Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter
politico.com
politico.com
I love that the best defense unnamed "U.S. officials" can offer is that "major compromises" will likely still be made. In other words: yes we're acting as drug company lobbyists, but we expect some of these other countries to stand up for their citizens enough to get a few concessions.
Fantastic stuff. "Thanks Obama" (and Hillary)
If you want a mutually beneficial trade agreement, you don't need secret meetings or a rush to get it through congress.
Whether the good in the TPP outweighs the bad is an open question that I don't have an answer to. I am just trying to provide some counter arguments to an otherwise one-sided discussion on here.
So you're going to commit is to something we didn't agree to? That's exactly why we need transparency.
And who decides who gets to make these deals? "Oh let us decide for you." No, you'll make a decision I don't want.
> Whether the good in the TPP outweighs the bad is an open question that I don't have an answer to. I am just trying to provide some counter arguments to an otherwise one-sided discussion on here.
Its not an open question, its a closed, hidden question we don't get access to, let alone any answers to.
This is a one-sided discussion because it is a one-sided situation.
> Economic modeling estimates that the benefits to the U.S. from the TPP will be $5 billion in 2015, rising to $14 billion in 2025
Yeah, its not worth it.
Btw US GDP is ~$16 trillion. This isn't going to move the meter at all. Its primarily about securing foreign IP rights for US companies, Obama's legacy, and strategic influence.
The USTR, in contrast, has the sole responsibility of maximizing the benefit to the U.S. It's in our interest if people outside the U.S. have to pay us a bunch of money to get the drugs we invent.
That is not to say that we shouldn't be giving free drugs to people who need it. But that's a policy decision decidedly outside the scope of the USTR. We have agencies like USAID whose job it is to handle humanitarian aid.
That all this seems to be happening behind closed doors doesn't inspire confidence.
I want both, so I want a balance...
Currently, without the TPP, the large pharmaceutical companies make billions in profit every year even including the rampant "piracy" in countries like India and China.
Or, with the TPP, all of those generics go poof, billions lose legal access to modern drugs, and pharmaceutical companies increase profits by 30, maybe 40 percent?
Of course that slack will get taken up by USAID, like you said, which means that now American tax payers will be on the hook to provide medicine that is now more expensive because our own government made them so.
Doesn't really add up, does it?
As for getting "paid fairly" I disagree with the general notion that companies that make unimportant things should get paid "what the market will bear" while companies that make important things should get "paid fairly." I think that creates perverse incentives.
And they're certainly not struggling despite that; not sure why they need a treaty to 'protect' them.
> It's in our interest if people outside the U.S. have to pay us a bunch of money to get the drugs we invent.
Only if you think dollars are the only important thing. Plenty of people see welfare (including foreigners) as being a worthy thing in its own right.
"struggling" isn't the word I would use in this situation.
Things change, oil dries up. Doesn't mean we need to start making redflag laws to protect the old models.
I do hear what you say about the font drying up, but it's also no secret that medication is ridiculously expensive in the US. Big pharma is very wealthy, and very politically powerful, despite the low-hanging fruit being gone. The point I'm trying to make is that they don't need a treaty to protect them.
No one here is getting drugs for free, just at reasonable prices that may not be available in the US
TPP as currently written will neuter this advantage costing us billions that will come out of my taxes
Because he has the requisite knowledge to understand it and because he clearly hasn't been bought.
Correction -- that should read "benefit to the US companies".
That's quite an interesting interpretation of "without borders".
I made a similar comment a few days ago - what we need is a crowd-funded lobbying platform for everyday people. A kind of Kickstarter for law and policy.
If a few thousand or even tens of thousands of people chip in a few dollars to lobby for a change in policy, we can compete with corporations who have bought their way into power.
While we're complaining on the internet big business is using pocket change to get what they want. It needs to be as easy if not easier to pay a few bucks for your desired policy as it is to complain about it in an online forum.
There are approximately 244,673,000 adults aged 18+ in the US: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html 318,857,056 * (1 - 0.233% of Persons under 18 years, percent, 2013) ~= 244,563,362
And according to https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/ , to match the $3.24 Billion spent on lobbying in 2014 you'd have to get absolutely everyone in the US 18 or over to give you 13$ and a quarter just to match what corporations are spending.
It's not the least bit realistic, and if the pre-2008 growth rate in lobbying spend picks up again it'll just get more and more out of control.
What's really necessary to get this absolutely incredible amount of money out of politics. The two presidential candidates shouldn't have to spend over 30 billion dollars on an election. The amount of money in politics right now is just insane.
There's lots of people who can see that money in politics is the problem. How do we solve it though?
Wait for a supreme court judge to die and hope their replacement aligns with our views on this topic?
Petition the whitehouse?
Fund a kickstarter campaign to get our own people lobbying for this?
Who says every dollar needs to be matched? If a corporation lobbies for rubber subsidies, no one will give a shit. If a corporation lobbies to make it a criminal offence to mention their brand online without a license, that crosses into free speech which might be worth a dollar or twenty to those who find that kind of thing important.
It's not the least bit realistic
You don't necessarily need to spend more than the corporations, you just need to make it lucrative to stand up for the good guy. If you can have $1m to be evil or $900k to be good, the $100k lost is more than made up for by the advocacy of those you served. It's free advertising.
That would of funded the current President as well... that is, until he was elected President.
Really? It's like you've never heard of a PAC before.
And regular PAC's really cannot compete with the unlimited funding a Super PAC can levy (PAC's have strict limits on contributions to parties and candidates; $5,000 per candidate, $15,000 per party per year).
Even the smallest of these are not small numbers. And, if you're interested in policy or political change, you've heard of all of them, and they all make it pretty damn easy to donate money[0]. It's just people don't care that much, and for the people who do care, there's often someone else on the opposite side of things who cares just as much.
It doesn't seem to me that a crowd-funded lobbying platform offers much. Maybe it makes it easier to start up an organization? Sure, I guess, but it doesn't give me any confidence that they'll use any funds I give in an effective way. At least major, well-known organizations have a brand to defend and have to be able to prove repeatable successes.
[0] The EFF, which I got to in 5 seconds by DuckDuckGoing "EFF donate": https://supporters.eff.org/donate
Within each Lobby Kickstarter you could outline which organizations would receive funds for specific goals, e.g. ACLU for particular civil liberties that are under attack, EFF to address dragnet surveillance etc. Yes you're adding a middleman but you have a one stop shop for initiatives that range far and wide. You could also keep score of which organizations have been successful so that you have an additional trust mechanism, much the way a company might keep track of its subcontractors when choosing who to use to get a job done.
How about https://www.iWouldDo.it ?
What is going on was predicted by David Korten in his 1995 blockbuster, When Corporations Rule The World. Catherine Austin Fitts calls it a “corporate coup d’état.”
This corporate coup includes the privatization and offshoring of the judicial function [0] delegated to the US court system in the Constitution, through Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions that strengthen existing ISDS procedures.
As explained in The Economist [1], ISDS gives foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever the government passes a law to do things that hurt corporate profits — such things as discouraging smoking, protecting the environment or preventing a nuclear catastrophe. Arbitrators are paid $600-700 an hour, giving them little incentive to dismiss cases. The secretive nature of the arbitration process and the lack of any requirement to consider precedent give wide scope for creative judgments – the sort of arbitrary edicts satirized by Lewis Carroll in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
To date, the highest ISDS award has been for $2.3 billion to Occidental Oil Company against the government of Ecuador over its termination of an oil-concession contract, although the termination was apparently legal. Under the TPP, however, even larger and more unpredictable judgments can be anticipated, since the sort of “investment” it protects includes not just “the commitment of capital or other resources” but “the expectation of gain or profit.” That means the rights of corporations extend not merely to their factories and other “capital” but to the profits they expect to receive. Just the threat of a massive damage award for impairing “expected corporate profits” could be enough to discourage prospective legislation by lawmakers.
0]: http://ellenbrown.com/2015/04/24/the-trans-pacific-partnersh...
1]: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21623756...
Obama likes to constantly state that he will act because Congress "refuses" to... which completely ignores the fact that Congress' "lack" of action is exactly what they are supposed to do when there is no agreement on an issue. Just because Congress doesn't execute the President's will doesn't mean Congress is wrong!
Now the Executive branch gets to unilaterally decide what trade agreements are good for the nation (and that usually means which big lobbying firm courted the Executive branch the best) -- that doesn't sound very democratic to me.
Congress surrendered the authority. They are the ones to blame.
I just wish I knew how to join this class of people who are important. Apparently being a citizen is not enough anymore.
[1]: The case for "taxpayers" has been assisted by the language of "victim's rights" wherein people first accepted the idea that some citizens should have higher status before the law than others. Using the idea that paying taxes is a form of theft, taxpayers establish their victimhood and by an extension a privileged interest over ordinary citizens in matters concerning taxation. The obverse of the coin is "consumer rights" wherein buying "Little Plastic Shit" is seen as a high form of social engagement and the primary civic duty of ordinary Americans.
But maybe not even then. You vote for the candidate that can best convince you to vote for them. So this is the metric the system will optimize for. Politicians that make good decisions or stick to their principles get outcompeted by those who focus on marketing themselves and pandering to the public. Even if you make the electorate more educated and engaged, this will only do so much to fix the misalignment of values. Unless you know a way to immunize someone to marketing completely, I see no hope for fixing voting. I infer that every democracy, as it matures, degenerates into a popularity contest.
It should be no surprise that the will of the people no longer has any real correlation with the policy voted into law by congress.
(Unless you're going to count it from 1945, in which case the real apathy hasn't started yet.)
[1] - http://humanevents.com/2014/10/08/republican-2014-primary-tu...
Consistent with the golden rule of economics.
It is unlikely (and maybe even undesirable) that we are going to be able to easily overcome our inherent susceptibility to influence. Therefore if we are to improve things we must recognize that this is part of who we are, and design our institutions accordingly.
The bill of rights specifically delineates protections that apply to "people" and protections that apply to "citizens." The dialogue is often about civil rights violations of American citizens, but the original language is more often "people."
From Yick Wo v. Hopkins
The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China. . . . The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.
Example from the other side: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/07/kt-mcfarland-chris... With the Detroit bomber we now have a clear pattern that reveals how the Obama administration deals with terrorists – try them in civilian courts with the full rights of American citizens... The president is treating terrorists like citizens and citizens like terrorists.
Note: I've taken both these examples from an excellent Glenn Greenwald article on the subject
"When someone describes themselves as a taxpayer, they're about to be an asshole" - Demetri Martin
Here's a rough guide: be willing to spend lots of $$$ on politicians, and more than the other Johns. Own media companies so you can influence what people think. Work together with other rich people with similar goals, it will take some time.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...
> Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance.
...
> Corporations have a mean life expectancy of around 30 years, but are potentially immortal; they live only in the present, having little regard for past or (thanks to short term accounting regulations) the deep future: and they generally exhibit a sociopathic lack of empathy.
...
> Collectively, corporate groups lobby international trade treaty negotiations for operating conditions more conducive to pursuing their three goals.
...
> We are now living in a global state that has been structured for the benefit of non-human entities with non-human goals. They have enormous media reach, which they use to distract attention from threats to their own survival. They also have an enormous ability to support litigation against public participation, except in the very limited circumstances where such action is forbidden.
I stand in full favour of GMOS, Nuclear Energy, Carbon Taxation/Trading, and also a global government (on the condition of it being a good one).
However, the extra political power being given to corporations and the reduction of citizen's capacity for political influence is something to stand firmly against. Of course I don't believe in a NWO in the traditional sense but the world is certainly largely run by a group of individuals in power.
The TPP makes me think of the Shadowrun timeline and the progression to extraterritoriality for corporations around the 2020s and 2030s.
> the world is certainly largely run by a group of individuals in power
This reminds me of an observation I once read - that there's no surprise those on top can look like they form a club even if they represent opposite spectrum on political scene; after all they studied at the same universities and probably know each other from the campus.
However, I'm not sure if the world is really shaped that much by conscious will of small group of individuals. As one blog puts it, "Almost No One is Evil. Almost Everything is Broken". It feels to me that a system of misaligned incentives is enough to explain most of the ways in which the world seems to evolve.
> The TPP makes me think of the Shadowrun timeline and the progression to extraterritoriality for corporations around the 2020s and 2030s.
Gotta check out Shadowrun, I haven't had a chance before :).
Speaking of works of fiction, the whole situation reminds me of Continuum series and the future of Corporate Congress.
Shadowrun's future describes a collapsing of the middle class, combination of corporation & state (zero distinction), lots of poor folks and "shadowrunners" who do the dirty work for the megacorps (stealing data, assassinate, etc).
All Megacorps use Shadowrunners but none publically acknowledge their existence or the details of what they do. Sort of like spy agencies.
It appears that certain people have forgotten that the grandest plans of the grandest men may be thrown into chaos by a mere handful of angry serfs. I think I would very much prefer to be anonymous and free to act than to be important, and mortally afraid of every moving shadow, or wound up too tight because people are not respecting mah propertah or mah authoritah.
I think that perhaps now might be a good time to learn some glassware-only techniques for solid-phase peptide synthesis and HPLC purification. Alternately, become an unlicensed expert on CRISPR-based gene modifications. I'm very concerned about the provisions for "biologics", and I would much prefer that biohacking be freely available to the people, rather than locked up for the exclusive benefit of the VIPs. There are some genies out there that need to be unbottled quickly, before some jerkasses decide that they're the only ones who deserve to get wishes.
The whole interview is worth watching.
Does anyone see stronger government enforced monopolies (patents) as the opposite of free trade?
For instance, I have a leatherman "Micra" in my pocket. It's my property. I can tell I still own it by putting my hand in my pocket... yep, it's still mine.
Now, "intellectual property" is another matter all together. I can't tell is my "intellectual property" is being infringed on without a large effort to police it. Is my fantastic new way of rigging sails being infringed upon by some "pirate" on Lake Michigan? I can't tell. My sailboat still have the fantastic new way of rigging, so I'm fat dumb and happy. I have to have a state, or some huge organization, find the infringement for me.
I think that's one difference in property theft vs "intellectual property" infringement. I'm not exactly sure what to call it, other than "government enforced monopoly". Yes, some laws around property need to be in place, and governments need to enforce them. There's a difference in both magnitude of enforcement, and type of enforcement that's necessary for "intellectual property" to exist.
As far as "just copy", well, I'm using my capital (expensive computer) to manufacture those copies myself, should I actually do that. The enforcers now need to keep me from using my capital in a way that I control. That's another significant difference you're glossing over.
You've confused possession with ownership. If you loan it to someone -- or someone steals it -- you won't find it in your pocket, you won't possess it, but you will still own it.
Ownership is a relation created in law. It is different than possession. In fact, its a meaningful concept only because it can differ from possession.
> Now, "intellectual property" is another matter all together. I can't tell is my "intellectual property" is being infringed on without a large effort to police it.
That's very much true of lots of real property (and even of tangible personal property that you don't keep in your possession). If I have real property spread around the different states -- and tangible personal property on the grounds of each of those real properties -- it takes a considerable policing effort to tell if the exclusive legal rights I have to those items which make them property are being infringed.
> I have to have a state, or some huge organization, find the infringement for me.
That's true, again, of all kinds of property in general, real property, tangible personal property, and intangible personal property other than intellectual property in general.
The tangible personal property you happen to keep in your immediate possession is actually the exception here, not the norm with property. Largely, the whole point of ownership existing as a legal relationship beyond mere possession is to enable people to have control of things that aren't under their immediate supervision all the time.
> I think that's one difference in property theft vs "intellectual property" infringement
And, in general, you are wrong. What you are pointing to is just largely true of physical property (real and tangible personal property) as of intangible personal property in general and intellectual property in particular.
> I'm not exactly sure what to call it, other than "government enforced monopoly".
Government enforced monopoly is exactly the defining characteristic of all property. So, its not a bad term to use for intellectual property, its just a mistake to use that to indicate something that is supposedly distinct about intellectual property as opposed to true of all property.
> There's a difference in both magnitude of enforcement, and type of enforcement that's necessary for "intellectual property" to exist.
There are differences in the steps taken to for enforcement between every pair of categories of property (this is just as true between tangible personal property and real property as between tangible personal property and intellectual property.)
Its these kind of distinctions that are a big part of the reason that we name different categories of property in the first place; if they were all identical, rather than subcategories of a common higher-level categories, we wouldn't need named types.
The other thing about "intellectual property" is the distinct possibility of independent invention. Even if we disallow my use of my own capital hardware to make a duplicate via some state financed mechanism, there's still a very real possibility that someone else also invented the "intellectual property" in question. Several people invented the steam engine. Several people invented the telegraph, at more or less the same time. Someone in the Bronze age seems to have invented safety pins. Algorithms get independently discovered all the time - see KMP string matching for a classic, but there's certainly a lot of others. A bunch of people discovered continuations at different times. How do we stretch the idea of property to cover all this? This seems like it will lead to trouble.
Conditional, restricted-use-specific licensing of real and tangible personal property is common.
Independent invention is definitely a distinguishing characteristic, and the shakiest part of the rationale for patents. IMHO, independent invention should be a defense to patent infringement. That said, it's not really implicated in the drug industry, where the folks doing the copying don't have the resources to invent and test the drugs independently.
He shouldn't. Next question?
Is the structure of that argument the same as the structure of your argument for physical property? (in which case my argument would be that there are very relevant differences)
There are pragmatic arguments against it: The costs copyright and patents impose on the market are huge. Not the prices, but all the good things that become difficult or illegal to do.
On principle: even if an IP system has some practical benefit, we usually set a pretty high bar for restricting people's communication or creativity. Is copying properly up there with fraud and slander?
I think we can come up with much better ways to pay for art. (Kickstarter is one.)
The only argument I see in here is that copying might not be on a par with fraud and slander. Frankly, I'm a lot more worried about criminalizing slander than I am about criminalizing copying. Slander law actually does clamp down on free speech. Copyright law just prevents free-riding.
Indeed, I think the area of IP with the most significant impact on free speech is the one that hardly gets talked about: trademark. Causes of action for dilution and tarnishment have major free speech implications. IMHO, 15 USC 1125 is unconstitutional to the extent it allows an action for tarnishment.
Property taxes are structured to discourage productive land sitting idle.
We civilized humans have come to terms with natural rights, that there "inalienable" rights granted by being a conscious free willed beings.
All the bootlicking DC apologists would be wise to reread some philosophy and develop a moral code beyond the barbaric might makes right.
If I remember it's things like having same standards of animal welfare innabbatoirs (the U.S. Think EU chickens are dirty IIRC).
But it has gone south because it was played badly politically - the heads of the main negotiating countries should apparently have a summit, announce it was crap and announce a new round that will be
- public and open - use a highest standard wins (ie if US rules on X are more stringent than EU then the U.S. Rules are the standard for TIPP) - something else about timelines - I think not setting big deadlines - being more multilateral like WTO
It seems a sensible move and likely to take a lot of the sting out of "rules made behind closed doors, race to the bottom etc"
Contrary views welcomed...
1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/06/22/155596305/episo...
Also, are there really always such a thing as 'highest standard'? Couldn't it be that more often than not, the rules aim for opposing values?
That is _precisely_ what all of these trade agreements are about, TPP, TiSA, etc..
The "behind closed doors" concern is mostly fake. "Secrecy" is a story line that tests well with folks who don't know how policy gets made in general. For example, the PPACA (aka Obamacare) and Dodd-Frank bills were extensively negotiated in private before being offered on the House and Senate floors for votes. I don't recall much complaining about secrecy then (edit: I mean from Democrats like Senator Warren).
Generally speaking, people object to private negotiations only if they object to the substance of the negotiations.
Before running for office, she was a major contributor to the ideas in Dodd-Frank, and many of those meetings took place out of the public eye and before the public debate on the bill.
This is not to criticize that particular bill (or the ACA) or her role in drafting it. Just making the point that negotiating and drafting policy behind closed door is a totally standard and unremarkable first step in the process.
You must play our game of pretend scarcity of information or face trade sanctions? Sounds like fun.
I am incredibly glad to know this has not happened yet, because it can easily be the death of innovation. IP, being a completely artificial market that can only exist through state power, has been abused so much and so often (be it software patents or Oracle v. Google or how the damn happy birthday song or Martin Luther Kings "I Have a Dream" recording is still copyrighted) and I have no doubts that any global IP regime would see the rise of a generation of IP lawyers and the death of a generation of ingenuity in intellectual pursuits.
That is how a lot of these countries can get ahead. China's ability to outright ignore US IP law means it can rapidly innovate on foreign or domestic ideas without having to be constrained by what US companies allow.
When the patent ran out on Claritin, the manufacturer came out with Clarinex, which contains only the one isomer that does something useful. They then pitched doctors hard to switch their patients to Clarinex, with considerable success.
But the manufacturer lost a patent case, on the grounds that separating the isomers and only keeping the useful one is obvious to anyone skilled in the art.[1] Now that isomer separation is routine, although non-trivial, the FDA requires it as a purification step if the non-useful isomer has any negative effects.[2] You can't claim that a step required by existing regulation is a new invention.
There's a clause in the TPP IP section to reverse that decision.[3] "[US/JP propose; CL/MY/PE/SG/VN/BN/AU/NZ/CA/MX oppose: For greater certainty, a Party may not deny a patent solely on the basis that the product did not result in an enhanced efficacy of the known product when the applicant has set forth distinguishing features establishing that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application.]" That's from last year's draft on Wikileaks; I haven't seen the new draft yet.
Incidentally, the TPP resolves the issue of patentablity for software and business methods: "Subject to the provisions of paragraph 2 and 3 (which relate mostly to plant and animal patents), each Party shall make patents available for any invention, whether a product or process, in all fields of technology, provided that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application." So software and business methods must be made patentable in all TPP-signatory countries. This, again, is from last year's draft. Check the new one once it gets published.
[1] http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/schering-plough-lose... [2] http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInforma... [3] https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obvious...
[1] http://www.healthline.com/health-news/would-the-trans-partne... [2] https://www.citizen.org/documents/specific%20provisions%20fi... [3] http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/06/04/opinion/implicati...
PS To those trying to claim he isn't a progressive... Obama may not be the progressive you want, but he is the one you deserve.
Can a conservative republican explain why the Republican leadership is supporting this? I can't really understand why free market people would be in favor of state-granted and enforced-at-taxpayer-expense monopolies. Nor do I understand why extreme patriots would be in favor of Investor-State Dispute Systems. The latter seems like a sovereignty giveaway, to an unaccountable international body. In a way, ISDS seems like big government gone wild, but it's an unelected, unaccountable international government, which should offend small government types, too.
What's there left to like? Legal pot and gay marriage?
pot is still very much illegal on the federal level... that's important because that's the level that handle your taxes.
The targeted individuals would likely be screwed. Probably the biggest risk is Colorado fighting the USA directly. Perhaps it's not interstate trade so the US can't regulate, perhaps Colorado sues for lost tax revenue.
The federal level matters because it supplants state law. The FBI and other federal agents can arrest anyone in any state where pot is legal statewide under federal law. You just get out of having local PD arresting you for it.
Not necessarily, as state (including) local agents can generally arrest you for violations of federal criminal law, too.
States, or local authorities within states, may deprioritize such arrests, or prohibit their officers from them entirely, for certain acts that are permitted by state but not federal law, but this is by no means guaranteed (and many local law enforcement agencies have continued to at least selectively make arrests under federal drug laws for marijuana even when the act involved was permitted under state law.)
Why does the Republican leadership support them? At the more reductionist level, I've seen it best described as a "donor riot"; rather obviously the interests of the wealthy who identify as Republican are different that the base (and this is one reason why the Emmanuel Goldsteining of the libertarian Koch brothers strikes us as bizarre, then again they've got some truly dangerous thoughts).
At a more general level, these "establishment" Republicans are, or aspire to be, members of the ruling class. We of the base obviously aren't, and I don't think many of us aspire to be.
"Offend" is a good word, we are mightily offended by all this. But there's only so much we can do short of, say, starting a 3rd party that's successful enough to either threaten the Republican party such that it adopts our positions, or replace it like it replaced the Whigs (or there's a thesis that the Democratic party will die since its war on arithmetic means it will eventually fail to keep its promises, the Republican party will replace it as the party of the state, and the 3rd party becomes the natural opposition). Short of that, we can withdraw our votes, which has a strictly limited effect in the Congress, and we can and have withheld our money, which gets us back to that donor riot.
Ah, I should note there's always been a non-conservative faction in the Republican party. Its abolitionist roots were in opposition to the conservative nature of the Whigs, remember the trusting busting and imperialism of Teddy Roosevelt, and the north-east wing in general is much less conservative. Think of Nelson Rockefeller who opposed conservative Goldwater, not so conservative Nixon, and was Ford's first VP. Or former governor of Massachusetts and "severe conservative" Mitt Romney (hint, that's the first and last time I've every heard someone use the word "severe" like that).
Figure out which of these does not belong, and you will have your answer.
To answer your question, there are probably many reasons, but one reason is because corporations are paying politicians. Here is a story from The Guardian that explains the payoff http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations...
Also, here is another story from the Huffington Post that describes the corporate influence on the TPP. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/now-we-know-why-h...
One last comment, while it is indeed up to our politicians to vote yay or nay on this, it is absolutely up to the people to keep our politicians accountable. Right now, the American people are for more concerned about feelings and witty social media posts to care about the TPP. When Americans stop caring about politicians and stop holding politicians accountable, it's quite easy for them to pull something like the TPP.
Before radio and TV, only the rich elite who had the time to research politics voted. After radio and TV, only the rich elite who had the money to buy election ad slots got representation.
Edit: These numbers are from 2010 congressional elections. Also it's illegal for federal elections. State elections have their own rules.
Additionally, wouldn't it be better to look at expenditures in later elections such as the 2012 presidential election? Using the 2010 data is a bit biased because the Citizens United decision was only ruled on in 2010.
As for your point of donations being illegal for federal elections, it is true that direct donations are regulated, however outside "independent" spending by corporations is not illegal.
Additionally, Super PACs can accept unlimited contributions from corporations as long as they use the money for independent expenditures.
Did Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren start supporting TPP when I wasn't looking?
Or was "progressive" an elaborate typo for "centrist"?
First, let's consider a contrast. Neoconservatives have for decades been obsessed with the Middle East. This is mostly because of its strategic importance as the source of oil.
There presents itself now an opportunity to change this strategic focus because of two trends. 1) Domestic oil production is up; so is fuel efficiency; so is the development of alternate energy. 2) Korea, China, Vietnam, and other Asian nations have growing economies and strategic ambitions. In the future of the U.S., oil will be less important; Asian trade relationships will be more important.
Thus Obama's "pivot to Asia." It has been mocked by Republicans, given the ongoing problems in both Russia and Iraq/Syria (both long-standing Republican policy bad guys). But really, something as big as the U.S. does not turn easily or fast.
TPP is a major component in that turn. It will create or enhance special relationships with a variety of Asian nations. It will firm up relationships that are currently being challenged by China, which has the biggest ambitions of anyone these days.
The details of the policy chapters are almost unimportant; they just need to be balanced well enough among all the parties, so that everyone gains slightly more than they lose. Trade agreements are, almost by definition, not optimal for any given single interest group or stakeholder.
In terms of IP specifically, it's worth considering that the U.S. is far more dependent on IP than other nations. If you think about our most successful companies, many of them make nothing but IP: Apple, Google, Microsoft, TV shows, movies, recorded music, software, pharamceuticals, etc. So U.S. negotiators are going to try for max protection on those things. (Does not mean they will get it.)
I just don't know why you'd want to do that, and why you'd want to do that now. But run those deficits too far, and you'll be forced to anyway.
If someone else in the world makes as much as you do in a year in a day (or better yet an hour for 99.99995% of people), you are incredibly poor relative to them. And 99.99999% of humanity falls into that class of poor.
The TPP is not being written for the betterment of the "rich" over the "poor". Its being written to make about 70,000 (overwhelmingly) men even richer than they already are, by subjugating national sovereignty underneath their corporate will.
The possible exception is his initial campaign when he was an unknown quantity and, like all such politicians, everyone projected their "Hope" onto him.
A lot of progressives supported Obama in 2008 primaries, especially toward the end of that season, because, as it was clear who the reasonably viable contenders were for the Democratic nomination, Obama generally seemed slightly to the progressive side of Hillary Clinton (which is perfectly compatible with him being a centrist Democrat rather than a particularly progressive one; I don't think anyone in the Democratic party has mistaken Clinton for anything other than a centrist for a long time.)
The total revenue of that top 10 is 60% European companies and 40% American.
Now if this TTP chapter is two-way and with that equaly so for European markets then if anything would it not favour Europe more. Though between the two collectives involved. This only shuts out generics made outside of those two markets more than currently.
As for doctors without borders, they operate outside this trade agreement location wise and would not that open up for cheaper supplies from the producers outside this trade agreement. I would of thought so.
Though would perhaps, once settle reduce production runs of generics in some area's that depended upon this `sudo` gr[a¦e]y market. Then that may raise production costs, though if mroe than one generic then it would become more a price war without the more fruitful markets to utilise. Though always new markets and myself not sure about medical drugs and Russia and how that works at all.
But really such agreements need to be public before signing as about trade for the people as a whole and not a niche area that impacts national security of the people.
So the whole aspect not public just does not sit well, nor bode well for trust or indeed any scrutinising and that which has and has leaked. Just hard to get the full picture as hard to scale.