Weekend Wrap: Trade Deal’s Secrets Draw Fire from Left/Right

How the illiberal Left uses silencing tactics. Did Obama lie about the bin Laden raid? Carly Fiorina’s unique way of dealing with Chuck Todd.  Why Nate Silver says “the world may have a polling problem.”  Gov. Sandra Bullock…in Montana?  Ted Cruz interrogated on culture. Jeb would have backed Iraq invasion (like Hillary?).  And, US companies hoard cash, while big banks prep their defense.  Those stories and more are in the weekend wrap.          

But first, from The Washington Examiner- New trade warning: International ‘tribunal’ could junk U.S. laws to help foreign firms

An Asian trade deal being negotiated in secret by the administration would let an international tribunal overrule state and federal laws to help foreign firms, a new issue congressional and legal opponents are raising in hopes of slowing the race for passage.

“It is really worrisome,” said top House Ways and Means Committee Democrat Rep. Sandy Levin. “Countries do not want to give away their jurisdiction away to some arbitrary panel,” he added.

WSJ Capital Journal: BANKS PREP DEFENSE

Top executives from the biggest U.S. banks, concerned about anti-Wall Street rhetoric already bubbling up on the 2016 campaign trail, are working to push back against the prevailing narrative that banks are bad. Senior executives from seven of the biggest U.S. banks gathered or dialed into a March 31 meeting on the 51st floor of the Bank of America Tower in New York to discuss the upcoming election cycle and how the firms can counteract what they view as false and damaging statements about large banks, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the meeting. 

Politico’s Playbook:  BUSINESS BURST

Financial Times p. 1, below fold, “US companies hoard $1.7tn in cash but tap debt markets to fund M&A,” by Eric Platt in New York (online: “Top 50 US boardroom hoarders sit on $1tn in cash”): “Just five US companies are hoarding nearly half a trillion dollars as the country’s tax code and a tepid global economy deter businesses from spending their overseas cash piles. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Cisco are sitting on $439bn of cash – accounting for more than a quarter of the total $1.73tn being held by US groups, according to Moody’s Investor Services[,] … with the iPhone maker alone accounting for more than a 10th of the cash reserves.” http://on.ft.com/1FYWj3M

TRAIL MIX – “Jeb … says he … would have backed Iraq invasion” – FoxNews.com: “Bush says that he would have authorized the 2003 invasion … but acknowledges that mistakes were made after Saddam Hussein had been removed, … in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. ‘I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.'” http://fxn.ws/1zRviy5

Fox News FirstCruz interrogated on culture

Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin interviewed Cruz a few weeks ago on the Texas senator’s 2016 campaign plan and events, but mid-interview things took a nasty turn. The interview flew under the radar last week​ until Ruben Navarrette, a friend of Cruz, wrote a column on the racist questions Halperin asked. Questions like Cruz’s favorite Cuban dishes, and songs were fired like a cultural test rather than an interview. But Halperin really sealed the deal when he asked Cruz to welcome Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to the race…in Spanish.

National Review: Conservative Voters Give Pollsters Politically Correct Answers . . . and Then They Vote

The website of Nate Silver, the American polling expert, surveyed all of Britain’s public-opinion surveys on Election day in Britain and declared that the chance that David Cameron’s Conservatives would win a majority of seats “was vanishingly small when the polls closed — around 1 in 500.”

But that is precisely what happened, leading Nate Silver to write a piece titled “The World May Have a Polling Problem.”

The Daily Caller: Carly Fiorina Has A Unique Way Of Dealing With Chuck Todd

As a guest on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd Sunday morning, she had a funny response to “domain gate” – how she forgot to register her domain name for her campaign – and tweeted this:

Fiorina bought “ChuckTodd.org” and redirected it to her presidential campaign site.

The Hill- Report: Obama lied about bin Laden raid

Hersh’s source alleged that the Pakistani government had an active role in approving and implementing the raid on bin Laden’s compound.

In addition, the source said that the Obama administration originally agreed to announce bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike rather than shot during an active Special Forces mission.

“Obama’s speech was put together in a rush,” Hersh wrote of Obama’s announcement of Operation Neptune Spear to Americans.

The Daily Signal- Kirsten Powers: How the Illiberal Left Uses Silencing Tactics

Liberals are supposed to believe in protecting minority views, even when they disapprove of those views.

Instead an online mob of presumably “liberal” people tweeted about Eich’s donation, many calling him a bigot and homophobe for supporting Prop 8. Remember, this proposition passed the same year Senator Barack Obama sat in Rick Warren’s church to explain his religious based opposition to same-sex marriage.

The writer Andrew Sullivan—who is gay and was one of the earliest public advocates of same-sex marriage—wrote at the time of Eich’s ouster, “When people’s lives and careers are subject to litmus tests, and fired if they do not publicly renounce what may well be their sincere conviction, we have crossed a line. This is McCarthyism applied by civil actors. This is the definition of intolerance.”

By the way, Powers is liberal…and will be joining us on Voices of Montana this Friday morning.

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