Trans-Pacific Partnership : House passes the bill

Art credit: Radix

UPDATE Thurs. From Breitbart Big Government:

Obamatrade is alive.

One week after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected Obamatrade by voting against a key provision of it — Trade Adjustment Assistance — GOP establishment lawmakers resuscitated Trade Promotion Authority and rammed it through Thursday afternoon. The final tally was 218-208. . . .

. . . Because the Senate passed TAA and TPA together, the individual House version will now have to go back to the Senate for approval, where it may face a filibuster. It’s unclear how many senators would support TPA without TAA, a measure to aid workers who lose their jobs because of trade policy.

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According to The Hill, the House will vote Thursday [tomorrow] on a stand-alone measure to grant President Obama fast-track trade authority.

Phyllis Schlafly explains how bad the bills are:

On Friday, Congress disrupted President Obama’s plan for a sweeping transfer of U.S. sovereignty to an unaccountable group of foreign busybodies. Hurray for the stalwart Americans who resisted the demands of Obama, the Republican leadership and the big-donor claque – but Speaker Boehner plans to give Congress another chance this week to make this dangerous mistake.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would turn over to globalists the power to issue regulations about U.S. trade, immigration, the environment, labor and commerce. It’s called a “living agreement,” which means the globalists can amend and change the text of the so-called agreement after it has gone into effect.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has frankly warned about this giveaway of U.S. sovereignty. Not only would Congress give up its powers to negotiate and write the terms of a treaty, but Congress also gives up its power to debate and amend the deal, to apply a cloture vote in the Senate, and to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.

. . .

TPP puts us in a new political and economic union before a single private citizen is told about it and with public opinion running five to one against it. Remember when Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass Obamacare in order to find out what is in it?

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., warns, “TPP calls for the formation of a permanent political and economic union known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission, which will have power to issue regulations impacting not only trade but immigration, the environment, labor and commerce.” He added, Congress “will have surrendered its legislative prerogatives. Before a word, line, paragraph, or page of this plan is made public, Congress will have even agreed to give up its treaty powers.”

. . .

Sessions continued: “Congress would be pre-clearing a political and economic union before a word of that arrangement has been made available to a single private citizen. This has the earmarks of a nascent European Union,” and Americans certainly don’t want to belong to a European union (that’s why we fought the American Revolution).

Rep. Hunter also warns that the new global governance institution would be “authorized to issue policies and regulations affecting our economy, our manufacturers, our workers, our immigration procedures, as well as current, labor and environmental practices.”

TPP is separating us from the U.S. Constitution and from national sovereignty and replacing both with a global governance superstructure. TPP has wrapped its audacious global governance plan in the mantle called “free trade,” which is a misnomer if there ever were one.

Read the rest here.

And here’s an update from today’s Politico:  

House Speaker John Boehner and Republican leaders are moving to revive President Barack Obama’s beleaguered trade agenda with an elaborate procedural workaround that was quickly greeted with skepticism among some Democrats.

Under the emerging plan, the House would vote on a bill that would give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate a sweeping trade deal with Pacific Rim countries, sending it to the Senate for final approval. To alleviate Democratic concerns, the Senate then would amend a separate bill on trade preferences to include Trade Adjustment Assistance, a worker aid program that Republicans oppose but that House Democrats have blocked to gain leverage in the negotiations over fast-track.

NationalReview Online reports:

When a group of House conservatives voted last week to kill a trade bill favored by President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders who support the measure steamed. Representative Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.) celebrated the revolt as a coming-of-age moment for rebel backbenchers. “Yesterday will be the day that we look back at as the day that conservatives finally started getting organized in the House,” he wrote in a note to the Spartanburg Tea Party. 

Led by Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a platoon of conservatives demanded that Boehner agree to a series of concessions in exchange for their support for so-called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), legislation that would give President Obama wider latitude to negotiate free-trade agreements. When GOP leadership ignored them, Jordan and his allies tried to kill the bill on a procedural vote — a rare step made more surprising by the lawmakers’ general support for free trade. It was the boldest attempt yet from the recently formed House Freedom Caucus, which Jordan chairs, to counteract Boehner’s perceived tendency to wilt in the face of Democratic pressure.

Read more here. 

Find your Representative here.   The Congressional switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.

Here are details for Ohio Senators:

Sen. Sherrod Brown

Phone: 202-224-2315

Fax: 202-228-6321

Sen.Rob Portman 

Phone: 202-224-3353

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Reminder: End Obamacare Exemption on Weds. noon

Reminder:

End Obamacare Exemption : on June 17 [this coming Weds.] at noon, patriots across the country will visit and call their representatives to demand that they no longer enjoy an exemption from Obamacare. For far too long, the "Ruling Class" politicians have lived above the law while the American people suffer. Help end that special Obamacare exemption. Find the office of your representative at this map. Plan to visit or call.

See our earlier blog here. 

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Drudge: Republicans Plan New Obamatrade Push

 Sen. Jeff Sessions Comments On Continuing Push To Grant Obama New Executive Powers (h/t Breitbart): 

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) issued the following statement today [June 12] regarding the vote to give President Obama expanded fast-track executive authorities:

“It appears there will be another attempt by Tuesday to force through new executive powers for President Obama. A vote for TAA next week is a vote to send fast-track to the President’s desk and to grant him these broad new executive authorities. If that happens, it will empower the President to form a Pacific Union encompassing 40 percent of the world’s economy and 12 nations—each with one equal vote. Once the union is formed, foreign bureaucrats will be required to meet regularly to write the Commission’s rules, regulations, and directives—impacting Americans’ jobs, wages, and sovereignty. The union is chartered with a “Living Agreement,” and there is no doubt it will seek to expand its membership and reach over time.

Fast-track will not only apply to the Pacific Union, but can expedite an unlimited number of yet-unseen international compacts for six years. There are already plans to advance through fast-track the Trade in Services Agreement, the goal of which includes labor mobility among more than 50 nations, further eroding the ability of the American people to control their own affairs.

Americans do not want this, did not ask for it, and are pleading from their hearts for their lawmakers to stop it.

The same people projecting the benefits of leaping into a colossal new economic union could not even accurately predict the impact of a standalone agreement with South Korea. The latter deal, which promised to boost our exports to them $10 billion, instead only budged them less than $1 billion, while South Korea’s imports to us increased more than $12 billion, nearly doubling our trading deficit. This new agreement will only further increase our trading deficit: opening our markets to foreign imports while allowing our trading partners to continue their non-tariff barriers that close their markets to ours.

If we want a new trade deal with Japan, or with Vietnam, then they should be negotiated bilaterally and sent to Congress under regular order. Under no circumstances should the House authorize, through fast-track, the formation of a new international commission that will regulate not only trade, but immigration, labor, environmental, and all manner of commercial policy.

What American went to the polls in 2014 to vote for fast-track and a new global union? Can anyone honestly say that Congress is trying to ram this deal through because they think their constituents want it?

While elites dream of a world without borders, voters dream of a world where the politicians they elect put this country’s own citizens first.

The movement among Americans toward a decent, honest populism—toward a refocusing on the needs of American citizens and American interests—grows stronger by the day. Every vote to come before Congress, beginning with the next fast-track push, will face this test: does your plan strengthen or weaken the social and economic position of the loyal, everyday working American?”

Permalink: http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2015/6/sessions-comments-on-continuing-push-to-grant-obama-new-executive-powers

Michelle Malkin has more sobering comments here. 

Ted Cruz has come out in support of the bill. 

Why would Congress pass (let alone rush to pass ~ without reading) a bill that further compromises the sovereignty of the United States? 

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Historical (and historic) votes

A mini-history lesson via the Mama Grizzly : 

Do your friends and family know any of this?

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End Obamacare Exemption

End Obamacare Exemption : Sen. David Vitter’s bill 

Art credit: Sodahead.com

Next week, on June 17 at noon, patriots across the country will visit and call their representatives to demand that they no longer enjoy an exemption from Obamacare. For far too long, the "Ruling Class" politicians have lived above the law while the American people suffer. Help end that special Obamacare exemption.

For the 60-second ad being run across the country, go here (scroll down; it’s on the left-hand side). For more info, go to Sen David Vitter's website here. 

Mark your calendar for Weds., June 17 at noon. Find the office of your representative at this map. Plan to visit or call.

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King vs. Burwell and Obamacare

Art credit: crooks and liars.com

The King vs. Burwell case is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court at the end of June. The SCOTUS could strike down Obamacare subsidies in 34 non-exchange states. Here is an interactive map showing the status of each state and its health care exchanges. Ohio is one of seven states categorized as “Federally facilitated marketplace; state conducting plan management.”

Last week, Betsy McCaughey identified the potential winners and losers if SCOTUS strikes down the subsidies:

If Supremes slap ObamaCare, it’s health insurers who lose

. . . the Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell, expected this month . . . will determine the fate of these subsidies in 37 states.

Without subsidies, ObamaCare buyers in those states will have to pay the actual — and unaffordable — sticker price of ObamaCare. And you — taxpayers — will not have to fork over hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize insurers over the next decade.

But the dirty secret is that insurers stand to lose the most from King v. Burwell.

The Affordable Care Act compels the public to buy their product, and forces taxpayers to subsidize it. What a sweetheart deal.

The giant players — United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem and Humana — have seen stock prices double, triple, even quadruple since the law was passed in 2010. The coming ruling threatens to put an end to their gravy train.

Democrats are predicting disaster if the court rules against President Obama.

Republicans will “rue the day” they let millions of people lose their subsidies, says Nancy Pelosi. That’s crazy talk.

No one will lose their coverage immediately, the poor will be unaffected and the biggest losers will be insurance companies.

Employers, job-seekers and taxpayers actually stand to win here.

In addition, most Republicans in Congress are inclined to compromise with the president to provide some type of financial help for insurance buyers. If the Supremes gut ObamaCare, there will be many more winners than losers. Here’s how it shakes out:

The Affordable Care Act says subsidies will be provided only in states that set up their own exchanges. But only a handful of states (including New York) did.

In 37 states that didn’t, people use the federal healthcare.gov Web site instead. The Obama administration handed out subsidies to these people anyway, playing fast and loose with the law — and your money.

If the justices rule that the Obama administration can’t do that, some 7.7 million people will eventually lose their subsidies.

. . .

Insurance companies are lobbying furiously for a congressional fix.

Meanwhile, outside Washington, DC, a ruling nixing the subsidies will benefit employers and job-seekers.

Any of the 37 states that want to can set up an exchange and immediately qualify for the subsidies. But most are controlled by the GOP and won’t do it.

Without subsidies, the employer mandate is toothless, because employers are only fined if their uninsured workers go to an exchange and get a subsidy.

Employers who have been struggling to keep their workforce under 50 (where ObamaCare kicks in) and use part-timers (who aren’t subject to ObamaCare) won’t have to worry any more. Nullifying the employer mandate is likely to ignite a hiring boom.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, that looming mandate has caused 21 percent of small businesses to reduce workers’ hours, 41 percent to delay hiring and 27 percent of franchises (such as fast-food restaurants) to replace full-timers with part-timers.

People facing a penalty for being uninsured will also come out ahead. Without subsidies, most will be exempted from the penalty, saving them $2,000 on average next year.

Despite Democrats’ dire warnings, the poor won’t be hurt. An amazing 89 percent of people who are newly insured because of ObamaCare are on Medicaid, which won’t be affected.

Ignore the alarmist rhetoric. A loss for the Obama administration in King v. Burwell will be a win for most Americans.

Read the entire article here.

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71st anniversary of D-Day

Photo credit: Conservative Treehouse

Today marks the 71^st anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of the Normandy beaches. ConservativeTreehouse has the video of Pres. Reagan’s commemorative speech delivered on the 40th anniversary. 

A previously undiscovered German bunker was discovered on Juno Beach only two days ago. That report is here. 

My late father was the skipper of LCT (Landing Craft Tank) number 2454, which landed troops and equipment on Utah Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944. 

A salute to all those who served to turn the tide against the Nazis.

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