TPP a bad deal for US
Congress will decide within the next several months whether to authorize the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
This trade pact is an expansion of the trading rights given to foreign investors under the North American Free Trade Agreement that was supposed to bring prosperity to us by lowering barriers to trade. The United States has free-trade agreements with 20 other countries, and another four would be added under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Not only have these trade agreements resulted in the loss of U.S. jobs, but they additionally allow foreign companies to sue the U.S. and other governments in trade tribunals over state and local regulations meant to protect the environment, public health and human rights that stand in their way of business.
These tribunals are staffed by three “judges,” usually corporate lawyers, who decide the case between corporation and concerned government. These cases can result in huge fines and deregulation of governments. Defense is very expensive and has a chilling effect on our right to govern ourselves. The number of cases is escalating and could further as more countries are enter these free-trade zones.
This is an untransparent, undemocratic system designed to benefit large corporations that can afford to use it.
Please contact our members of Congress and let them know how important it is that they oppose this trade agreement.
Beedy Parker
Camden
Biased abortion coverage
In the Saturday, Jan. 23 edition of the BDN there was a Reuters photo of the National March for Life rally depicting women holding up signs that read “Keep Abortion Providers Safe.” Yet there was not one photo of the more than 300,000 people who braved the weather for the March for Life to protest the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. How can a newspaper be so biased?
I wouldn’t have minded, had the BDN printed both sides, even though it was a March for Life Rally. Unbiased reporting would be appreciated no matter what the issues.
Claudette Michaud
Bangor
Feel the Bern
How would you like to have laws that are passed for the benefit of the majority of the people, not companies? How about a kid being all he or she can be by graduating from college without being saddled with a mortgage-sized debt? How about getting a serious disease and surviving without being bankrupted because the insurance doesn’t begin to cover it?
People say I must be a pipe dreamer to expect these things to be possible in this country. I say about 250 years ago a bunch of colonists realized their government was simply not working for them. The king of England was passing laws that benefited him and a few of his rich minions. These colonists had to start a revolution against what was then the most powerful country in the world in order to get a government that worked for them.
Luckily, we do not have to do that. Just mosey on down to the polls and “feel the Bern.”
Geoff Goodwin
Carmel
Do we deserve Trump, Palin?
Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, the despicable duo, deserve each other. We deserve neither. Or do we? Shame on us, for in our very silence we condone their very public, uncivil and crude rhetoric.
Just the money being spent on the race to the White House is immoral. It should, at the very least, be used to feed the needy children of our nation, whose hunger and poverty is inexcusable, not the egos of the candidates.
Ellen Sinclair
Belfast