The Colombian Free Trade Agreement is definitely a headache for the Clinton campaign.
In Hillary Clinton’s attempt to quell blue-collar fears she is returning to the free trade roots of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, a once mundane trade deal is now being placed under the microscope.
“The Colombia free trade deal, in my view, is not appropriate because of the history of suppression and targeted killings of labor organizers in Colombia,” Mrs. Clinton told CNN. The former first lady’s opposition to the bill came into question after news broke a top adviser met with Colombian officials and Mr. Clinton’s past public support of the agreement re-surfaced.
Over the weekend, Mark Penn, a top Clinton adviser, stepped down from his role in the campaign after it was discovered he met with the Colombian ambassador to discuss the pending trade agreement. Mr. Penn was not acting as a surrogate of the Clinton campaign.
Mrs. Clinton is also plagued by Mr. Clinton’s past words, as Politico’s Ben Smith reported on a Colombian 2005 news report highlighting Mr. Clinton’s support for such an agreement.
Responding to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe call that the U.S. expedite passage of the trade deal, Mr. Clinton reportedly stated, “I am in favor of the free trade agreement and it is my hope that we will find the right formula to reach the agreement.” Mrs. Clinton has since acknowledged she and her husband disagree on the issue.
The question is: should we really believe Hillary Clinton? Her husband supports and was paid to support the Colombian trade deal. The DLC supports it. Many of her advisers support it or have even lobbied in favor of it. Many of her prominent backers, like Senator Evan Bayh, support it.
Hillary lied about opposing NAFTA but she wants us to believe her about Colombia. I have no doubt that Hillary is capable of standing up to her husband and taking contrary positions on the issues, but I don’t think she has any credibility on trade issues. Yes, she can disagree with her husband, I just don’t believe she does in this case.
Didn’t she work for a law firm that made big bucks from union-busting? And on the Wal-Mart board of directors? Why does she have any credibility at all on workers’ rights?
Rosehill? Law firm when she was First Lady in Arkansas, which was a law firm strictly set up for big corporations-like Monsanto, Wal-Mart, Tyson Chicken and others. And it wasn’t only Wal-Mart that then paid her to be on their Board of Directors, several other companies also did which while I guess isn’t illegal raised some ethical concerns with people.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/clintonwalmart/index.htm
Like sniper fire at the Tuzla Airport, Hillary has never ever helped the little guy or fought for workers rights.
For more info about Wal-mart tapes for sale goto the link below:
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/569277.html
This is what pisses me off about my national union endorsing her.
Except for Clinton’s cryptic dismissals of ‘he’s not standing here, I am’ when she’s been pressed on individual conflicts I haven’t heard the larger picture addressed in questions from media about their differences of opinion. Obviously, having an in-house lobbyist in the form of Bill Clinton could prove more than problematic to judge the strength of some of her stances. There’s WH spouses and then there’s WH spouse Bill lobbying into the night. She may find that 3 am phone call is a welcome break.
Hillary will find some wiggle room out of this.
She’ll either mis-speak, have mis-heard or mis-remember…and remind that she was under sniper fire.
poor little me, I’m also outspent.
will the pro-Obama unions send out flyers in PA?
The loan of $5 mil to her campaign? If their earnings are co-mingled in a joint tax return, then she loaned some of the Colombia speech money to her own campaign, didn’t she?
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/april11/
The unusual location was selected of course because they hope to get on the ‘Today’ show.
Top staffer as Colombia’s top PR flack? Check.
Husband asked to soften up Dems to support the odious Uribe? Check.
Clinton-affiliated orgs hosting Uribe? Check.
HRC as rabidly “free trade” DLC standard bearer? Check.
But she says she’s against this trade deal. Of course.
That’s. Not. Rain.
The Hillary Deathwatch
Booman,
You could go a lot more global here.
Outsourcing to India:
http://www.counterpunch.org/rockwell03312008.html
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/30/2857 /
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/II14Df03.html
She’s got a record of praising and working with various Indian companies to bring in Indian Tech Visa workers and to help the Indians set up centers for outsourced US jobs there. Here’s the speech she gave in 2005 in New Delhi:
http://archives.digitaltoday.in/indiatoday/20050314/c-hillary.html
I have nothing against trade with India and have no problem with what she’s saying per se but it isn’t what she’s been saying in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I smell the odor of mendacity. To say she has truth problems would be like saying that Nixon had concerns about privacy. Her record before all this was more or less like Obama’s and likely still is:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Hillary_Clinton_Free_Trade.htm
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Free_Trade.htm
though Obama seems more steady, still saying more or less what he always said. Given how much money Bill Clinton has made speaking for and consulting with Colombia and all the other free trade seeking foreign governments and given that the Clintons seem to mingle their accounts, Hillary Clinton seems a bit disingenuous here, to say the least.
A great post up on the Clintons and Colombia over at Counterpunch by Nichloas Kozloff, “How Obama Could Seize Pennsylvania–The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy”
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff04112008.html
A must read. Spread the word, especially to the Obama campaign if anyone knows how.