1NC
1
A) Interpretation: The phrase “nearly all” is unacceptable for a plan text. The
affirmative must specify what states and what activities are NOT affected by the plan.
B) Voting Issue:
1- Presumption: the plan carries zero legal precedent gutting all solvency
Philip Milne, 1994 Partner in Simpson Grierson's Wellington Local Government and Environment work
group ("Validity of Rules in Regional Plans: A Seminar for Wellington Regional Council Officers"
http://www.qp.org.nzipubs/3665.pdf) p.14
5.2
Uncertainty-subjectivityIn Re Draft Water Conservation (Buller giver) Order (C28/93), the Tribunal considered the validity of a
"restriction" in a conservation order. It held that the words "provided that the granting of such rights would not detract from the outstanding
features and characteristics specified" were "an example of reserving discretions to exercise value judgments rather than a lack of
certainty".The
last case illustrates that the issues of uncertainty and delegation of discretions are
closely related. A rule should not include words or phrases which are so vague or subjective
as to be indeterminable by the reader or which of necessity implicitly leave the council to
make a discretionary/subjective judgment. For example, a condition regarding measures aimed
at remedying "detrimental impacts observed and ensuring that further detrimental impacts will not occur" was ruled invalid so far as
it required avoidance of future impacts. (New Zealand Underwater Association Incorporated v Auckland Regional Council A 131/91).In McLeod
Holdings Limited v Countdown Properties Limited 14 NZ irA 362, the
ordinance in question defined predominant uses and
stated:"Wholesale or retail shops for bulky goods or drive-in retail shops whereby nearly all customers take away goods
in motor vehicles for which adequate drive-in and parking provision is made on the site itself provided that no vehicle entrance or exit
is within 10m of a road junction".The phrase "nearly all customers" was found to be too imprecise and
therefore invalid.
2) The devil is in the details: case turns, good DA’s, and PICS all require the negative to
be able to get further into the lit than whether the concept of online gambling is good
or not
Brad Bumsted, 2014 (Trib Total Media's state Capitol reporter, http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/606910474/gambling-internet-senate#axzz3EWy3yPpN)
The report suggests easing the regulatory climate for casinos, experiencing increased competition from surrounding states.
The recommendations range from removing or lessening licensing standards for vendors to reducing state police presence in casinos. The
report says Internet gambling and traditional casinos cater to different markets. Internet gamblers generally
are younger, predominantly male, with higher incomes and more education, and more likely to be employed, it says. “The fact that iGaming
caters to a market of new gamers presents casinos with an opportunity to attract new customers,” the report states. Though Internet gambling
cannot provide the social interaction and amenities of traditional casinos, online betting allows players to place smaller bets, play several tables
at once, play from home and avoid crowds. “This, combined with the fact that iGaming typically happens in the home in the afternoon or
evening, suggests that for many this is a substitute for other forms of home entertainment, rather than a substitute for traditional offline casino
gaming.” Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, said the
Senate will look at all forms of gambling
revenue the report raises. He stressed that he does not support a particular proposal and thinks lawmakers
need to evaluate the ideas carefully. Still, he said, “it's not that complicated. Other states have done this.” Nevada, New Jersey
and Delaware have allowed Internet gambling since last year. Under federal law, users must be physically in the state to bet online. The
Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling issued a statement saying revenue from Internet gambling has fallen short of projections where it's legal.
Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, who chairs the Senate panel regulating casinos, said it would hold a hearing in early June. Ward supports
regulating and taxing Internet gambling if it brings in hundreds of millions of dollars, as the consultants suggest. It should be paired with
pension reform, which is causing some of the state's budgetary problems, she said. “We want to make sure we don't hurt the existing casinos,”
said Ward, who chairs the Community Economic and Recreational Development Committee. She wants to hear from casino operators, the
Department of Revenue and the Gaming Control Board. Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, is skeptical that Republicans controlling the
Legislature will move forward with expanded gambling. “Gambling happened with (Ed) Rendell,” a Democratic governor, in 2004, Evans said. He
believes Republicans like it “because it's a voluntary form of taxation” but that they remain wary overall. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett was
noncommittal. His spokesman said:
“The devil is in the details.”
The $1.2 billion deficit projection is from the Independent
Fiscal Office.
3) This is a different topic and demands specification. We have never had a resolution
that allows the AFF to choose so much from multiple agents and to multiple actions.
That massive AFF advantage shouldn’t be made worse by allowing the AFF to use
“nearly all” to get out of CPs and PICs.
2
Dems win now- they’re targeting the right demographics
Barabak and Mascaro 9/29 (Mark Z., Lisa, September 29, 2014, “As election nears, control of
Senate looks surprisingly uncertain”, http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-2014-election20140929-story.html#page=1///TS)
Just over a month before the midterm election, control of the U.S. Senate remains surprisingly up for
grabs as Democrats parlay a financial edge and other advantages to battle history and a strong antiObama tide. Republicans still enjoy the more secure position. The GOP is almost certain to win open-seat contests in Montana, South
Dakota and West Virginia, getting them halfway to the six seats needed to win a majority and gain control. But the party's candidates
have yet to put away any of the 10 or so most competitive Senate races, buoying Democratic hopes they
can hang on to at least one chamber of Congress despite what appeared, at the start of this election
year, to be long odds. In Louisiana, Arkansas and Alaska, where President Obama's approval ratings are
particularly low, Democratic incumbents have kept their uphill races within striking distance. It helps
that the candidates — Mary L. Landrieu, Mark Pryor and Mark Begich — come from prominent political
families, making them familiar brand names in their respective states. But even in North Carolina, firstterm Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, a prime Republican target, has clung to a small but consistent lead in
recent voter surveys. Part of the reason is money. Democrats, unexpectedly, have had more of it this year
than Republicans. And part of it is mechanics — allocating resources, targeting voters, getting them to the
polls — which national Democrats have excelled at over the last decade. In that time, Democrats have
defeated 12 sitting Republican senators. Republicans have ousted just three Democratic incumbents,
two of them in the last midterm election under Obama, in 2010. Historically, the midterm vote has been
a referendum on the president, and this one appears to be no exception. There are three typical
outcomes for the party in the White House, said Charlie Cook, a longtime nonpartisan campaign analyst:
"Bad; really bad; and really, really bad." To a great extent Democrats are simply fighting for the least bad result,
which would be clinging to the Senate by the narrowest of margins. (Republicans are expected to modestly pad their
majority in the House and could lose a handful of governor's seats.) The GOP started the year with a distinct advantage in the Senate fight.
Democrats have been forced to defend far more seats, thanks to their gains when Obama was elected in 2008, and a number of retirements in
conservative-leaning states. Of the most competitive races, all but a handful are in places that Obama lost in 2012, several by landslide margins.
Legalizing online gambling cause massive funding boosts from—dumps millions into
GOP campaigns
Rogers 8-5
(Jerry Rogers, Founder, Six Degrees Project. “Is The GOP Going To Let Sheldon Adelson Buy An Online
Gambling Ban?” http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/05/is-the-gop-going-to-let-sheldon-adelson-buy-anonline-gambling-ban/#ixzz3BQKcUFJ6//wyoccd)
Just last week, Jack Abramoff – yes that Jack Abramoff – told Human Events that Sheldon Adelson’s attempts to ban online gaming is plain,
political corruption. A topic Abramoff knows well. What’s more, Adelson’s
pressure – that is to say, his financial support – is
tipping some in the GOP to support his proposed ban.¶ Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) had been silent on
Internet gambling right up until he introduced federal legislation to ban it, and the legislation was
announced after Adelson dropped $15,000 into Graham’s election coffers. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) – who was
palling around with Adelson at a New York City gala earlier this summer – knows full well that Adelson single-handedly kept alive Newt
Gingrich’s failed 2012 presidential bid. The governor has also been on the receiving end of Adelson’s political support.¶ Adelson
isn’t just
any billionaire. He puts his money where his mind is or, perhaps one could say, where his interests lie.
In 2012 alone, he donated around $100 million to Republican candidates and causes. His largesse
coupled with his stated willingness to “spend whatever it takes” to see his federal ban passed has
many Republicans scrambling to win what has been dubbed the “Adelson primary” and be the next big
beneficiary of Adelson’s political generosity.¶ Adelson has launched a high profile campaign to protect profits at his casinos from online
competition. Adelson fears the competition from states legalizing online gaming, and he believes it is suicidal for casino interests not to seek a
ban. Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey have legalized online gaming and nearly a dozen more states are considering following suit. So Adelson
launched an astroturf coalition, hired lobbyists to write legislation, and dug deep into his political connections.
GOP win wrecks Obama’s executive action on climate, that’s key to solve warming
Leonhardt 14 (David, correspondent for the Upshot, September 23, 2014, “Why Senate Control
Matters”, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/upshot/why-senate-controlmatters.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1///TS)
Climate. This issue leads the list because of its importance. No one can know the precise course of climate change. It’s
highly uncertain. But the risks are now serious and rising. Despite the mild summer in parts of the United States, 2014 is on
pace to be either the planet’s warmest or third warmest on record, depending on which data you use. Here are the
10 warmest years on record — going back to 1880 — according to NASA: 2010, 2005, 2007, 1998, 2013, 2002, 2006,
2003, 2009, 2012. The knock-on effects appear to include increasing risk of floods, extreme storms,
species extinction and drought, like the brutal current drought in California and the West. Mr. Obama, having failed to
pass a sweeping climate bill, has instead used executive actions to regulate pollution by automakers and
power plants . Combined, the actions would make a significant dent in carbon emissions in
coming decades.
Obviously, Mr.
Obama would veto any stand-alone law to neuter his policies. Knowing
this, Mr. McConnell has instead said he would embed restrictions on the Environmental Protection
Agency in broader budget bills. “I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against
this bureaucracy,” Mr. McConnell recently told Republican donors. If Mr. Obama vetoed those budget bills, the
government would shut down. Government shutdowns have generally hurt Republicans in recent years, and the party has tended to
fold in the end. But the politics could be different if the forcing mechanism were Mr. Obama’s veto. At the very least, he may have
to compromise over climate policy even more than he has so far. Mr. McConnell has said he will also try to
undercut Wall Street regulation and the 2010 health care law through budget bills. But he has emphasized climate policy.
Republican control of the Senate would probably mean less climate regulation — and more
carbon emissions .
Warming outweighs and turns every impact- guarantees extinction
Sharp and Kennedy, 14 – is an associate professor on the faculty of the Near East South Asia Center
for Strategic Studies (NESA). A former British Army Colonel he retired in 2006 and emigrated to the U.S.
Since joining NESA in 2010, he has focused on Yemen and Lebanon, and also supported NESA events into
Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Qatar. He is the faculty lead for NESA’s work supporting
theUAE National Defense College through an ongoing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) case. He also directs
the Network of Defense and Staff Colleges (NDSC) which aims to provide best practice support to
regional professional military and security sector education development and reform. Prior to joining
NESA, he served for 4 years as an assistant professor at the College of International Security Affairs
(CISA) at National Defense University where he wrote and taught a Masters' Degree syllabus for a
program concentration in Conflict Management of Stability Operations and also taught strategy,
counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and also created an International Homeland Defense Fellowship
program. At CISA he also designed, wrote and taught courses supporting the State Department's Civilian
Response Corps utilizing conflict management approaches. Bob served 25 years in the British Army and
was personally decorated by Her Majesty the Queen twice. Aftergraduating from the Royal Military
Academy, Sandhurst in 1981, he served in command and staff roles on operations in Northern Ireland,
Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Afghanistan, and Cyprus. He has worked in policy and technical staff appointments
in the UK Ministry of Defense and also UK Defense Intelligence plus several multi-national organizations
including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In his later career, he
specialized in intelligence. He is a 2004 distinguished graduate of the National War College and holds a
masters degree in National Security Strategy from National Defense University, Washington, D.C. AND is
a renewable energy and climate change specialist who has worked for the World Bank and the Spanish
Electric Utility ENDESA on carbon policy and markets (Robert and Edward, 8-22, “Climate Change and
Implications for National Security” http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2014/08/22/climatechange-implications-national-security/)djm
Our planet is 4.5 billion years old. If that whole time was to be reflected on a single one-year calendar then the dinosaurs died off sometime
late in the afternoon of December 27th and modern humans emerged 200,000 years ago, or at around lunchtime on December 28th.
Therefore, human life on earth is very recent. Sometime on December 28th humans made the first fires – wood fires – neutral in the carbon
balance. Now reflect on those most recent 200,000 years again on a single one-year calendar and you might be surprised to learn that the
industrial revolution began only a few hours ago during the middle of the afternoon on December 31st, 250 years ago, coinciding with the
discovery of underground carbon fuels. Over the 250 years carbon fuels have enabled tremendous technological advances including a
population growth from about 800 million then to 7.5 billion today and the consequent demand to extract even more carbon. This has occurred
during a handful of generations, which is hardly noticeable on our imaginary one-year calendar. The
release of this carbon – however –
is changing our climate at such a rapid rate that it threatens our survival and presence on earth.
defies imagination that so much damage has been done in such a relatively short time. The
the single most significant threat to life on earth
It
implications of climate change are
and, put simply, we
are not doing enough to rectify
the damage. This relatively very recent ability to change our climate is an inconvenient truth; the science is sound. We know of
the complex set of interrelated national and global security risks that are a result of global warming
and the
velocity at which climate change is occurring. We worry it may already be too late. Climate change writ large has informed few, interested
some, confused many, and polarized politics. It
has already led to an increase in natural disasters
including but not limited
to droughts, storms, floods, fires etc. The year 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record according to an American Meteorological
Society (AMS) report. Research suggests that climate
change is already affecting human displacement; reportedly 36 million
people were displaced in 2008 alone because of sudden natural disasters. Figures for 2010 and 2011 paint a grimmer picture of people
displaced because of rising sea levels, heat and storms. Climate change affects all natural systems . It
impacts temperature and consequently it
affects water and weather patterns . It contributes to desertification,
deforestation and acidification of the oceans . Changes in weather patterns may mean droughts in one area and
floods in another. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, sea
levels rise but perennial river water supplies are reduced because
glaciers are retreating. As glaciers and polar ice caps melt, there is an albedo effect, which is a double
whammy of less temperature
regulation because
of less surface area of ice present. This means that less
absorption occurs and also there is less reflection of the sun’s light. A potentially critical wild card could be runaway climate
change due to the release of methane from melting tundra. Worldwide permafrost soils contain about 1,700 Giga Tons of carbon, which is
about four times more than all the carbon released through human activity thus far. The
planet has already adapted itself to
dramatic climate change including a wide range of distinct geologic periods and multiple extinctions, and at
managed. It is human intervention
that
a pace that it can be
has accelerated the pace dramatically : An increased surface
temperature, coupled with more severe weather and changes in water distribution will create uneven
threats to our agricultural systems
Malaria, Dengue and the West Nile virus.
and will foster and support the
Rising sea levels will
infrastructure centers and with more than 3.5 billion people –
increasingly
half the planet
spread of insect borne diseases
threaten
like
our coastal population and
– depending on the ocean for their primary source of
food, ocean acidification may dangerously undercut critical natural food systems which would result in reduced rations. Climate change also
carries significant inertia. Even if emissions were completely halted today, temperature increases would continue for some time. Thus
the
impact is not only to the environment, water, coastal homes, agriculture and fisheries as mentioned, but
also would lead to conflict and thus impact national security . Resource wars are inevitable as
countries respond, adapt and compete for the shrinking set of
those available
resources . These wars
have arguably already started and will continue in the future because climate
change will force countries to act for national
survival; the so-called Climate Wars. As early as 2003 Greenpeace alluded to a report which it claimed was commissioned by the
Pentagon titled: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for U.S. National Security. It painted a picture
of a world in turmoil because global warming had accelerated. The scenario outlined was both abrupt and alarming. The
report offered recommendations but backed away from declaring climate change an immediate problem, concluding that it would actually be
more incremental and measured; as such it would be an irritant, not a shock for national security systems. In 2006 the Center for Naval
Analyses (CNA) – Institute of Public Research – convened
a board of 11 senior retired generals and admirals to assess
National Security and the Threat to Climate Change. Their initial report was published in April 2007 and made no mention of
the potential acceleration of climate change. The
national security
team found that climate change was a serious threat to
and that it was: “most likely to happen in regions of the world that are already fertile ground for extremism.” The
team made recommendations from their analysis of regional impacts which suggested the following.
some fracturing
Europe would experience
because of border migration. Africa would need more stability and humanitarian
operations provided by the United States. The Middle East would experience a “loss of food and water
security (which) will increase pressure to emigrate across borders.” Asia would suffer from “threats to
water and the spread of infectious disease.” In 2009 the CIA opened a Center on Climate Change and National Security to
coordinate across the intelligence community and to focus policy. In May 2014, CNA again convened a Military Advisory Board
but this time to assess National Security and the Accelerating Risk of Climate Change. The report
concludes
that climate
change is no longer a future threat but occurring right now
and the authors
appeal to the security community, the entire government and the American people to not only build resilience against projected
climate change impacts but to
change across
all
form agreements to stabilize climate change and also to integrate climate
strategy and planning . The calm of the 2007 report is replaced by a tone of anxiety concerning the
future coupled with calls for public discourse and debate because “time and tide wait for no man.” The report notes a key distinction between
resilience (mitigating the impact of climate change) and agreements (ways to stabilize climate change) and states that: Actions
by the
United States and the international community have been insufficient to adapt to the challenges associated with projected climate
change. Strengthening
resilience to climate impacts already locked into the system is critical, but this will reduce long-
term risk only if improvements in resilience are accompanied by actionable agreements on ways to
stabilize climate change. The 9/11 Report framed the terrorist attacks as less of a failure of intelligence than a failure of imagination.
Greenpeace’s 2003 account of the
Pentagon’s alleged report describes a coming climate Armageddon
readers was unimaginable and hence the report was not really taken seriously. It described:
which to
A world thrown into turmoil by
drought, floods, typhoons . Whole countries rendered uninhabitable . The capital of the Netherlands
submerged. The borders of the U.S. and Australia patrolled
by armies firing into waves of starving boat people
desperate to find a new home. Fishing boats armed with cannon to drive off competitors. Demands for access to water
and farmland backed up with nuclear weapons . The CNA and Greenpeace/Pentagon reports are both mirrored by
similar analysis by the World Bank which highlighted
not only the physical manifestations of climate change, but also
the significant human impacts that threaten to unravel decades of economic development , which will
ultimately
foster conflict . Climate change is the quintessential “Tragedy of the Commons,” where the cumulative impact of
many individual actions (carbon emission in this case) is not seen as linked to the marginal gains available to each individual action and not seen
as cause and effect. It is simultaneously huge, yet amorphous and nearly invisible from day to day. It is occurring very fast in geologic time
terms, but in human time it is (was) slow and incremental. Among environmental problems, it is uniquely global. With our planet and culture
figuratively and literally honeycombed with a reliance on fossil fuels, we face systemic challenges in changing the reliance across multiple layers
of consumption, investment patterns, and political decisions; it will be hard to fix!
3
Legalizing gambling only justifies the economic exploitation of the poor,
undereducated, and elderly. The dominate narrative is always in favor of gambling to
generate tax revenue, but we are never told of the structural violence perpetuated in
the nations most impoverished and underfinanced communities.
Quinn 09, James Quinn, senior director of strategic planning at a major university, “The Social Stigma
of Gambling is No More,” Worldview Weekend, October 12, 2009,
http://www.worldviewweekend.com:81/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=5474
Americans throw away close to $100 billion per year gambling in casinos and playing lotteries. This only includes the amount spent legally. Illegal gambling accounts
for billions more. This is the net amount spent. In reality, $60 billion is spent on lottery tickets or $600 per household annually. Another $100 billion is squandered in
gambling casinos. This amounts to $950 per household. The $160 billion spent on gambling each year is indicative of the get rich quick without hard work attitude of
Americans. Even worse, households with income under $13,000 spend, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all their income.
Our
government feeds this addiction by siphoning off billions in taxes from these gambling
revenues to redistribute as they see fit. Government sponsored gambling is a regressive tax
on the poor and is immoral. Politicians have become addicted to the tax revenues being drained
from the deprived in the country. Gambling was illegal in the U.S. until the Great Depression. Nevada legalized gambling in 1931 and over time,
Las Vegas became the gambling capital of the U.S. Atlantic City joined the club in 1978, building casinos in the midst of crime ridden slums. Gangster Bugsy Siegel
opened the Flamingo Casino in 1947 and an era of mob involvement began. Over
the last three decades gambling has exploded, as
Indian reservations have been allowed to open casinos as payback for 3 centuries of being slaughtered
by the white man. Riverboat gambling and lotteries have sprung up across the nation in order to fill the
state coffers. Abetted by Congress, legislatures from 48 states now sponsor gambling operations and
lottery monopolies to balance their budgets on the backs of their underprivileged and most
susceptible citizens, while basking in the virtue of fighting tax increases.
Rather than control costs,
states find it much easier to lure the poor into parting with the little money they have . The
amount of money frittered away on games of chance rose by 59% between 1999 and 2007. This coincided with the national debt induced housing frenzy and the
high stakes gambling attitude on Wall Street. It warms the cockles of my heart knowing that people were taking out home equity loans to gamble at casinos. In
1999, the bipartisan National Gambling Impact Commission found that 80% of gambling revenue comes from households with incomes of less than $50,000 a year.
Those who can afford to lose the least, are spending the most. The incredible escalation of
gambling, encouraged and sustained by local and state governments has done long lasting
damage to the social fabric of society and has further impoverished those who have the
least to lose. The gambling industry has grown tenfold since 1975, with 41 states now running weekly
lotteries. Nineteen states now have legalized commercial casinos, while twenty-nine states have Indian
casinos. There are a total of 450 commercial casinos in the country. The first online gambling site launched in August 1995. It
is currently estimated that there are well over 2,000 Internet gambling Web sites offering various wagering options, including sports betting, casino games, lotteries
and bingo. Internet gambling revenue for offshore companies was estimated to be $5.9 billion in 2008 from players in the United States and $21.0 billion from
players worldwide, according to H2 Gambling Capital. Two thirds of all adults placed some kind of bet in the last year.
The social stigma of
gambling has fallen by the wayside. According to recent research, about 2.5 million adults in
America are pathological gamblers and another 3 million of them should be considered problem
gamblers, 15 million adults are at a risk for problem gambling and about 148 million are low-risk
gamblers. Gambling addiction is a compulsive need that can be devastating for the person and his
family. Gambling addiction statistics show that more than 80% of American adults report having
gambled at some point in their lives. Gambling addiction statistics reveal that well over $500 billion is
spent as annual wagers. The statistics show that during any year, 2.9% of U.S. adults are considered to
be either pathological or problem gamblers. The average debt incurred by a male pathological gambler
in the U.S. is between $55,000 and $90,000. The average rate of divorce for problem gamblers is nearly
twice that of non-gamblers. The suicide rate for pathological gamblers is twenty times higher than for
non-gamblers. 65% of pathological gamblers commit crimes to support their gambling habit. All of these
wonderful side effects are fully supported and subsidized by the government.I'm completely in favor of allowing citizens
to do anything they want with their money. It's theoretically a free country and if people chose to gamble with their disposable income rather than contribute to
their 401k or kids college fund, that is their choice. What I do object to is state and local governments turning to gambling in an attempt to plug their budget deficits
caused by doling out ungodly generous benefits to state union workers and frivolous wasteful pork projects designed to get lawmakers re-elected.
The
facts are that gambling negatively impacts the uneducated poor, senior citizens, and young
adults the most. Government is preying on the ignorant to support their unquenchable
thirst for more funds to support their social agendas.
Gambling has been legalized in States and Cities run by Republicans
and Democrats. But, the facts are that the venues with the largest gambling empires are controlled by the Democratic Party and have been for decades. Las Vegas,
Atlantic City, Chicago, Connecticut, Detroit, and St. Louis are Democratic strongholds
. It is not surprising to me that cities with
the highest poverty rates such as Detroit, Atlantic City, and St. Louis are most dependent on
taxes from gambling.
The hypocrisy of the politicians in these cities is mind numbing.
They are truly vampires draining
the poor of the little they have to allegedly pay for programs to help the poor. Instead, the
money is funneled to unions and crooked politicians. It is utterly disgusting that players with annual incomes of less than
$10,000 spend almost three times as much on gambling as those with incomes of more than $50,000. With the vigorous support of state governments, US
gamblers, many of them scraping by on insufficient incomes, had to lose $92 billion last year in casinos and lotteries for the states to raise $24 billion in new
revenues. Most states gain political support for their lotteries by earmarking them for appealing causes such as education, schools, roads, and parks. How warm
hearted. But there is no practical way to prevent a legislature from allocating these revenues to other reelection-prompting purposes. Revenues derived from
gambling take money from poor families that would have been spent on such trivial expenses like food, utilities, mortgages and rent. The chart below unmistakably
proves that the state is picking the pockets of the poor, ignorant and minorities. High
School dropouts spend 125% more on lotteries
per year than College graduates. Blacks spend 57% more than Whites.The other group most abused by the nanny State is
senior citizens. Researchers at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania surveyed 843 elderly people 65 years and older and
discovered that 70 percent had been involved in at least one gambling activity in the past year and 11 percent fit the criteria of at-risk gamblers: they had recently
laid down more than $100 on a single bet and/or they had bet more than they could afford to lose.
Seniors are more likely than
younger people to be living on fixed incomes-so even small losses can have a big impact.
And they're more likely to have some type of age-related mental impairment affecting their
ability to bet responsibly.
Dr. David Oslin, the author of the study, stated, "
These seniors who are at-risk may
not be ready for gamblers anonymous but many of them don't have a lot of money and
spending on gambling could mean that they won't have anything left to buy medicines."
Casino
corporations are brilliant at marketing to senior citizens. Casino corporations segment local markets, track prospects' and players' observed worth, define their
predicted value, and systematically maximize individual "share of wallet" through targeted and customized promotional messages, limited-time cash offers, and
carefully tracked time-to-response and spending analysis. This is highly sophisticated and systematic coercion of granny. The casinos compensate their politician
sugar daddies to the tune of $27 million in lobbying (aka bribes) dollars per year. Now
that the politicians and gaming industry have
tied up the senior market, they have shifted their focus to addicting teenagers and young adults. TV glorifies
poker tournaments on ESPN. Internet gambling sites make it as easy as pie to develop a gambling addiction. All you need is a credit card to initiate your addiction.
Gambling among young people is soaring as 42% of 14-year-olds, 49% of 15-year-olds, 63% of 16-year-olds, and 76% of 18-year-olds have gambled.
According to the American Psychological Association Internet gambling could be as addictive
as alcohol and drugs. Government is robbing the most susceptible in our society, the young,
the old, the poor, and the ignorant, to fund their grand plans. My home state of Pennsylvania passed its $28 billion
annual budget yesterday, three months after the start of the fiscal year. The economic crisis has crushed state tax revenues. This should have forced lawmakers to
make tough decisions and cut costs. The humungous government bureaucracy has plenty of room to be pared back. Instead these brave politicians decided to for
permit gambling on poker, blackjack and other so-called table games at the state's slot-machine casinos. The Democratic Governor, Fast Eddie Rendell, formerly the
mayor of Democratic controlled Philadelphia, refused to fire any unionized State employees. Pennsylvanian politicians would rather take the easy way out by
imposing a regressive hidden tax on the poor to support unionized casinos and unionized State employees. Democrats know where there bread is buttered.
The
Government, which portrays itself as the protector of the poor and disadvantaged, has
further impoverished those they pretend to defend by expanding casinos and lotteries
throughout the land. These politicians can't possibly be so dim-witted that they don't
understand that gambling has an adverse impact on the unfortunate and uneducated.
concluded that these politicians just see us as rats in a cage.
I've
The only thing that drives them is power and money.
They do not care where they get tax revenue, as long as they can get re-elected by doling
out the dough to the right constituents. The uneducated and minority poor spend money
they don't have on State initiated games of chance. The State collects lottery revenue and
taxes on casino revenue to pay for welfare programs that keep the poor trapped in poverty.
Keeping the ignorant masses sedated with games of chance, easy credit, and welfare checks
allows politicians to retain power and control. Despite all of our rage, we are still rats in a
cage.
Capitalism causes global wars, warming, environmental destruction, and structural
violence – Constant drive for accumulation makes global economic collapse inevitable
Robinson 06 Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (William I., Critical
Globalization Studies, Chapter 2, “Critical Globalization Studies”, ed by R Richard P Appelbaum,
http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/Assets/pdf/crit_glob.pdf SW)
We are living in troubling times. The
system of global capitalism that now engulfs the entire planet is in crisis. There is
consensus among scientists that we are on the precipice of ecological holocaust, including the mass
extinction of species; the impending collapse of agriculture in major producing areas; the meltdown of polar ice
caps; global warming; and the contamination of the oceans, the food stock, water supply, and air. Social
inequalities have spiraled out of control and the gap between the global rich and the global poor has never been as acute as it is
in the early twenty-first century. While absolute levels of poverty and misery expand around the world under a
new global social apartheid, the richest 20 percent of humanity received in 2000 more than 85 percent of the
world’s wealth, while the remaining 80 percent had to make do with less than 15 percent, according to the United Nation’s oft-cited
annual Human Development Report (UNDP, 2001). Driven by the imperatives of overaccumulation and transnational
social control, global elites have increasingly turned to authoritarianism, militarization, and war to
sustain the system. Many political economists concur that a global economic collapse is possible, even
probable.
Our alternative is to vote negative to refuse to participate in rescue operations for
global capitalism, only a totalizing rejection can prevent extinction.
HEROD 2004 James Herod, Getting Free,
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm
destroying capitalism. This strategy, at its most basic,
calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new
civilization. The image then is one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth,
power, and meaning out of them until there is nothing left but shells. This is definitely an aggressive strategy. It
It is time to try to describe, at first abstractly and later concretely, a strategy for
requires great militancy, and constitutes an attack on the existing order. The strategy clearly recognizes that capitalism is the enemy and must
be destroyed, but it is not a frontal attack aimed at overthrowing the system, but an inside attack aimed at gutting it, while simultaneously
Thus capitalist structures (corporations, governments, banks, schools, etc.)
are not seized so much as simply abandoned. Capitalist relations are not fought so much as they are
simply rejected. We stop participating in activities that support (finance, condone) the capitalist world and start
replacing it with something better, something we want.
participating in activities that build a new world while simultaneously undermining the old. We create a new pattern of social relations
alongside capitalist relations and then we continually build and strengthen our new pattern while doing every thing we can to weaken capitalist
relations.
In this way our new democratic, non-hierarchical, non-commodified relations can eventually
overwhelm the capitalist relations and force them out of existence. This is how it has to be done. This
is a plausible, realistic strategy. To think that we could create a whole new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst
of a crisis, during a so-called revolution, or during the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy. Our new social world must grow within
the old, and in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations. Such a
revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinably, because of the inexorable, materialist laws of history. It will happen,
and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re doing and know how we want to live, and know what
obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and know how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs. But we must
not think that the capitalist world can simply be ignored, in a live and let live attitude, while we try to build new lives elsewhere. (There is no
elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage-slavery, that we can’t simply stop participating in (but even here there are ways we can chip away
Capitalism must be explicitly refused and replaced by something else. This constitutes War, but it is not a war in the
traditional sense of armies and tanks, but a war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday life, by millions of people.
at it).
It is a war nevertheless because the accumulators of capital will use coercion, brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try
to block any rejection of the system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue doing so. Nevertheless, there
are many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly. We must always keep
in mind how we became slaves; then we can see more clearly how we can cease being slaves. We were forced into wage-slavery because the
ruling class slowly, systematically, and brutally destroyed our ability to live autonomously. By driving us off the land, changing the property
laws, destroying community rights, destroying our tools, imposing taxes, destroying our local markets, and so forth, we were forced onto the
labor market in order to survive, our only remaining option being to sell, for a wage, our ability to work. It’s quite clear then how we can
overthrow slavery. We must reverse this process. We must begin to reacquire the ability to live without working for a wage or buying the
products made by wage-slaves (that is, we must get free from the labor market and the way of living based on it), and embed ourselves instead
in cooperative labor and cooperatively produced goods. Another clarification is needed.
This strategy does not call for
reforming capitalism, for changing capitalism into something else. It calls for replacing capitalism,
totally, with a new civilization. This is an important distinction, because capitalism has proved impervious to reforms, as a
system. We can sometimes in some places win certain concessions from it (usually only temporary ones)
and win some (usually short-lived) improvements in our lives as its victims, but we cannot reform it
piecemeal, as a system. Thus our strategy of gutting and eventually destroying capitalism requires at a
minimum a totalizing image, an awareness that we are attacking an entire way of life and replacing it
with another, and not merely reforming one way of life into something else. Many people may not be accustomed
to thinking about entire systems and social orders, but everyone knows what a lifestyle is, or a way of life, and that is the way we should
approach it. The thing is this: in order for capitalism to be destroyed millions and millions of people must be dissatisfied with their way of life.
They must want something else and see certain existing things as obstacles to getting what they want. It is not useful to think of this as a new
ideology. It is not merely a belief-system that is needed, like a religion, or like Marxism, or Anarchism. Rather it is a new prevailing vision, a
dominant desire, an overriding need. What must exist is a pressing desire to live a certain way, and not to live another way.
If this
pressing desire were a desire to live free, to be autonomous, to live in democratically controlled
communities, to participate in the self-regulating activities of a mature people, then capitalism could be destroyed.
Otherwise we are doomed to perpetual slavery and possibly even to extinction.
4
Text: The United States should
- ban all online gambling
-repeal Section 211 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1999
- approve nearly all Liquefied Natural Gas export applications
Here is the latest official WTO document from the Antigua dispute – it says we solve
WTO 2007
World Trade Organization, December 21, 2007, “UNITED STATES – MEASURES AFFECTING THE CROSSBORDER SUPPLY OF GAMBLING AND BETTING SERVICES” Recourse to Arbitration by the United States
under Article 22.6 of the DSU. Decision by the Arbitrator.
http://antiguawto.com/wto/84_22_6_ArbitrationReport_21Dec07.pdf
2. Alternative counterfactual 3.50 Having determined that the counterfactual used by Antigua to estimate the benefits accruing to it in this
dispute did not accurately reflect su ch benefits, we must now determine what would constitute a reasonable counterfactual, in the
circumstances of this dispute. 3.51 We first recall our determination above that a
reasonable counterfactual for the purposes
of this dispute would have to take into account the US public policy objective of protecting public morals
and public order. 3.52 The United States identified, as a potential means of implementation of the DSB's
recommendations and rulings in this dispute, a complete prohibition on the provision of remote gambling
services in the United States. 80 Antigua appears to agree that this could constitute a form of
compliance. 81 However, neither party has suggested that this scenario should form the basis of the calculation of the level of nullification
or impairme nt of Antigua's benefits for the purposes of these proceedings. We therefore do not consider it further. 3.53 The other alternative
scenario that has been pr esented to us is that identified by the United States, which assumes that the United States woul d provide
unrestricted market access for remote gambling and betting services only in respect of horseracing gambling and betting. 3.54 The United
States describes this scenario as the "most likely", and explains that the specific problem found with the US measure at issue was with respect
to the limited issue of the regulation of remote gambling on horseracing, and in particular on the United States inab ility to demonstrate an
absence of discrimination under the chapeau of GAT S Article XIV with resp ect to remote gambling services on horseracing. In the view of the
United States, nothing in the DSB recommendations required it to clarify or change its measures w ith respect to other forms of remote
gambling. 82 Moreover, according to the United States, nothing
in the DSB recommendations and rulings, nor in the chapeau
require it to treat all types of remote gambling identically, and a counterfactual
that allowed remote gamb ling on horseracing, but disallowed other types of remote gambling, is
entirely plausible. 83 3.55 Antigua, however, considers that such a scenar io would not bring the United States into compliance. Antigua
of GATS Article XIV, would
argues in particular that in the underlying proceedings, the United States alleged that it was entitled to maintain the offending measures by
application of Article XIV of the GATS and that it prohibited all remote gambling because, by its very nature, remote gambling presented risks
and other pernicious features that were not subject to amelioration through regulation or any other means. 84 In Antigua's view, the United
States can therefore not now assert that it is "necessary" to prohibit all remote gambling to protect its citi zens if it expressly allows remote
gambling in any context. Antigua also notes that the United Stat es never argued that remote gambling on horseracing was somehow "safer"
than other types of remote gambling, or that Antiguan service providers should be allowed to do only what domestic providers can lawfully do.
85 Antigua further considers that it is not for the Arbitrator in this proceeding to assess whether such hypothetical measures can bring the
United States in compliance with its obligations under the GATS. 3.56 In approaching this part of our determinati on, we are mindful that our
mandate in these proceedings is not to determine the consistency w ith the WTO covered agreements of hypothetical compliance measures.
We also note that, as we have stated above, whether the sc enario at issue is the "most likely", as described by the united States, is not
pertinent as such in our determination. Rather, as determined above, we must assess whether the pr oposed scenario could constitute a
"plausible" or "reasonable" compliance scenario, in the circumstanc es of the dispute, for th e purposes of calculating the level of nullification
or impairment of be nefits accruing to Antigua in the dispute. 3.57 We first observe, in this respect, that, as th e United States noted, the
specific aspect of the
United States' measures that was found to lead to an arbitrary discrimination within the
meaning of the chapeau of Article XIV of the GATS was the treatment of remote gambling and betting in respect of
horseracing. This was the sole basis upon whic h the Appellate Body determined that the US
measures were not justified under Article XIV of th e GATS. Specifically, the Appellate Body found that: "We find , instead, that
the United States has de monstrated that the Wire Act, the Travel Act, and the IGBA fall within the sc ope of paragraph (a) of Article XIV, but
that it has not shown, in the light of the IHA, that the prohibitions embodied in these measures are applied to both foreign and dom estic
service suppliers of remote betting services for horse racing. For this reason alone , we find that the United States has not established that
these measures satisfy the requirements of the chapeau." 86 (underlined emphasis added) 3.58 In these circumstances, in
particular in
light of the nature of the findings in the underlying proceedings, we do not find it unreasonable to assu
me that compliance might have been achieved through the removal of this specific source of discr
imination identified by the Appellate Body, that ultimately led the measures to be found not to be ju
stified under Article XIV of the GATS. We also do not find it unreasonable to assume, in the circum stances of the dispute, that it
may have been possible for the United States to remove such di scrimination by opening access to remote gambling on horseracing for foreign
providers. We also note that this is the only segment of the market that is currently already open to domestic providers, so that an extension of
this access to foreign providers would seem to require only limited adjustments to the current situation. 3.59 In making this determination, we
do not make any specific finding or determination as to the exact circumstances under which such opening might take place and what specific
conditions might be required for the United States to justify, unde r the terms of Article XIV of the GATS, such a distinction between the
treatment of remote ga mbling on horseracing and other forms of remote gambling. Rather, we are assuming that a
range of
implementation options might exist for the United States, not necessarily limited to total prohibition or
total opening of its market to remote gambling services. 3.60 We also note that the arbitrator appointed unde r Article
21.3(c) to determine the reasonable period of time for implementation in this dispute made comparable assumptions: "I am ... conscious of the
fact that any legislation adopted by the United States will inevitably, as the Appellate Body Report demonstrates, bear on questions of public
moral and public order . It seems to me that, within the field of public morals and public order, only prohibitions are simple. In other words, to
the extent that the United States may consider authorizing any fo rm of internet gambling or wagering, this will increase the complexity of any
le gislative solution. The more such activities are authorized, the greater lengths the legislat or will have to go to in order to ensure that
sufficient safeguards are in place to make the system consistent with, and acceptable under, prevailing standards of public morals and public
order . (...) However, the
United States has not, in this proceeding, explained in any precise manner how it intends
to implement the reco mmendations and rulings of the DSB. The few indications that it has given
suggest th at it is leaning more in the direction of 'confirming' or 'clarifying' the prohibiti ons on the
remote supply of gambling and betting services, rather than in the direction of authorizing, even in part,
the supply of such services."(emphases added) 87 3.61 Having determined that the alternative counte rfactual proposed by the
United States reflects a reasonable assumption as to a situation in which the United States would have complied with the recommendations
and rulings of the DSB in the circ umstances of this dispute, and thus can be considered to accurately reflect the benefits accruing to Antigua
that have been nullified or impaired, we now proceed with the calculation of the level of nullification or impairment of benefits accruing to
Antigua under this counterfactual.
U.S. failure to comply with the WTO ruling on Havana Club undermines the credibility of the dispute
settlement body.
New 13, 3/26/2013 (William – Intellectual Property Watch, United States Chided As TRIPS Scofflaw at WTO, Intellectual Property Watch, p.
http://www.ip-watch.org/2013/03/26/united-states-chided-as-trips-scofflaw-at-wto/)
“The
conduct of the U nited S tates unscrupulously discredits the WTO dispute settlement system
and also constitutes an affront to the intellectual property rights,” an ambassador from Cuba said today at
the WTO. At
a WTO D ispute S ettlement B ody meeting today, a number of WTO members fired shots at the
US delegation for its continued failure to change its laws to comply with WTO rulings that found it out of
compliance on i ntellectual p roperty- r elated issues. This includes the case involving a rum trademark dating
back over a decade, and a more recent case involving a US online gambling ban that led a WTO panel to authorise the Caribbean nation of
Antigua and Barbuda to extract payment by not protecting US IP rights until it complies. The irony of the US as IP scofflaw was not lost on
competitors like Antigua and Barbuda or Cuba, which said the
campaign
US slackness discredits its IP rights enforcement
as well as the very WTO dispute settlement process itself. “It
is very ironic to observe the U nited S tates
projecting laws on intellectual property, despite keeping violations as egregious as Section 211,” under
which the Bacardi Company continues to market rum labelled Havana Club, a mark which is otherwise owned by Cuba
and partners. “This
is one of the most famous cases of trademark counterfeiting
advertising by a company backed by the US legislation.” The
and conducting misleading
lack of any substantive change by the U nited S tates in today’s
report to the DSB “is
irrefutable proof that this country has [done] nothing during more than 11 years to comply with
the DSB recommendations and rulings, which ruled the incompatibility of ‘Section 211 of the Omnibus
Appropriations Act of 1998′ with the TRIPS Agreement and the Paris Convention,” the Cuban ambassador to the
WTO said in a translated statement. TRIPS is the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Cuba has interest in
the rum case because it is a part owner of the rum trademark everywhere in the world except the United States. “The legislative projects to
which the US delegation makes reference in their reports each month remain stagnant because it does not constitute a priority or real interest
for the administration or the Congress of that country,” Cuba said. “However, by their displaying of incoherent foreign policy, we frequently
observe how that Member promotes initiatives in terms of ‘enforcement of intellectual property rights.’” For instance, Cuba said the recently
announced US-European Union trade agreement contains the goal of “maintaining and promoting a high level of protection” of IPRs, and said
this bilateral trade agreement should be “critically question[ed].” Even the 27-member European Union weighed in on the Section 211 case,
thanking the US for its report and adding the hope that “US authorities will very soon take steps towards implementing the DSB ruling and
resolve this matter.” The EU also urged that the US comply with another IP case – Section 110(5) of the US Copyright Act – which involved the
US commercial practice of playing music recordings, such as Irish music, aloud in bars without paying royalties. “We refer to our previous
statements that we would like to resolve this case as soon as possible,” the EU said. Venezuela joined Cuba in condemning the United States for
its failure to comply with the rum case, and raised deep concerns about a continued lack of action. “This
situation is unacceptable,
disappointing, and worrying, not only because it affects a developing country member of this organisation, but also for the
grave repercussions against the credibility of DSB and the multilateral system of trade ,” Venezuela
said in its statement (unofficial translation).
solve the economy
Williams 14, David, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating the public
on the government's effects on the economy, “Boosting natural gas exports would fuel the American economy,” May 12th,
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/boosting_natural_gas_exports_w.html
The Commerce Department recently announced that the U.S. economy only grew 1.9 percent in 2013. That's almost one full percentage point
below the 2012 growth rate. Policymakers should be looking for smart, targeted ways to boost growth going forward. Chief among the
policies to consider should be to rescind
the antiquated restrictions on natural gas exports. America is now
undergoing a boom in domestic gas production with supply already outstripping local demand. This surge
has been good for Americans, holding down energy prices and spurring much-needed investment during economic hard times. This surge is also
good for taxpayers as more revenue is received without raising taxes. The
federal law requires separate U.S. Department of Energy approval
biggest roadblock to exporting natural gas is that existing
for natural gas exports. There's now a backlog of 20
requests because, since 2011, the Department has approved just two applications. No one can accuse the government of not being cautious.
For two years, the Department suspended the permit review process while it waited for the results of studies reviewing the impact of natural
gas exports on the U.S. economy. These studies -- plus several others from the private sector -- are now complete. They
unanimously concluded that allowing exports would be a benefit for our nation's economy. And these gains
would accrue to all Americans, not just those working in the energy industry or living in resource-rich states. Research from the Energy
Department, for instance, shows
that exporting natural gas would result in a $10 billion to $30 billion increase in new
economic activity. Separate work from the Council on Foreign Relations estimates U.S. gains from the gas trade to be $4 billion annually.
Those new revenues will translate to more and better jobs. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, each
additional $1 billion in exports would create more than 6,000 new domestic jobs. With current projections for unhindered natural gas
exports ranging from $13 billion to $25 billion, fully rescinding export restrictions could generate as many as 150,000 new
positions here at home. More people working means less people collecting unemployment, another win for taxpayers. Additionally, just
one natural gas export terminal could create nearly $11 million in new tax revenue every year for federal,
state, and local governments. At a time when government budgets are tighter than ever before, revenues from gas exports
could help maintain important public services while defraying public debt.
Trade
WTO collapse will cause a shift to bilateral trade and passage of the TTIP and TPA now
Hughes 13 (Kent, Director, Program on America and the Global Economy, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, September 2013, “Have Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements
Usurped the WTO?”, http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/freetrade.pdf#page=17///TS)
The World Trade Organization ( WTO) is under attack , not for what is has done but for its failure
to deal with new challenges to international trade. Regional trade and bilateral trade
agreements have surged as a result. Beyond specific rules, large trade imbalances, currency
manipulation and significant investment incentives all demand action. There is a risk of a
weakened WTO or one that becomes increasingly irrelevant to global trade. There is promise, however,
in the ability of bilateral and regional free-trade agreements to develop new governing rules for
international trade that can, in turn, create a new structure for the WTO. The current structure of trade rules is
based off the assumption of competitive free markets with limited intervention by national governments. With the rise of Japan, an
alternate approach to growth has arisen, often referred to as the East Asian Miracle. China is now
practicing its own variant of this approach. State-owned and state-influenced enterprises now play a
significant and growing role in international trade. Currencies are kept undervalued acting as a subsidy
to exports and a barrier to imports. Generous tax and other subsidies are used to attract hightechnology factories and research facilities from the United States and other advanced industrial
countries. Rampant intellectual property theft, the impact of trade on the environment, labor and the
distribution of the fruits of global growth all raise concerns. Instead of attempting to fashion new
rules at the 159-member WTO, small clusters of countries can work on developing rules that
will eventually command global respect. The ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership trade
negotiations are exploring rules for state-owned enterprises , intellectual property and digital
data and may explore the reality of undervalued currencies. The recently launched T ransatlantic
T rade and I nvestment P artnership holds out the potential for harmonizing a host of
regulatory rules that could become a global, WTO sanctioned standard. Regional trade
negotiations can be a laboratory for trade rules that will revitalize the WTO . Jagdish
Bhagwati , the eminent trade economist from Columbia University has decried the proliferation of free-trade
agreements as a spaghetti bowl of international trade. Adding the experimental sauce of
regional trade agreements can make that spaghetti bowl a tasty meal for a 21st-century
WTO .
TTIP spills-over and solves security cooperation (:15)
Brattberg, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies visiting fellow, 1-23-14
(Erik, “How Free Trade Can Revitalize Transatlantic Relations”,
http://www.fletcherforum.org/2014/01/23/brattberg/, ldg)
Transatlantic ties have taken a hit over the past few years. The
unfolding NSA scandal, the U.S. “pivot” to Asia, and the
Eurocrisis have all frayed political, economic, and security relations between the United States and the
European Union (EU). They have also highlighted the need for a re-invented and re-invigorated
partnership between the two regions. One particularly promising avenue to achieve this partnership is
the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being pursued by U.S. and EU officials. The idea of a free trade agreement between two of
the world’s biggest economies has existed since at least the mid-1990s, but it recently received renewed focus after President Obama announced a new push for a
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in his February 2013 State of the Union speech. The main goal of TTIP is to promote freer and more open EUU.S. trade and investment flows. The United States and the EU are the world’s largest trading and investment partners and although trade barriers between the two
parties are relatively low, reducing them further could generate huge savings given the size of the U.S. and EU economies. According to European Commission
estimates, TTIP could add as much as $130 billion a year to the U.S. economy and 119 billion euros to the EU economy. Creating a single market for trade and
investment extending from Hawaii to the Black Sea could also create hundreds of thousands of new jobs as more American and European companies expand to the
other side of the Atlantic. Finally, by aligning rules and regulations to the benefit of investors and entrepreneurs alike, TTIP could also pave the way for smoother
capital flows across the Atlantic. In
addition to these economic benefits, TTIP could positively affect U.S.-EU ties in
other arenas in three main ways. First, TTIP would help reinforce the EU’s role as an economic
superpower and create a strategic imperative for the United States to continue nurturing its relationship
with the region. Additionally, the EU’s inability to put an end to the Eurocrisis once and for all has reinforced the dominant view in Washington of a weak
EU.
Establishing a strong economic partnership between the United States and the EU via TTIP
could help change U.S. perceptions of the EU’s strategic importance. Second, TTIP could
promote greater political and security cooperation between the United States and the EU. In
particular, it could counter the narrative of “U.S. abandonment” currently circulating in many EU capitals
after the recent crises in Libya and Mali by creating what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has termed a “second anchor”—in addition to NATO—that
reinforces ties between the two parties. As
the United States increasingly pivots towards the Asia-Pacific
region, and its interest (and ability) to patrol Europe’s neighborhood wanes, TTIP could
rebuild trust in the United States’ enduring commitment to the EU . In the long run, as European
GDP grows as a result of TTIP, so too would defense budgets, as long as per-capita spending on defense remains constant. This
would help address a major source of U.S. criticism against Europe and may even increase European willingness to assume more responsibility for security,
particularly in its own neighborhood. Third, TTIP could help reaffirm Western values such as free trade in an increasingly multipolar world. If
properly
implemented, TTIP could serve as a model for the rest of the world by setting global standards for
production and trade. Given the size of the combined U.S. and EU economies, TTIP would make it difficult for China and other
emerging economies to adopt their own, lower standards and diminish food, health, and consumer
safety. TTIP could help bring the United States and the EU together to promote a multilateral world
order that seeks to set the terms of China’s integration rather than attempting to contain it.
Security cooperation with Europe solves nuclear war and multiple transnational
threats (:25)
Stivachtis 10 – Director of International Studies Program @ Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State
University [Dr. Yannis. A. Stivachtis (Professor of Poli Sci & Ph.D. in Politics & International Relations
from Lancaster University), THE IMPERATIVE FOR TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION,” The Research
Institute for European and American Studies, 2010, pg. http://www.rieas.gr/research-areas/globalissues/transatlantic-studies/78.html
There is no doubt that US-European relations are in a period of transition, and that the stresses and
strains of globalization are increasing both the number and the seriousness of the challenges that
confront transatlantic relations.
The events of 9/11 and the Iraq War have added significantly to these stresses and strains. At the same
time, international terrorism, the nuclearization of North Korea and especially Iran, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the transformation of Russia into a stable and cooperative
member of the international community, the growing power of China, the political and economic
transformation and integration of the Caucasian and Central Asian states, the integration and
stabilization of the Balkan countries, the promotion of peace and stability in the Middle East, poverty,
climate change, AIDS and other emergent problems and situations require further cooperation among
countries at the regional, global and institutional levels.
Therefore, cooperation between the U.S. and Europe is more imperative than ever to deal effectively
with these problems. It is fair to say that the challenges of crafting a new relationship between the U.S.
and the EU as well as between the U.S. and NATO are more regional than global, but the implications of
success or failure will be global.
The transatlantic relationship is still in crisis, despite efforts to improve it since the Iraq War. This is not
to say that differences between the two sides of the Atlantic did not exist before the war. Actually, post1945 relations between Europe and the U.S. were fraught with disagreements and never free of crisis
since the Suez crisis of 1956. Moreover, despite trans-Atlantic proclamations of solidarity in the
aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. and Europe parted ways on issues from global warming and biotechnology to
peacekeeping and national missile defense.
Questions such as, the future role of NATO and its relationship to the common European Security and
Defense policy (ESDP), or what constitutes terrorism and what the rights of captured suspected
terrorists are, have been added to the list of US-European disagreements.
There are two reasons for concern regarding the transatlantic rift. First, if European leaders conclude
that Europe must become counterweight to the U.S., rather than a partner, it will be difficult to engage
in the kind of open search for a common ground than an elective partnership requires. Second, there is
a risk that public opinion in both the U.S. and Europe will make it difficult even for leaders who want to
forge a new relationship to make the necessary accommodations.
If both sides would actively work to heal the breach, a new opportunity could be created. A vibrant
transatlantic partnership remains a real possibility, but only if both sides make the necessary political
commitment.
There are strong reasons to believe that the security challenges facing the U.S. and Europe are more
shared than divergent. The most dramatic case is terrorism. Closely related is the common interest in
halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea. This
commonality of threats is clearly perceived by publics on both sides of the Atlantic.
Actually, Americans and Europeans see eye to eye on more issues than one would expect from reading
newspapers and magazines. But while elites on both sides of the Atlantic bemoan a largely illusory gap
over the use of military force, biotechnology, and global warming, surveys of American and European
public opinion highlight sharp differences over global leadership, defense spending, and the Middle East
that threaten the future of the last century’s most successful alliance.
There are other important, shared interests as well. The transformation of Russia into a stable
cooperative member of the international community is a priority both for the U.S. and Europe. They also
have an interest in promoting a stable regime in Ukraine. It is necessary for the U.S. and EU to form a
united front to meet these challenges because first, there is a risk that dangerous materials related to
WMD will fall into the wrong hands; and second, the spread of conflict along those countries’ periphery
could destabilize neighboring countries and provide safe havens for terrorists and other international
criminal organizations. Likewise, in the Caucasus and Central Asia both sides share a stake in promoting
political and economic transformation and integrating these states into larger communities such as the
OSCE.
This would also minimize the risk of instability spreading and prevent those countries of becoming
havens for international terrorists and criminals. Similarly, there is a common interest in integrating the
Balkans politically and economically. Dealing with Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
as well as other political issues in the Middle East are also of a great concern for both sides although the
U.S. plays a dominant role in the region. Finally, US-European cooperation will be more effective in
dealing with the rising power of China through engagement but also containment.
The post Iraq War realities have shown that it is no longer simply a question of adapting transatlantic
institutions to new realities. The changing structure of relations between the U.S. and Europe implies
that a new basis for the relationship must be found if transatlantic cooperation and partnership is to
continue. The future course of relations will be determined above all by U.S. policy towards Europe
and the Atlantic Alliance.
Wise policy can help forge a new, more enduring strategic partnership, through which the two sides of
the Atlantic cooperate in meeting the many major challenges and opportunities of the evolving world
together. But a policy that takes Europe for granted and routinely ignores or even belittles European
concerns, may force Europe to conclude that the costs of continued alliance outweigh its benefits.
TPP key to Asia Pivot.
Langdon, 2014
(James, CWI Taiwan. “Obama’s TPP: Taking neo-liberalism to a new level.” August 1, 2014.
<http://chinaworker.info/en/2014/08/01/7811/> Accessed: 8/29/14 RJS)
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is still being negotiated, will be one of the largest trade deals
in history. Originally a ‘traditional’ free-trade agreement between a handful of countries, it was taken
over, expanded and radically reshaped by the US. Now much more than a deal designed to remove
tariffs, it is the economic centrepiece of the Obama administration’s so-called ‘pivot to Asia’. It has the
potential to lock neoliberalism into law in a way the world has never seen. It is impossible to understand
the TPP without acknowledging its political context, namely the ever-present backdrop of US-China
rivalry. The Obama administration has deliberately shaped the TPP as a political bloc to contain China,
relying on allies old and new to re-establish US power in the region. While many of the participant
nations rely heavily on China economically, they want to slow Beijing’s ever-increasing dominance in
Asia and thus its capacity to dictate economic terms.
The TPP negotiations include the US, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, Vietnam, Peru, Mexico,
Malaysia, Japan, Canada and Australia.
Solves multiple nuclear wars
Colby 11 – Elbridge Colby, research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, served as policy advisor to
the Secretary of Defense’s Representative to the New START talks, expert advisor to the Congressional
Strategic Posture Commission, August 10, 2011, “Why the U.S. Needs its Liberal Empire,” The Diplomat,
online: http://the-diplomat.com/2011/08/10/why-us-needs-its-liberal-empire/2/?print=yes
But the pendulum shouldn’t be allowed to swing too far toward an incautious retrenchment. For our problem hasn’t been overseas
commitments and interventions as such, but the kinds of interventions. The US alliance and partnership structure, what the late William
Odom called the United States’ ‘liberal
empire’ that includes a substantial military presence and a willingness to
use it in the defence of US and allied interests, remains a vital component of US security and global stability
and prosperity . This system of voluntary and consensual cooperation under US leadership , particularly in the security
realm, constitutes a formidable bloc defending the liberal international order. But, in part due to poor decisionmaking in Washington, this system is under strain, particularly in East Asia, where the security situation has become tenser even as the
region continues to become the centre of the global economy. A nuclear North Korea’s violent behaviour threatens South Korea and Japan,
as well as US forces on the peninsula; Pyongyang’s development of a road mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, moreover, brings into
threaten the United States itself with nuclear attack , a prospect that will
further imperil stability in the region. More broadly, the rise of China – and especially its rapid and opaque military build-up –
combined with its increasing assertiveness in regional disputes is troubling to the United States and its allies and partners across the
region. Particularly relevant to the US military presence in the western Pacific is the development of Beijing’s anti-access and area denial
sight the day when North Korea could
capabilities, including the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, more capable anti-ship cruise missiles, attack submarines, attack aircraft, smart
mines, torpedoes, and other assets. While Beijing remains a constructive contributor on a range of matters, these capabilities will give China
the growing power to deny the United States the ability to operate effectively in the western Pacific, and thus the potential to undermine
the US-guaranteed security substructure that has defined littoral East Asia since World War II. Even if China says today it
won’t exploit this growing capability, who can tell what tomorrow or the next day will bring? Naturally, US efforts to build up forces in the
western Pacific in response to future Chinese force improvements must be coupled with efforts to engage Beijing as a responsible
stakeholder; indeed, a strengthened but appropriately restrained military posture will enable rather than detract from such engagement. In
United States must increase its involvement in East Asia rather than decrease it. Simply
maintaining the military balance in the western Pacific will, however, involve substantial investments to improve
short, the
US capabilities. It will also require augmented contributions to the common defence by US allies that have long enjoyed low defence budgets
under the US security umbrella. This won’t be cheap, for these requirements can’t be met simply by incremental additions to the existing
posture, but will have to include advances in air, naval, space, cyber, and other expensive high-tech capabilities. Yet such efforts are vital, for
East Asia represents the economic future, and its strategic developments will determine which
country
or countries
set the international rules that shape that economic future. Conversely, US
interventions in the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, in south-eastern Europe have been driven by far more
ambitious and aspirational conceptions of the national interest, encompassing the proposition that failing or
illiberally governed peripheral states can contribute to an instability that nurtures terrorism and impedes
economic growth. Regardless of whether this proposition is true, the effort
is rightly seen by the new political tide not
to be
worth the benefits gained . Moreover, the United States can scale (and has scaled) back nation-building plans in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Balkans without undermining its vital interests in ensuring the free flow of oil and in preventing terrorism. The lesson
to be drawn from recent years is not, then, that the United States should scale back or shun overseas commitments as such, but rather that we
must be more discriminating in making and acting upon them. A total US unwillingness to intervene would pull the rug out from under the
US-led structure, leaving the international system prey to disorder at the least, and at worst to chaos or dominance by others who could not
be counted on to look out for US interests.
We need to focus on making the right interventions , not forswearing
them completely. In practice, this means
there, and
a more substantial focus on East Asia
and the serious security challenges
less emphasis on the Middle East . This isn’t to say that the United States should be unwilling to intervene in
the Middle East. Rather, it is to say that our interventions there should be more tightly connected to concrete objectives such as
protecting the free flow of oil from the region, preventing terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies, and
forestalling or, if necessary, containing nuclear proliferation as opposed to the more idealistic aspirations to transform the
region’s societies. These more concrete objectives can
be better met by the more judicious and economical use of
our military power. More broadly, however, it means a shift in US emphasis away from the
Middle East toward the Asia-Pacific
military potential
region, which
greater
dwarfs the former in economic and
and in the dynamism of its societies. The Asia-Pacific region, with its hard-charging economies and
growing presence on the global stage, is
where the future of the international security and economic system will
be set, and it is there that Washington needs to focus its attention, especially in light of rising regional security challenges. In light of
US budgetary pressures, including the hundreds of billions in ‘security’ related money to be cut as part of the debt ceiling deal, it’s
doubly important that US
security dollars be allocated to the most pressing tasks – shoring up the US
position in the most important region of the world, the Asia -Pacific. It will also require restraint in expenditure
on those challenges and regions that don’t touch so directly on the future of US security and
prosperity. As Americans debate the proper US global role in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Iraq and Afghanistan, they would
do well to direct their ire not at overseas commitments and intervention as such, but rather at those not tied to core US interests and the
sustainment and adaptation of the ‘liberal empire’ that we have constructed and maintained since World War II. Defenders of our important
overseas links and activities should clearly distinguish their cause from the hyperactive and barely restrained approach represented by those
who, unsatisfied with seeing the United States tied down in three Middle Eastern countries, seek intervention in yet more, such as Syria.
Indeed, those
who refuse to scale back US interventions in the Middle East or call for still more
are directly contributing to the weakening of US commitments in East Asia , given strategic
developments in the region and a sharply constrained budgetary environment in
Washington . We can no longer afford, either strategically or financially, to squander our power
in
unnecessary and ill-advised interventions and nation-building efforts. The ability and will to intervene is too important to be so wasted.
WTO is dead, regional agreements are key
Meyer 14 (Timothy, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Georgia School of Law, Winter 2014,
“From Contract to Legislation: The Logic of Modern International Lawmaking”///Proquest TS)
The future of international lawmaking is in peril. Trade negotiations have not concluded a major
negotiating round since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994. The current round
of trade negotiations, the Doha Round, has been pronounced dead over and again.1 Climate change negotiations
under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)2 have failed to produce a binding agreement on
greenhouse gas emissions reductions to replace the Kyoto Protocol.3 The U.N. Security Council has been unable to comprehensively address
the humanitarian crises in Syria. In short, the
promise of robust multilateral legal governance that the world
welcomed in the early 1990s with the end of the Cold War, the creation of the WTO,4 and the Rio Earth Summit
that produced the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),5 appears to have been a mirage. In response to
multilateralism's retreat, many commentators have called for a renewed focus on methods of
international lawmaking capable of binding reluctant states and rising powers like China and India.6 The
claim is that the world's most pressing problems cannot be solved through traditional treatymaking,
with its rules requiring states to consent to their own legal obligations. Instead, modern international
law, it is thought, requires the ability to bind holdout states without their consent through majoritarian or
super-majoritarian decision-making.7 In short, these proposals envision international law traveling the road taken by federal
systems such as the United States and the European Union: from contractual lawmaking-in which states are free to make commitments to each
other and free to decline commitments to which they object-to legislative lawmaking-in which states, through international institutions, make
collective decisions about what legal obligations to undertake.
No impact to noncompliance- history proves -- blue
Roysen 09 (Yevgeniya, Articles Editor, Cardozo Arts & Entertainment, J.D. Candidate, 2009, Benjamin
N. Cardozo School of Law, 2009, “Taking Chances: The United States Policy on Internet Gambling and its
International Implications”, Hein Online///TS)
While these arguments contain some strength, they are flawed. Setting aside agreements made as a
member of the WTO, the United States has often failed to comply with international law, with minimal
repercussions. On several occasions, the United States has either blatantly disregarded or manipulated
aspects of the United Nations Charter so that it would better suit its own needs. The Charter is itself an
international treaty of which 192 countries are members. 5 ' The most obvious instances of United States violations
involve its interventions in the affairs of other countries without the proper authorization from the
United Nations Security Council ("SC"). While Article 2, Section 4 of the Charter explicitly prohibits the use of force against another
nation, Articles 39 through 51 allow for it under the express authorization of the SC.53 While the SC granted authorization for
the use of force during the first Gulf War, it has failed to do so for the current conflict in Iraq. Nevertheless,
the United States has argued that the SC's prior authorization continues to extend to the present conflict and that the United States is not in
violation of its treaty agreements to refrain from the use of force. President
George W. Bush insisted that "under [the SC
Resolutions authorizing the use of force in the first Gulf War] - both still in effect - the United States and
our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. ' 1 4 In another
instance, in 1999, the United States led a campaign as a member of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization
("NATO") for an alleged humanitarian intervention in Kosovo, once again in the absence of express
authorization by the SC. This time, the United States argued that its intervention could be justified
morally and politically, and that circumstances such as those in Kosovo at the time require a certain
degree of flexibility in international agreements. 155 The government maintained that "UN Security Council resolutions
mandating or authorizing NATO efforts are not required as a matter of international law.",156 While these instances of disregard
for the United States' international responsibilities are not condonable, they do serve to illustrate that
the United States is very familiar with various forms of noncompliance and manipulation of its
agreements with other nations. The United States is unlikely to face significant consequences as a result
of its withdrawal from its Internet gambling commitments under the GATS, and therefore can feel at
ease allowing its domestic concerns to supersede any international implications that may arise as a
result of its anti-Internet gambling legislation. Thus far, aside from some criticism, the international reaction has
been limited to eight WTO members, requesting compensation as a result of the withdrawal.- 7 The
United States has reached settlements with all but Antigua.
The US already withdrew from GATS
Crawford, 2014 Monifa, LLM Candidate, Emory University School of Law, “The Online Gambling Conflict: Antigua & Barbuda vs. the
United States” http://law.usask.ca/documents/estey-journal/crawford15-2.pdf
In May 2007, rather
than appealing the WTO ruling, the U nited S tates announced its intentions to
withdraw from its Internet gambling commitments under the GATS.93 The U nited S tates invoked
procedures under GATS Article XXI to modify its schedules of commitments , specifically excluding online
gambling
from its recreational service commitments.94 This was
commitment
the first time a WTO member had withdrawn a
in response to a WTO ruling.95 Pursuant to Article XXI(1) (a) and (2) (a), “a Member … may modify or withdraw any
commitment in its Schedule.”96 A modification or withdrawal warrants any party affected by such action to “enter into negotiations with a
view of reaching an agreement on any necessary compensatory adjustment.”97 A condition of withdrawing from a GATS commitment is that
the withdrawing country must compensate any affected WTO members, and after the United States’ announcement, Australia, Canada, Costa
Rica, the EU, India, Japan and Macao all filed claims for compensation, arguing that they would be negatively impacted by the modification to
GATS Article XXI.98 The United States negotiated settlements with Australia, Canada, the EU and Japan, making commitments to maintain
liberalized markets in the following U.S. industries: postal services, research and development services, technical testing services, and
warehousing.99 Negotiations with Costa Rica, India and Macao are ongoing.
Internet
Collapse inevit – multiple economists agree
Peebles 14 (Graham Peebles is director of the Create Trust, “Inequality and the
Inevitable Collapse,” April 18-20 2014,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/18/inequality-and-the-inevitable-collapse/)
Inequality has far-reaching social effects and erodes democracy. Grossly unequal societies have greater levels of alcohol and
drug addiction, more crime, lower mortality rates, higher child pregnancies and lower literacy levels than less unequal countries. Political influence/control is an
added bonus for the rich; as for the rest, well they get to vote, but have little or no influence over government policy and overwhelmingly distrust politicians. With
dire poverty, as experienced by the 3.5 billion living somehow, goes lack of education, vulnerability and exploitation, all of which discolours democracy.
Inequality is the plague of our times, a divisive epidemic caused by the unjust economic system – ‘NeoLiberalism’, or market fundamentalism – which saturates the world. A system which, Noam Chomsky says, is “so dysfunctional that it cannot put eager hands to
needed work,” as would happen “if the economy were designed to serve human need rather than create wealth beyond avarice for the privileged few.” It’s hard, he
says, “to think of a more serious indictment of a socio-economic system.” The ‘dysfunctional’ socially unjust system has facilitated “very high concentrations of
wealth, and with it political power, which yields [favourably skewed] legislation, which drives the cycle forward.” Based
as it is on competition,
this ‘dysfunctional’ model breeds insecurity and stress, encourages separation and division leading to
social tension and a lack of trust. A recent survey found that in America – where inequality is ‘off the scale’ – only 15% admitted trusting their
neighbours, whereas in more equitable societies the number is closer to 60%. It encourages ‘short-termism’ and promotes the idea that everyone and everything is
a commodity to be bought and sold at a profit; it has condemned billions to lives of stifling poverty, concentrated extreme wealth and power and poisoned the
planet – perhaps irredeemably. The driving doctrine of neo-liberalism is selfishness, well-expressed Chomsky relates, “by Adam Smith (1723-1790) in what he called
‘the vile maxim of the masters of the mankind – all for ourselves and nothing for other people’.” [Ibid] It is a maxim religiously adhered to by the corporate
proponents of the system and their political allies. According
to a small army of leading economists (many of whom forecast the
2008 crash) it is however a system on the brink of collapse – again. And this time they say, it will be
worse than 2008. Peter Schiff, the best-selling author and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, says “the crisis is imminent… we’re broke
[the US]… we owe trillions [US public debt is around 17.5 trillion to date]. Look at our budget deficit;
look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”
[Money Morning] Schiff predicted the 2007 meltdown and believes that the 2008 stock market collapse
“wasn’t the real crash. The real crash is coming. … And it will be worse than the Great Recession.” It is a
view shared by others, including Robert Wiedemer, best-selling author of The Aftershock Investor, who
points out the so-called recovery is “100 per-cent fake.” He explains that the GDP of America in 2013 “grew 2%
or $350 billion, but we borrowed over $700 billion. That tells you right there that we are borrowing more than we
are even growing.” He goes on to predict “the big one [collapse] is coming . . . we’re just pumping up the bubbles,
and all that’s going to do is make them a lot worse when they pop.” [USAWatchdog] Marc Faber, financial
adviser and fund manager, expresses the same view, saying, “we are in a gigantic financial asset bubble,”
which “could burst any day,” as does renowned pundit, Warren Buffet, who is “pointing to an imminent
and devastating crash.” [Iacknowledge] Given unprecedented levels of debt and youth unemployment, together with growing inequality and a flock of
financial bubbles from bonds to housing – from Britain, where it is burgeoning ready to burst, to Australia and the US, via China and various points in between. This
includes some developing
countries that have been persuaded to adopt the same model, because according to the High
Priests of Corporate Capitalism, ‘there is no alternative’. Well for the millions and billions living without, we had better find one and soon. The collapse of
this violent unjust monster seems inevitable, whether it arrives at the ATM in 2014, 2015 or a few years
later.
No impact – governance is resilient
Drezner 12 – Daniel is a professor in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. (“The Irony of
Global Economic Governance: The System Worked”, October 2012,
http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/IR-Colloquium-MT12-Week-5_TheIrony-of-Global-Economic-Governance.pdf)
It is equally possible, however, that a renewed crisis would trigger a renewed surge in policy
coordination . As John Ikenberry has observed, “the complex interdependence that is unleashed in an
open and loosely rule-based order generates some expanding realms of exchange and investment that
result in a growing array of firms, interest groups and other sorts of political stakeholders who seek to
preserve the stability and openness of the system.”103 The post-2008 economic order has
remained open , entrenching these interests even more across the globe. Despite uncertain times, the
open economic system that has been in operation since 1945 does not appear to be closing
anytime soon .
Debt, Food, energy and water are all going to implode – devastates the economy
MMS 13 [Money Morning Staff, “Expert Warns Debt Crisis Will Spark An Economic Collapse Worse Than 2008 (TZA, FAZ, GLD, SLV, SDS,
FAS)” http://etfdailynews.com/2013/01/23/expert-warns-debt-crisis-will-spark-an-economic-collapse-worse-than-2008-tza-faz-gld-slv-sds-fas/
Jan 23 2013]//BM
Click on the short video above to see a sample. to see charts, facts, and details. One member of this team, Chris Martenson, a pathologist and
former VP of a Fortune 300 company, explains their findings: “We
found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit
market, and money supply that guarantees they’re going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid
scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible. “And what’s
really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn’t limited to our economy. We found the same
catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well.” According to Martenson: “These systems could
all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything.” Another member of this team, Keith Fitz-Gerald, the
president of the Fitz-Gerald Group, went on to explain their discoveries. “What this pattern represents is a dangerous
countdown clock that’s quickly approaching zero. And when it does, the resulting chaos is going to crush
Americans,” Fitz-Gerald says. Dr. Kent Moors, an adviser to 16 world governments on energy issues as well as a member of two U.S. State
Department tasks forces on energy also voiced concerns over what he and his colleagues uncovered. “Most frightening of all is how this exact
same pattern keeps appearing in virtually every system critical to our society and way of life,” Dr. Moors stated. Caption: The work of this team
garnered such attention, they were brought in front of the United Nations, U.K. Parliament, and numerous Fortune 500 companies to share
much of their findings. Click the short video above to see a sample. “It’s a pattern that’s hard to see unless you understand the way a
catastrophe like this gains traction,” Dr. Moors says. “At first, it’s
almost impossible to perceive. Everything looks fine, just like in
every pyramid scheme. Yet the insidious growth of the virus keeps doubling in size, over and over again – in shorter and
shorter periods of time – until it hits unsustainable levels. And it collapses the system.” Martenson points to the U.S. total
credit market debt as an example of this unnerving pattern. “For 30 years – from the 1940s through the 1970s – our total credit market debt
was moderate and entirely reasonable,” he says. “But then in seven years, from 1970 to 1977, it quickly doubled. And then it doubled again in
seven more years. Then five years to double a third time. And then it doubled two more times after that. “Where we were sitting at a total
credit market debt that was 158% larger than our GDP in the early 1940s… By 2011 that figure was 357%.” Dr. Moors warns this
type of
unsustainable road to collapse can be seen today in our energy, food and water production. All are
tightly connected and contributing to the economic disaster that lies directly ahead. According to polls, the average American is
sensing danger. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans believe a catastrophe is looming – yet only 15% feel prepared for such a deeply
troubling event. Get A Free Trend Analysis For Any Stock Shares Here! Fitz-Gerald says people should take steps to protect themselves from
what is happening. “The amount of risky financial derivatives floating around the globe is as much as 20 times size of the entire GDP of the
world,” he says. “It’s
unsustainable and impossible to unwind in any kind of orderly way.” Moreover, he adds:
“People can also forget that the FDIC can only cover a fraction of US bank deposits. It’s a false sense of security. Just like state
pensions, which could be suspended at any time. A collapse could wipe out these programs. Entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are
already bankrupt and simply being propped up.” We can see the strain on society already. In two years, Congress
won’t have any
money for transportation, reports the Washington Post. Cities like Trenton, NJ have layed off one-third of the police force due to
budget cuts. And other cities like Colorado Springs, CO removed one-third of streetlights, trashcans, and bus routes, reports CNN. Fitz-Gerald
also warns of a period of devastating inflation. A recent survey, reports USA Today, notes that in the coming years it could take $150,000 a year
in household income for a family to afford basic living expenses – and maybe go out to a movie. Right now, in fact, “52% of Americans feel they
barely have enough to afford the basics.” “If our research is right,” says Fitz-Gerald, “Americans
will have to make some tough
choices on how they’ll go about surviving when basic necessities become nearly unaffordable and the
economy becomes dangerously unstable.” “People need to begin to make preparations with their investments, retirement savings, and
personal finances before it’s too late.” says Fitz-Gerald. Related: Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares ETF (NYSEARCA:FAZ), SPDR Gold Trust
(NYSEARCA:GLD), iShares Silver Trust (NYSEARCA:SLV), Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares ETF (NYSEARCA:TZA), ProShares UltraShort
S&P500 (NYSEARCA:SDS), Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares ETF (NYSEARCA:FAS).
2NC
K
Second - No value to life—
Capitalism is an inherently dehumanizing force that prevents any relation of the
proletariat to their own physical existence; they exist solely as a productive force
Marsh 95- Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, PhD from Northwestern University
(James, Critique Action and Liberation, p 277)
Ideally, nature, workers' own bodies, and the world around them, should be the vehicle
of their conscious self-expression. In estranging human beings from object and process,
capitalism estranges them from their own consciousness. It turns consciousness into a
means of individual life or mere physical existence. Rather than living to work the worker
works in order to live, to keep body and soul together. That which should be a means
becomes an end, and that which should be the end becomes a means. Rather than nature
being the environment in which human beings freely, consciously express themselves and
realize themselves, nature is turned against them. Consciousness ceases to be an end and
becomes a means to the realization of profit. Use value, the capacity of products for
fulfilling real human needs, in capitalism becomes subordinate to the product's exchange
value, the abstract labor time as measured in money. The consciousness of everyone, even
the capitalist, is alienated in the pursuit of profit. Money becomes an all-consuming god
devouring everything in its path. In this institutionalized reification in which things
become more important than consciousness, what Marx calls the fetishism of
commodities arises. Human beings forget that they are the source of value in their wealth
and think that it is the source of their value.
Third - Structural violence - Capitalism causes structural violence by rewarding systems of
economic inequality where the Food and vital necessities are treated like commodities
which poor people can’t afford—that’s led to millions of deaths—while uncomfortable
to talk about, this outweighs their contrived impacts.
Shah 10 (Anup, correspondent for Global Issues, “Today, over 22,000 children died around the world”,
September 20, http://www.globalissues.org/article/715/today-over-22000-children-died-around-theworld)
Over 22,000 children die every day around the world.
That is equivalent to:
1 child dying every 4 seconds
15 children dying every minute
A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 10 days
A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
An Iraq-scale death toll every 18–43 days
Just under 8.1 million children dying every year
Some 88 million children dying between 2000 and 2009
The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of
this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.
We have an a priori ethical obligation to reject this violence.
Daly 4 (Glyn, Senior lecturer in Politics in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences @ University College
Northampton, “Risking the Impossible,” http://www.lacan.com/zizek-daly.htm)
For Zizek it
is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol and recognize that
our ethico-political responsibility is to confront the constitutive violence of today's global capitalism and
its obscene naturalization/anonymization of the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world.
Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture - with all its pieties concerning "multiculturalist" 6 etiquette - Zizek is arguing for a politics
that might be called "radically incorrect" in the sense that it breaks with these types of positions 7 and
focuses instead on the very organizing principles of today's social reality: the principles of global liberal
capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has been bedeviled by an almost fetishistic economism that has tended towards
political morbidity With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and move recently Laclau and Mouffe, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the
transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that now presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish.
That is to say, the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly
accepting the latter as a basic horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian- Lacanian twist, the
few of economism can end up reinforcing a
de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it
fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism. Zizek's point is rather that in rejecting
economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the fives and destinies
of humanity and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx's central
insight that in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the
politico-discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is
persistently denied by neo-liberals; such as Rorty (1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification
of global liberal capitalism is one whose "universalism" fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a
disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world's population. In this way, neo-liberal ideology
attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply
a matter of chance and sound judgement in a neutral marketplace. Capitalism does indeed create a
space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal
and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent
global poverty and degraded "life-chances" cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale
and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless (viz. the patronizing reference to the "developing
world"). And Zizek's point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism's profound capacity to ingest its
own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a
culture of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by
postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle. Against this Zizek argues for a new universalism whose primary ethical directive is
to confront the fact that our forms of social existence are founded on exclusion on a global scale. While
it is perfectly true that universalism can never become Universal (it will always require a hegemonic-particular embodiment in
order to have any meaning), what
is novel about Zizek's universalism is that it would not attempt to conceal this
fact or to reduce the status of the abject Other to that of a "glitch" in an otherwise sound matrix.
Past precedents prove this – the state can never be combined with struggles for class
consciousness – it shuts down movements
Holloway, 10 (John Holloway, lawyer, Marxist-oriented sociologist and philosopher, whose work is
closely associated with the Zapatista movement, professor at Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
at the Autonomous University of Puebla, “Crack Capitalism” 2010 https://libcom.org/files/Holloway%20%20Crack%20Capitalism.pdf )
In the case of Bolivia and Venezuela, the processes are still open at the time of writing, but with a clear predominance of the state.
Raquel Gutierrez, in her profound analysis of the struggles in Bolivia (2009), distinguishes between the 'national-popular' struggle and the
'communitarian-popular' struggle.19 The latter comes from and develops the traditional communitarian forms of direct democracy
and has at its centre the affirmation of dignity and a refusal to accept alien domination. It was this that was the driving force of the struggles
from 2000 to 2005. But this struggle of dignity was
overlaid by the 'national-popular struggle', which focuses on the
state and pushes for the concretisation of the achievements of the struggles in the form of a new government. This meant
channelling the struggles into the party-form (the MAS) and led eventually to the election of Evo Morales as president of
Bolivia. This
brings significant reforms to the state, but involves a demobilisation and de-
radicalisation of the original movement . The original uprising by the people
converted into
a
themselves
is
movement on behalf of the people , and this leads inevitably to the reproduction
of state practices and to accommodations with the interests of capital. In the case of Venezuela, the course of the
struggles has been different, but there too there is the coexistence of two movements: the movement of community-based struggle from
below and the state-centred struggle from above. Here the struggle has been much more clearly state-dominated from the beginning, but, at
least since the attempted coup against Chavez in 2002, it has been clear that the strength of the movement as a whole is very dependent on
the strength of the movement from below. The process of transformation is seen as a movement from two sides, above and below, and the
leaders speak of the need to overcome the bourgeois state and create a 'communal type of state' .20 The creation and promotion of communal
councils is at the core of this movement.21 This raises the question of how to think about the abolition or dissolution of the state. Does it have
to come about by the creation of non-state forms of organisation ( communal or council organisation) outside the state (this is basically what
the Zapatistas are trying to do, and what has happened to some extent in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador ) ? Or can we think of the dissolution
of the state as coming about from within the state itself: revolutionaries take state power in order to dissolve the state from within? Or some
combination of the two processes? Many see the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela in these terms, as a combination of a movement from
above and from below. Can this be done? This is an important question that touches not only Venezuela, but also the attempts from within the
state to overcome the state in other parts of the world ( such as Porto Alegre, Venice, East Manchester, and so on) through the promotion of
'participatory democracy' . 22 Is it possible to re-signify the state (as Nicanoff (2007: 12) puts it), or to harmonise the dynamics of sovereignty
and autonomy (Mazzeo 2007: 2 8 ) ? This approach is sometimes discussed in terms of 'popular power' and the insistence that power comes
from the people .23 This is an attractive formulation, but the category of 'the people' actually conceals that the source of power is doing: it
abstracts from the organisation of human activity and its antagonistic existence. It is this antagonism that is skated over in the formulations that
look to an easy combination of a movement from above and a movement from below. That the state should be dissolved from within, or as a
comingtogether of pressures from within and from without, is difficult, because of the weight of inherited structures and forms of behaviour,
because of the separation of paid state functionaries from the rest of the population and because of the pressures to secure the functioning of
'the economy' (as though this were not a system of exploitation) . If
it were to be possible, then the crucial factor would be
not the revolutionary commitment of the state functionaries or politicians themselves, but the force of
the struggles outside the state apparatus for a different form of social organisation. The movement of 'from
above' and 'from below' is inevitably an antagonistic process, although the contours of this antagonism may not follow institutional
demarcations: it can be displaced into the state apparatus itself. Certainly the movement of history constantly defies theory, yet the term
'popular power' conceals the real antagonisms and difficulties. A
rebellion does not cease to be a rebellion j ust because it
is channelled towards the state . The drive towards selfdetermination remains alive, although it is likely
to be increasingly suppressed to the degree that the state structures become consolidated. A statecentred revolution is a highly self-antagonistic process, a crack that widens and plasters itself over at the
same time. Whether, and at what point, the hand that plasters succeeds in suppressing the hand that opens the crack is always the
outcome of struggle, the struggle for selfdetermination on the one hand and the struggle to contain it within forms of alien determination on
the other.24 Certainly in criticising state-centred rebellions, we should bear in mind that all rebellions are self-contradictory, that state-like
practices can easily appear within anti-state movements and that there is no purity, there are no given answers. The question, finally, is not one
of intentions, but of forms of organisation, that is, of the real practices of organisation. Any form of organisation that focuses on changing
society on behalf of the workers (the poor, the people, whoever) will tend, whatever its declared intentions, to weave acts of rebellion back
into the social synthesis of capitalism. The state is the most obvious example of such organisation.25 The argument that the
only way of
conceiving of anti-capitalist revolution is as an interstitial process should be uncontroversial. In traditional
revolutionary theory, the issue is obscured by the identification of the state with the totality of social
relations. But once it is recognised that there are many states supporting one capitalist society, then it
becomes clear that state-centred revolutions are also interstitial. The question is then not whether revolution should
be understood as interstitial (for it must be), but what is the appropriate form of interstice. The discussion above leads us to
conclude that the state is not an adequate interstitial form simply because, as a form of social
relations, it is part of the social synthesis that we are rejecting: the state is part of the
cohesive suction of capital. The only answer then is to think in terms of non-state
interstitial forms: cracks.
This debate space is key – refusal of capitalism in academia is the most important step
to revolution – it opens up space for new alternatives
Holloway, 10 (John Holloway, lawyer, Marxist-oriented sociologist and philosopher, whose work is
closely associated with the Zapatista movement, professor at Institute for Humanities and Social
Sciences at the Autonomous University of Puebla, “Crack Capitalism” 2010
https://libcom.org/files/Holloway%20-%20Crack%20Capitalism.pdf )
Do it ourselves:5 This is perhaps the core of the revolt of doing against labour. We assume our own responsibility here and now
and do it ourselves. It makes little sense to blame our political leaders as they take us into war or promote the capitalist progress
that is destroying life on earth: if there is to be any blame, we should blame ourselves for thinking of them as our leaders
or representatives. Out with the lot of them! iQue se vayan todos! We are the only ones that can now stop human selfannihilation: the responsibility is ours. This has long been the argument of radical ecological movements, for example: it is up to us to
live in a different way, to change our ecological footprint, to develop a different relationship with the other forms of life. Certainly this
pushing-beyond to a different way of living must be understood not just as personal choice but as a
pushing-against the capitalist organisation of our activity that is destroying the world (as being anti-capitalist, in
other words), but the central point is crucial:
anti-capitalism is assuming our own responsibilities ,
reappropriating our own lives, pushing aside the capital that is the constant expropriation not just of our
products but of our doing and thinking and deciding and living. Set the agenda: Doing it ourselves mean that we
set the agenda. Too often we think of anti-capitalism as protesting against the latest barbarities of the system. We march against
the war, we protest against the G 8 , we demonstrate for the release of political prisoners, we picket the Peruvian embassy to stop the killing of
the indigenous defenders of the Amazonian jungle. All
this is very necessary, but it allows capital to set the agenda to
determine the rhythms.
The revolt of doing against labour
is not just a defence against the horrors of capitalism, but it
means taking the initiative and creating now the anticipations of another world . Let them run after
us instead of us running after them. We occupy a vacant plot of land and create a garden. We make a social centre as a focus of anti-capitalist
resistance in our area.
We insist as students that the question of stopping the self-destruction of
humanity be discussed in our classes.
We occupy six towns and say Enough ! We set up a community radio station. i Ya
basta! We ask no permission and we make no demands. We do. We build another world: We get on with it, here and now. There
is a shift
in focus here. The spectacular events, the anti-summits and the social forums, are important, but they are important not for
what they might achieve in terms of changing government policies but above all as points of confluence of the different
movements: spaces in which we learn from one another and inspire one another. Most
important of all is the less visible movement of refusal and creation . This is not a question of local versus
global or micro versus macro, it is rather a question of understanding that the strength of the social flow of rebellion depends finally on our
ability to reappropriate (or avoid the expropriation of) the social flow of doing. The big events are important, but they cannot take the place of
the constant search for ways of doing against and beyond labour.
Reformism link - Gambling liberalization is a byproduct of the capitalist drive to
saturate new markets- the aff ensures the stratification and rapid expansion of
capitalist control
Reith, 2013 (Gerda, Professor at U. of Georgia, Techno economic systems and excessive consumption: a political economy of ‘pathological’
gambling)
This article argues that gambling
is a paradigmatic form of consumption that captures the intensified logic at
the heart of late modern capitalist societies. As well as a site of intensified consumption, it claims that
gambling has also become the location of what has been described as a new form of ‘social pathology’
related to excess play. Drawing on Castells’ (1996) notion of techno-economic systems, it explores the ways that intersections
between technology, capital and states have generated the conditions for this situation, and critiques
the unequal distribution of gambling environments that result. It argues that, while the products of these systems are
consumed on a global scale, the risks associated with them tend to be articulated in bio-psychological discourses of ‘pathology’ which are
typical of certain types of knowledge that have salience in neo-liberal societies, and which work to conceal wider structural relationships. We
argue that a
deeper understanding of the political and cultural economy of gambling environments is
necessary, and provide a synoptic overview of the conditions upon which gambling expansion is based.
This perspective highlights parallels with the wider global economy of finance capital, as well as the
significance of intensified consumption, of which gambling is an exemplary instance. It also reveals the existence
of a geo-political dispersal of ‘harms’, conceived as deteriorations of financial, temporal and social relationships, which disproportionately
affect vulner able social groups. From this, we urge an understanding of commercial gambling based on a critique of the wider social body of
gambling environments within techno economic systems, rather than the (flawed) individual bodies within them. No
society has ever
been quite so addictive as . . . [America], which did not invent gambling, to be sure, but which did invent compulsive
consumption’ Fredric Jameson 2004: 52 As Jameson has noted in his essay on The Politics of Utopia (2004). gambling is a type of
consumption that is aligned with compulsion. It is also a phenom- enon which is illustrative of wider
trends in capitalist modernity: he goes on. ‘late capitalism has at least brought the epistemological benefit
of revealing the ultimate structure of the commodity to be addiction itself (or. if you prefer. has produced the very
concept of addiction in all its metaphysical richness)` (2()04: 52). However. despite its centrality as a key form of cultural and economic
production, gambling has been under-theorized in the sociological literature. We hope to go some way to addressing this lacunae in an
argument that explores the cultural. political and economic conditions upon which its expan- sion is based. To begin. we note
the
recency and intensity of the development of commercial gambling itself, which was
transformed between the 1980s and 2000s when the governments of North America,
Australasia and Europe liberalised previously strict regulatory regimes . At the same time, they
pursued a set of policies that deregulated financial markets and allowed an expansion of cheap credit,
creating the conditions for the growth of a massive global industry. formational capitalism’: a period of
capitalist restructuring in which deregulation, privatization and the dismantling of the social contract
between labour and capital worked to maximize profits and globalize production, circulation and
markets The technological innovations of micro-electronics, computers and telecommunications that
were crucial to these developments ultimately created a new techno—economic system which was
‘informational, global and networked’ (1996: 77). The emergence of a modern gambling industry can be
seen as a microcosm of these developments. Within it, capitalist restructuring and technological
innovations — particularly with respect to information and communication technologies — revolutionized the ways that
games of chance could be played and marketed, and, by extension, the ways that they could be experienced
by millions of consumers around the globe. As a consequence, commercial gam- bling has today become a
site of intensified consumption. Alongside this, however, it has also become the site of what has been described as a new ‘social
pathology’. New forms of knowledge based on biomedicine and the ‘psy sciences’ (Rose 1999) have brought into being new types of subject
and, along with other twenty—first century forms of excess consumption, such as ‘binge drinking’ (Nicholls 2006) and obesity (Campos 2004),
we now have a population (or, more accurately, segments of populations) classified as ‘pathological’ or ‘compulsive’ gamblers.
The system will collapse now We’ll isolate specific resources:
a) minerals
Ahmed 14, Nafeez, international security journalist and academic. He is the author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How
to Save It,, “Scientists vindicate 'Limits to Growth' – urge investment in 'circular economy',” June 4th,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/04/scientists-limits-to-growth-vindicated-investment-transition-circulareconomy
According to a new peer-reviewed scientific report, industrial civilisation is likely to deplete its low-cost
mineral resources within the next century, with debilitating impacts for the global economy and key
infrastructures within the coming decade. The study, the 33rd report to the Club of Rome, is authored by Prof Ugo Bardi of
the University of Florence's Earth Sciences Department, and includes contributions from a wide range of senior scientists
across relevant disciplines. The Club of Rome is a Swiss-based global think tank consisting of current and former heads of state, UN
bureaucrats, government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists and business leaders. Its first report in 1972, The Limits to Growth, was
conducted by a scientific team at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), and warned that limited availability of natural resources
relative to rising costs would undermine continued economic growth by around the second decade of the 21st century. Although widely
ridiculed, recent scientific reviews confirm that the original report's projections in its 'base scenario' remain robust. In 2008, Australia's federal
government scientific research agency CSIRO concluded that The Limits to Growth forecast
of potential "global ecological and
economic collapse coming up in the middle of the 21st Century" due to convergence of "peak oil,
climate change, and food and water security", is "on-track." Actual current trends in these areas "resonate
strongly with the overshoot and collapse displayed in the book's 'business-as-usual scenario.'" In 2009, American
Scientist published similar findings by other scientists. That review, by leading systems ecologists Prof Charles Hall of State University of New
York and Prof John W Day of Louisiana State University, concluded that while the limits-to-growth model's "predictions of extreme pollution
and population decline have not come true", the model results are: "... almost exactly on course some 35 years later in 2008 (with a few
appropriate assumptions)... it is important to recognise that its predictions have not been invalidated and in fact seem quite on target. We are
not aware of any model made by economists that is as accurate over such a long time span." The new Club of Rome report says that: "The
phase of mining
by humans is a spectacular but very brief episode in the geological history of the planet… The
limits to mineral extraction are not limits of quantity; they are limits of energy. Extracting minerals takes
energy, and the more dispersed the minerals are, the more energy is needed… Only conventional ores can be
profitably mined with the amounts of energy we can produce today." The combination of mineral depletion, associated
radioactive and heavy metal pollution, and the accumulation of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel
exploitation is leaving our descendants the "heavy legacy" of a virtually terraformed world: "The Earth
will never be the same; it is being transformed into a new and different planet." Drawing on the work of leading climate scientists
including James Hansen, the former head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the report warns that a continuation of 'business
as usual' exploitation of the world's fossil fuels could potentially trigger runaway global warming that, in several
centuries or thousands of years, permanently destroy the planet's capacity to host life. Despite this verdict, the report
argues that neither a "collapse" of the current structure of civilisation, nor the "extinction" of the human species are unavoidable.
WTO
Trade doesn’t solve war
Martin et. al. ‘8 (Phillipe, University of Paris 1 Pantheon—Sorbonne, Paris School of Economics, and
Centre for Economic Policy Research; Thierry MAYER, University of Paris 1 Pantheon—Sorbonne, Paris
School of Economics, CEPII, and Centre for Economic Policy Research, Mathias THOENIG, University of
Geneva and Paris School of Economics, The Review of Economic Studies 75, 2008)
Does globalization pacify international relations? The “liberal” view in political science argues that increasing trade flows and
the spread of free markets and democracy should limit the incentive to use military force in interstate relations. This vision, which can partly be
traced back to Kant’s Essay on Perpetual Peace (1795), has been very influential: The main objective of the European trade integration process
was to prevent the killing and destruction of the two World Wars from ever happening again.1 Figure 1 suggests2 however, that during
the 1870–2001 period, the correlation between trade openness and military conflicts is not a clear cut one.
The first era of globalization, at the end of the 19th century, was a period of rising trade openness and multiple
military conflicts, culminating with World War I. Then, the interwar period was characterized by a
simultaneous collapse of world trade and conflicts. After World War II, world trade increased rapidly,
while the number of conflicts decreased (although the risk of a global conflict was obviously high). There is no clear
evidence that the 1990s, during which trade flows increased dramatically, was a period of lower prevalence
of military conflicts, even taking into account the increase in the number of sovereign states.
WTO collapse won’t cause protectionism – trade is self-enforcing
Ikenson, Associate Director at the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,
2009 (Daniel, March 12, “A Protectionism Fling: Why Tariff Hikes and Other Trade Barriers Will Be Short-Lived” Center for Trade Policy
Studies Free Trade Bulletin, No 37, http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/FTBs/FTB-037.html)
A Growing Constituency for Freer Trade The WTO/GATT system was created in the first place to deter a
protectionist pandemic triggered by global economic contraction. It was created to deal with the very
situation that is at hand. But in today's integrated global economy, those rules are not the only
incentives to keep trade barriers in check. With the advent and proliferation of transnational supply
chains, cross-border direct investment, multinational joint ventures, and equity tie-ups, the "Us versus
Them" characterization of world commerce no longer applies. Most WTO members are happy to lower
tariffs because imports provide consumers with lower prices and greater variety, which incentivizes local
business to improve quality and productivity, which is crucial to increasing living standards. Moreover, many local
economies now rely upon access to imported raw materials, components, and capital equipment for their own value-added activities. To improve chances to attract investment and talent in a
, countries must maintain policies that create a stable business
climate with limited administrative, logistical, and physical obstacles. The experience of India is instructive. Prior to reforms
world where capital (physical, financial, and human) is increasingly mobile
beginning in the 1990s, India's economy was virtually closed. The average tariff rate on intermediate goods in 1985 was nearly 150 percent. By 1997 the rate had been reduced to 30 percent.
As trade barriers were reduced, imports of intermediate goods more than doubled. The tariff reductions caused prices to fall and Indian industry suddenly had access to components and
materials it could not import previously. That access enabled Indian manufacturers to cut costs and use the savings to invest in new product lines, which was a process that played a crucial role
in the overall growth of the Indian economy.16 India's approach has been common in the developing world, where most comprehensive trade reforms during the past quarter century have
been undertaken unilaterally, without any external pressure, because governments recognized that structural reforms were in their country's interest. According to the World Bank, between
1983 and 2003, developing countries reduced their weighted average tariffs by almost 21 percentage points (from 29.9 percent to 9.3 percent) and unilateral reforms accounted for 66 percent
of those cuts.17 The Indispensible Nation The United States accounts for the highest percentage of world trade and has the world's largest economy. The WTO/GATT system is a U.S.-inspired
and U.S.-shaped institution. Recession in the United States has triggered a cascade of economic contractions around the world, particularly in export-dependent economies. Needless to say,
U.S. trade policy is closely and nervously observed in other countries. But
despite the occasional anti-trade rhetoric of the Democratic
Congress and the protectionist-sounding campaign pledges of President Obama, the United States is
unlikely to alter its strong commitment to the global trading system. There is simply too much at stake.
Like businesses in other countries, U.S. businesses have become increasingly reliant on transnational supply chains. Over 55 percent of U.S. import value in 2007 was of intermediate goods,
which indicates that U.S. producers depend highly on imported materials, components, and capital equipment. And there is also the fact that 95 percent of the world's population lives outside
the President has made it a priority to restore squandered
U.S. credibility with the international community. That objective cannot be fulfilled by acting in a
multilateral, internationalist manner on foreign policy, while acting in a provocative or unilateralist
manner on trade policy because, for most countries, U.S. trade openness and engagement is the form of
diplomacy that matters most. Accordingly, the president will have to thwart the Congress's sometimes
combative, unilateralist tendencies on trade policy if he hopes to restore U.S. foreign policy credibility.
Conclusion Despite the global economic contraction and the occasional protectionist indulgence, there
is reason to be hopefulthat retrogressive policies will be marginal, short-lived, and ultimately rejected.
of the United States, so an open trade policy is an example to uphold. Finally,
The absence of trade rules in the 1930s meant that there were no proffered courses of action, no sources of adjudication or remediation, and no generally accepted limits to the actions
governments could take in response to external economic policies. And there were far fewer domestic constituencies of any political consequence advocating against protectionism in the ‘30s.
we have the
benefit of understanding the consequences of the actions taken in the 1930s. Although that
understanding does not guarantee avoidance of past mistakes, we also have solid institutions and
incentives to help steer policymakers away from the abyss. The rules governing more than 60 years of
trade liberalization have fostered greater certainty and stability, and thus more investment, trade, and
economic growth. And today, the commercial and political appeal of protectionism is considerably
diminished because most countries have established domestic constituencies that depend on a trade
and investment environment that is open in both directions.
Consequently, there were no proven stopgaps to prevent the pandemic of spiraling protectionism that erupted and exacerbated the global recession. Today
Internet
Firm US commitment to Internet freedom at Busan vital to curb global regulations that will cause
Internet balkanization
McDowell, 13
(Chair-FCC, 2/15, “Commissioner McDowell Congressional Testimony,”
http://www.fcc.gov/document/commissioner-mcdowell-congressional-testimony)
Thank you Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo,
Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Bass. It is an honor to be before you during this rare joint
hearing. Thank you for inviting me. It is a privilege to testify before such a rare meeting of three subcommittees and beside such a distinguished
group on this panel. Ladies and gentlemen, the
Internet is under assault. As a result, freedom, prosperity and the
potential to improve the human condition across the globe are at risk. Any questions regarding these assertions are
now settled. Last year’s allegations that these claims are exaggerated no longer have credibility. In my testimony today, I will make five
fundamental points: 1) Proponents of multilateral intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will
never relent until their ends are achieved; 2) The recently concluded World Conference on International Telecommunications (“WCIT”) ended
the era of an international consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet in dramatic fashion, thus radically twisting the oneway ratchet of even more government regulation in this space; 3) Those
who cherish Internet freedom must immediately
redouble their efforts to prevent further expansions of government control of the Internet as the
pivotal 2014 Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”)1 quickly draws nearer; 4)
Merely saying “no” to any changes is – quite obviously – a losing proposition; therefore we should work to offer alternate proposals such as
improving the longstanding and highly successful, non-governmental, multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who
may feel disenfranchised; and 5) Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous Congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international
powers over the Internet reverberated throughout the world and had a positive and constructive effect. I. Proponents of multilateral
intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved. First, it
is important to note that as far back as 2003 during the U.N.’s Summit on the Information Society (“WSIS”), the U.S. found itself in the lonely
position of fending off efforts by other countries to exert U.N. and other multilateral control over the Internet. In both 2003 and 2005, due to
the highly effective leadership of my friend Ambassador David Gross – and his stellar team at the Department of State – champions of Internet
freedom were able to avert this crisis by enhancing the private sector multi-stakeholder governance model through the creation of entities such
as the Internet Governance Forum (“IGF”) where all stakeholders, including governments, could meet to resolve challenges. Solutions should be
found through consensus rather than regulation, as had always been the case with the Internet’s affairs since it was opened up for public use in
the early 1990’s.2 Nonetheless, countries
such as China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and scores of their allies never
gave up their regulatory quest. They continued to push the ITU, and the U.N. itself, to regulate both the
operations, economics and content of the Net. Some proposals were obvious and specific while others were insidious and
initially appeared innocuous or insignificant. Many defenders of Internet freedom did not take these proposals seriously at first, even though
some plans explicitly called for: • Changing basic definitions contained in treaty text so the ITU would have unrestricted jurisdiction over the
Internet;3 • Allowing foreign phone companies to charge global content and application providers internationally mandated fees (ultimately to
be paid by all Internet consumers) with the goal of generating revenue for foreign government treasuries;4 • Subjecting cyber security and data
privacy to international control, including the creation of an international “registry” of Internet addresses that could track every Internetconnected device in the world;5 • Imposing unprecedented economic regulations of rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated
Internet traffic swapping agreements known as “peering;”6 • Establishing ITU dominion over important non-profit, private sector,
multistakeholder functions, such as administering domain names like the .org and .com Web addresses of the world;7 • Subsuming into the ITU
the functions of multi-stakeholder Internet engineering groups that set technical standards to allow the Net to work;8 • Centralizing under
international regulation Internet content under the guise of controlling “congestion,” or other false pretexts; and many more.9 Despite these
repeated efforts, the unanimously adopted 1988 treaty text that helped insulate the Internet from international regulation, and make it the
greatest deregulatory success story of all time, remained in place. Starting in 2006, however, the ITU’s member states (including the U.S.) laid
the groundwork for convening the WCIT.10 The purpose of the WCIT was to renegotiate the 1988 treaty. As such, it became the perfect
opportunity for proponents of expanded regulation to extend the ITU’s reach into the Internet’s affairs. In fact, in 2011, thenRussian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin summed it up best when he declared that his goal, and that of his allies, was to establish “international control over the
Internet” through the ITU.11 Last month in Dubai, Mr. Putin largely achieved his goal. II. December’s WCIT ended the era of international
consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet in dramatic fashion. Before the WCIT, ITU leadership made three key promises:
1) No votes would be taken at the WCIT; 2) A new treaty would be adopted only through “unanimous consensus;” and 3) Any new treaty would
not touch the Internet.12 All three promises were resoundingly broken.13 As a result of an 89-55 vote, the ITU now has unprecedented
authority over the economics and content of key aspects of the Internet.14 Although the U.S. was ultimately joined by 54 other countries in
opposition to the new treaty language, that figure is misleading. Many countries, including otherwise close allies in Europe, were willing to vote
to ensnare the Internet in the tangle of intergovernmental control until Iran complicated the picture with an unacceptable amendment. In
short, the
U.S. experienced a rude awakening regarding the stark reality of the situation: when push
comes to shove, even countries that purport to cherish Internet freedom are willing to surrender. Our
experience in Dubai is a chilling foreshadow of how international Internet regulatory policy could
expand at an accelerating pace. Specifically, the explicit terms of the new treaty language give the ITU policing powers over
“SPAM,” and attempt to legitimize under international law foreign government inspections of the content of Internet communications to assess
whether they should be censored by governments under flimsy pretexts such as network congestion.15 The
bottom line is, countries
have given the ITU jurisdiction over the Internet’s operations and content. Many more were close to
joining them. More broadly, pro-regulation forces succeeded in upending decades of consensus on the
meaning of crucial treaty definitions that were universally understood to insulate Internet service
providers, as well as Internet content and application providers, from intergovernmental control by
changing the treaty’s definitions.16 Many of the same countries, as well as the ITU itself,17 brazenly argued that the old treaty text
from 1988 gave the ITU broad jurisdiction over the Internet.18 If these regulatory expansionists are willing to conjure ITU
authority where clearly none existed, their control-hungry imaginations will see no limits to the ITU’s
authority over the Internet’s affairs under the new treaty language. Their appetite for regulatory
expansionism is insatiable as they envision the omniscience of regulators able to replace the billions of
daily decisions that allow the Internet to blossom and transform the human condition like no other
technology in human history. At the same time, worldwide consumer demand is driving technological
convergence. As a result, companies such as Verizon, Google, AT&T, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and many more in the U.S. and in
other countries, are building across borders thousands of miles of fiber optics to connect sophisticated
routers that bring voice, video and data services more quickly to consumers tucked into every corner of
the globe. From an engineering perspective, the technical architecture and service offerings of these companies look the same. Despite this
wonderful convergence, an international movement is growing to foist 19th Century regulations designed for railroads, telegraphs and
vanishing analog voice phone monopolies onto new market players that are much different from the monoliths of yore. To
be blunt,
these dynamic new wonders of the early 21st Century are inches away from being smothered by
innovation-crushing old rules designed for a different time. The practical effect of expanded rules would
be to politicize engineering and business decisions inside sclerotic intergovernmental bureaucracies. If
this trend continues, Internet growth would be most severely impaired in the developing world. But even
here, as brilliant and daring technologists work to transform the world, they could be forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and
invest. In sum, the
dramatic encroachments on Internet freedom secured in Dubai will serve as a stepping
stone to more international regulation of the Internet in the very near future. The result will be devastating
even if the United States does not ratify these toxic new treaties. We must waste no time fighting to prevent further
governmental expansion into the Internet’s affairs at the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary in 2014. Time is
of the essence. While we debate what to do next, Internet freedom’s foes around the globe are working
hard to exploit a treaty negotiation that dwarfs the importance of the WCIT by orders of magnitude. In
2014, the ITU will conduct what is literally a constitutional convention, called a “plenipotentiary”
meeting, which will define the ITU’s mission for years to come. Its constitution will be rewritten and a new Secretary
General will be elected. This scenario poses both a threat and an opportunity for Internet freedom. The
outcome of this massive treaty negotiation is uncertain, but the momentum favors those pushing for
more Internet regulation. More immediately, the World Telecommunications Policy/ICT Forum (“WTPF”), which convenes in Geneva
this May, will focus squarely on Internet governance and will shape the 2014 Plenipotentiary. Accordingly, the highest levels of the U.S.
Government must make this cause a top priority and recruit allies in civil society, the private sector and diplomatic circles around the world.
The effort should start with the President immediately making appointments to fill crucial vacancies in our diplomatic ranks. The recent
departures of my distinguished friend, Ambassador Phil Verveer, his legendary deputy Dick Beaird, as well as WCIT Ambassador Terry Kramer,
have left a hole in the United States’ ability to advocate for a constructive – rather than destructive – Plenipot. America and Internet freedom’s
allies simply cannot dither again. If we do, we will fail, and global freedom and prosperity will suffer. We should work to offer constructive
alternative proposals, such as improving the highly successful multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who feel
disenfranchised. As I warned a year ago, merely saying “no” to any changes to the multi-stakeholder Internet governance model has recently
proven to be a losing proposition.19 Ambassador Gross can speak to this approach far better than can I, but using the creation of the IGF as a
model, we should immediately engage with all countries to encourage a dialogue among all interested parties, including governments, civil
society, the private sector, non-profits and the ITU, to broaden the multi-stakeholder umbrella to provide those who feel disenfranchised from
the current structure with a meaningful role in shaping the evolution of the Internet. Primarily due to economic and logistical reasons, many
developing world countries are not able to play a role in the multi-stakeholder process. This is unacceptable and should change immediately.
Developing nations stand to gain the most from unfettered Internet connectivity, and they will be
injured the most by centralized multilateral control of its operations and content. V. Last year’s bipartisan and
unanimous Congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international powers over the
Internet reverberated around the world and had a positive and constructive effect, but Congress must
do more. In my nearly seven years of service on the FCC, I have been amazed by how closely every government and
communications provider on the globe studies the latest developments in American communications
policy. In fact, we can be confident that this hearing is streaming live in some countries, and is being blocked by government censors in
others. Every detail of our actions is scrutinized. It is truly humbling to learn that even my statements have been read in Thailand and Taiwan,
as well as translated into Polish and Italian. And when
Congress speaks, especially when it speaks with one loud and
clear voice, as it did last year with the unanimous and bipartisan resolutions concerning the WCIT, an uncountable number of
global policymakers pause to think. Time and again, I have been told by international legislators, ministers, regulators and
business leaders that last year’s resolutions had a positive effect on the outcome of the WCIT. Although Internet freedom suffered as a result of
the WCIT, many even more corrosive proposals did not become international law in part due to your actions.20 IV. Conclusion. And so, I ask you
in the strongest terms possible, to take
action and take action now. Two years hence, let us not look back at this moment and
lament how we did not do enough. We have but one chance. Let us tell the world that we will be resolute and stand
strong for Internet freedom. All nations should join us. Thank you for having me appear before you today. I look forward to your
questions.
Economic turmoil doesn’t translate into security conflicts- the 2008 collapse disprovescooperation and trade prevail- that’s Drezner
Impact empirically denied
Barnett ‘9 (Thomas P.M. Barnett, senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC, “The New Rules: Security Remains Stable Amid
Financial Crisis,” 8/25/2009)
When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary
regarding, ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news
brightens and recovery -- surprisingly led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over the past year
and realize how globalization's
first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the
international security landscape. None of the
can be
clearly
attributed to the
global
more than three-dozen
ongoing conflicts
listed by GlobalSecurity.org
recession . Indeed, the last new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in
the Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 lowintensity conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006). Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict
last August was specifically timed, but by most accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external trigger
(followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia and its two
breakaway regions. Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and
liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South
Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global economic trends. And
with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our
involvement elsewhere around the planet has been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the
usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with pirates off Somalia's coast).
Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something.
Our new Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces. So, to sum up: * No significant
uptick in mass violence or unrest (remember the smattering of urban riots last year in places like Greece, Moldova and Latvia?); * The usual
frequency maintained in civil conflicts (in all the usual places); * Not a single state-on-state war directly caused (and no great-power-on-greatpower crises even triggered); *
No
great improvement or
disruption in great-power cooperation
regarding the
emergence of new nuclear powers (despite all that diplomacy); * A modest scaling back of international policing efforts by the system's
acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain); and * No serious efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan or
supplant its role. (The worst things we can cite are Moscow's occasional deployments of strategic assets to the Western hemisphere and its
weak efforts to outbid the United States on basing rights in Kyrgyzstan; but the best include China and India stepping up their aid and
investments in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Sure, we've finally seen global defense spending surpass the previous world record set in the late 1980s,
but even that is likely to wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this unprecedented "stimulus" spending. If anything, the
friendly cooperation on such stimulus packaging was the most notable
great-power
dynamic
caused by the crisis.
Can we say that the world has suffered a distinct shift to political radicalism as a result of the economic crisis? Indeed, no. The world's major
economies remain governed by center-left or center-right political factions that remain decidedly friendly to
both markets and trade. In the short run, there were attempts across the board to insulate economies
from immediate damage (in effect, as much protectionism as allowed under current trade rules), but
there was no great slide into "trade wars." Instead, the World Trade Organization is functioning as it was
designed to function, and regional efforts toward free-trade agreements have not slowed. Can we say Islamic
radicalism was inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift was clearly overwhelmed by the Islamic world's growing disenchantment
with the brutality displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And looking forward, austere economic times are just as likely to
breed connecting evangelicalism as disconnecting fundamentalism. At the end of the day, the economic crisis did not prove to be sufficiently
frightening to provoke major economies into establishing global regulatory schemes, even as it has sparked a spirited -- and much needed, as I
argued last week -- discussion of the continuing viability of the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency. Naturally, plenty of experts
and pundits have attached great significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of "economic warfare" and the like between "fading"
America and "rising" China. And yet, in a world of globally integrated production chains and interconnected financial markets, such "diverging
interests" hardly constitute signposts for wars up ahead. Frankly, I don't welcome a world in which America's fiscal profligacy goes
undisciplined, so bring it on -- please! Add it all up and it's fair to say that this global financial crisis has proven the great resilience of America's
post-World War II international liberal trade order.
1NR
= LNG exports
Gaffen 14, David, oversees the stocks team, having joined Reuters in May 2009. He spent four years at the Wall Street Journal, where he
was the original writer of the web site's MarketBeat blog. He has appeared on Fox Business, CNN International, NPR, and assorted other media,
“Republican gains in November may boost chances of U.S. trade deals,” 6/16, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/16/us-usa-electiontrade-analysis-idUSKBN0ER0ET20140616
American companies can expect progress on some critical U.S. trade initiatives if the Republican Party
takes control of both houses of the U.S. Congress this November. A Republican victory in the Senate may prevent the chamber's
Democrats, backed by labor unions concerned about the impact of free trade on American jobs, from blocking trade legislation favored by both
President Barack Obama and Republican leaders. Pollsters currently see the Republicans with a reasonable chance of winning just enough seats
to gain control of the Senate in mid-term elections, which would give them their first majority in both chambers since 2006. They easily control
the House of Representatives. There should be enough support from Republican lawmakers to advance trade legislation, though some Tea
Party members are also wary of such deals. One area that might take a hit is future funding of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the
nation's export credit agency, as some conservatives see it providing “corporate welfare” through loans to foreign buyers of goods made by
major U.S. companies. A change in control of the Senate could smooth the way toward passage of a broad trade
agreement with 11 Asia-Pacific nations and another pact with the European Union, said political strategists advising Wall Street firms. The trade
deals could benefit exporters of agricultural produce, chemicals and auto parts, among other products and services. The Republicans could also
help get approvals for
more exports of U.S. energy products, in abundance because of the shale oil and gas
boom, to Europe and Asia. “A unified Congress in one party could lead to a compromise" on trade, said Daniel Clifton,
head of policy research at Strategas Research Partners in Washington. The Obama Administration's desire for fast-track negotiating powers,
which Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid opposes, could be granted in a Republican-controlled chamber. Fast-track authority sets
objectives for U.S. trade negotiators in exchange for an up-or-down vote in Congress on trade deals, with no amendments allowed. Without
this any deal Obama negotiated could be subject to amendments that could destroy it. Many trade experts say this would aid talks on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is now in its fifth year of negotiations. Central to Obama's strategic shift toward Asia, the TPP would
connect many countries, including the U.S. and Japan, by cutting trade barriers and harmonizing standards in a deal covering a third of global
trade. Estimates from the Peterson Institute put the potential increase in U.S. exports from the TPP at about $124 billion annually, mostly in
business and financial services as well as agricultural and other products. Cracking open Japan’s protected farm market is a key goal for the
United States – while Japan was the fourth-largest importer of U.S. agriculture products, with $12.1 billion in sales in 2013, it is seen as having
much bigger potential. "We'd be getting (certain) U.S. agriculture products into Japan for the first time in 80 years," Clifton said. Companies
such as chicken, beef and pork producer Tyson Foods and agrochemical and genetically modified seeds company Monsanto Co have been
lobbying for the TPP. Tyson is the largest U.S. exporter of beef; and Japan now imposes a 38 percent tariff on beef imports. Still, some U.S.
farmers are angry over growing signs that Japan could maintain certain barriers to imports, including beef, sugar or dairy products, as part of
TPP compromises. If tariffs are not cut sufficiently, that could anger farmers, and invite Republican opposition to a deal. Republican
congressional control would also open the door to more natural gas exports
to Asia and Europe. Japan is the
biggest importer of liquefied natural gas, though it does not currently import from the U.S. "My gut would be that they’d (Republicans) be
more pro-energy which would probably have a positive impact on natural gas," said Gary Bradshaw, portfolio manager
at Hodges Capital Management, which has more than $2 billion in assets. Hodges owns shares in Cheniere Energy, which is currently turning its
LNG import terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana into an export terminal. Other potential beneficiaries are Sempra Energy and Dominion
Resources, that have approvals to develop export terminals at existing sites. A
Republican-controlled Senate could raise the
pressure on federal agencies to approve more LNG exports, particularly to Europe so that it doesn't have to be so
reliant on energy supplies from Russia, a major issue given the Ukraine crisis. But environmental reviews and the time needed to build facilities
means speeding up that process would be difficult.
Dems will win – they are spending more on the election
Brinker, 9-30
Luke. “Midterms Digest: Senate Democrats’ key advantage.” 9-30.
<http://www.salon.com/2014/09/30/midterms_digest_senate_democrats%E2%80%99_key_advantage/
>
With Republicans now favored to pick up Democratic-held Senate seats in a handful of red states and
polls showing increasingly competitive contests in blue states Iowa and Colorado, Republicans have
multiple paths to winning back the Senate majority this year. But with only five weeks until Election Day,
Democrats have one crucial advantage heading into the home stretch: they’re investing far more in the
ground game. Writing for the New York Times’ Upshot vertical, Derek Willis crunches Federal Election
Commission numbers and finds that Democrats have outspent Republicans on in-state staff and voter
turnout operations in the key Senate battlegrounds of Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, and North Carolina. In
those four states and Michigan – where Democrat Gary Peters is the favorite over Republican Terri Lynn
Land – Democratic campaigns and allied groups have spent $4.8 million on field staff, voter registration
efforts, raising awareness of absentee and early voting options, and ensuring that voters show up on
Election Day. GOP groups, meanwhile, have spent only $369,000 on the ground game in those states.
It’s a truism that elections all come down to turnout. But the strength of candidates’ ground games will
be particularly crucial in closely fought contests like North Carolina, where Sen. Kay Hagan hopes to
mobilize African-American voters to stave off Thom Tillis, and Colorado, where Sen. Mark Udall needs a
robust Latino turnout to fend off a spirited challenge from Republican congressman Cory Gardner.
Democrat spending more in swing states – gives them a competitive edge over GOP
Willis, 9-30
Derek. “Democrats Are Spending More on the Ground in Key Senate Races.” Sept 30, 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/upshot/democrats-are-spending-more-on-the-ground-in-keysenate-races.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1> Accessed: 10/5/14
With a strong possibility that Democrats could lose control of the Senate in the midterm elections, they
are investing heavily in voter turnout efforts. In states too close to call like Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and
North Carolina, Democrats are making much greater investments in the ground game than Republicans.
Not all spending is captured in Federal Election Commission data, but the spending trends are clear. The
Democrats’ spending advantage is greatest in states where they’ve had time to organize and plan for
competitive races, and they are using that edge to register new voters; publicize absentee and early
voting options; and, of course, make sure supporters actually go to the polls on Election Day. The efforts
extend to states where the Republicans more recently made Senate contests more competitive, like
Michigan. Democrats have invested several million dollars in both North Carolina and Colorado for this
ground game. Republican spending in those states so far has tended to focus on broadcast
advertisements and direct mail. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, center, leaving a newly opened field
office in Bethel in May. Bethel is rural and remote, accessible only by airplane. Democrats have had a big
edge in spending on voter turnout in the state. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times That edge
extends to Alaska, where the Democratic incumbent Mark Begich faces Dan Sullivan. Combined,
Democratic independent groups, party committees and Mr. Begich’s campaign have already spent
nearly 10 times more than Republicans on wages and expenses for local staffers; get-out-the-vote
efforts; and other field operations. The state Democratic Party alone has spent at least $763,687 on
voter turnout and staffing this year, which amounts to $1.45 for every citizen over 18 in the state. By
comparison, the more than $1 million the Wake County Democratic Party has spent on voter turnout
and staffing in North Carolina this year works out to 15 cents for every potential voter. In Iowa, the state
Democratic Party has spent more than $872,000 in ground operations, part of a substantial advantage
that Democrats have over Republicans in that state. The party has paid the salaries of at least 148
people in the current election cycle, according to data through the end of August. The Republican Party
of Iowa had 11 people on its federal campaign payroll in August. The Republican candidate Joni Ernst
had spent less than $40,000 on paid staff through June. Ms. Ernst faces Representative Bruce Braley in
the race to succeed Tom Harkin, a Democrat who is retiring. Iowa remains a tossup race, according to
Leo, The Upshot’s Senate forecasting model, with Ms. Ernst taking the lead in the latest polls.
HUGE fundraising advantage
Beckel 9/25 (Michael, Center for Public Integrity, September 25, 2014, “Senate Democrats Leading TV
Ad Blitz As Election Approaches”, http://time.com/3426909/senate-campaign-dscc-ad-televisionspending///TS)
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ruled the TV airwaves last week, even trumping the
conservative super PACs and Koch brothers-backed nonprofits they’ve accused of trying to buy
elections. The DSCC—an official arm of the Democratic Party—aired about 3,800 ads in U.S. Senate races across eight
states, according to a new Center for Public Integrity analysis of preliminary estimates provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, an
advertising tracking service. That was more than double the number of ads run by its GOP counterpart, the National
Republican Senatorial Committee, from Tuesday, Sept. 16, through Monday, Sept. 22. Such dominance isn’t shocking against
the backdrop of Senate Republicans’ fundraising hiccups: the NRSC ended August with about $5 million
less in the bank than the DSCC, according to the groups’ most recent campaign finance filings “It’s critical that the DSCC use our
sizable fundraising advantage over the NRSC to help bridge the gap and stop the Kochs from buying the U.S. Senate,” said DSCC spokesman
Justin Barasky, referring to the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch whose political network has also been a major player in
competitive Senate races. NRSC spokeswoman Brook Hougesen did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but numerous recent
fundraising pleas from the group have bemoaned the Democrats’ financial advantage. “The midterm
environment is toxic for
Democrats, yet there’s a chance Republicans may not take the Senate ,” wrote GOP strategist Karl Rove in
a fundraising message for the NRSC on Wednesday. “
Why? The Democrats have a huge money advantage .”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., struck a similar tone in a separate recent email: “If
we are unable to close the
fundraising gap, Republicans risk being outspent 3-to-1, 5-to-1, even 6-to-1 in several key battleground
races.” Despite the sheer volume of ads the DSCC produced last week, the party committee only once — in Iowa — ranked as the top
spender in a Senate race. There, it essentially tied with GOP super PAC American Crossroads, a group co-founded by Rove after the U.S.
Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010. Both American Crossroads and the DSCC aired about 1,000 TV
ads each in Iowa, according to estimates from Kantar Media/CMAG — or about one ad every 10 minutes. Republican
Joni Ernst and
Democrat Bruce Braley are locked in a bitter battle to replace long-serving Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, who’s
retiring. Overall, more than 33,000 TV ads aired in the nine most competitive U.S. Senate races from Sept. 16 through Sept. 22, according to a
Center for Public Integrity analysis of preliminary estimates from Kantar Media/CMAG. Democratic
candidates and their allies
were responsible for 52 percent of them. Democratic candidates themselves aired more TV ads than any
other spender last week in the Senate races underway in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and North
Carolina, according to Kantar Media/CMAG. The campaigns of Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Alison Lundergan Grimes — the Democrat
challenging McConnell in Kentucky — each aired about 1,200 TV ads last week. That’s one ad about one ad every nine minutes. In
Louisiana, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s campaign sponsored about 1,300 TV ads last week — or about one ad every eight
minutes. And in Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor’s campaign aired about 600 TV ads — or about one ad every 17 minutes.
In both Alaska and Georgia, meanwhile, the top Democratic ad producers were neck-and-neck with Republican spenders. For the battleground
states of Colorado and Michigan, the top sponsors of ads last week were independent groups — not a candidate or an official party committee.
In Colorado, Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit sibling of super PAC American Crossroads, ranked as the No. 1 spender, airing about 1,000 ads last
week. And in Michigan, that distinction belonged to NextGen Climate Action, the super PAC supported by billionaire environmentalist Tom
Steyer. It aired more than 1,400 ads last week supporting Democrat Gary Peters over Republican Terri Lynn Land in an open race to replace
retiring Democratic Sen. Carl Levin.
Polls and GOP fracturing
Shirley 9/29 (Craig, Reuters, September 29, 2014, “Why Republicans may not win the Senate after
all”, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/09/29/banana-republicans-stand-between-the-gopand-the-senate///TS)
Establishment Republicans should keep the champagne on ice until after the midterm elections. Too
many are already popping corks, pronouncing their strategy of “crushing” the Tea Party during the
primaries as a crucial step in their successful takeover of the U.S. Senate. There are increasing signs,
however, that the GOP might not take control of the Senate and may only make modest gains in the House of
Representatives. In states like North Carolina, for example, the GOP candidate hasn’t shown the ability to wage
a major-league campaign. In other key battleground states, the establishment GOP is supporting problematic
candidates, like Monica Wehby in Oregon, who can alternatively be described as pro-Obamacare and a plagiarist. The National
Republican Senatorial Committee handpicked Wehby over a strong conservative in the primary. She is now running 20 points
behind. In Kansas, the GOP Senate nominee, incumbent Senator Pat Roberts, seems to consider Virginia his
home because that is his only permanent residence. A sizable number of Virginia Republican voters, meanwhile, aren’t
going for Ed Gillespie, former Republican National Committee chairman, who is the GOP nominee there, either. National polls
show the GOP to be about as popular as the heartbreak of psoriasis . The Democrats, for all their
faults (and they are many) remain more
popular. Republicans are not for anything. They are defined as simply
being against President Barack Obama and certainly not for any form of federalism. Since the 1950s, beginning
with the rise of Senator Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley’s National Review, there has been a war for the soul of the GOP. But this time is
different. The establishment Republicans loath the conservative-Reaganite-Tea Party-reformer-populists, viewing them as a serious
threat. They stand as an indictment against the entire GOP insider culture. Some establishment Republicans, straining to
retain control, talk about nationalizing the midterm elections – as Newt Gingrich did in 1994, when he led the GOP take-over of the House, after
40 years of Democratic rule, and won the speakership. But the
modern GOP has no story to tell the American people.
What really unites this GOP establishment? Nothing. Not Common Core education, not immigration, not
war and peace, not government growth, not corruption.
online gambling is the key issue – they need to appeal to adelson to get his money
ANDY SULLIVAN, 14 -26 (Republican donor's attack on online gambling shadows talk of 2016,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/26/us-usa-politics-adelson-idUSBREA2P0BJ20140326)
Casino mogul
Sheldon Adelson became a major player in Republican politics
in the 2012 elections, when
he spent more than $90 million in an unsuccessful effort to oust Democratic President Barack Obama.¶ Now the 80-year-old
billionaire wants something from Washington: a ban on internet gambling, a growing industry that Adelson
says could hurt the casino industry. On Wednesday, some of Adelson's allies in Congress, including South Carolina
Senator Lindsey Graham, plan to propose legislation that would do just that.¶ The bill is not expected to go far; analysts say
Congress may not even bring the measure up for a vote this year.¶ Even so, the Las Vegas Sands Corp chief executive's push
against online gambling could force Republican politicians to confront an issue that pits religious conservatives
who agree with Adelson against more pragmatic elements in the party.¶ It also could lead to some interesting moments this
week as four potential candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich - pay their respects to Adelson and his
deep pockets during a four-day meeting in Las Vegas.
Evangelical opposition strong – they have lobby money powerful enough to influence
Best Online Casino.com News 10 (Evangelical Christians frustrate online gambling regulations,
http://www.bestonlinecasino.com/gambling-news/online-casino/evangelical-christians-frustrate-onlinegambling-regulation/)
Evangelical Christians frustrate online gambling regulation 08-03-2010 At first, it might seem a bit disreputable to claim that the
lobbying
power of the Evangelical Christians the regulation of online casino gambling in the United States frustrates. However, that’s
exactly one of the main reasons that the new gambling laws have not been implemented. Online casino
industry The American Congress provides the online casino industry serious support, which isn’t sufficient to resist the
lobbying money and attempts by the Evangelical religious groups. Both parties use a lot of money to win the battle, and
currently, the opponents of the gambling regulations are leading the fray. Evangelical Christians Nevertheless, this situation contains one major
issue: The Evangelical Christians fail to make valid statements in their fight against the online gambling business. In fact, all information is
incorrect while the claims are false. Research centers all over the globe have demonstrated that the ‘facts’ and details provided by the
Evangelical religious groups regarding the internet gambling industry right are false. Chad Hills, gambling analyst for Focus on the Family, states
that internet casinos are “the most risky and most penetrative gambling form.” However, the facts disprove Hills’ point of view, according to
the Harvard Medical School. Online gambling regulation The main issue is that the
Evangelical Christians lobbying money and
attribute to the fact
their attempts, in combination with the incorrect claims, and wrongly informed Congressional politicians, directly
that the new gambling regulations have still not been enacted.
Independent of cash – this mobilizes turn out - wins the GOP the elections –
evangelical turn out not great now
Gibson 6/27 (2014, http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/06/27/republicans-woo-evangelicalbase/32738, Republicans Woo Evangelical Base)
The Republican National Committee on Friday (June 27) launched its first web-based effort to rally conservative believers behind the party, a
sign of how crucial voter turnout will be in this fall’s close-fought midterm elections and an indication that the GOP cannot take its evangelical
Christian base for granted. “This shouldn’t be outreach, this should be who we are — it is who we are,” said Chad Connelly, director of Faith
Engagement for the Republican National Committee and the force behind this new initiative, GOPfaith.com. Evangelicals, Connelly said,
“are our
biggest, most reliable voting bloc.” The problem, however, is that even though evangelicals identify more closely
than ever with the GOP, they have have not been turning out at the polls in sufficient numbers to carry
Republican candidates to victory. Connelly, a conservative Christian and former chairman of the Republican Party in South Carolina,
said that as he traveled the country in 2012 working for the election of Mitt Romney, he found that “the faith vote was an
afterthought in a lot of places.” That came back to haunt the party, he said. He cited surveys showing that while 89 million
Americans identify as evangelical Christians, just a third of them voted in the 2012 election — and more than a fifth of those voters pulled the
lever for President Obama. RNC chair Reince Priebus set up the RNC’s Faith Engagement group last year, its first-ever strategic initiative aimed
exclusively at conservative faith-based voters. Priebus tapped to Connelly to head it, and this new get-out-the-vote campaign — “an online
home for all of our efforts, all around the country,” as he says in a video on the site. In past years, the party didn’t need to make such efforts.
Conservative believers reliably turned out for the GOP, often mobilized by adjunct organizations like the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition.
But those groups are gone, and the GOP can now use digital tools — much as Democrats have done to great effect — to directly reach
constituents who may support their agenda but who are not always showing up on Election Day. The aim of the website is, as it says, “to build
an army of conservative pro-faith activists” — sympathetic believers of all faiths, but in particular conservative Christians. The plan is to identify
100,000 believers who will spread the word at the grass roots, especially in churches. Central to the effort are pastors, who Connelly said have
been too reticent to preach about political issues. Federal law prohibits houses of worship from endorsing individual candidates, although
clergy are free to preach on social and political issues. “Let’s overcome that myth of the IRS saying you can’t talk this from the pulpit,” he said.
“Look, if there’s no freedom of speech in the pulpit, there’s no freedom of speech.” “Now is the time of righteous indignation,” he said, a time
to be the “turn-the-tables-over-Jesus” and not the “meek, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus.” The immediate goal of this initiative is
to
“maximize the faith vote” in key Senate races, especially in red states like Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas,
Louisiana and North Carolina. Winning those seats is essential to the GOP dreams of retaking the majority in the Senate
this year. While conservative Christian voters, and white evangelicals in particular, are probably not by themselves sufficient to put a
Republican in the White House in 2016, they can make the difference in local and state races. The new effort is also a signal that despite the
internal feuds over whether the GOP should downplay divisive issues like abortion and gay marriage, the
party’s leadership knows it
needs religious conservatives if it hopes to capitalize on Democratic weaknesses in November. “Many
Republican leaders are tired of losing, they see some real opportunities to win, and that means they have to fire on all cylinders, if you will. And
this is a key constituency,” said John Green, head of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron and a
leading expert on religion in American politics. “They don’t have to woo them to the party as much as they need to woo them to the
polls,” Green said of conservative evangelicals. Connelly agreed. “Nobody should ever question our party’s commitments, or our rank-andfile’s commitment, to our core beliefs,” he said. “It’s an all-hand-on-deck approach.”
Voters don’t care about foreign policy
Stevens 7/31, Stuart, Chief strategist for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. He is the author of five books, and his articles on politics
and sports have been published in The New York Times, Esquire, Outside, The Washington Post, and others., “American Voters Don’t Get
Foreign Policy,” 7/31, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/31/american-voters-don-t-get-foreignpolicy.html#sthash.KcjREYVc.dpuf
Voters
may
care little about what happens overseas , but President Obama’s lack of leadership is destined to leave
the world in flames. The American public is usually wrong on foreign policy. It takes leadership to understand that, deal with it and still do the
right thing. In the 2012 presidential race, the Romney campaign, for which I worked as a senior strategist, regularly asked a series of routine
questions about issues that mattered most to voters. No doubt the Obama campaign asked similar questions, and I’m sure their findings
mirrored ours. As an example, here
are numbers from a Romney poll taken in mid-October, before the “Foreign
Policy” debate, the third debate of the general election. It showed results that were fairly constant throughout the election. When voters
were asked: And, which ONE of the following issues do you believe should be the top priority for the
President and Congress? Economic issues like jobs Fiscal issues like the deficit, spending and cutting
taxes Foreign policy issues like national security and the war in Afghanistan Pocketbook issues like rising
prices, the cost of gasoline and housing Social issues like abortion and gay marriage” The results broke
down as follows: 56% Economic Issues 21% Fiscal issues 6% Foreign policy issues 6% Pocketbook issues
4% Social issues Not that it wasn’t obvious, but this does help explain why in a “Foreign Policy” debate there was
a lot of discussion of issues that touched on domestic policy, issues that voters felt more impacted their lives. “Trade” was
mentioned 14 times; “terrorism” only four. Like it or not, Americans today are just not that interested in foreign affairs. In
1964, Pew research showed only 20 percent of the public agreed and 69 percent disagreed with the statement, “The US should mind its own
business and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” By December 2013, those who disagreed had risen to 52 percent
and those who agreed had fallen to 38 percent—a 63-point shift. If you’re looking for an issue that unites Republicans and Democrats, this is it.
When asked, “Should the US concentrate more on our national problems rather than international,” the results vary almost none by party: 82
percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents agree. In
a world of increasingly market-based
politics—which is just a nicer way of saying that politicians poll a lot today and need to raise vast sums of money—these sorts of
numbers offer almost zero incentive for anyone to focus on international affairs. The result is that no one is
willing to take risks or lead, because there is no upside to leadership. In short, if it seems like
Americans don’t care much
about what’s happening in the world …it’s because we don’t. And most of our politicians seem perfectly happy not to care
that we don’t care. We’ve been here before and it never ends well. Before World War II, there was a wave of anti-immigration sentiment that
included even those escaping from the growing European war. In four different polls in 1938 between 71 percent and 85 percent of the public
opposed the U.S. accepting more war refuges. Tragically, in May of 1939, Jewish refugees on the ocean liner St. Louis who had escaped from
Europe without U.S. visas, were not allowed to dock. After Cuba turned them away, they returned to Amsterdam, which was soon captured by
the Nazis. In the 1940 presidential election, Republican Wendell Willkie took a more anti-Nazi, interventionist position and was crushed by
President Roosevelt. In the run-up to the election, after the start of the war in Europe, Roosevelt was so sensitive to anti-war sentiment that he
even framed his efforts to help Great Britain as anti-war. In his appeal for the repeal of provisions of the Neutrality Act that prohibited arms
sales to warring countries, he declared: “Our acts must be guided by one single, hardheaded thought—keeping America out of the war.”
Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916 on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of the War.” But even by his inaugural he was preparing the nation for
war: “There can be no turning back,” he somberly said. “Our own fortunes as a nation are involved whether we would have it so or not.” A few
years later, over 320,000 Americans had been killed or wounded in our first European war. Today President Obama declares that he has “ended
two wars.” It’s a tellingly U.S.-centered perspective from a president who greatly touted his international life experiences when he ran in 2008.
The wars haven’t ended but American troops are out of Iraq and far fewer are in Afghanistan. Our war is ended or is ending. Their war is a
horror. What is most remarkable is that while the world seems to be teetering on chaos, no
U.S. politician seems eager to step
forward and use foreign policy as a path to national leadership. The only exception may be Rand Paul, who seems
tempted to withdraw U.S. troops from anywhere their cellphones incur roaming charges.
Republican win dooms Obama court appointments
Ornstien 14 (Norm- correspondent for The Atlantic, a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal, and a resident scholar at
the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, “What If Republicans Capture the Senate?”, 3/26,
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/what-if-republicans-capture-the-senate/359694/)
Let’s put the caveats aside and explore what the policy process would look like if
Republicans do win a majority in the Senate
and hold their majority in the House. The bottom line is that the prospects for significant advances in
solving problems in key areas would be bleak . But it is more complicated, and more interesting, than that.¶ First, the
real downside. Start by imagining what the GOP zeitgeist will be if the party picks off six, seven, or eight
seats. My guess, the same as after the 2010 midterms: “Man, did that politics of obstruction work like a
charm! Let’s double down on it and take the whole enchilada in 2016!” If there is no public backlash
against an utterly dysfunctional Congress and a near-complete lack of productivity , why rock the
boat ?¶ That attitude would combine with a common reaction of lawmakers outside the president’s party in the final two years of a twoterm president: Why
do anything now that involves compromise when we have a chance to do what we
want after the next election? And there would be another factor moving toward a radical-right dominance: an explosion of interest
from Republican candidates for the presidency, and a jolt of confidence on the right that things are going their way and there is no need to
compromise on a nominee. More candidates
would emerge from the right, joining the Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio/Rand Paul/Mike
the putative presidential candidates all vote against the budget compromise
pulled together by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray—and then watching Ryan join them and vote against the
Huckabee contingent. Watching
debt-ceiling bill that basically ratified his spending deal—made it clear to me that the energy on the
presidential nominating side is all on the bedrock right edge.¶
But it is more complicated than that. While
Americans tend to look at the president as the symbol of government in Washington—giving him and his party more blame if things are not
going well in Washington—the perception would be altered if Republicans took full control of Congress. It would be much harder to diffuse
blame for a “Do-Nothing Congress.” The pressure to act, to pass legislation to deal with major problems in the country, would be enhanced,
and the conspicuous failure to act could, in the memorable words of Mitch McConnell, “damage the Republican brand.” The president would
undoubtedly use his platform to push hard for immigration reform, maybe tax reform, a serious jobs program, and an infrastructure plan,
among others. Spurning action on all of those would have its costs.¶ Second, there would be a strong impetus for Republicans to pass
legislation that had some political appeal but would draw presidential vetoes—something Democrats would have done regularly in the final
two years of the George W. Bush Administration but for GOP filibusters in the Senate. So we might get a passel of bills that provide money for
popular programs by cutting the heart out of things Democrats love—such as the recent bill that added funds for pediatric-health research by
cutting the public financing of party conventions.¶ The problem is that House-Senate tensions often supersede or at least rival partisan ones—
remember that in the Clinton era, Speaker Newt Gingrich had worse relations with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole than he did with the
president. And even if the filibuster were not a potent tool for Democrats, getting all the Republicans—including the problem-solving-oriented
contingent of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkow-ski, Bob Corker, et al—to go along with hard-edged bills would be a major challenge for the
leadership.¶ There is one last set of elements that is less complicated. A
Republican Senate would undoubtedly stop
confirmation on virtually all Obama-nominated judges, and probably on most of his executive
nominees. And we would see a sharp ramp-up of investigations of alleged wrongdoing, with Benghazi and IRS redux. If you like Darrell Issa,
you will love having his reinforcements and doppelgangers in the other chamber. If you are Barack Obama, not so much.
Progressive appointments key to solve warming- impact is extinction
Kendall, 13 -- Constitutional Accountability Center president
[Doug, and Simon Lazarus, CAC senior fellow, "Broken Circuit: Obstructionism in the Environment’s Most
Important Court," The Environmental Forum, 30.3, May/Jun 2013,
theusconstitution.org/sites/default/files/briefs/The_Environmental_Forum_Clip_Broken_Circuit.pdf,
accessed 2-9-14]
The decades-long struggle for meaningful action to address the threat of global warming has been met mainly
with stinging setbacks, except for one very bright day: April 2, 2007. That's the date that the Supreme Court de- cided Massachusetts u
EPA and held that the agency has the authority under the Clean Air Act to address climate pollution _ a rebuke to the environmentally
challenged George W Bush presidency The
Clean Air Act has become the great source of hope for
environmentalists looking for action during the ensuing ad- ministration because of the gridlock on Capitol Hill. When President
Obama said in his recent State of the Union speech that "if Congress won't act soon to pro- tect future generations, I will,” what he meant
mainly is that he will move under the Clean Air Act. And not only will he; he already has. Environmental advocates need only to look at the vote
in Massachusetts v EPA _ 5-4 along ideological lines, with justice Anthony Kennedy siding with the Court's liberal wing _ to know just how tied
up the movement's future is with the future of the judiciary Coupled with the less happy results in Bush v Gore, delivering the presidency to a
staunch environmental foe, and Citizens United u FEC; allowing corporate polluters to spend umlimited stuns electing the anti- environmental
candidates of their choice, Massachusetts
v EPA is a reminder that some of Washington's most important
environmental decision-makers wear black robes. And its not just the deciders on the Supreme Court who matter. Tucked
into a non-descript neighborhood down Capitol Hill lies the E. Barrett Prettyman Court- house, the home of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
D.C. Circuit. Widely viewed as the second most important court in the United States, the
D.C. Circuit has particular significance
for the environmental movement because of its exclusive jurisdiction to hear challenges to national
regulations promulgated under several major environmental statutes, including nota- bly the Clean Air Act. That
means the Obama administration's effort to use the act to address global warming runs though the D.C.
Circuit. This should not be a comforting realization. Successive Republican administrations have de- voted enormous efforts to
win confirmation of highly ideological judges to this critical bench, culminating with the success of President George W Bush in secur- ing four
confirmations, including two, judges Janice Rogers Brown and Brett Kavanaugh, who have suc- ceeded in the difiicult task of finding ideological
space to the right of Reagan-era conservatives such as ]udges Laurence Silberman, Douglas Ginsburg, and even, on occasion, David Sentelle. For
example, Kavanaugh recently penned a 2-1 majority opinion overturning EP/Ys Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, over a decade in the making,
which constrained individual states' con- tribution to air pollution levels in neighboring dovm- wind states. Commenting on this ruling in
October 2012, Steven Pearlstein, a Pulitzer prize-winning eco- nomic and business columnist, opined that "dysfunc- tional govermnent has
become the strategic goal ofthe radical fringe [on the political right] .... Nowhere has this strategy been pursued with more fervor, or more
success, than the U.S. Cotu°t of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where a
new breed of activist judges are waging
a determined and largely successful war on federal regulatory agencies."• The result is a court which,
on any given day has the potential to release opinions that throw the environmental movement and even
the regulatory state itself into serious disarray Witness the decision that provoked columnist Pearl- stein's outing of the circuit's "judicial
jihad against the regulatory state,"• nullifying EPNs effort _ 40 years after the passage ofthe Clean Air Act _ to finally get upwind states to
reduce pollution that is causing many thou- sands of premature deaths in downwind states. Consider also its january 2013 opin- ion on recess
appointments, a ruling that threatens to effectively shutter both the decades-old National Labor Relations Board and the brand new Consmner
Fi- nancial Protection Bureau, and, indeed, proclaims un- lawful the long-established practice of recess appoint- ments that has proven essential
to keep government functioning since the earliest days ofthe republic. The
good news is that, so far, efforts to combat global
warming pollution have survived this judicial gauntlet. In an important ruling this past summer, a panel on the D.C. Circuit
upheld important initial steps by the Obama administration that set the foun- dation for regulating major new stationary sources of emissions,
finding these rules plainly consistent with the text ofthe Clean Air Act and the Supreme Cotu"˜t's ruling in Massachusetts u EP/1. While
Kavanaugh and Brown wrote extended opinions urging the court to re- view this decision en bane, the full court denied revievxg preserving
EPNs victory unless and until the Supreme Court decides that it wants to weigh in on this critical subject. But
the stiffest tests are yet
to come, as the agency begins this year to release regulations actually setting limits on climate pollution,
beginning with new power plants and refineries. The industrial opponents of climate action will spare no resources in fighting
these impending regulations in court.
A
wild card _ quite likely a
trump card
too _ in
the outcome of these fights is the
makeup of the D.C. Circuit itself: Pacing four vacancies on the l1-mem- ber court, President Obama has the opportunity to restore
balance to this critical tribunal. But he must get these picks through a Senate that has already indicated a willingness to block just about any
judge Obama nominates. The
success of the EPAs efforts to address global warming may therefore depend on
the administra- tions success in winning two races against the clock unfolding at the same time. The administration must act
quickly in promulgating emission limits in order to get these limits out and into effect during the course of its second term. At the same time, it
must push hard for confirmations
to the dwindling D.C. Circuit bench to improve the chances that these rules
will be upheld, rather than gutted, when up for review Only if the ad- ministration wins both races can Obama be even
reason- ably confident that when he says he will act to protect future generations, those efforts will actually come to fruition.
may hang in the balance .
The earth