WASHINGTON -- A critical document from President Barack Obama's free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.
The leaked document has been posted on the website of Citizens Trade Campaign, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.
"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.
While running for president in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama, in all his fresh-faced, dark haired enthusiasm, pledges that a vote for him means a vote for a candidate who won’t be swayed by the influence of special interests and Super PACs.
"If you choose change, you will have a nominee who doesn't take a dime from Washington lobbyists and PACs,” Obama said in a campaign speech in Denver, Colorado.
Just four years later, faced with another election, now president Obama has second thoughts about those same special interests and Super PACs. He still doesn’t like them, but he’s going to use them, only because everyone else is.
Introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill by the end of his first year in office
“The American people need us to put an end to the petty partisanship that passes for politics in Washington. And they need us to enact comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. We can’t wait 20 years from now to do it. We can’t wait 10 years from now to do it. We need to do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as president,” Obama said during a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens in 2008.
The Reality: Obama said immigration reform would be a top priority, but by the end of the first year no comprehensive bill supported by Obama had been introduced in Congress.
Reality is based on facts, Dude. That's why your boy is losing. You can shout liberals talking points until the cows come home, but people here are LIVING the reality of Obama's failed presidency. He can no longer fool people with empty promises.
These are just the biggest and most blatant campaign promises that Obama broke.
Cut the Deficit in Half: Shortly after taking office, Obama vowed to cut an inherited deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Fix the Economy: Regardless of when the country’s economic problems started, the president also vowed during his campaign to fix the economy in three years. Fourteen months later, he said missing the deadline would make his presidency a “one-term proposition.”
The U.S. unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for more than three years, despite the president's economic adviser predicting one month into the administration that the president’s roughly $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would keep unemployment below 8 percent and reduce it to about 6 percent by this year.
“By any measure, the president’s approach has failed,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a recent op-ed for the Tri-Parish Times.
Close Guantanamo Bay: Obama has also so far been unable to shutter the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, though this is more of a concern for Obama's base than Republicans.
Televise Health Care Debate: Obama also said repeatedly in his run for the White House – in TV ads, on the campaign trail and in at least one debate – that the negotiations on his health care reform plan would be televised, if he were elected. However, final health care talks, including the meetings between House and Senate conferees, were held behind closed doors and republican leaders were SHUT OUT of talks while big pharma and insurance companies were allowed in.
Increase Transparency: By hiding lobbyyists in coffee shops? Cutting back-room deals to get Obamacare shoved through? Concealing the records on "Fast and Furious?" Please... someone show us this transparency!
I took a long look at that list you posted. In fact, I printed it out and have been reviewing it over coffee. You probably were hoping you could just post it and everyone would assume it was all good and not give it a second thought - but you should know me better than that by now.
It's LAUGHABLE what these people have listed as Obama accomplishments.
"Established the White House Office of Urban Affairs"... another useless government agency
provided $20 billion increase for food stamps..which we wouldn't need if people had jobs and which is filled with fraud
Ordered EPA to begin regulating and measuring carbon emissions.... WE have be doing this for years and years and years. I know because I was involved in this back in 2002 when the EPA did the last emissions standards.
Through his EPA, he asserted federal legal supremacy and barred Texas from authorizing new refinery permits on it's own.... And you think this is a GOOD thing? LOL
Conducted a cyberspace policy review... Woo Woo.. Impressive
"Took steps to strengthen middle class families" Really? How??? By bankrupting them?? We have 21 new Obama taxes coming in less than two months - 12 of them directly affecting the middle class.
"Announced a huge increase in average fuel efficiency standards" Oh yeah... $$$$$$$$$$$$
"Nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagen to the supreme court" Seriously? And he thinks this is an accomplishment?
"Appointed the most diverse Caminet in history" NINETEEN of which are known socialists or communists and more than half are crazy as bed bugs... (not kidding, I've seen their bios)
Seriously, Obby...What I said to you in my post was that Obama failed to deliver on all of his biggest promises, and he did fail.
Let's just be generous for a moment and pretend that Obama's Rose Garden reference to "terror" had anything to do with the massacre in Libya, and not the 9/11 anniversary he was actually talking about.
Tell me this, Antonio.
IF he was calling the Libya attack a planned act of terrorism, why then did he not do as he said he would do at that moment and take decisive action???? Instead, he left to go campaigning immediately afterwards and spent weeks with a public relations campaign citing an obscure video and telling the world it was a "spontaneous" protest and NOT a planned attack.
And you tell me the conservatives can't have it both ways?
Uh Huh... And they watched it on a live video feed, told the CIA to stand down three times, and then lied to the world for two weeks about it being all about a spontaneous protest from a video.
Hey Ooby. That's a fair question and you're probably right that some of this was crammed in by other congress's. However, Obama's promise what that he would cut the budget in half and also that he would go through the budget "line item by line item." Clearly he has not done this - which wouldn't be all that bad except for the fact that we are in such terrible financial times we REALLY NEEDED him to do this.
I suppose that is why Romney and Obama are now TIED in Ohio???
A late surge by Mitt Romney has made the contest between him and President Obama to win Ohio too close to call, according to a poll released Sunday.
Romney and Obama appear tied at 49 percent among likely voters, according to an Ohio News Organization poll. The margin of error in the poll is 3.1 percentage points.
The biggest movement since the group’s poll in September is Romney's lead with male voters -- from 1 percentage point to 12 points.
The president held 51 percent of the vote in the September poll.
“Momentum is on our side,” Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Energy and enthusiasm is on our side.”
But you are right that I totally lean conservative. The difference is that, unlike so many liberals on here, I have always believed in voting for the person I think will do the best job and don't care which party he belongs to. Hence, independent.
Not true and there are several on here who can vouch for that. Don't you remember when Skybow and I were always trying to figure out who was better...Clinton or Obama? I knew from the start he was the bad seed because of his deeply hidden background, TOTAL lack of experience and all his terrorist friends.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see straight up that this guy was a pretender.
Anyway, you're right I've never supported Obama - and I was RIGHT not to support him. But it wasn't because of republican idealogy...just good old-fashioned horse sense.
While we the taxpayers are still waiting for GM to pay us back their stimulus portion, they are pumping $450 million into Argentina.
GM pumping $450M into Argentine plant for new model
General Motors has announced that it will invest $450 million in its Rosario Automotive Complex in Argentina between 2013 and 2015. The cash will go toward tooling up for an all-new Chevrolet product to be exported globally. Details concerning what that new vehicle could be or where exactly it will be sold are nil, though GM said it will be based on a current global platform and that it will serve both regional and domestic markets.
All told, the Rosario plant built 135,000 vehicles last year, and the influx of cash will help expand that operation considerably. You can check out the brief press release below for more information
We enthusiastically endorse Governor Mitt Romney’s economic plan to create jobs and restore economic growth while returning America to its tradition of economic freedom. The plan is based on proven principles: a more contained and less intrusive federal government, a greater reliance on the private sector, a broad expansion of opportunity without government favors for special interests, and respect for the rule of law including the decision-making authority of states and localities.
Applying these principles, Governor Romney would: •Reduce marginal tax rates on business and wage incomes and broaden the tax base to increase investment, jobs, and living standards. •End the exploding federal debt by controlling the growth of spending so federal spending does not exceed 20 percent of the economy. •Restructure regulation to end “too big to fail,” improve credit availability to entrepreneurs and small businesses, and increase regulatory accountability, and ensure that all regulations pass rigorous benefit-cost tests. •Improve our Social Security and Medicare programs by reducing their growth to sustainable levels, ensuring their viability over the long term, and protecting those in or near retirement. •Reform our healthcare system to harness market forces and thereby reduce costs and increase quality, empowering patients and doctors, rather than the federal bureaucracy. •Promote energy policies that increase domestic production, enlarge the use of all western hemisphere resources, encourage the use of new technologies, end wasteful subsidies, and rely more on market forces and less on government planners.
In stark contrast, President Obama has failed to advance policies that promote economic and job growth, focusing instead on increasing the size and scope of the federal government, which increases the debt, requires large tax increases, and burdens business with many new financial and health care regulations. The result is an anemic economic recovery and high unemployment. His future plans are to double down on the failed policies, which will only prolong slow growth and high unemployment.
Obama Curtails Drilling in Oil-Rich Alaskan Reserve
The Obama administration, citing environmental concerns, has banned drilling on half of the vast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in a move decried even by Alaska’s congressional delegation.
“The price of gasoline, which was $1.84 a gallon the day President Obama took office, has more than doubled since, willfully aided and abetted by an administration that claims we can't drill our way to energy independence as we ignore vast reserves of North American energy that dwarf OPEC's and we sit on 100 years' supply of petroleum,” Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) stated in an editorial.
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), not to be confused with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to the east, is a 23.5-million-acre, Indiana-sized tract on Alaska’s North Slope. It was established by President Harding in 1923 to ensure oil supplies for the U.S. Navy.
The desolate NPRA has been described as the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States and includes a point 120 miles from the nearest village or usable road.
In 1976, the reserve was transferred to the Interior Department and Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.”
But in August, Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that new drilling would be allowed on half of the reserve while the other half will be off-limits to oil and gas exploration.
The off-limits portions of the reserve are “the most productive areas” of a tract that IBD says contains 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 114 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Alaska’s congressional delegation — Sens. Mark Begich (a Democrat) and Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young — call the administration’s action “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.”
They also said the move “will significantly limit options for a pipeline” through the reserve to transport oil and gas.
Erik Milito, the American Petroleum Institute’s group director of upstream and industry operations, said the plan “continues to leave domestic energy resources, jobs and government revenue off the table.”
IBD concludes: “The move is typical Obama sleight of hand: Take credit for increased oil production on public lands that you had nothing to do with, lock up resources on federal lands with the exception of places the oil companies find unprofitable or unpromising, then blame them, not your administration, for driving up prices.”
WhatUwish4 Forum Posts (7,986)
How are you feeling these days? 
RE: Paul Ryan's proposed budget cuts, what was it doing in the budget in the first place?
WASHINGTON -- A critical document from President Barack Obama's free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.The leaked document has been posted on the website of Citizens Trade Campaign, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.
"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.