The issue of whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an economic treaty with Pacific Rim nations, has created some strange bedfellows in the alliance of the Obama Administration and the GOP in support of US membership. They are also hoping that China will join as well, proposing that it will help tame its economic influence in the region. On the other side are many Democrats, organized labor, and those who have felt the disastrous effects of NAFTA and other trade agreements that ended up producing lost American jobs and wages. As with NSA wiretapping and other issues President Obama has done an about-face on after reaching the office of the executive. My sense is that either he knows something as president that his Democratic colleagues don't...or somebody's blackmailing him.