Fake "progressive" group formed to push TPP

Buzzfeed - “RIFT AMONG PROGRESSIVES EMERGES ON TPP,” read a headline in Politico’s daily labor and employment tip sheet, Morning Shift. The short item detailed the emergence of the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs ” — a group of “progressives and Democrats committed to leveling the playing field for American workers,” according to the coalition’s bare bones website. The website adds that “it’s critical that we give the president trade promotion authority and establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

There’s something weird about the group, though: No one in the Washington, D.C., progressive community seems to have ever heard of them before.

“Who are they? Are they getting paid? And this group will convince anybody of what?” asked Sen. Sherrod Brown. “There is zero progressive interest in this [trade promotion authority].”

The group’s website provides few details about when the coalition was launched or who’s working for the group. But the team behind the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs includes some of the most senior members of Obama’s campaign team. Lefty site Daily Kos reported Mitch Stewart, the former aide the president tapped to run Organizing For America, and Lynda Tran, the former OFA press secretary are involved. A press release earlier in the week announcing the group came from 270 Strategies, the campaign firm started by Stewart and Obama’s former field director, Jeremy Bird.

Tran told BuzzFeed News the purpose of the group was to boost liberal voices who support the Obama trade agenda.

While there is Democratic support for increasing free trade and the White House has made an effort to placate progressives, arguing any deal will include tough language supporting labor rights and environmental protections, that message hasn’t landed with the left. The Progressive Caucus in the House has released their own set of trade principles arguing that they believe it’s “possible to negotiate a trade agreement that doesn’t replicate the mistakes of the past.” But as it currently stands, House progressives remain diametrically opposed to Obama’s trade agenda.

“If you look at the progressives — labor unions, activists, online organizations — who are lined up against the TPP, there are no credible groups left to build a ‘coalition,’” said an aide to a progressive House member, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. “The creation of a front group like PCAJ is a sign people pushing for a bad trade deal don’t have the votes to jam the [trade deal] through Congress.”