GRUMPY ELDER - GRUMPY OPINIONS - June 14, 2012
I heard about it in an e-mail Cyber Fox sent several of us around lunchtime yesterday
Something strange is going on…..The leaked trade document story has gone viral on liberal news sites and the right-wing sites have not picked it up yet. Perhaps the left have decided to sabatoge the annointed one’s campaign.
When I checked to see what was going on, I found the article by Zach Carter titled Obama Trade Document Leaked, Revealing New Corporate Powers And Broken Campaign Promises had taken a life of its own.
What I first looked the article was up to around 10,000 reader comments, That number is now over 30,000. I have never seen nubers like that before. A a controversial article on big media site like USA Today might draw 2000 occasionally 3000 and on very rare occasions 4000 comments. 30,000 is absolutely incredible. Even more surprising was the fact that on a Obama friendly, liberal site the comments were overwhelmingly anti-Obama.
There has been talk that some of the security leaks coming out of the Obama administration were orchestrated by Obama himself for political reasons. If this was one of those, it backfired big time,centered around Obama’s hush, hush Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact the story would’ve been blasted as right wing propaganda and lies if it hadn’t been published on a Obama friendly media site like Huffington Post..
Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings.
Foreign countries could operate on American soil and ignore the laws and regulations American companies are forced to comply with. Even liberals with very little business knowledge understood some of the implications. I’m not sure they understood the sovereignty issues, but they sure understood that the treaty would make foreign companies exempt from environmental regulations..
This part of the article didn’t go over too well either;
We will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors; require the privatization of our vital public services; or prevent developing country governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access to life-saving medications,” reads the campaign document.Yet nearly all of those vows are violated by the leaked Trans-Pacific document. The one that is not contravened in the present document — regarding access to life-saving medication — is in conflict with a previously leaked document on intellectual property (IP) standards..
Read all of Obama Trade Document Leaked, Revealing New Corporate Powers And Broken Campaign Promises
Except for his most devoted followers Huffington Post Obamaites went ballistic…. from some of Huff Po’s Community Pundits Remember these are the folks Huff0-Po considers reasonable
Then we get to the ordinary comments
As I mentioned before I’d never seen 30,000 comments on anyone mainstream media news outlet before. I suppose Yahoo may occasionally get those numbers, but half of those are sex and get rich quick Spam. These were comments by Obama’s friends and supporters
There were some devoted Obama followers trying to make the treaty look like some sort of right wing conspiracy. They were shot down by liberals who said wait a minute-no one in the Republican Party was even allowed to see this stuff, it’s all Obama, he sold us out .
I’ve thought for a couple weeks the Obama campaign was starting to unravel. A couple more hits like this in his approval ratings will be in the 30s.
I wonder how David Axelrod is going to try and spin this..
