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Let’s (Not) Make a Deal
Dr. D again. And wait, that deal was never even -legally- signed?
Dr. D: I know the U.S. hasn’t followed the law in 100 years, but let’s review the Iran Deal. A “Deal” with a foreign nation is supposed to be, for 200 years has been, and legally must be, a “Treaty”. Treaties under U.S. law are unique, as they are NOT to be brokered by the Congress and are a point of contention if Congressmen get involved, as you can imagine special deals and/or information leaks could damage the negotiating position.
This is one of the few things Congress doesn’t do. However, the deal, brokered by the President, is presented to the Senate and only the Senate, which is supposed to be the older, more stable house, and once upon a time when Americans were adults and the Senate was chosen by the State governments, this was true. Even with a Democratic election of Senators representing the people and not the States, (which is what the House is supposed to be) it’s the best we have.
So when Obama arranged the Iran “Deal”, he knew and did so against 220 years of history exclusively BECAUSE he knew the Senate would never approve an honest-to-God, legal “Treaty.” Worse, it was part of the reason the “Deal” was effectively secret, not overseen by anyone, and even John Kerry when asked what was in it said, “I don’t know.” You don’t know??? You’re the Secretary of State presumably brokering the deal. Who’s above you in the food chain that you’re not allowed to know? That was an interesting disclosure that the media – of course – never followed up on.
He also said, as the deal was never signed, it was “not legally binding.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Aristocracy aren’t Satisfied; They Demand More
Aristocracy aren’t Satisfied; They Demand More
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This new study is titled «Public Services Under Attack», but it’s about more than just the proposed treaty’s impacts upon replacing «Public Services» by private services. Corporate Europe headlined about this study on October 12th, «Public services under attack through TTIP and CETA», and listed 15 of what they consider to be the report’s highlights. The following will instead quote extensively from the study itself, so that this summary will come mainly from the report itself: The study is »Published by Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs (AITEC), Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), European Federation of Public Services Unions (EPSU), Instytut Globalnej Odpowiedzialności (IGO), Transnational Institute (TNI), Vienna Chamber of Labour (AK Vienna), and War on Want». So: it reflects a concern for workers, and for the poor, not mainly for corporate owners — the latter being the proposed Treaty’s sole sponsors and beneficiaries. This new study opens by defining (page 8) «Public Service»: «Public services are those provided by a government to its population, usually based around the social consensus that certain services should be available to all regardless of income». Another way of stating this is that a «public service» is one provided to citizens as a right, available to all equally, instead of as a privilege, available only upon the basis of ability-to-pay. …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
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A new analysis of the Obama-proposed TTIP ‘trade’ treaty, which the U.S. would have with Europe, finds that it was initiated and shaped by large international corporations, which will, also according to The TPP is Supply Management
The TPP is Supply Management
Despite the talk from the establishment about how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is about global free trade – and therefore Canadian cows, chickens and cars can no longer be protected by supply management – the reality is, is that the TPP is supply management.
It’s supply management on an international level so executive bureaucrats, politicians and crony-capitalists can create rules to further solidify their statist-social order.
Meanwhile, there is rampant supply management in the domestic economy where you and I are burden by thousands of government regulations that determine what kind of, how much of, and how soon we can provide goods and services to each other.
It’s not supply management strictly in the sense that the Canadian dairy industry is considered supply management. But the definition of words don’t seem to really matter for the TPP architects.
The TPP is a perfect example of Orwellian newspeak where “free trade” means two different concepts (managed statist-trade and actual free-market trade) and thus narrows the range of thought, or as Tom Woods would say, “the range of allowable opinion.”
For if the TPP is identified with free trade, no one will seriously ask whether staying out of the TPP will result in a lack of free trade. Of course gettin’ involved with the TPP will mean free trade! derr!!
But if the TPP was truly about free trade, then it would allow all individuals to homestead, contract and exchange without being inundated with tariffs, duties, levies, or other arbitrary restrictions on the movement of people, goods and services.
Real free trade doesn’t require a treaty, nor secrecy where citizens must rely on WikiLeaks for information.
Politicians seem to serving themselves but not in the way we’d like ’em to.
They sign international treaties with each other that award special interests in the short-term instead of policies that promote everyone’s prosperity in the long-run.
This isn’t going to end well for them.
Is The U.S. About To Break One Of Its Own Nuclear Treaties?
Is The U.S. About To Break One Of Its Own Nuclear Treaties?
Bill Richardson could teach Donald Trump something about the art of the deal.
He has done a lot of them. Richardson also wrote a book about the art of the deal, the big deal, entitled “How to Sweet-Talk a Shark; Strategies and Stories from a Master Negotiator.”
In a towering life of public service (U.S. representative, U.N. ambassador, secretary of Energy, New Mexico governor, and peripatetic hostage negotiator), Richardson confronted Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, two of North Korea’s dictators, and an assortment of international thugs. He was a five-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The essence of Richardson’s deal-making was that the commitment must be kept by both parties.
Related: Iran Deal Opponents Try A New Approach
At present Richardson sees one of his deals in jeopardy, and he was in Washington last week to raise the alarm, meeting privately with former colleagues and appearing at a press conference at the National Press Club.
The deal in jeopardy involves a commitment he made, when he was secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration, with the Russians to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium, the long-lived ingredient in nuclear weapons. There are 34 metric tons of the stuff that the United States is bound, by treaty with Russia, to dispose of by integrating it into nuclear fuel and burning it in civilian power plants. This is known as mixed oxide fuel or MOX.
But the Obama administration wants to end the program, before a fleck of plutonium has been processed for fuel. It is seeking to pull the plug on the construction of the facility at a Department of Energy site on the Savannah River in South Carolina, which is two-thirds complete and has already cost over $4 billion.
The administration is now looking not at the completion cost, but at the lifetime cost of the facility. And it is saying that it is too high; although that could have been calculated years ago.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
