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Can someone please explain to me how this is consistent?

TODAY:

"Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton says she wants to take a close look at foreign trade deals. She says she'll call a 'time out' on trade agreements if she wins the White House.'" - Associated Press, 11/12/07

FOUR DAYS AGO:

"Clinton Says Yes to Peru Deal...Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, after prodding from a rival campaign, has issued positions on several trade deals currently before Congress, including her support for an agreement with Peru that is dividing her party." - New York Times, 11/8/07

I guess technically the two statements don't contradict each other, in the same way I guess you could technically question what the definition of "is" is. I mean, yeah, she could be for a strategic pause when she's president, but not just now. But I'd say that would be a pretty strange position. Why should we take such a "time out" in a year, but not now?

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House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), the chief architect of the the Peru Free Trade Agreement that expands NAFTA, he appeared on CNN Thursday night. In the midst of congratulating himself for passing the NAFTA expansion through the House this week, he acknowledged that the pact will crush American workers, saying:

"We haven't protected those people that have lost jobs as a result of trade or those people who just don't find industry in their communities...And so if you're hurting, then [the Peru agreement] is a bad deal."

This is stunning, even for Washington. The chief proponent of a bill earlier today was selling this bill on the House floor as a great achievement for the middle class that has been crushed by lobbyist-written trade policies. Then hours later after the votes are already cast, he goes on national television to admit that, actually it is true - the bill "is a bad deal" for workers who are hurting.

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Bill Greider's post-mortem of the House vote today on expanding the NAFTA trade model into Peru is a must-read. He excerpts a snippet from the New York Times story that is surprisingly accurate from a newspaper that has made an art form out of berating fair traders as Luddites and free traders as Enlightened Saviors of the Planet. In explaining why so many Democrats voted for the Peru Free Trade Agreement, the Times incisively points out a taboo subject at the heart of the issue:

"Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas. These industries have also become major Democratic contributors."

That is absolutely why so many Democrats in Washington simply don't care about the trade issue - because the Big Money people they are now surrounded with are hitting the jackpot from the status quo.

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This morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Peru Free Trade Agreement — the first bill designed to expand the NAFTA trade model. The bill was not supported by any major labor, anti-poverty, human rights, religious or consumer protection advocacy group. And yet even though Democrats were given their congressional majority on a campaign promise to reform America's trade policy, the party's leadership rammed the bill through the House. You can see how your representative voted here. The bill now moves to the Senate.

There is, however, some good news. more »

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The Hill Newspaper reports that the House Democratic leadership unexpectedly delayed the expected vote tonight on the Peru Free Trade Agreement - the agreement that expands the NAFTA trade model. The delay seems designed to give the leadership time to attempt to round up enough votes to get a majority of the Democratic caucus to support the deal - a milestone considered important.

Make your voice heard - use this tool to tell your Member of Congress to vote against the expansion of the job-killing, wage-destroying NAFTA trade model.

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On the same day Democrats and Republicans in Congress are pushing to pass a NAFTA-style trade pact with Peru - and citing Peru's supposed labor rights improvements as justification - we get this off the wires:

Peru Declares National Mining Strike Illegal

LIMA -(Dow Jones)- Peru's Labor Ministry on Wednesday declared a national mining-sector strike illegal.

Peru's National Federation of Mining, Metallurgy and Steel Workers on Monday started the nationwide strike, aiming to pressure the government to pass laws to give mining-sector workers more benefits.

Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL), who is leading the fight against the Peru Free Trade Agreement, notes that "The striking miners were fighting for, among other things, an eight hour work day." In addition, "we recently learned that there are 2 million children working in Peru, many in these very same mines."

So a country whose government is openly union busting and strike breaking in the name of preserving child labor and slave conditions is potentially going to get a free trade deal from Congress on the grounds that its labor policies are commendable. Unreal.

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You are not going to frickin' believe this one. From the Wall Street Journal:

HONG KONG—Retailers around the world scrambled to pull a popular toy called Bindeez off the shelves Wednesday after a chemical in some shipments of the Chinese-made product was found to mimic the effects of the so-called date rape drug.

At least three children have been hospitalized in Australia in recent weeks after swallowing beads from the toy.

In the U.S., a similar toy that is sold under the name Aqua Dots had been available at Toys "R" Us stores since May, according to a spokeswoman. When the company learned of problems with the Bindeez brand, it pulled Aqua Dots from its North American shelves. Aqua Dots is also sold at retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., and as of Wednesday morning it was still available in Wal-Mart, Target and eToys online stores, though it isn't clear whether that version poses any danger.

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Harold Meyerson's column in the Washington Post today is a terrific read - and got me thinking about just how unprincipled and smarmy Hillary Clinton really is on this one. You'll notice Meyerson reports that "Clinton has yet to take a position" on the NAFTA expansion that will be voted on in the House today.

My guess is that Clinton will vote against the first part of the NAFTA expansion - the Peru Free Trade Agreement. That "no" vote would be a good thing. But her silence in the lead up to the vote is really the bigger story that's already been written, no matter how she ends up voting. She wants to please the Big Money interests who are underwriting her campaign and who are pushing this trade policy, but she also faces an increasingly competitive primary challenge from John Edwards, who has come out strongly against NAFTA-style trade policies (more on Edwards in my upcoming nationally syndicated newspaper column out on Friday).

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In a stunning new report on the eve of the congressional vote on the Peru Free Trade Agreement, a Columbia University legal expert shows the pact may weaken the United States' ability to enforce basic labor standards in trade agreements. The report by Columbia Law professor Mark Barenberg finds that the much-touted labor protections in the Peru deal are "even worse than existing law" and "in no respect do the Agreement’s labor provisions mark a significant improvement."

The Columbia University report compares labor provisions in already-passed trade deals with the proposed provisions in the Peru deal, which congressional Democrats and the White House have sold to the public and rank-and-file lawmakers as a new and improved model. But the Columbia report shows how the Peru deal's model actually undermines existing trade laws, which he notes are already "weak, unreliable, and inadequate to the task."

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Democrats this week are expected to attempt to ram the Peru Free Trade Agreement through the House, in an inexplicable effort to expand the NAFTA trade model just months after they won Congress promising to reform America's trade policies. The move is causing great consternation among rank-and-file Democrats on Capitol Hill, as the Hill Newspaper reports this morning.

I was in Washington last week and had a chance to sit down and chat with Illinois Rep. Phil Hare (D), who is helping to lead the opposition to the NAFTA expansion. You can listen to excerpts of my interview with Hare here.

Hare's candor about his own party and the struggles his western Illinois district is facing provides an important look into the dynamics behind the debate over trade. He expresses deep frustration that his colleagues are pushing the NAFTA expansion even as President Bush threatens to veto a bill to help workers harmed by such trade deals. In other words, the Democrats are going to open up workers to more job-killing, wage-depressing competition even though the president is poised to veto a bill to help those workers with trade adjustment assistance.

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