I agree and acknowledged that Levin has ulterior motives, but I don’t think that changes the fact that he’s done us all a service. As I said, the FTA in general is a good idea, but this FTA, this year, is not.

What causes me to distrust all of the safeguards and bureaucratic roadblocks to which you refer is in part my loss of trust in the Administration. A year or two ago, I might have felt almost safe with those checks. But on both human rights and upholding law and principle in the face of North Korean demands, how much credibility remains?

You’d think that a law as plain on it face as the prohibition against transferring criminally derived property in 18 USC 1957 would have caused us second thoughts about transferring that $25M, but we ignored the law and did it anyway. You’d think that the language in 1718, saying that we should “ensure” that the funds be used for permitted purposes would have caused us to secure at least some financial controls and a North Korean guarantee, or to simply turn the money over to the World Food Program for feeding the hungry. We gave in on that, too. Same thing with the reports on terrorism and human trafficking — State is gradually but clearly airbrushing out the harsh truths that make this regime repellent to ordinary commerce. Anyone can see where they’re going, though it flies right in the face of the Tariff Act’s slave labor provisions.

Since the new year, this Administration has shown an extraordinary loss of principle where North Korea is involved. Confronted with obstacles of law or fact, it massages them to full release. I offer no opinion on whether the new immigration bill is “amnesty,” but I do offer it as an analogy, since I see many people expressing the same kind of distrust of this person who has secretly replaced the George W. Bush I voted for. “Sure, there are safeguards built into the bill as it is,” many are saying, “but we all know that without a principled enforcement of existing law, it will all be meaningless soon enough.” Expect the same with these “outward processing zones.” North Korea has never permitted a meaningful inspection of the labor conditions or wage payments, or let anyone account for the proceeds per 1695 or 1718. Thus, we should never have even considered them for FTA inclusion. That was what Schwab and Cutler said for 10 months, and they should have stuck to that position.

In the end, the problem is always the same: we can’t bring ourselves to say no, because saying no might mean no deal. There is an institutional bias in favor of having “a” deal, any deal, if it’s contrary to our interests, values, and even our laws.

Things can only come back to bite them on the bum when enough of the people become disgusted enough (and maintain that disgust long enough for an election to roll around)…

The apparent irony comes from the general apathy of the masses…