How utterly @#$%ed up is it that two-thirds

[JDPriestly]

149. Those investments were made without the "benefit" or detriment, in my view, of the TPP/

I am not nixing trade. I am not nixing bilateral trade agreements. Any such agreement should include a clause that allows us to reduce imports when our balance of payments or our local and national economy suggest the agreement is harming our country or endangering our sovereignty as a nation.

I am opposing trade agreements that benefit big corporations and take away from us the ability to control as needed what we import, when we import it and how much we import.

I am opposing trade agreements that set up trade courts to handle disputes that can be handled in our courts as provided by our Constitution, courts in which ordinary American citizens sit in the jury when a jury is desired. I am supporting trade agreements that respect and affirm our sovereignty as a nation. I am rejecting trade agreements that challenge the right of the American people at the local level and sometimes at the national level to determine policies that the Constitution and our democratic traditions permit the American people to make through representative democracy.

Therefore, I strongly oppose the TPP. (And don't argue I haven't seen the details. We all have seen enough of the details to know that the TPP is bad for Americans.) The individuals who negotiated the TPP primarily represented big international corporations and their lobbyists and friends. The rest of us were left out. There would and in my view should be no TPP as negotiated now in secret. There should be no TPP at all.

We can make individual trade agreements with individual countries as appropriate.

OUR FIRST PRIORITIES SHOULD BE JOB CREATION HERE IN AMERICA, REDUCING AND POSSIBLY ELIMINATING OUR OVER-SIZED, HUGE, POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS AND DAMAGING TRADE DEFICIT AND PROTECTING OUR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AT HOME. The TPP will not further our achievement of those priorities. It will hinder it.

I strongly oppose the TPP.

I cannot take your posts seriously until you explain your view on our horrific trade deficit.

I live in California. I know what that big trade deficit means to our economy and sovereignty.