Posted on 05/12/2015 12:04:35 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Senate Democrats filibustered Tuesday to block the first major free-trade vote in years, dealing a blow to President Obama and GOP leaders who were pushing a deal in a rare show of bipartisanship, but who once again find themselves struggling with the political fringe.
Unlike the last few years’ worth of conservative objections, this time it was liberals who balked and pulled moderate Democrats with them, putting the brakes on the bipartisan push and imperiling the rest of the spring congressional agenda.
The White House said the filibuster was only a “procedural snafu” and urged GOP leaders in Congress to work it out differences with the moderate Democrats, who are insisting that any free trade legislation be coupled with a bill that would provide training and financial assistance to American workers deemed to have lost jobs due to free trade.
“We live in an era of divided government,” Mr. Earnest said. “For anything to become law, party-line votes are not going to cut it. They’re going to have to work through this challenge, and we’ll remain engaged with them as they do.”
Trade supporters fell seven votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome the filibuster, with all but one Democrat voting for the filibuster to prevent even the beginning of a debate on Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA, which is also known as fast-track trade powers.
Under TPA the president is able to negotiate trade deals and submit them for an up-or-down vote in Congress, without amendment. Without TPA, any deal Mr. Obama struck would be open to amendment in Congress, making it almost impossible for potential trade partner countries to negotiate with the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Seems more like another episode of the Walking Dead rather than government in action.
“...be coupled with a bill that would provide training and financial assistance to American workers deemed to have lost jobs due to free trade.”
WTH?
Why the dems against this?
Union labor striking down on free markets.
Even the Republicans couldn’t accomplish that during the terror reign of Reid.
There, I fixed it.
Don’t be so sure... If Barry is so excited for this I am highly skeptical that its in this Country’s best interests. And the fact that there’s been a lock down on what’s in this bill, and McConnell suddenly got behind the president on this, also got me very concerned. Perhaps the D’s are looking at this and see that its bad for the Country. And it’s possible, just possible, they put Country ahead of politics.
I know, its a stretch.
Don’t be so sure... If Barry is so excited for this I am highly skeptical that its in this Country’s best interests.
This is a phrase I thought I never would read.
What if the Democrat party started pushing hard to the right to scoop up the conservatives abandoned by the Republicans?
LOL
Funny how it's only "divided government" when the Left is not in power...
If Obama and Mitch liked it, chances are it was bad news of the open borders, displace Americans with HB-1 visa holders, sort. Which doesn’t explain why the dems were against it, seeing as they normally love voting ‘yay’ on bad news.
Cruz and Walker also supported this authority....Sessions was very much opposed.
Isn’t this the trade agreement that, if passed by this bill, allows Obama to implement gun control without any input from Congress? I think it is and if so it needs to die.
There seem to be strangely some things working in our favor and against the evil Obama agenda to totally collapse America, perhaps even before the election, who knows, but it is mysterious to me how the cards are starting to fall differently than in the past.
Can it be that more are beginning to pray to God for mercy?
Maybe not enough yet to save us, but enough for God to say to us, “I will hear you”. Things can get worse, we know, if we leave Him out of this punishing circumstance into which our country has fallen.
Jesus said, “You have no power over me, but my Father in Heaven give it to you.”
I have started calling the TPP the Enabling Act of 2015. It’s like the Regime has watched Germany of the early 1930s and is simply repeating it.
The TPP will go around the US Constitution, trade law, and employment law. Nearly unlimited visas will be given, as people of the signatories will be able to move about freely to work. Should/when the PRC join, US work will largely vanish.
There is talk that the UN Small Arms treaty is subsumed in this.
The US Congress may as well go home, as this bill will make it irrelevant on its face and only worth keeping around as “The Old Ones” from the movie, “300.”
Does anyone remember Andrew Stern, formerly of ACORN and SEIU, talking about a worldwide minimum wage of $12/hour? I saw a clip of him suggesting this and of a worldwide ‘workers of the world unite’ effort he was behind.
If memory serves, Stern, Maurice Strong, and Buffett all live in Asia now. Stern’s son is now the stalking horse in this effort.
ONLY TWO REPUBLICANS ADMIT THEY ACTUALLY READ SECRET OBAMA TRADE DEAL—BOTH UNSUPPORTIVE
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)80% has on numerous occasions publicly stated he has read the TPP—which is locked away in a secret room in the Capitol, access to which only lawmakers and certain staffers with high-level clearance are provided—and a spokeswoman for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)100% on Thursday told Breitbart News that the Senator has read it as well. Despite asking press staff for every U.S. Senate Republican office throughout the day Thursday if their office’s senator has visited the secret room to read the deal—specifically the controversial “living agreement” contained within it—only Sessions and Lee would confirm they visited the room to read it.
Wikileaks’ investment chapter of the TPP: https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/WikiLeaks-TPP-Investment-Chapter/page-1.html
I tend to stick by Jeff Sessions. He has sacrificed fame to dedicate himself to studying full time the in’s and out’s of dangerous legislation. It’s all well woven together into other dangers that are not immediately seen.
Sessions says few have even bothered to read this legislation.
TPP’s international tribunal to be above US law: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/11736-tpp-secret-trade-agreement-puts-international-tribunal-above-us-law
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