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To: savedbygrace
Unless you list them and explain why each is a misstatement, this is merely an unsubstantiated claim.

I trust by the time you reach the foot of this explanation you will count the claim as substantiated:

Congress is the only entity that can make U.S. law and nothing about TPP or TPA could change that.

FALSE: the courts have upheld congressional-executive agreements of which this is a type and even upheld naked executive agreements.

Congress is the only entity that can make U.S. law and nothing about TPP or TPA could change that.

FALSE: if a president must find 2/3 of the Senate to consent to his treaty he must as a practical matter invite the Senate in on the takeoff if he wants them there at the landing. This bill reverses the power structure so that the president need only find half the Senate to agree with his negotiating positions, he has less need of recalcitrant senators so he will concede less "control" to them in the negotiations. Since no president has ever been denied his fast-track treaty it is clear that Congress has exercised less not "more" control.

TPA mandates transparency by requiring all trade agreements (including TPP) to be made public for at least 60 days before the Congress can act on them.

TRUE BUT FALSE: The words are accurate but the meaning is utterly deceptive. By the time the treaty is presented under a fast-track regimen the game is over and 60 days of transparency simply will not undo all of the influences peddling that has brought us to that point.

Does TPA give up the Senate’s treaty power? No. Under the Constitution, there are two ways to make binding law: (1) through a treaty, ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, or (2) through legislation passed by a majority of both Houses of Congress.

FALSE:The Constitution specifies only one way to make a treaty and that is with two thirds consent of the Senate the second way described here is not provided for in the Constitution as asserted but has simply accreted over time.

TPA explicitly provides that nothing in any trade agreement can change U.S law.

FALSE: no Congress can bind the next.

Senator Cruz has not taken a position either in favor or against TPP.

TRUE BUT MISLEADING: because Senator Ted Cruz has helped put TPA in place, TPP is a done deal and so his final vote against it will be irrelevant just as other senators have indulged the fraud of voting for cloture of filibuster and then voting against the bill.

And, regardless, no trade agreement can change U.S. law; only Congress can change U.S. law.

FALSE!


87 posted on 06/18/2015 5:24:57 PM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: nathanbedford

You are mis-reading and misunderstanding. I will number each example.

1) Only Congress can make U. S. law. The Court might have allowed the results of the two examples to remain, but the Court did not call it law.

2) It is true that Congress is the only entity that can make U.S. law and nothing about TPP or TPA could change that. Neither TPP nor TPA is a treaty, so your argument with regard to treaties is moot.

3) I suspect this President would not abide by the 60 day rule, so I’ll give you that one. Still, Cruz did not say the Obama would definitely abide by it, so it’s still a lose for you.

4) You mis-read this one. He said there are two ways to make LAW. Only one of the two ways is with regard to treaties. Also, once again, neither TPP nor TPA is a treaty, so your point is again lost.

5) Isn’t TPA for a specified number of years?


88 posted on 06/19/2015 1:27:38 AM PDT by savedbygrace (But God!)
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To: nathanbedford

Forgot to add this note of clarification:

I believe that the agreement that is being negotiated is actually a treaty, but this is not the first time that an administration and a Congress have agreed to call a treaty an agreement so they could avoid the 2/3 vote requirement.

If they actually called it a treaty, none of the nonsense we are discussing would be happening.


89 posted on 06/19/2015 1:43:32 AM PDT by savedbygrace (But God!)
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