I can agree there might be a problem with some of the IP stuff in various versions of the TPP but I definitely think there had to be some kind of agreement to accomplish what the TPP was doing generally.
So…
You spelled Mickey Mouse wrong.
@Timex I opposed the TPP personally for several reasons. Not the general idea of an agreement, which I strongly support, but several portions of the TPP in specific. @Tim_N and @ArmandoPenblade already mentioned them, but here goes.
The US IP law is horribly broken. Offensively so lopsided and mega corporation friendly, and abused at every level. Exporting them as is would be bad policy, making it harder to reform our own laws (I see you snickering back there, yes I know).
I also disprove the process where the contents of the negotiation we re sheilded from the public. This, to me, signals that it would not be done for the public good. There is conducting negotiations in private, and there is being actively hostile to public discovery of one of the most broad reaching trade agreements. I’m not a fan of the way this was the latter.
But the biggest problem, for me, was the ISDS statutes Tim mentioned. That a company could use this as a basis for suing a government for doing things like tightening environmental policy. That’s the real offensive part to me. Because this would take an extralegal approach to government policy that would have a chilling effect on countries seeking to improve their citizens lives. But I’m sure that companies really have the best interests of the populace at heart, and would never abuse local workers or degrade the environment to make a buck…
Oh yeah, not having the us be part of the TPP is really going to improve the lives of the people in this countries.
That’s totally a thing which is going to happen, and not at all absurd.
Again, it’s all moot. You won. We all get to enjoy the results now.
Or… not put those components in the TPP in the first place? Not sure why you’re having a problem with that concept. I highly doubt it was Cambodia pushing for those elements to be inserted.
It was US reps inserting those things at the behest of multinationals who already exert way to much power and influence. The answer isn’t TPP as is or no TPP, it is TPP altered to remove the most egregious bits.
Essentially this. The process surrounding the drafting and negotiation of TPP was ludicrously opaque and genuine concerns from Americans and others weren’t heard out (or were heard and ignored) as part of the process.
I by now acknowledge that pretty significant long-term harm is going to hit our national prospects due to the lack of a signature on our part, but it never had to be such an “opposable” stance.
Oh I would rather we have signed it. I just don’t think we’re entitled to spread our garbage laws across the world to do it. It’s entirely possible to support something and say this piece is rotten, and if it is rotten enough or not going to lead to better then you don’t proceed.
I mean, yeah. Put a gun to my head a year ago and say ‘TPP signed with us as is, or without us’ and I’d say sign the damn thing. But my position was, and always has been, to use US influence to improve the process then sign.
The problem with the opposition to the TPP that came from both Bernie and Trump was that it was not nearly as nuanced as what you folks have presented here.
Both opposed it on the basis of generic populist anti trade positions. They opposed the notion of trade deals at all, with the idea that international trade somehow harms the domestic workforce.
But now, we have no real conservative movement any longer, so there is no one left to argue for things like free trade. We’ve got both parties railing against an Obama policy plan.
Maybe, but those more nuanced criticisms predate the election campaign significantly. Back 2014-15 was when I really turned against the thing for the reasons I listed. Well not all of them, the corporate extrajudicial courts wasn’t revealed until 2016 I don’t think.
Basically I’m playing the anti-TPP hipster card, I was against it before it was cool ;)
That’s it? The story was already out about how it was suspected that SEALs had killed this guy. So now there’s a motive?
This is heinous, but it’s small-time corruption among a handful of people who just happen to be the superheroes of the military. Even the best of us can be the worst of us? I’m really not surprised.
This isn’t going to go well.
People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.
The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
Haven’t you always been able to seek waivers, but it’s just a matter of getting one?
I have an old friend who joined the Marine Corps after his first semester in college. He looks like the poster boy for a Marine and when he walked into the recruitment office he said the guy behind the desk was practically salivating as he pulled out the forms. As they were going through the background part of filling these things out they came to the question of if he’d ever smoked marijuana. My friend answered in the affirmative, much to the dismay of the recruiter. Trying to minimize this part, the recruiter hopefully asked how many times. “Was it less than 5 times?” “No”. “Hmm, OK, but less than 10 times, right?”, trying to give my friend the hint. My friend said, “No, it was probably more than a hundred times”. He said the look on this guy’s face was priceless.
I don’t recall what they put down as his final answer but my friend ended up serving four years stationed at the Command and Staff College in Quantico.
Hey, this brings back some memories, now that you mention it. I dated a girl in high school whose dad was an FBI agent. Which sounds like a nightmare, but he and I got along great. Helped that we shared an interest in history, I think, but he got me really interested in the FBI. That, plus Twin Peaks and The X-Files, to be 100% honest. But anyway, I applied to the bureau after college and that was one of the questions, have you ever smoked marijuana? Well I had, maybe a handful of times, though I hadn’t really liked it (definitely inhaled though). And the form said that any questions could be verified by lie detector test, so there was little upside to lying. So I told the truth. Didn’t hear anything for a while so I called and yeah, they said they couldn’t move forward with me because of that answer. Just as well, I am not cut out for law enforcement.
Hey, I got in to the Army after admitting to using acid once. This was in the late 80’s. I can’t remember if there was a waiver situation or not. I was (sadly, now…at the time I didn’t care) disqualified for Intelligence service, since you can’t get a Top Secret clearance with that on your record.
I do kind of question the wisdom of allowing people with diagnosed bipolar disorder and cutting behaviors to have guns and get training on how to kill and then potentially sending them to a war zone. At best, you’re just forcing behavior problems on NCO’s who will have to make sure they stay medicated.
This decision strikes me as the kind the Army makes to get Congress to pay attention. “Want to set an unreasonable goal for us and then underfund it? Well, we’ll just announce we’re going to start recruiting mentally unstable people!”
I imagine there will be some outcry and they’ll change their mind after the goal is lowered or the budget is raised.
Mentally unstable ex-serviceman shoots up a church and kills a bunch of kids.
One week later…
The stream of never ending shit, everything just gets buried, gone and forgotten.
And speaking of never ending shit, TMP on trump admin blocking ATT merger with Time (I’m actually against mergers, but these guys are doing the right thing for the incredibly wrong reasons):