[djean111]

2. IMO her supporters don't give a flying fuck about actual issues.

But yeah, liar.

[PonyUp]

9. I agree. n/t

[UglyGreed]

18. You noticed that too

huh???

[EndElectoral]

21. It's tough to fathom, but yeah, appears that way.

Many seem defensive or put upon when a story like this is revealed. There is a frightening close-mindedness to many issues, such as trade or foreign policy or Wall Street.

When people actually believe that candidates who accept large amounts of money from donors are not influenced by those donors in terms of policy positions that is about as close minded as it gets.

[berni_mccoy]

30. Yep, they certainly are running for cover in this thread.

[Live and Learn]

32. +10,000 nt

[jfern]

34. They know if it was about the issues, she'd be 50 points down

[EdwardBernays]

3. Clintonites don't care about honesty

it's not really a voting issue for them.

[AZ Progressive]

24. "Integrity is for losers. I want to win!"

[AzDar]

4. She's a LIAR. How *anyone*, let alone Progressives could support her, is beyond me...

[MissDeeds]

14. + a zillion

[berni_mccoy]

15. It's simply maddening

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

22. Liberals/Progressives under attack by Third Way Dems who usurp these labels

Every Dem likes to call themselves a Liberal and a Progressive, but not every Democrat is. And when you point out the difference, the Third Wayer attack is to play the "purity test" card. It's pure projection. They're ashamed of themselves for supporting right of center candidates, so they shame Liberals and Progressives with "purity test" and "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" language.

If you want to be a Third Way Dem, that's fine. Just be proud of yourself. Don't run away from it in shame and claim you're something much better than a Third Wayer, that being a Liberal and a Progressive. Why are Third Wayers so ashamed of themselves?

[Live and Learn]

33. +10,000 nt

[amborin]

5. yes, and she also pushed the free-trade deal with South Korea; and is on record pushing TPP many

many times; plus, she essentially authored the TPP:

First: Hillary Clinton OWNS the TPP. She worked on drafting it, as Secretary of State.

She is the main person who wrote the TPP terms.

She was the main cheerleader for the TPP for years!

here is one of numerous examples of her promoting TPP:

In the fall of 2011, President Obama announced a shift in the United States’ strategic focus toward the Asia-Pacific region on military and economic matters. Inheriting a foreign policy predominantly fixated on the Middle East, the Obama administration set out on a renewed path to align current government resources with future priorities.

In 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton penned a piece for Foreign Policy describing this regional policy as a “pivot point.”

Clinton further articulated interest in expanding economic liberalization through agreements such as the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

This re-balancing became a cornerstone for the Obama administration’s foreign policy objectives, and the principal economic and foreign policy component of the ‘pivot to Asia’ is the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP's MAIN BENEFICIARY IS WALL STREET!

The TPP permanently immunizes Wall Street from REGULATIONS. It especially PROTECTS Wall Street from a TRANSACTION TAX, aka a TOBIN TAX.

This earlier post from DU explains:

TPP: Allows Wall Street to sue the government to gut financial and consumer protection regulations.

If you thought the recent bills passed in the house gutting Dodd Frank were bad, it's nothing compared to what the TPP will do to financial regulation.

Not only will it be gutted, but it will be gutted in such a way that prevents future congresses and presidents from ever reinstating it, because it means they can sue us in rigged ISDS tribunals to gut our regulations.

Don't take my word for it. From Elizabeth Warren:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/elizabeth-warren-trade-deal_n_6350312.html

This post from DU explains further:

Elwood P Dowd

Wall Street is responsible for TPP, and the point man for it came from Citigroup.

The USTR office that wrote TPP is infested with corporate lawyers and lobbyists. In this case, its former Citigroup executive Michael Froman who worked for Robert Rubin that's in charge. He was given a 4 million dollar bonus to take the job at USTR. TPP is all about making money and giving more power to Wall Street and their corporate business partners.

Wall Street Pays Bankers to Work in Government and It Doesn't Want Anyone to Know

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120967/wall-street-pays-bankers-work-government-and-wants-it-secret

Citigroup is one of three Wall Street banks attempting to keep hidden their practice of paying executives multimillion-dollar awards for entering government service. In letters delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the last month, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seek exemption from a shareholder proposal, filed by the AFL-CIO labor coalition, which would force them to identify all executives eligible for these financial rewards, and the specific dollar amounts at stake. Critics argue these “golden parachutes” ensure more financial insiders in policy positions and favorable treatment toward Wall Street.

<snip>

Other banks’ policies are subtler. Banks often defer certain types of compensation in order to retain talent. When an executive terminates employment, unvested stock options and other forms of deferred compensation are usually forfeited. But several companies let executives’ equity options continue to vest if they leave for a government position, or allow them to keep retention bonuses that would otherwise be returned to the firm. A 2004 tax law banned accelerated payments but made an exemption for employees who leave for government service. Critics wonder whether the gifts are intended to fill the government with friendly faces who will act in their former employer’s interests.

“It fuels the revolving door between banks and the government,” said Michael Smallberg, an investigator for the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), whose 2013 report detailed these types of compensation agreements. The average executive branch salary is substantially less than these millions in awards, so the bonuses effectively supplement the lower pay, raising questions about who the government officials actually work for.

Citigroup is a serial user of these practices, if only because so many of its alumni serve in government. Jack Lew, Weiss’ boss at Treasury, had $250,000 to $500,000 in restricted stock vested after he left an executive position at the bank, part of a $1.1 million golden parachute revealed during the confirmation process. Stanley Fischer, currently the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, had a similar clause in his Citigroup employment contract. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman received over $4 million in multiple exit payments from Citigroup when he left for the Obama Administration.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026854944

Here's what Peter de Fazio says:

Secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Revealed

from:
Mortensen, Camilla. Eugene Weekly [Eugene, Or] 02 Jan 2014: N_A.


Hillary not only had major input into writing the TPP, but she has been its leading cheerleader:

As secretary of state in President Barack Obama's cabinet, Mrs. Clinton heaped praise on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation agreement that is one of Mr. Obama's top priorities.

In one speech, she said the pact would "lower trade barriers while raising standards, creating more and better growth."

from:

U.S. News: Clinton Walking Fine Line on Trade Deal

Nicholas, Peter . Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 23 Apr 2015: A.4.

Hillary Clinton, herself, wrote a piece in Foreign Policy journal advertising and praising and advocating for TPP:

America’s Pacific Century

The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.

• By Hillary Clinton
• October 11, 2011

We are also making progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which will bring together economies from across the Pacific — developed and developing alike — into a single trading community.

Our goal is to create not just more growth, but better growth. We believe trade agreements need to include strong protections for workers, the environment, intellectual property, and innovation. They should also promote the free flow of information technology and the spread of green technology, as well as the coherence of our regulatory system and the efficiency of supply chains. Ultimately, our progress will be measured by the quality of people’s lives — whether men and women can work in dignity, earn a decent wage, raise healthy families, educate their children, and take hold of the opportunities to improve their own and the next generation’s fortunes. Our hope is that a TPP agreement with high standards can serve as a benchmark for future agreements — and grow to serve as a platform for broader regional interaction and eventually a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/

Do Hillary's promises of "strong protections for workers" mean anything?


NO, according to leading scholars of trade agreements, especially the TPP:


Scholars say that promises of worker protections are essentially an advertising gimmick:

The Myth of the Level Playing Field

Faux, Jeff. The American Prospect 23.3 (Apr 2012): 47-50.


The ILO conventions are specifically excluded from the U.S. draft of the TPP.

....According to the industry newsletter Inside U.S. Trade, the proposal states that TPP countries "should take measures to reduce trade in products made through forced or child labor" and should apply their national worker protections to free-trade and export-processing zones.....

....Unfortunately, for many governments in less developed countries and investors in developed countries, exploiting labor is the point- cheap workers represent these nations' comparative advantage. As then-Peruvian President Alan Garcia told a cheering Chamber of Commerce the night that the U.S. -Peru trade deal was signed: "Come and open your factories in my country so we can sell your own products back to the U.S."

....If under these labor chapters, workers can still be intimidated, fired, or even murdered for trying to form a labor union, how effective can they be?" The answer is, hardly effective at all. Almost 20 years after NAFTA, companies violate Mexico's labor laws with impunity.........

Moreover, even the tiny improvement of the United States' TPP labor proposal over the Peru agreement will certainly be watered down in the negotiations. None of the other governments are enthusiastic. Countries like Malaysia and Singapore are hostile, and the inclusion of Vietnam, where unions are an arm of the government and labor oppression is rampant, and Brunei, which has a large number of mistreated foreign workers and is ruled by a 600-year-old autocratic sultanate, mocks the assumption that governments will take labor-protection rules seriously.

Deputy National Security Adviser Michael Froman assured Inside U.S. Trade in January that the Obama team would push for "a high standard labor agreement" but then suggested that labor protections were not that important because the benefits of free trade to American workers would go far beyond whatever the content of the labor chapter turned out to be.

What would TPP do?

Scholars say:

The offshoring of work will accelerate.

Vietnam-where wages are lower than China- will take from what little is left of the bottom end of U.S. manufacturing.

Malaysia and Singapore will pull from somewhat higher up the value-added ladder.

To keep their jobs, American industrial workers will take cuts in pay and see middle-class benefits like pensions and health care disappear.

The TPP will help accelerate the evolution of a two-tier wage system - whereby younger workers get hired for less- into three tiers and more.

Because labor markets are connected, the downward pressure in manufacturing wages will spread to other sectors as well, and from private to public employment.

Wage depression also will expand out to workers in the large, extended labor force in countries with which we already have free-trade agreements.

Among those dragged down in this quickening race to the bottom will be workers in Mexico, where lack of job opportunities is a major factor in the vicious internal drug wars that have already claimed some 50,000 lives in the last five years.

As hard times there get harder, social instability is bound to spill over our borders in some form.

Under pressure from public opinion and Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton recently flip flopped on TPP, with weasel words.

But Hillary's past record speaks the truth. Hillary will pass TPP:

[think]

6. "a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs who subsequently was hired by Clinton at the State Depart"

Froman — a former Citigroup executive who as trade representative was lobbying for passage of the deal — responded by thanking Clinton for her "help and support.” Hormats, a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs who subsequently was hired by Clinton at the State Department, later chimed in, telling her “terrific job” and “GREAT line on Columbian [sic] workers!!!!!”

This is who she represents. This is her true base. Money....

[Buzz Clik]

7. "Explosive?" As in "Explosion of flavor"

If you are in a quiet room, you might be able to hear a noise.

[polly7]

10. Some people care about actions like this that devastate lives. nt.

[berni_mccoy]

11. Name ONE THING that's untrue in the OP!

FUCK YES IT'S EXPLOSIVE.

[Buzz Clik]

13. Well played. Your "fuck yes" logical maneuver convinced me. It's an explosion.

[berni_mccoy]

16. Ah so that gif is of you not refuting the OP.

Thanks it's funny watching you try to be an apologist for Hillary's deceitful behavior.

[Buzz Clik]

17. You guys are in the final throes.

I am sorry. But I will not stop pointing out your acts of desperation.

[berni_mccoy]

19. Lol. The only one who is desperate are Hillary supporters

Who can't face the truth of what she is.

[Buzz Clik]

20. "I know you are but what am I"

Man I love this stuff.

[berni_mccoy]

25. You are the only one making childish responses

It's what happens when the truth isn't on your side.

[Live and Learn]

35. Now we know where Trump gets his material from.

Some posters deserve a prominent place on the ignore list.

[lostnfound]

8. Tie this activity to specific job losses in specific states and it might shift the election

In my more cynical moments I think: Vampires that intend to kill their victims outright versus vampires intending to keep the victim alive as long as possible. That's the two faces of the Money Party.

[Kokonoe]

12. Kissenger is so proud right now,

Hillary has all the experience of Nixon.
Let's hope republicans will not impeach our new leader.

[2banon]

23. Definetely a betrayal to the Rank and File as well as the rest of us

I suspect union leaders knew this, but hoped it wouldn't get out, I hope to see heads roll vis a vis union elections as word gets out to the rank and file.

I don't reckon they're gonna be too pleased when they learn this.

[berni_mccoy]

26. It's time to clean house for sure

[amborin]

37. she promised to oppose it, then lobbied & voted for it

[2pooped2pop]

27. Looks like we need a list of all of her "experience" as Sos

Bad decisions and maybe a body count.

[Lucinda]

28. Neither she nor Obama supported the 2008 version of the Bill. Obama in fact

stalled action on the bill for three years, until 2011, to the great moaning and groaning of of the Republicans. Not only was the bill revised to protect displaced workers, there were contingencies put in place that Columbia had to meet before we would agree to vote on the revised bill.

Overview:
http://news.yahoo.com/congress-passes-3-free-trade-agreements-003629553.html

The US and Columbian governments signed an "Action Plan" agreement in April of 2011 which listed objectives that the Columbian government had to meet in order for the FTA to go forward. This link below, discusses status of the protections put in place for the Columbian workers as of mid October 2011:

http://votesmart.org/public-statement/645489/united-states-colombia-trade-promotion-agreement-implementation-act#.VtNfQ3vrytc


The revised bill finally came for a vote at the end of October 2011.

So Hillary did not lie. She never supported the lousy Bush bill. She did support Obama in the revised version of the bill, and the action agreement that was made with Columbia about reforms and protections for the Coumbians.


editing to say that her emails were in the October time frame when the US was finally ready to move forward after the Columbians had implemented the Action Plan items.



editing again because I am the Queen of Typos.

[berni_mccoy]

29. You didn't read the article then. There were no real changes

To the 2008 deal. Why else would Goldman execs be high-giving her just before worker abuses were reported. Her own campaign manager, Mark Penn started the negotiations and Hillary had known about them in 2008. This is historical fact.

[Lucinda]

31. Yes, I did read it. This paragraph is

quoting Hillary saying they were well on the way to providing the Columbian workers the same kind of protections that we have here. As the article flows, it seems that he is congratulating her on those efforts.

"...One of the 2011 emails from Clinton to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Clinton aide Robert Hormats has a subject line “Sandy Levin” — a reference to the Democratic congressman who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy. In the email detailing her call with Levin, she said the Michigan lawmaker “appreciates the changes that have been made, the national security arguments and Santos's reforms” -- the latter presumably a reference to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. She concludes the message about the call with Levin by saying, “I told him that at the rate we were going, Columbian [sic] workers were going to end up w the same or better rights than workers in Wisconsin and Indiana and, maybe even, Michigan.”

Froman — a former Citigroup executive who as trade representative was lobbying for passage of the deal — responded by thanking Clinton for her "help and support.” Hormats, a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs who subsequently was hired by Clinton at the State Department, later chimed in, telling her “terrific job” and “GREAT line on Columbian [sic] workers!!!!!”..."


http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-pushes-colombia-free-trade-agreement-latest-email-dump-2326068



And this contains the changes to be implemented via the Action Plan - starting around page 18.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34470.pdf

[berni_mccoy]

36. Except that there were none. Colombian workers suffered great abuses

As a result of this trade deal while American workers lost jobs.