In a last-hour attempt to stop the U.S. Senate from committing a most dangerous act, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has once again taken the heroic stance of lone warrior, warning fellow Republicans against giving President Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA, aka Fast Track). After weeks of complicated maneuvering and a confusing jumble of votes, the stand-alone TPA bill passed by the House last week is set to go back to the Senate on Tuesday, for what could be the final vote to confer what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has admitted is “an enormous grant of power, obviously, from a Republican Congress to a Democratic president.”
Much has been learned in the past month since the Senate first approved Fast Track; there can now be no excuse for those who claim to support it under the false justification that it will facilitate trade and promote jobs.
“More than four weeks have passed since the Senate first voted on whether to grant the Executive six years of fast-track authority,” says Senator Sessions. “In that time, an enormous amount has been discovered about how the President plans to use this authority – information that was either not known or understood when the vote was held. This includes the Administration’s pledge to use the agreement to impose ‘environmental governance.’”
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“It has become increasingly clear that the President’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is far more than a trade deal,” Sen. Sessions wrote in a Sunday op-ed for Breitbart.com. “It forms an enduring, self-governing political entity with vast regulatory power. Yet fast-track – which has led without fail to the adoption of every covered agreement since its inception – would rush it through with less legislative scrutiny than a Post Office reform bill.”
“Second chances do not come often,” Sessions noted. “We now have new information and a new vote. Which means the Senate has a second chance to slow down and demand answers about the President’s plans before agreeing to fast-track their adoption.”
That would seem to be plain and simple prudence that even the dullest solon would recognize and follow. But apparently not, even though, as the good senator from Alabama points out, President Obama has refused to answer the most simple but crucial questions about how he plans to use fast-track powers. “He will not even answer whether he believes his plan will increase or reduce the trade deficit, increase or reduce manufacturing jobs, or increase or reduce wages,” Sessions notes. “Concerns raised about how this new Pacific Union [under the TPP] will impact our sovereignty have been met with only a continued unwillingness to reply to any questions about the limits of its reach and power.”
Senator Sessions reminds his colleagues that the TPP is only the first of a mammoth ObamaTrade trifecta that also includes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), both of which remain completely secret and unavailable for review by our elected legislators. The TPP draft is available to senators and representatives only under very restrictive conditions.
In a similar alarm he issued in a June 17 press release, Sessions warned that America’s national sovereignty is in dire danger from the TPP/TTIP/TiSA pseudo-free trade assault:
According to the European Commission, the TiSA agreement—which most House and Senate members did not know about when they voted—will follow in the footsteps of the WTO’s Trade in Services Provisions, which has already inhibited the U.S. from making needed immigration changes. The European Commission says the EU “wants as many countries as possible to join the agreement.” We have already seen how the EU has curtailed sovereignty in Europe; we do not want to follow in its footsteps.
Why the Mad Rush?
“The more vast, the more grand, the more ambitious the design the more important it is to slow down – not to grease the skids. Congress must retain its powers of amendment and review, as well as its treaty powers, for agreements that clearly extend far beyond trade. And Congress must protect the power of the individual citizen to control those who would seek to control them,” the Alabama solon warns.
What is really at work here? Sessions points a finger at the dark forces that are guiding this corrupt process and the malevolent goal they intend: “The transnational entities stitching these compacts together have always desired a governance structure outside the reach of the ordinary voter; as conservatives we should never rush into the unknown on the promise that utopia lies across the abyss.”
Is it stupidity or cupidity, then, if senators ignore the abyss and still vote for TPA, in view of plain truth about Fast Track’s phony utopian promises? Either way, a vote for Fast Track tomorrow would be totally inexcusable, and political retribution should be unforgiving and unmistakable.
To send a message to your U.S. senators opposing TPA, click here.
Photo of Sen. Jeff Sessions: AP Images
Related stories:
Senator Sessions to Obama: Stop Fast Track Push, Release Secret Trade Documents
GOP Senators Isakson and Sessions Duel Over TPP “Trade” Scheme
7 Reasons Why Trade Promotion Authority/Fast Track Must Be Defeated
10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIP
Boehner Purges Conservatives Who Defy on ObamaTrade Votes
Mr. Congressman, READ the Secret ObamaTrade Bills BEFORE You Vote!
