Come one, come all! Step right up and buy your ticket for a ride on the splendiferous, phantasmagoric, supersonic, miraculous, “Trans-Pacific Partnership!”
TPP is not some sort of futuristic flying machine, but yet another global trade scam coming at us like a volcanic eruption straight out of hell. This thing is a “partnership” of, by, and for global corporations – similar to NAFTA, only much, much, much bigger and far more destructive both to the middle class and to our people’s sovereignty.
Negotiating in strict secrecy during the past seven years, a cabal of the Obama White House and corporate lobbyists are now ready to spring it on us, and Republican leaders intend to ram it into law before We the People can get a whiff of its anti-democratic stench.
Indeed, to perfume it, they’ve already begun a PR campaign touting TPP as the long-sought wonder cure for America’s downtrodden working class. For example, such odd-bedfellow boosters as Secretary of State John Kerry and the US Chamber of Commerce both exclaim that the 12-nation scheme will “support 650,000 new jobs.” Wow… really?
No. Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post’s “Fact-Checker” column, dug into that number in January and found that it was incorrectly calculated, misleading… and silly. In fact, he wrote, instead of TPP yielding 650,000 new jobs, “The correct number is zero.” He also pointed out that even if 650,000 jobs were created, that’s not even a drop in the bucket, for it would increase US employment by less than one-half of one percent.
Be alert, friends, for the TPP Gang will try to dazzle us with hokey numbers and neon lies – while they steal our democratic rights and turn our future well-being over to global corporations.

Democrats, too, are dancing to the rich man’s tune

It’s futile to hope that the GOP’s gaggle of corporate-hugging, right-wing presidential candidates will seriously address the issue of rising inequality in our land – but where are the Democrats?
Well, Hillary Clinton has warned that, “extreme inequality has corrupted other societies.” Uh... yes, but what about our society? Clinton says: “We have to have a concerted effort to meet a consensus about how to deal with this.”
Huh? That’s not an answer, much less a solution – it’s a political tap dance around a crucial matter facing America. Why would she dodge a chance to swing away at a down-the-middle, working-class issue that’s right in the wheelhouse of her party’s populist strength? After all, recent polls show huge public support for direct government action to reduce the wealth gap, from raising taxes on the superrich to raising the minimum wage above the poverty level.
But there is one tiny constituency whose opinion outweighs all others on this issue: The 1-Percenters. Clinton and other top Democrats are weaker than Canadian hot sauce when it comes to embracing the unequivocating populism that ordinary voters want, because only 13 percent of the superrich think government should take action to redress inequality. These privileged ones tend to blame America’s widening inequities on the very people who’re losing jobs, income, and wealth – claiming that such people should simply improve their work ethic and character.
Why would Democrats care what these few supercilious elites think? Well, because meek Democrats like Clinton have become so dependent on rich people’s campaign checks that they let them restrict the party’s policies and message, thus alienating the workaday majority.
When both parties kow-tow to money, the people’s needs are ignored, and politics becomes illegitimate.

2016 presidential candidates address inequality (sort of)

At last, America’s political leaders indicate that they now feel the pain of the poor and of the millions of working families slipping out of the middle class.
Congress had previously paid no attention to the ever-widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us, but it has recently emerged as a central issue for such Republican presidential contenders as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. They are publicly lamenting the wealth gap and – by gollies – proposing solutions. Alas, though, the “solution” proposed by each of them is not to provide help for those who’ve been knocked down, but to offer aid to the same corporate elites who’ve been knocking down the middle class and holding down the poor.
Specifically, their solution is to cut taxes on corporations and the rich, do away with environmental and labor protections, and cut or privatize government programs – from Head Start to Social Security – that ordinary people count on. For example, Sen. Rubio proposes to kill the food stamp program (even though the need for it is greater than ever) and redirect that money into what he calls a subsidy for low-wage workers. Does he think we have sucker-wrappers around our heads? That’s not a subsidy for workers, but for low-wage employers. Why should taxpayers subsidize the poverty pay of profitable giants like McDonald’s, rather than making them pay living wages and cover their own labor costs?
I guess we should count it as progress that candidates are at least having to admit that inequality is a problem, but come on – offering the same old failed, anti-government snake oil is an insult to the American people. Jeb Bush shows how vacuous their flim-flammery is by saying that, to address the ever-widening wealth and income gap, he’ll “celebrate success and… cherish free enterprise.” Gosh, what a comfort that’ll be to America’s hard-hit majority.