I have evidence that the powers in Washington, DC are under some kind of "mind control" device. No, I'm not off my meds, stay with me here. Let me present my evidence, and you can decide if I'm out of my mind.

When was the last time that the Republicans in Congress agreed with President Obama on anything? Yes, I know, they managed to pass a budget, and ban micro beads, which the soap manufacturers didn't oppose much, but aside from that, could you ever imagine the Republicans in Congress actually *giving up* a Constitutionally specified power to President Obama, in the Executive branch? They threaten lawsuits and impeachment over perfectly valid Executive Orders, right? So *giving* Obama a power reserved for Congress should be impossible.

And yet, that is exactly what has happened, after the mind-control device was turned on Congress. Miraculously, Congress voted to *approve* a thing called Fast Track Authority. What is that? The context is the "trade" deal known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The Constitution says that Congress shall be in charge of trade regulation. So the TPP should be debated by and voted upon by Congress before the United States can "sign" the agreement.

President Obama, however, asked Congress for "Fast Track Authority", which means that he wants Congress to do a simple up or down vote on the TPP, and then the President will sign it, and that will be that. Congress doesn't get any say in what is in the "trade" deal, and the assumption is, since they approved Fast Track, that they will also vote to approve the deal.

Why would they give up power to President Obama? Why would they ever agree to a trade deal that Hillary said was "the gold standard of trade agreements" (before she changed her mind and opposed it.) My answer is "mind control".

I know how it works, too. The name of the mind control device is "money". We were sold out long ago by most of Washington, and we are now owned by big corporations. The TPP has lots of nice protections for corporate interests, at our expense.

Do you like the meat you buy in the supermarket to be labeled with what country produced it? Sorry, illegal. Congress explicitly passed a law *preventing* such labeling just recently. This is them getting ahead of the TPP requirement that they prevent such labeling. We wouldn't want to upset beef producers in China, would we?

The TPP says that if your government passes a law, that, for example, outlaws cigarette advertising on TV, the tobacco companies and use what's called "Investor State Dispute System" (ISDS) to sue your government for lost profits! Uruguay is being sued right now because it wants to force tobacco products to have plain packaging. Germany is being sued because it wants to shut down all it's nuclear plants.

Bill Dudley
New Jersey