Rachel Maddow has an interview with Elizabeth Warren about the TPP controversy.

Senator Elizabeth Warren explains to Rachel Maddow why she is reluctant to give fast track power to President Obama on a new trade deal, citing concerns that the crafting of the deal is ‘rigged,’ and insisting that the deal be made public first.

I have seen people wonder how the Senators could know what they are complaining about. Well, this should stop it. Elizabeth Warren says that she has read the TPP. So here’s the challenge Mr. President, if it’s such a good deal, let us see it. Otherwise, we just plain don’t believe you. The more you keep it hidden, the less we believe you. What you say about it is belied by your actions to keep it secret.

I notice that Rachel Maddow gives deserved credit to Bernie Sanders and others who are fighting this deal. As for the President and interpreting his mentioning only Elizabeth Warren by name, “Bernie who. Never heard of him.” He’ll even mention John Boner, but not Bernie Sanders. The trouble is that Bernie Sanders refuses to go away.

I received an email from Run Warren Run about why she should run.  The main topic was about the trade disagreement between Warren and Obama.  I agree fully about that argument, and I will show the email at the end.

What I found most powerful was the speech by Prof. Lawrence Lessig about why Warren should run.  The email provided the link to that speech in its postscript.

Until Warren says she wants to run, I am putting most of my effort in promoting Bernie Sanders. I also think he has the broader platform of the two candidates. If Lessig is right that she is the candidate we need, and she agrees to run, then I would certainly support her efforts.

Now that we have been forced to accept the unqualified Loretta Lynch as our next Attorney General, all is not lost.

Credo Action has the petition Tell new Attorney General Loretta Lynch: End “too big to jail.”

“Begin your term as attorney general by announcing criminal charges for the fraud that led to the financial crisis, ending the abuse of deferred prosecution agreements without steep penalties, and committing to bring to trial any financial institutions caught breaking the law in the future.”

We are getting close to the statute of limitations for some of the crimes committed during the financial crisis.  However, these crooks are still committing the crimes, so that deadline shouldn’t stop prosecution or quiet our calls for prosecution.

I am aware that these petitions from Credo are probably only a way to get your email address so they can send you junk email, but perhaps it can do some good to at least listen to the message which is a good one.

I may have hinted at these facts before in this blog, but it is time to bring them out, and boldly state them.

There are millions if not billions of people in this world in other countries  who are as smart as we are, as educated as we are, and who are willing to do our jobs as well as we can for less money and under more difficult conditions.

Those are the facts right now, and they won’t change instantly.  As with global climate change, we  can deny the facts, but we  cannot avoid them.  So sit yourself down, take a deep breath, and now start to think about what we are going to do about it that is non-violent and recognizes the brotherhood and sisterhood of people all around the world.

The corollary to the above is that we enjoy a superior standard of living to the people who are competing most strongly for our jobs that has no justification when you look at the facts without blinders.

There are going to have to be some adjustments to our expectations that we must make.  We have a range of options in the adjustments we choose to make.  There is a set of choices that will spread the pain reasonably fairly across all segments of the American population.  There is also a set of adjustments that will exempt the rich from having to share any of the pain, but will concentrate it even harder on the rest of the population.

The rich know which set of options they are willing to fight tooth and nail for.  Do most of the rest of us have a clue as to what the fight is all about?

Oh, one thing the rich may not know, or maybe they do, is that there are potential CEOs in other countries that are just as smart as our CEOs, but they are willing to work for lower salaries and under more difficult circumstances.  There is no reason why the CEO jobs won’t leave this country and move to China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and all  those other countries where the rich people also want the TPP.  You can bet our corporate executives who are writing the TPP rules are working overtime to protect their asses from the competition of the executives in these other countries.  That may be the only reason there is any resistance at all from the other countries.

Once the rich people in our country can make it clear to the rich people in other countries that all the rich people will do exceptionally well with the new scheme (and there are plenty of billionaires in the emerging countries, too), then their will be nobody left to resist the rest of us from being driven into poverty.

So what are some of the things that we can do?  Here is a list in no particular order.  In fact we can do many of them at the same time if we  can muster the political will.

• Get the government to spend more money to get us all back to work at reasonable wages for this country.  That means investing in the infrastructure we all know we will eventually have to pay for anyway.  Investing in making our own education affordable as they do in all the countries that compete with us.  Invest in the research that corporations will not pay for on their own, and don’t then give it away to the corporations without extracting something for the rest of us in return.
• Let the value of the dollar sink so that there will be more parity on income levels internationally.  It won’t be as painful or maybe even as noticeable to our own standard of living if we all adjust in about the same way relative to people in the rest of the world.  Moreover, it will bring the balance of living standards across the world to a more sustainable level.  It will also tend to fix trade imbalances.
• Work cooperatively around the world to get all people labor rights and human rights. That may raise other people’s standards of living so ours won’t have to drop so much to reach parity.
• Try to fix the laws around the world that encourage the mal-distribution of wealth and income.  We must warn developing countries about the dangers of allowing wealth to be concentrated in the hands of the billionaires in their own countries.
• We must stop allowing our oligarchs to use this country’s military might to help them hold  onto their own untenable advantages in life.
• Make sure the technological advantages of workplace automation are shared equitable among all classes of people in all countries.  We can make technology the friends of all of us, instead of just some of us.

That ought to be a good list to start with.  Let’s have a discussion around our issues rather than around the issues our oligarchs want us to focus on.  They can’t use us as cannon fodder to protect their privileges while they are taking our privileges away.

The Daily Kos has the article On TPP, Warren Shows Backbone, Fires Back At Obama; Watch Bernie Sanders, Too

If you want to know what is what, just watch the Sanders’ video below that the article points to.

Sanders’ spends the beginning of his talk completely debunking the arguments for many previous trade agreements foisted on us from President Bill Clinton on to President Obama.

He talks about the arguments given to us about normalization of trade with China. Besides his very good discussion I have to ask the obvious BS detector question of the proponents of the agreement.

If we’d rather have products from China because they are cheaper, why would the Chinese buy products from the US? Would they buy them because they are more expensive? Does that make any sense?

If a simple thought experiment like this gives the lie to the argument, then there had better be a damn good argument as to why the obvious is in fact not true.

Compare what Bernie Sanders’ has to say to Obama’s assurances as seen in my previous post Obama Says Elizabeth Warren Is ‘Wrong’ on Trade.

Look at Elizabeth Warren’s rebuttal as described in this previous post, Elizabeth Warren: I’m Not Wrong on TPP.

Now who are you going to believe, President Obama, or your own lying eyes?

Oh, by the way, imagine Hillary Clinton having the depth of knowledge to give a speech like this on this subject any time in the near future. (Remember all the qualifying nouns and adjectives in that sentence. Don’t give me any arguments that ignore those words.)

Will the Republicans, please, please go through with their threat and impeach this President? I am begging.