I can smell the flop sweat all the way from Kentucky. Below are two recent attempts by the White House to legitimize the worst trade deal ever (TPP), and the only thing even remotely transparent here is their desperate attempt to make it look like it’s a good thing for anyone other than the multinational corporations who wrote it.

Notice that at the bottom of the page (above), I highlighted the fact that the link the White House provides to what is supposed to be proof that “TPP is the most progressive deal in history” goes to a blank page. Freud would be intrigued. And on the heels of that ↑↑ press release, came this one ↓↓ the following day:

Now this one is a special kind of spin. I’d go so far as to say, “Heartland Institute-worthy.” So many layers of deception that I don’t know where to start. Suffice to say that no one can be “saying” anything about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) if they haven’t seen it. And these environmental groups don’t say that they’ve actually SEEN it (unless, of course, they took a sneak peak at the environmental chapter leaked on Wikileaks), because this thing is under tighter lock and key than Bill Clinton’s browser history. How about these much-touted “environmental groups” who are listed as supporters of TPP?

Well, the Nature Conservancy is so rotten that they drill for oil on their own conservation lands...even after being caught and exposed. And another one of these environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund, has enormous endowments from multinational corporations like Coca Cola, Alcoa, Bank of America, Kodak, Dupont and Phillip Morris, to name a few. In other words, the same corporations who stand to make a killing if TPP is passed. And World Animal Protection is SO bad that it gets a “D” rating as a non-profit by watchdog groups. And of course, they’re also “in bed” with the same big corporations who stand to gain the most from TPP; however, World Animal Protection is still in the minor leagues compared to the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. I guess they couldn’t scare up any bigger names. Here is a snippet from one of their tax returns:

So, if you’re wondering what my point is here, it’s this: the “spin” and deceptive writing does not exist solely in right wing echo chambers. I’m a liberal and I’m telling you that the malodorous drivel coming out of the White House stands up to just about anything the Republicans can crank out. We have to be honest with ourselves. And at the very moment when Shell Oil was popping champagne corks en route to the Arctic on their abomination of a drill rig, the Polar Pioneer, our President was holding back the Department of the Interior’s hushed announcement about it until after normal business hours. The time stamp on Interior’s announcement indicates that it was written at 3:22pm, it didn’t actually appear on Interior’s website until almost 7pm. Meanwhile, the White House was jumping up and down and waving a completely useless, entirely unenforceable document about greenhouse gas reductions. I hate to say it but we all need to inoculate ourselves against believing any of this. Words mean NOTHING. The only thing that matters are actions, and the only REAL actions being taken by this Administration are those which are killing our planet, from the ground up, plain and simple.