U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
July 23, 2016 10:58 AM UTC
77 Comments
HRC , " by picking him [Kaine], Clinton is signaling that her newly declared opposition to the agreement [the TPP] is not sincere. " – Zaid Jilani, the Intercept
The TPP gives corporations the right to sue nations over loss of profits. That's unacceptable. The TPP allows Big Pharma the right to withhold lifesaving drugs in pursuit of profit. Jonas Salk would condemn this. Doctors without Borders knows that the TPP would hinder their work.
So that's our first taste – and test- of HRC as President. Will she, or won't she, promote the TPP? Her choice of Kaine says that she will.
On the positive side, I've seen Kaine described as a "social justice Jesuit Catholic". To address DavidT8's critique way down there somewhere, this would be a powerful statement of "Why?"- If one believes in social justice out of religious conviction, it's more trustworthy and inspiring than "I'm going to implement a and b social justice policies once I get elected.'
MJ, even anti-trade zealots should be able to distinguish between life saving drugs and, literally, Mickey Mouse. Why should foreigners be able to pirate and resell our movies,, songs, DVDs? Nobody dies because they can't get a Pirate copy of Steamboat Willie or Sound of Music. But American artists are ripped off and American jobs are lost every time that happens. That's just one reason we should pass TPP.
In contrast, Doctors without borders makes a solid case for protecting cheaper generic drugs, which can and do save lives in third world countries. But such subtleties are lost when the protectionist lobby, which can always be identified because it starts every sentence with "we're not protectionists," goes to war against Disney and Mickey Mouse.
I could give a shit about protecting Mickey Mouse. Disney was an anti-Semitic, anti-union Nazi sympathizer, anyway.
TPP does extend copyright protections from 50 years to the US 70 year standard. That's the least of what the TPP does. And it's really not about trade.
So you asked a rhetorical question, V. I'll ask you one. Why should the US be in the business of helping corporations to sue us for decreasing their profit margins? Should corporations that want to drill on public lands be able to sue the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Parks and Recreation for putting profit-busting regulations and rules in place?
That's what the TPP "as written" does now. If HRC and Tim Kaine are now opposing TPP as written, good for them for following the will of the people. What I'm advocating for is vigilance. Watch what people do, not what they say. Maintain a healthy skepticism.
And, yes, BC, not being an idiot, I do understand that HRC must get elected first before she can do anything. I'm just saying she wouldn't be the first President to do a 180 after the election. Obama included.
So its ok to steal from people whose politics differ from yours? You really believe that?
Not answering your straw man attack. Obviously, not something I believe. Do you?
puppy, you have to not let V bait you, even though he is a master baiter.
It's hardly a straw man attack. As you so elegantly put it, you "[don't} give a shit" if Disney films are pirated abroad because you disagree with the politics of its long dead founder. So please tell me the difference between approving the theft of intellectual property and "not giving a shit" about such theft.
And yes, obviously if foreign companies are victimized by crimes in the U.S., such as pirating software or other illegal acts, they should have redress in our courts, just as American companies have for such crimes.
But foreign companies should not have redress in our courts if they decide that domestic laws and regulations that we pass through our democratic process as a self governing people make their businesses less profitable. If we pass,say, a federal minimum wage or environmental regulations, corporations shouldn't be able to take us to court because it affects their bottom line.
And, they won't be.
If, however, they are victimized by discriminatory “buy American” rules, they should have relief.
Other governments have been.
You're lucky you got that one by autocorrect
re MJ master baiter shot
Kaine has just come out as opposing TPP as written. So's HRC. Both think there should be more fairness and more protection for workers. So his support of TPP is no longer operational.
Does that raise sincerity issues? I’ll tell you what it does raise. Damned if you do on positions progressives don’t like and damned if you don’t because your change isn’t “sincere”.
I’ll take a position more to my liking no matter how a pol got there. Like Bernie softening his opposition to gun control measures as a presidential candidate as opposed to just as Senator from Vermont.
He's doing a great job in his speech right now – connecting with the crowd, great content, and fluent in Spanish.
Agreed. Watching him go, I feel like she made a good choice to take on Trumpence.
If Clinton/Kaine take Virginia and Florida it's all over for Trump. My Florida mom tells me people are going wild over Kaine's address. He's charming the socks off those from a Spanish speaking background, not just Cubans but the newer waves that include many newly naturalized citizens from South American countries. That group of voters is not at all uncomfortable with a more moderate choice. Quite the opposite. He's kind of presenting like a Spanish fluent updated version of the Happy Warrior.
And the rest of the states go Trump. Who the fuck cares about VA? With the right candidate, it CAN be reliably blue. Right now it isn't the right candidate, and VA knows Kaine is a fucking robot that follows what DLC tells him to do.
Shit like this is what makes me glad I made the switch to Green. I say "Good luck" and hope the delegates sees the writing on the wall and go for Bernie instead of Clinton in a coup based on what they saw in Wikileaks DNC email release for the weekend for people to chew on.
Dust puppy, . You are so dumb I seriously question how you can oxidize food without bursting into flames. I bet you $500 that the DNC nominates Hillary, not Bernie. Is it a bet?
Dust Puppy has quite a track record in making predictions. Remember late Oct. 2014 when D.P. declared that the Dems would keep the U.S. Senate and re-take the U.S. House?
Yep, DP Clinton/Kaine carry Florida and Virginia . . ,
. . . and Stein carries the other 48!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you even know how to be happy for yourself, little doggie???!!??? Now, go roll in something . . .
Take a look at an electoral map, puppy. You will see states that went blue for Obama and states that went red. Most of these have been going only blue or only red for a very long time and aren't much in play. Take Oklahoma…. please!
The ones that aren't set in stone are the ones that count. Virginia is one of those. So's Colorado but only in a really close one because we don't have very many electoral votes. That's why the fuck it matters. And no. All the rest of the states aren't going for Trump.
You really have no idea, whatsoever how this works.
BTW Puppy … I don't know where you get your info on how Virginia feels about Kaine but he's very popular and has never lost an election in the state where he has been elected Mayor of Richmond, Governor and Senator. Do you just make this stuff up?
Also elected Lt. Gov.
dustpuppy prefers to see Trump elected. Which is why he wasting his vote on Jill Stein, who is just as singularly unqualified to be president as Trump.
Drumpf can say "taco bowl" . . .
except when Drump tried to say taco bowl in Spanish it came out "mi cabeza es caca! Soy hijo de gran puta!"
heh, heh, that will teach him to ask me to translate for him
Yo apoyo Hillary! Yo Apoyo Kaine!
Viva las margaritas! (there is more to life than politics)
There are also lots of puerto ricans moving to fla. As their islands woes proliferate. Happily, they are u.s. citizens and can vote. Bueno!
Wow! Watching Hillary rollout Kaine and comparing it to Trump's introduction of pence was like looking at a transcontinental race between a Curtiss Jenny and an SR-71 Blackbird! Trumped talked for 28 minutes, about himself, then actually left the stage when Pence came on. Hillary introduced him, listened to him, smiling, laughing, interacting with the crowd. He tossed some espanol to theFlorida crowd, talked about life, values, the future. This guy is good and a fine, fine speaker, much better than Hillary at the podium. Our team is a hit!
Soy orguloso de Hillary y Tim! Trump y Pence son idiotas!
Ambas partes son idiotas , en realidad. Ellos piensan que somos los retoños .
As BC often says, give it a rest . . .
(I’d like ‘Hick to go to DC as much as anyone. Maybe he'll get offered Undersecretary of Liquids Tasting or something you homers can cheer?!?)
Interior like Salazar……..or, because he's not even cabinet material, National Park Service.
Health, Housing, perhaps Transportation
ATF
I don't think Hickenlooper wants to be the VP. It doesn't suit him. He is a moderate and tries to operate in a bipartisan manner. One of the jobs of the VP candidate, is to campaign as an attack dog for the presidential candidate. It can piss people off if the presidential candidate does it. Look for Hickenlooper to be Secretary of Interior.
I think of the Gov as a good fit for Commerce. Mark Udall would be great at Interior.
Agree Bowman. Interior best for Udall. Commerce, Housing, Transportation for Hick
Thank god they thought about the white guy vote!
There is something to be said for the one historic first at a time approach.
Obama, the first African American President, made the same "safe" choice…. a moderate (like himself) white guy, not a woman, an African American or a Latino. I don't recall him getting handed a whole lot of grief over it nor am I seeing a whole lot of lefties attacking Obama on TPP. Just everyone else who supports it. Which Kaine no longer does.
And BTW Kaine was an early and ardent supporter of Obama, which shows HRC is capable of a little letting go of grudges, and Obama is going to be praising HRC and Kaine to the skies, despite their differences on TPP, to his still huge black constituency. Kaine will be in charge of sweet talking Latinos in fluent Spanish.
One thing Bernie or Busters studiously ignore? Bernie was the candidate of white liberals almost as much as Trump is the candidate of white Tea Partiers.
While some lefties wring their hands over whether or not some of Bernie's ticked off white folks will come over for HRC, they forget that African Americans and Latinos are largely already there and they represent a much larger portion of the Dem constituency than "or Busters" do. I suspect most of the hardest core, like Bernie, weren't even Dems until they had to register for the primaries, if they ever did.
I'm betting most of the left, from far to barely leaning, will soon be on board. Many prominent progressives have already come out in support. Those who'd rather have Trump than compromise their morally superior, pure as the driven snow, Bernie worshiping principles (Bernie on gun control before and after deciding to run for President anyone? Not that there's anything wrong with that. These are all politicians not saints) will either get what they deserve (Trump) or be very disappointed in the success of the Dem ticket.
I'm betting on the latter, Zap. Which outcome are you rooting for?
My bet is zappy in the end votes Democrat, for pres, green for Senate. Dodd probably green all the way. But as you said, neither dodd nor dustpuppywas democrat to start with. Democratic core is gelling very nicely around hrc/kaine. And, yes, tpp is a sacrificial lamb. Fair enough, we have a good position with wto anyway.
Who the hell said I wasn't a Democrat to start with? I voted for Clinton in 1996 as my first vote. I followed it with my vote for Gore/Lieberman, and cried when they overturned the votes and gave it to Chimp.
I was very active Deaniac, working my ass off as a deaf person for Dean, I was crushed when he crashed and burned. I voted for Kerry that year, and wasn't happy about it. As the Democratic Party kept moving to the right, I couldn't even see anything that they were for when I started following the Party. In 2008, I voted for Obama even though I was originally for Edwards, and when he crashed and burned, I turned to Obama. I was excited for Candidate Obama, but not so much about President Obama. The final straw was the Coronation was being discussed as early as 2013, and it was the end of my cycle as a Democratic Party member since 1992. When Clinton came through the state and bullied her way into convicing a bunch of morons in my perceint to stick with her in March, and I knew that they would not move. Even though Bernie won here, it is our superdelegates who refused to represent the desire and the wishes of the voters.
I just found out early this morning that the whole Democratic primaries were a sham. Thanks Wikileaks for confirming my earlier suspicions. None of our votes counts where it matters.
I'm done with the Democratic Party, left it, went unaffiliated, then turned Green three weeks ago. Haven't regretted my choice. I repeat a famous quote by someone I despise to end my time here, as I'm being falsely accused of never being a Democrat.
"I didn't leave the Democratic Party. the Democratic Party left me"
See you around.
You weren't a democrat when you went green. You left the party March 2 by your own admission. Enjoy the far left funny farm, but don't pretend to be a Democrat,
Huh? Bernie won here period. No super delegates anywhere including here took any state victory away from Bernie. There was no state in which the majority went for Bernie and the supers reversed it.
HRC won the majority of state contests so she would have won if there were no such thing as supers and she would have won if all supers had to go along with the majority vote in their state. It was Bernie who started asking supers to ignore their state's majorities when it became clear he could only win by getting supers to override pledged delegates.
She won the popular vote by more than 3 million votes.
You say HRC's delegates came in an bullied people into … what? Bernie won here. They must not have done a very good job of bullying.
WTF are you talking about?
As the Democratic Party kept moving to the right, I couldn't even see anything that they were for when I started following the Party
You really are detached from reality. The first guy you voted for in 1996 was the most conservative Dem in the past 20 years. Gore, Kerry, Obama and HRC aren't much to the left of the Big Dog, but they have moved in that direction to some degree.
Yep. The 90s was the age of triangulating DLC Republican lite as exemplified by Bill Clinton. In the wake of the Reagan revolution, Dems were running scared, liberal became a dirty word and promising to be almost as conservative as conservatives and almost as Republican as Republicans was the order of the day. Probably the farthest to the right the Dem party has ever been.
If DP was crazy about Bill Clinton and cried when Gore lost then it's hard to imagine why Obama, HRC, Kaine and 95% of today's Dem office holders aren't more than liberal enough for him. They're all at least as liberal as '90s Bill, most of them decidedly to the left of where Bill was then and pretty much still is now, except for less than a handful of surviving super conservative blue dogs and no…. Bennet isn't one of them. He's not an iota to the the right of Bill Clinton.
What planet does DP live on?
Dupe.
Nope, you sound like a Green dupe. I'm a strong conservationist, but I would never waste a vote on Jill Stein. Just as I didn't waste a vote on Ralph Nader's ego, when it was the Green Party candidate in 2000.
Walt Disney had 50 years of copyright protection (after his death) under American law. Now he has 20 years more to match European copyright protection, for a total of 120 years – more than most other artists ever got. Even Colorado Republican icon Hank Brown thought extending copyrights 70 years past the creator's demise was "absurd" and "not in the public interest".
But that is one of many things that the TPP proposes. And no, my refusal to get all squishy and sentimental about Mickey Mouse when its creator was a conservative bigot and anti-Semite, a fellow traveler with the McCarthyites, means nothing about my ideas about intellectual property rights of living artists. I just see no reason to keep on enriching their estates until 70 years after their deaths, and I find exploiting people's sentimentality about Mickey Mouse in order to protect the rights of corporations to sue governments to be completely contemptible.
You seem to misunderstand your own source. If the us adds 20 years to its 50 year copy, the new total is 70 == 50 plus 20. You are wrong tto claim the total is now 120. The new 70 didn't add to the old 50. It replaced it. And if you hate Mickey Mouse,
Maybe you are the beast who dumped Pluto from the liist of planets!
.
Corporations now have 120 years of copyright life. Individuals had 50 years after creator's death in the US until the Mickey Mouse law passed in 1998. Then the US met the European standard of 70 years post- creator’s death. The TPP requires that all other member countries also meet these corporate -120 yrs post-creation and individual -70 yrs post-death- standards for copyright life.
From the Animation Anomaly::
From the Washington Post, quoting Senator Hank Brown:
So average lifespan in the US = 78 years. If an artist creates a work at age 30, for example, the work will be copyrighted for perhaps 48 years plus 70 years after death = 118 years. Clearly, individual term lengths will vary.
For example, Walt Disney died in 1966 at age 65. He copyrighted Mickey Mouse in 1928. So he had 38 years of copyrighted Mickey, and then another 70 years after his death = 108 years, . But Mickey belongs to the corporation, so it's 1928 plus 120 years = nobody can legally make any Mickey stuff royalty-free until 2048.
For corporate copyright owners, such as the Walt Disney Company, it's 120 years, period. Nice for Walt Disney Company to have an "effectively eternal" copyright.
What does this have to do with the TPP and Tim Kaine?
DisneyPAC lobbied hard for expansion of intellectual property rights in the TPP, including stiff-arming its own Disney employees. Tim Kaine was in favor of these aspects of the TPP until he got the VP nod. To his credit, Kaine did have some reservations about the TPP dispute resolution process – which allows corporations to sue government entities for loss of profits resulting from regulation. But reservations or no reservations, he was pushing for the TPP to be fast-tracked as written.
From the actual language of the TPP, which was kept hidden from the public until whistleblowers broke it:
The problem with the TPP, as I see it, is that it essentially enshrines into international law special rights for multinational corporations, which exceed and supercede the human rightsdeclared by the UN.
As I wrote earlier, the human- corporate conflict will get really intense around the areas of drugs and medicine patents. If a biologic can save thousands of lives, but only if a generic version is made available, the TPP prohibits a generic version from being manufactured or distributed. For 120 years.
Multinational corporations are really special “people”, my friend.
That clarifies it. Thanks.
Great work there, mama. I don’t much care how long a corporation can hang on to Mickey Mouse or how much of an SOB Walt Disney was but how long corporation “people” can keep an iron grip on life saving drugs and treatments is something we’d better all care about. I do think it would have been clearer without bringing all that stuff you hate about Walt into it in the first place though.
Bear in mind that a failure to pass TPP in some form basically cedes economic hegemony in the western Pacific to China.
CHB: News flash: The US has already ceded economic hegemony in the western Pacific to China. Per Foreign Policy:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Decline of American Hegemony
Currency manipulation by China and Japan does increase their economic power at Western expense, but the TPP has nothing to say about it.
Per Mike Bowman's post yesterday, China controls the American pork market. They get to decide which dangerous additives are in our meat. China also buys more than half of our wheat.
Asian corporations use slave labor on shrimping boats, and there is nothing in the TPP to stop that practice, nor child labor, sweatshops or other dehumanizing labor practices. In fact, if our government interfered with these profitable practices, it could find itself sued in court by these companies.
The Diplomatic Courier, while agreeing with your point of view on the struggle for supremacy and influence between China and the US, does not think that the TPP as written is the answer, because it excludes China. Rather, it advocates for "soft power", and an inclusive and persuasive approach which emphasizes mutual benefit.
The TPP is a set of rules which empowers multinational corporations at the expense of countries, economies, and workers. It's not even about the hegemony of one geopolitical bloc over another. It's about the supremacy of corporations.
Currency manipulation is a different issue.
CQ, BC. But don't confuse copyright on stuff like "Sound of Music" with drugs — which are covered by much shorter patents. TPP in some respects shortens drug patents but there is also a risk that low-cost generics may be discouraged. I like Joe Stieglitz's idea of a prize where the government just bus certain key life saving drugs — say, for $1 billion — and licenses them to low cost generics. The producer could continue to see them under an exclusive brand name but generics would be available at low cost.
So you don't think everything in TPP is perfect as is. OK.
No, but I don't think tpp is the end of life as we know it. Ever law or treaty is a compromise
Mj was simply wrong to claim drug patents trun 120 years. That's for literature. Drug patents go at most 25 years. For the likes of viagra, that" fine. My only qualm has to do with essential, life saving drugs and, like nobel laureate joe Stiglitz, I'd like to see a system to fast track them.
Well hyperbole begets hyperbole, I guess. You've been pretty much telling us failure to pass TPP would end life as we know it. I'm always suspicious of scare tactics (give the rich more tax breaks or they'll take away your jobs just for example) to get me to support or oppose anything. Except Trump. He’s actually scary enough to warrant scare tactics. That is all.
I don't think, bc, you can find a post where I go all out for TPP. Yes, on balance it is a good thing. And I do fear leting loose the dogs of protectionism, whose real target is NAFTA. But when hillary took a dive on it, you havee to be realistic. Paul krrugman, who knows TTP is a good thing on balance, also recognizes that most tariff barriers are already pretty well gone. If there is a chance for tpp, its in the lame duck, because republicans are much more pro trade than democrats. But trump seems to have terrified mc#Connell and that may not work either.
To me there is one and only one legitimate tpp concern, the generic drug issue. I keep hearing scare stories by you of how business ca.n sue for lost profits. I have yet to verify such a treat which, in any case, would have had to be based on an existing treaty since, dud, tpp doesn't exist yet and with the trump/ bernie war against trade isn't likely too.
Elizabeth Warren wrote an op ed in the Washington Post:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose
And here's your examples (you asked BC, but I'm jumping in, welcome or not):
It is meaningless to say somebody sued, mj. Can you cite a bad case where the bad guy won? It is not a violation of trade rules to raise the minimum wage. But if you raise minimum wage only for foreign companies and not domestic ones, that is annd should be illegal. So far, among all this hysteria, I have yet to see an actual unjust verdict.
Thanks mama. The examples to do with ISDS are exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. And I don't mind you or anyone jumping in. Seems to me this is a forum that invites jumping in.
V… I think you are conveniently failing to remember how emphatic you've been that anyone opposed to TPP is an idiot who hates trade yadayadayada. Bet Zap could remind you.
And then there's CHB insisting that we have to take the deal whether we like it or not because of an apparently all powerful China that should have us all shaking in our boots. Last time I checked we were still the world's only super power, not China.
Frankly, V, it seems that your very recent slight softening in regard to TPP has a lot to do with reluctance to call HRC, now a TPP opponent, an idiot.
I for one do not think it's a good idea for us, as a self governing people, to surrender to corporations whose only concern is their bottom line our ability to make our own decisions concerning issues such as minimum wage, banking, energy, environment, health and safety regulations among others via the democratic process.
And I don't think we have to.
Of course, we'd never see the day a foreign corporation exerts eminent domain on American soil and then sue for damages when they don't get there way? Oh, wait…
GW Bush, to his credit, pressured drug companies to do exactly that in his PEPFAR program to decrease the spread of AIDS in Africa. Obama has continued this effort.
TPP is not going to shorten drug patents. If the TPP passes as is, any buyouts to generics, and distribution to needy populations, would be strictly on a voluntary basis.
Depends on what you read, mj, and how you tally the data exclusivity period. You were simply wrong to say drugs has 120 year protections. That is for copyright, drugs are patents. But yes, drug patents, for life saving drugs, are the one area of tpp that concerns me, as it does stiglitz
Here's what Jim Hightower had to say about TPP:
You’re correct that the 120 year period applies to copyrights, not patents. The drug patent section of the TPP, according to the Brookings Institution, would enshrine the current US 12 year period of “data exclusivity” on biologic drugs into the rules applying to all TPP member countries. Obama wanted to reduce this period to 7 years, saying it would save Medicare and Medicaid 4.4 billion over the next decade, by allowing companies to market “biosimilars” , drugs which have the same effects as biologics, but can be marketed more cheaply.
If the period of data exclusivity for biologics is left at the current US standard of 12 years, it could cripple efforts to combat viral plagues like Ebola, Zika, AIDS, and others on the horizon.
Then there are the disincentives to market and distribute generic alternatives, as you said.
You can look up the leaked pharmaceutical provisions of the TPP here. ,
Replying to bc
Indeed, mj is welcome to respond. But you have not demonstrated that we are losing our rights, etc. Crappy suits are filed every day. Nobody has shown an unjust trade ruling
"Nobody has shown an unjust trade ruling"? Really?
The AFL-CIO and the law firm Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, in their comprehensive analysis, Investment Protection at a Crossroads, would beg to differ.
V, you have legal training. Do you actually think that the threat of being on the receiving end of a multibillion dollar lawsuit from a multinational company will not act as a deterrent to responsible (pro-environment, pro-consumer, but possibly not profitable) action? Do you actually believe that courts always rule justly? The ISDS process is not a real court, but an extrajudicial tribunal anyway – Per FMT News:
“The three people inside a tribunal are lawyers, not judges,” he said. “One is appointed for the state, another is appointed for the corporation and another is the chairman of the World Bank.
“These are for-profit lawyers who get US$3,000 an hour just for sitting there. On Monday a lawyer might represent the government while on Wednesday the same lawyer might represent a company. This means a lawyer can stand on both sides.”
More bad news: ISDS tribunal decisions are binding, and can't be appealed through the government's regular court system. Even when the governments win, there are still significant costs to engaging in the wasteful ISDS process. The ISDS process has 213 cases pending now.
From the UK site PoliticsHome:
“The danger is ISDS can be used to threaten the government effectively,” he said. “A company could say: ‘Look, if you don’t change something we’ll take a legal case and you’ll be tied up in court for ages and cost you millions of pounds.’
The AFL-CIO has some examples of Unjust trade rulings from the ISDS process:
Metalclad won $15M suing Mexico.
Per FES' "Investment Protection Analysis" on page 12 are several examples of concluded cases. By my count, 4 out of 6 of these cases were resolved in favor of the corporate entity and against the governmental entity. Even when there is a "compromise" as in Chevron vs. Ecuador or Vattenfall vs. Germany, the government incurs enormous costs to litigate:
1. Chevron vs. Ecuador: TTIP (the "Atlantic nations" version of the TTP) allowed Chevron to be "relieved of any environmental liabilities" after indigenous groups sued Chevron for dumping millions of gallons of toxic sludge into Amazonian waters. The native groups' land has been contaminated. Chevron and Texaco do not have to clean it up, and are relieved of liability. Chevron is lobbying for the TTP since ISDS has been such a great thing for the company with the TTIP. Chevron certainly believes that the ISDS process is a "deterrent" for local governments who seek damages from corporations. Seem just to you?
2. Vattenfall vs. Germany Germany discontinued nuclear plants, and Vattenfall, a giant energy company, sued using ISDS, for 4.7 Bn Euros. The case has been bouncing around lower courts, but is still being litigated.
3. Phillip Morris vs. Uruguay and Australia: The tobacco company sued Uruguay and Australia in an effort to prevent warning labels from being required on cigarette packaging. PM lost in Uruguay. , and in Australia. But it cost Australia 50 Mn so far, even though it appears that PM only entered into the lawsuit in order to receive damages.
4. Egypt vs. Veolia (the minimum wage case) still in arbitration . Egypt put in place a domestic minimum wage law, and required a French company, Veolia, to comply. Veolia sued, and is still suing Egypt, at a cost of millions, is still answering Veolia's claim for damages. Veolia is now also suing Lithuania.
Is justice served by the ISDS process codified in the TTIP, and proposed in the TTP? No sane person would say yes.
As Michael Bowman pointed out, the United States has never lost in ISDS. So, your list of horror stories fails to mention that fact. It only takes the word "multinational corporation" to scare you into abandoning all thoughts of justice. So, yes, most sane people believe that international arbitration is far better than trade wars and the shooting wars they so often led too.
The United States has not (yet) lost an ISDS case, but 26% of the awards were in favor of the "investor", and another 26% like Chevron vs. Ecuador, "neutral", but leaving the country with economic or environmental devastation with no redress possible after spending millions defending from the investor's spurious lawsuits.
Hate to break it to you, but lack of damages awarded against the US does not necessarily make a great policy for the world as a whole, nor even guarantee no lasting harm to the political and legal institutions of the US.
Again, Mister Baiter *(slightly more decorous), your mind reading skills are failing. "It only takes the word multinational corporation to scare" (me) into abandoning all thoughts of justice". You know this how?
Then you have a slippery slope / false choice argument: The arbitration (by an unelected non-judge 3 person tribunal) is "better than the inevitable trade wars or shooting wars". What is your source for trade or shooting wars being the sole alternative to ISDS arbitration?
*I'll apologize for "master baiter" – I thought you deserved it for calling dp a dumb son of a bitch and no Democrat. It's kept me giggling for two days, though…and it's always nice to know that people actually read my comments.
Don't you dare apologize for the only fun thing you've typed in weeks. I just wondered how you snuck master baiter past spellcheck.
Gee, how could anyone think trade wars become shooting wars? Apparently that little dustup in 1914-1918 was all about soccer rivalry. Barbara Tuchman might disagree, however.
You might ask Nicaragua if the U.S. has ever used armed force to advance trade interests. Or La Republica Dominica. Or Guatemala.
In large part, access to oil is why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor — they wanted to seize Indonesia for its oil, Such a war couldn't happen today —
Toyota would never allow it.
Overall, I'd say a forum where investors win just 26 percent of the time sounds like a pretty good thing. And I agree, in a fair forum we should expect to lose some cases. The infamous sugar quotas that protect your local beet industry would be a good place to start.
Go Beetdiggers.
Suits take a long time. You have not produced evidence that such suits, which take a lot of resources to fight, will not succeed and according to the language of TPP there is no reason to assume that such suits would be considered crappy by which I assume you mean frivolous. They are, in fact, serious as a heart attack.
You're position is now in opposition to the Democratic ticket's position and I prefer the Democratic ticket's position for many reasons, this being only one of them. If that makes me or Zap an idiot then I guess you must think HRC and Kaine are idiots too or that they are simply opposing TPP for purely cynical reasons.
So much for promoting party unity.
That is all.
The Democratic party platform is indeed protectionist. It is also wrong. I seem to recall that for many years, the Democratic Party platform favored segregation and slavery.
You are not an idiot. Zappy, who goes into shock any time a T-shirt labeled "product of Vietnam" enters this country, will have to defend himself. But if he does, I will remind him thattMichael Bennet is our senator. (heh heh)
As for TPP if you really think Kaine opposed it 20 seconds after Hillary picked him because that 20 seconds was devoted to the most thorough and rigorous analysis of trade rules in human history, I gotta say, you ARE a believer!
Fine, you win. Bernie and Trump are right, trade causes tooth decay and male pattern baldness and must be fought at all cost. The mere filing of a lawsuit means that suit will win, even though the U.S. has never actually lost such a suit.
No point in arguing with someone whose beliefs are rooted in faith.
But if trade were the only difference between the Democrats and Trump why would anyone pick the Obama hating faux protectionist Bernistas instead of the spittle dripping, red meat eating, fire breathing protectionists of Donald Trump?
Fortunately, there are other points where the Democratic outlook is infinitely better than theTrump one. Thank god for that.
I couldn't have said it better myself… to you.
I do understand how awkward this is for you. You either have to call HRC and Kaine protectionist idiots or you have to say they're so cynical they're willing to oppose TPP to get elected even though they know we'll all go to hell in a hand basket without it and they don't really mean it. You know. Like Trump supporters say he doesn't really mean all the racist stuff.
Awkward.
The brookiings piece is good mj, and ilustrates the confusion between patent terms and data exclusivity. The problem is that it is more than a year old and doesn't necessarily reflect what is now before congress. I think we do need a way to encourage research and lower prices both. I actually advocated some like Stivglitz's prize plan more than ten years ago. We also might trade extended protection for nonlifesaving drugs like viagra for quick access to life saving drugs. Alas, it's hard to discuss options among election bombast.