tpp

Everyone in Washington knows that Chuck Schumer is one of the shadiest and most corrupt Members of the Senate, right up there with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip and member of both the Budget and Finance Committees John Cornyn. Cornyn is best known as a whore for Big Oil, which has given him $2,876,106 for services rendered since being elected to Congress. The financial sector (Wall Street) has given Cornyn far more-- $7,940,416 since he was first elected in 2002. They've been even more generous-- or strategic-- with McConnell, who's been buttered up with $11,444,704.

Washingtonpost.com caption: President Barack Obama wins a victory in the Senate on re-writing the rules of international trade.by KenIf you've been following Gaius Publius' coverage of the administration's all-out effort to ram through Congress so-called Fast Track authority, as a prelude to getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (and who knows what all else, for up to six years,

Each of these Democrats need to be turned into lobbyists at the earliest opportunity. For three of them, that's January 2017 (click to enlarge and share).

The vote of TPP is looming in the House and Obama has Jim Clyburn (D-SC) making all kind of handsome offers to Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to guarantee a big vote score from that circle. You won't find caucus members with integrity, like Barbara Lee and Donna Edwards, playing footsie with Clyburn on this, of course.

In Parts One and Two of this series, we argued that to prevent oligarchic rule, democratic and economic institutions need to be salvaged, ironically, through anarchist political activism and Marxist capital analysis, specifically Marx’s labor theory of value, which identifies the systemic and structural nature of exploitation. The point is that workers are “entitled” to the surplus value they create.

In the new video above, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, asserts, "The only sure way to stop excessive risk-taking on Wall Street-- so that you don't risk losing your job or your savings or your home-- is to put an end to the excessive economic and political power of Wall Street by busting up the big banks."And in a new Senate report, Broken Promises: Decades of Failure to Enforce Labor Standards in Free Trade Agreements Elizabeth Warren punched back hard at the absurd contention

Elizabeth Warren, speaking for the people. Who speaks for money? The Center for American Progress (image source; image artist; more images here)by Gaius PubliusI'll put the bottom line first. There is no way that Hillary Clinton is not a strong supporter of TPP and Fast Track.

The dangerous underfunding of US infrastructure was underscored by a fatal train derailment on May 12th. The tragedy did not deter the House Appropriations Committee from voting to slash Amtrak funding the very next day. There are ways Congress could fund its massive infrastructure bill without raising taxes. But the conservative-controlled Congress seems to have other plans for the nation’s profitable public assets.

It is obvious, almost by definition, that excessive governmental secrecy and true democracy are incompatible. If the people of a country have no idea what their government is doing, they cannot possibly have the influence on decisions that the word “democracy” implies.
Dark government

Obama’s Presidential Library as envisaged by the Chicago firm HOK. Like Star Fleet Academy, but with corporate funding (discussed here).