Ministerial meetings in Atlanta have dragged on three days longer than scheduled and it appears this might be the make-or-break moment for concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership here, and now, before the Canadian election.
A few final irritants have pushed negotiations into the take-it-or-leave-it phase, after which some ministers have a G20 meeting in Turkey including Japan’s envoy, who has made it clear he’s gone after Sunday.
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Countries face the following dilemma: Accept the deal now, warts and all. Or wait, and risk that this decade-long project dies a slow, politically driven death.
It became clear relatively early Saturday that all-night negotiations had failed to conclude agreements on those few issues, delaying yet another day the planned celebratory news conference announcing the deal.
“Ministers have agreed to stay (until Sunday),” one source said, as hopes for a deal Saturday faded.
So what began as a two-day ministerial meeting in an Atlanta convention centre will have wound up lasting five days, amid widespread desire from deal proponents to get it done now before elections in Canada, the U.S., Peru and Japan.
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The United States and Australia are involved in a staredown over cutting-edge, cell-based pharmaceuticals. At stake in their scuffle is not only the deal, but also how 800 million people in the TPP region would access revolutionary new medicines.
The Americans face political pressure to keep those medicines more expensive, for longer. Because the pact already faces uncertain prospects in the U.S. Congress, the American side must keep every possible vote onside – including from those lawmakers whose campaigns are generously funded by pharmaceutical companies.
They have already agreed to whittle down their patent-style protections on these treatments, from the 12 years that is current U.S. policy down to a new TPP rule of eight years. After that period, cheaper, generic-like biosimilar versions of the product could come to market.
The Australian government faces pressure from its public. That country allows five years’ exclusivity. It doesn’t want to budge upward, despite industry insistence that a too-small exclusivity period could hurt the very companies discovering these treatments.
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The last big sticking point involving Canada is dairy. As negotiators worked until at least 4 a.m. Saturday, sources say Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and others were involved in a multi-sided talks about providing more access to each other’s milk, cheese and butter.
Canada’s dairy sector is 90-per-cent closed to foreign competition and the government is under political pressure – especially in Quebec and Ontario – to keep foreign products off Canadian grocery shelves. With an election weeks away, the NDP has made the issue a centrepiece of its campaign.
The hallways at the convention centre hosting the talks were suddenly filled Saturday with nervous chatter about what the delays meant for the TPP, which some backers believe could be drowned in politics if it doesn’t get to shore this weekend.
Critics of the deal fear that any gains in trade would be offset by the loss of good-paying jobs at auto plants and dairy farms, with greater foreign competition. They also warn that the deal, which was crafted with heavy input from U.S. businesses but far less from labour and civil-society groups, could transfer power from people and governments to corporations.
This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the Restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, That’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s Restaurant.
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the Restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the Church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of Room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room, Seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t Have to take out their garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So We took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW Microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.” And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our’s down.
That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, “Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it. ” And I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage.”
After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police Officer’s station. So we got in the red vw microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the Police Officer’s station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on. ” He said, “Shut up, kid. get in the back of the patrol car.”
And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of Cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt. ” And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for? ” And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.
“I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?”
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out the – roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. Aand then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the Judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.
Came to talk about the draft.
They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. ‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”
And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I Wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and Guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, Kill, kill. ” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “kill, kill,” and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”
Didn’t feel too good about it.
Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?” He said, “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome… – and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever go to court? ”
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W…. Now kid!! ”
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father Rapers! Father Rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest Father Raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage. ” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid? ” and I said, “Littering.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, Mother Stabbing, Father Raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.
“Kids, this-piece-of-paper’s-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-Officer’s-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say”, and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:
(“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”)
I went over to the sargent, said, “Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug. ” He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”
And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say “Shrink, You can get Anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant. “. And walk out. You know, if One person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it’s a movement.
And that’s what it is, the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the Guitar.
With feeling.
So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I’m not proud… Or tired.
So we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.
We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.
All right now.
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
A United States airstrike appeared to have badly damaged a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the Afghan city of Kunduz early Saturday, killing at least nine hospital staff members and wounding dozens, including patients and staff.
The United States military, in a statement, confirmed the 2:15 a.m. airstrike, saying that it had been targeting individuals “who were threatening the force” and that “there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
Accounts differed as to whether there had been fighting around the hospital that might have precipitated the strike. Two hospital employees, an aide who was wounded in the bombing and a nurse who emerged unscathed, said that there had been no active fighting nearby and no Taliban fighters inside the hospital.
By Caitlin Emma , Allie Grasgreen Ciaramella, and Kimberly Hefling, Politico
10/02/15 03:58 PM EDT
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, an unwavering advocate for low-income and minority students and longtime basketball buddy to President Barack Obama, said Friday he will leave his post in December, ending a contentious tenure in which he moved aggressively to raise the academic bar in U.S. schools.
Duncan, the former Chicago schools head who is one of the last remaining original Cabinet members, has clashed with most camps in the education community since taking the post. He’s supported charter schools, encouraged the use of testing to measure teachers and schools, and championed the divisive Common Core standards. He’s also taken on the higher education establishment by pushing policies to regulate for-profit colleges and make colleges and universities more transparent.
His announcement comes as Congress is the closest it’s been in years to the long-overdue updating of the No Child Left Behind law – something that could be a crucial part of his legacy. His term might also be remembered for his embrace of Race to the Top grants that incentivized many of the controversial ideas he’s long embraced.
Just this week, Duncan said he thought the forthcoming resignation of House Speaker John Boehner would make it more difficult to get the law updated. Before Boehner’s announcement, the odds were “50/50,” Duncan said. “I can only think that our odds of having it pass now are worse, not better, which is really disappointing,” he said.
Former Duncan aide Justin Hamilton said Duncan likely knew in “his heart of hearts that Boehner was a guy who wanted the deal. … The prospects for getting anything done have gone from 50/50 to a snowball’s chance in hell.”
But otherwise, Duncan had “accomplished everything the administration set out to do and he should be proud,” Hamilton said.
“Everything the Administration set out to do.” Indeed. Don’t let the door hit you.
A fear by U.S. dairy producers of competition from New Zealand is proving to be among the final challenges to wrapping up the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, Pro Trade’s Doug Palmer reports from Atlanta.
After four days of negotiations there, trade ministers are scheduled to arrive today to try to resolve the toughest issues. Several snags remain, including the U.S. dairy industry demand that any reductions in U.S. trade barriers be offset with a nearly equal opportunity to sell U.S. cheese, butter, powder and other dairy products to other countries in the proposed 12-nation pact.
“The United States is the blocker at the moment because they’re not making a decent offer,” Robert Pettit, a trade specialist at Dairy Australia, told POLITICO. Because the United States is holding back, so are Canada and Japan, he said.
A government-appointed New Zealand industry representative spread the blame more broadly among all the participants in the dairy talks. “In my view, the level of ambition right across the talks on dairy is not high enough,” said Mike Petersen, New Zealand’s special agricultural trade envoy. Petersen reports that New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser, who is in New York for United Nation meetings, is mulling whether it’s worth his time to fly to Atlanta.
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Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told POLITICO in Atlanta Tuesday evening that there had been progress in talks on automotive rules-of-origin since the last ministerial two months ago in Maui, where Mexico and Canada were unpleasantly surprised by the terms of a deal worked out by Japan and the United States.
“Yes, there’s been some progress,” Guajardo said, echoing remarks from Japan’s TPP minister Akira Amari to reporters on Tuesday. “Right now, we’re going to find whether’s [there is] enough progress,”” he said just before a meeting with Mexican negotiators.
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The difficult slate of issues still left to resolve in areas like autos and intellectual property protections for biologics prompted speculation the TPP talks could be extended until Friday, despite USTR’s current plans to wrap up on Thursday with a closing press conference. But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, in a floor statement Tuesday, said the United States shouldn’t be in a hurry to close the negotiations “if it means getting a less-than-optimal result for our country.”
“If the administration and our negotiating partners do conclude an agreement this week, they can be sure that I will examine it very carefully to ensure it meets these standards,” Hatch said, referring to market access, intellectual property and other priorities laid out in the trade promotion authority law passed by Congress this summer. “And, as I have stated many times before, if the agreement falls short, I will not support it. And, I don’t think I’ll be alone on that.”
It is now the end of September … and there are enough difficulties in the way of completion mentioned by Politico today to suggest that completion before the end of October is highly unlikely, and probably also another forlorn hope for those favoring the TPP. That Michael Froman, the STR, is now talking in public as if the Administration cares more about getting the TPP right than getting it done soon suggests that the expectations of our trade negotiators for quick completion of the TPP negotiations are now scaled down considerably.
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So, let’s say the Administration did get this done by October 31, 2015. If one then adds the minimum 4.5 months to get the agreement ratified, then, one is looking at the final vote about March 15, 2016, right in the middle of the primary season, both for presidential candidates and for both Houses of Congress. A controversial vote at that time is poison for office holders wanting to win office again. It is poison for Republican candidates for President and for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. No one is going to want to take an unpopular vote in favor of the TPP and take the thunder from the right and the left about the various issues surrounding the treaty.
The votes for the TPA were very difficult for both Houses of Congress, and Democratic Congressmen who voted for it have come under heavy fire. These Congressmen and some Republicans who ignored the TPP sovereignty issues raised by some of the more conservative Republicans will get challenged in the primaries for their TPA vote.
Will they then vote for the TPP in the middle of their campaigns and then, even if they win their primary, face opposition from the other Party in the fall making their vote on trade a political issue aligning them with the multinationals against the American people? I’m afraid I don’t see that happening.
Instead, I see the President being told by the leadership of both Houses that if he submits the TPP to Congress on a schedule to get a vote for it in March or April of next year, then the TPP will be voted down. I see Hillary Clinton telling him not to force that vote then, or she will be forced to publicly oppose it, and to use her influence to defeat it for fear of compromising her own chances to win the Democratic Party nomination. I also see a wholesale rebellion among Democratic Congressmen against their lame duck President who is trying to build his legacy by making them take a poison pill ruining their re-election chances, and I don’t think the President will be able to get near the number of Democratic votes for the TPP, that he was able to get for the TPA, in June. I then see the President trying to make a deal with the leadership in both Houses to get a vote during the lame duck after the election.
But whether that happens or not will depend on the results of the election and the extent to which there is a reaction against the corporate establishment expressed in them. If there is, then I doubt that the trade deals will be back for some time to come. If there is not, then there will be another fight during the lame duck to do everything possible to stop the TPP.
But, regardless, of the exact scenario in the coming months, the TPP is coming up for Congressional consideration, and when it does, it will be the most intense struggle between neoliberal forces in both parties, and anti-corporate forces among both progressives and conservatives, we’ve seen yet. In addition, there will be more new developments such as the ones here and here, about the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), perhaps the most dangerous of the three major current trade agreements in negotiation, which will impact perspectives on the TPP in Congress, and the eventual fate of all three agreements.
A short notice meeting has started in Atlanta to attempt to resolve the disputes that caused the Maui talks to collapse in acrimony.
There is a great deal to be concerned about, not only the terrible provisions that seem to be settled and the rumored sausage making sellouts, but the fierce urgency of Obama and his Administration to conclude a deal that is good only for multi-national mega corporations (and only the specially influential like Banksters and Big Pharma) and Billionaire Plutocrats of no particular allegiance (Global Citizens don’t you know) BEFORE the 2016 Elections heat up and Representatives and Senators (and Presidential Candidates) have to start worrying that voters, regardless of their long term memory deficiencies, will hold this shameless and despicable theft of prosperity and sovereignty against them at the polls, costing them their Phony Baloney jobs.
Personally I think the sticking points are a little too… well, sticky, and that this round will dissolve in a similar discordant futility. Others are not as sanguine but our old buddy dday argues that it is already too late for Obama and the reason may surprise you.
(E)ven if negotiators work out a tentative agreement this week, the biggest announcement on TPP may have already happened. That would be last Friday’s resignation of House Speaker John Boehner.
Trade promotion authority, which allows the president to negotiate trade agreements and bring them to Congress for an expedited vote, barely passed the House earlier this year. Fifty-four Republicans voted against it, among them practically all the ringleaders of the campaign against Boehner – like Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who took the leadership role in ousting him; David Brat, the man who upset Eric Cantor and took his House seat; Jim Jordan, chairman of the anti-Boehner House Freedom Caucus; and 23 members of that caucus in all.
Obviously, those who spurred the Boehner revolt are emboldened by their apparent victory. In the short term this will not bear fruit. Boehner has vowed to use his final month to prevent a government shutdown and defuse other potential crises. He could reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, pass highway spending, and even raise the debt ceiling. “I want to clean the barn up a little bit before the next person gets here,” Boehner said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
But the peculiarities of trade promotion authority make it impossible for Boehner to be in the speaker’s office when TPP comes up for a vote. Under the law, even if trade officials announce an agreement today, they must provide notification to Congress, wait 30 days, and then post the deal’s text on a public website for an additional 60 days before signing. Then there’s another 30 to 60 days where the administration must submit the final legal text and describe what changes to U.S. law must be put into implementing legislation. Only after that does the congressional process start.
What this all means is that an agreement announced at the end of the ministerial meetings could not reach Congress until Feb. 1, 2016, at the very earliest. Trade expert Lori Wallach of Public Citizen puts the earliest possible date at Feb. 15. And these are based on very accelerated timelines that assume no slip-ups or delays when the legal text gets scrubbed.
Wallach correctly calls this “the most politically perilous moment in U.S. politics.” Feb. 1 is the current scheduled date of the Iowa caucuses. And rank-and-file House Republicans would have to vote on TPP around the same time that potential challengers can raise the issue in their 2016 primaries.
Without a liberated John Boehner around to partner with Democrats, the task of shepherding through a trade agreement disliked by conservatives becomes difficult. After a potential blitz of legislation in October, right-wing House members will be frustrated and eager to flex their muscle. The new leadership – presumed Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his team – will have to look over their shoulders, mindful of exactly what happened to Boehner and what can happen to them if they get tangled in an issue opposed by the base. And the same right-wingers animated by Boehner’s perceived slights are also animated against TPP.
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Given all these forces, how exactly will the House muster the votes necessary to pass TPP, after the text has been available (and demagogue-able) for months? What House Republican will vote to give Obama a long-sought victory, after seeing the outcome of the House speaker who committed the offense of merely not wanting to embark on a futile fight over defunding Planned Parenthood? And while a few corporate Democrats have joined with Obama to support TPP, how many would McCarthy need – and could he even try to get them, given the power of the naysayers to his right?
Maybe if there weren’t a clear example of what happens to GOP leaders who are seen as betraying the base, Republican elites could fend off resistance to TPP. That seems remote now given the Boehner outcome. Renegade conservatives, with positive feedback from the presidential campaign at their back, could simply make it impossible for TPP to pass.
We don’t even know if the meetings in Atlanta can produce a deal, given all the deadlocks and unresolved provisions between the nations involved. But even if there’s a big announcement this week, don’t get ahead of yourself, because the administration won’t have John Boehner in their corner to help them this time.
The Pentagon’s embattled F-35 jet fighter program received some much-needed good press last week when a group of U.S. Air Force F-35 pilots heaped praise upon the aircraft. This week those remarks-made at an event showcasing the fighter aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base-appear somewhat less genuine.
An eight-page internal Air Force memo marked “not for public release” is nonetheless making the public rounds this week, potentially erasing any P.R. bump last week’s showcase may have imparted on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Simply titled “Public Affairs Guidance,” the document details how airmen should “articulate the capabilities of the aircraft and (explain why we need the F-35)” to members of the news media, lawmakers, and other “opinion leaders”.
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One particular response in the leaked media script directly addresses an earlier leaked memo unearthed and partially published by defense blog War is Boring. In that memo, an F-35 pilot details the many shortcomings (and defeats) of the F-35 when pitted in mock air-to-air “dogfights” with a much older F-16-one of the many older combat jets the F-35 is slated to replace. The memo instructs airmen to repeat the assertion the Air Force made at the time: That the F-35 is designed to attack stealthily from a distance rather than up close, and that the mock air-to-air trials in question weren’t even designed to evaluate the F-35’s dogfighting skills (the editors at War is Boring who saw the leaked memo say otherwise).
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This summer alone the program has had to defend itself against both the leaked dogfighting memo and a scathing analysis from think tank National Security Network. The security analysis concluded that the F-35 will perform poorly against “near-peer” enemies and suggested the Pentagon find a way to reduce its planned purchase of more than 2,400 jets for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force.
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The program faces another potential image challenge in the days ahead as Congress continues battling over the U.S. federal budget. If the gridlock continues, a government shutdown or a continuing resolution capping defense spending at fiscal 2015 levels would almost certainly derail the Pentagon’s plan to ramp up F-35 production in the next year.
The Pentagon needs that production boost in order to push down the per-aircraft price and fend off the oft-repeated criticism that at roughly $100 million per copy (depending on which version) the F-35 program is simply too expensive.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.- Margaret Mead
It’s too early to celebrate the end of TPP (secret meetings next week) or the stopping of Keystone XL (sure, Hillary’s against it… now) BUT Shell Oil is done drilling in the Arctic this season and says they’ll never come back.
Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition.
Its decision, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, follows disappointing results from an exploratory well drilled 80 miles off Alaska’s north-west coast. Shell said it had found oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities.
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The company has come under increasing pressure from shareholders worried about the plunging share price and the costs of what has so far been a futile search in the Chukchi Sea.
Shell has also privately made clear it is taken aback by the public protests against the drilling which are threatening to seriously damage its reputation.
Ben van Beurden, the chief executive, is also said to be worried that the Arctic is undermining his attempts to influence the debate around climate change.
His attempts to argue that a Shell strategy of building up gas as a “transitional” fuel to pave the way to a lower carbon future has met with scepticism, partly because of the Arctic operations.
In a statement today, Marvin Odum, director of Shell Upstream Americas, said: “Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US. However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”
“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future. This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”
“This is a victory for everyone who has stood up for the Arctic. Whether they took to kayaks or canoes, rappelled from bridges, or spread the news in their own communities, millions of people around the world have taken action against Arctic drilling,” Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard said in a statement.
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Leonard took the opportunity to call on President Obama to prohibit any future drilling in the area.
“Today, President Obama can also make history by cancelling any future drilling and declaring the U.S. Arctic Ocean off limits to oil companies. There is no better time to keep fossil fuels like Arctic oil in the ground, bringing us one step closer to an energy revolution and sustainable future,” she said.
(A) serendipitous moment arrived for environmentalists early Monday, when Shell announced that it will abandon its drilling venture in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast for the “foreseeable future.”
“Shell has found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well,” said a company statement referring to its exploration in the Chukchi Sea, “but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration in the Burger prospect. The well will be sealed and abandoned in accordance with U.S. regulations.”
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“That’s incredible. That’s huge,” the Anchorage World Wildlife Fund’s Margaret Williams told the AP. “All along the conservation community has been pointing to the challenging and unpredictable environmental conditions. We always thought the risk was tremendously great.”
The decision ended a dispute between the companies that started in 2012 when Haribo accused Lindt & Sprüngli of copying its Gold Bear trademark by launching a foil-wrapped teddy.
Haribo, which invented gummy bears in the 1920s, said shoppers would confuse the two products, even though Lindt’s bears are made of chocolate and gummy bears are a jelly sweet.
Lindt argued that its bears were a variation on its Easter rabbit chocolates. Both are wrapped in gold foil with a red ribbon. Haribo’s gummy bear marketing is fronted by a yellow cartoon bear with a red ribbon round its neck.
Georgie Collins, a partner at the law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “The confectionery industry is extremely competitive so it’s not surprising that you often see these rivals coming up against each other.
“The cost of these cases is significant, but it’s about being seen to take action and ringfencing your brand and intellectual property rights as much as you can.”
Why this is at once hilarious and very, very wrong is a little too involved to go into right now, but you should really read Tech Dirt. And now, a recipe to make Gummy Bears at home-
Take one 3 oz. box of any flavored jello and add sugar according to directions if required (not usually). Add 7 packs of unflavored gelatin and 1/2 cup of water. Heat over low in a pan until everything is completely dissolved. Pour into molds (available at most cooking stores) and chill in freezer for 5 minutes, then refrigerate until very firm. If you coat the molds with a little flavorless cooking oil spray (canola works) you can remove them easier. Let them continue to dry unrefrigerated until they have the chewiness you like.
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