Democracy Now! — Wednesday, June 29, 2016

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On the U.S. campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump touted Britain’s vote to leave the EU as he called for a rejection of so-called free trade deals. Trump likened the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to rape, saying it was “done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is.” Speaking earlier in the day in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Trump vowed to withdraw from the TPP.

One thought on “Democracy Now! — Wednesday, June 29, 2016”

  1. Amanda Painter

    I’d especially encourage everybody to read or listen to the segment of the program about the PROMESA bill — what will essentially set up a “Colonial Control Board” over Puerto Rico’s finances. Below is a segment of what Juan Gonzales has to say about it.
    http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/29/a_dark_day_for_the_people

    If you have a moment, please consider calling your Senator, regardless of their party, and asking them to vote no. Colonialism has no place in the US, and there are other ways for Puerto Rico to restructure its debt.

    United States Capitol switchboard:

    (202) 224-3121
    A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.

    JUAN GONZALES: So, yesterday, Senator Bob Menendez did a filibuster. For four hours, he grabbed the Senate floor and continued to condemn the bill, to condemn the efforts to prevent the Senate from having any kind of amendments. But in the process, he also really—for anybody who watched it on C-SPAN, you got a real lesson on what is the problem and why people are calling this a colonial control bill.

    For instance, Menendez said that, contrary to what the Obama administration has been saying and what many Republicans in Congress have been saying, the people of Puerto Rico are completely opposed to this bill. There was a recent poll, showed that 69 percent of Puerto Rican voters on the island are opposed to the PROMESA bill, the very bill that the Senate is about to pass, and 54 percent are opposed to any kind of outside control board running the affairs of Puerto Rico for the next five to 10 years there. And so, there’s huge opposition on the island to the bill, and yet the Congress is moving forward.

    Unfortunately, there’s a lot of liberal Democrats that are supporting this bill; some liberal organizations, like Jubilee USA, astonishingly, has come out in favor of the bill, because they’re all insisting that this is the only way, as bad as the bill is and the problems that it has, it’s the only way for Puerto Rico to be able to restructure its debts and to avoid a rush to the courthouse by bondholders.

    But what Menendez made clear is that there’s going to be a rush to the courthouse anyway, because as the bill passes, the bondholders, many of them, are going to go to court to challenge the constitutionality of the bill. So it’s not as if there’s not going to be legal challenges on July 1. But Menendez went on for four hours. Bernie Sanders participated for a short time in the filibuster. So did Maria Cantwell. But for the most part, it seems that there’s a sufficient number of Democrats and Republicans that will vote to approve this bill today.

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