Naked Capitalism has the post Cokie Roberts Picked a Fight With Alan Grayson on the TransPacific Partnership. Guess Who Won?  There are several links and commentary by Yves Smith in the post.

One of the links is to Alan Grayson’s rebuttal Cokie Roberts Attacks Us: This Is How DC Works. Warning: The links in the quote below take you to the page for contributing to Alan Grayson’s campaign.

Recently, ABC infohack Cokie Roberts, doyenne of the D.C. Establishment, attacked me in her nationally syndicated column. Why? Because I dared to speak the truth about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a so-called “free trade agreement” that has lobbyists and Washington insiders alike clamoring to stuff their pockets with corrupt corporate cash. And because I dared to speak the truth about “Fast Track,” legislation whose sole purpose is to cram TPP and other corporate rip-offs down our throats.

I am not sure the size of the trade deficit in and of itself is quite as big a problem as Grayson makes it, but that is really a minor quibble with what he has to say. The problems the trade deficit causes are certainly something to worry about.  Grayson explains them very well.

By the way, I have long since given up listening to Cokie Roberts and Steve Roberts.  Her penchant for ignoring truth in order to make her point became more than I could take.  Her husband, Steve, was a little less obvious in his biased approach to “reporting”.