House Democrats kill Obama’s trade bill
Obama unable to wrangle his own caucus
Friday, House Democrats bucked President Obama when they voted to torpedo “trade authority.”
As Amy wrote this morning:
The debate surrounding congressional approval of “fast track” trade authority has officially taken a swan dive through the looking glass.
Obama wants it. House republicans want it. Democrats, for the most part, are ready to vote “no”—their union backers are making them more nervous than the White House ever could—even if it prevents their president from advancing more legacy-building legislation.
This afternoon, the AP reports with Nancy Pelosi at the helm, House Democrats sunk President Obama’s trade authority hopes. From Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House derailed a high-profile trade bill on Friday in a humiliating defeat for President Barack Obama inflicted by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and dozens of union-backed lawmakers from his own party.
The 302-126 vote left the legislation in perilous limbo, and came not long after Obama journeyed to the Capitol with a last-minute personal plea to fellow Democrats to give him power to negotiate global trade deals that Congress could approve or reject but not change.
“I don’t think you ever nail anything down around here. It’s always moving,” the president said as he departed — a prescient remark given Pelosi’s dramatic announcement later on the House floor.
“Slow down the fast track to get a better deal for the American people,” the California lawmaker said in a speech that drew handshakes and hugs from Democrats have labored for months to reject Obama’s request for “fast track” authority in trade talks.
…The outcome was also a triumph for organized labor, which had lobbied lawmakers furiously to oppose the measure that union officials warned would lead to the loss of thousands of American jobs.
“The president needs to realize we all represent our districts,” said Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas. He said labor opposition to the effort was “overwhelming.”
The pivotal vote came on a portion of the legislation to renew federal aid for workers who lose their jobs through imports.
That is normally a Democratic priority, but in this case, rank and file party members saw its defeat as a way to scuttle the entire legislation. As a result, only 40 Democrats voted for it, and 144 were opposed. Republicans broke 158-86 against it.
A second roll call followed on the trade negotiating powers themselves, and the House approved that measure, 219-211. But under the rules in effect, the overall legislation, previously approved by the Senate, could not advance to the White House unless both halves were agreed to.
That made the day’s events something less than a permanent rejection of the legislation. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a supporter of the measure, told reporters, “This isn’t over yet.”
Pelosi said the bill was “stuck in the station,” suggesting that changes could get it moving again.
Even so, it was unclear how majority Republicans and the White House could make that happen.
…”Basically the president tried to both guilt people and then impugn their integrity,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., one of the most outspoken opponents of the legislation.
Another Democrat, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, said Obama had told Democrats that “his whole philosophy, life, everything he’s done has been to help people. And he thinks he’s doing that with this trade agreement.”
More developments as they come.
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Comments
Now they’ll gear up the horse-trading, blackmailing, bribes and outright threats, just as they did with O’care.
We have not see the last of this.
Bribing holdouts with Taxpayer dollars.
Somebody cares about obama’s philosophy?
”Basically the president tried to both guilt people and then impugn their integrity,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore
Yep, that pretty much sums up his “leadership” style.
Hee-Haw, House Dims Rout Lame-Duck Obama……
The 302-126 vote defeat of Zero’bama by his own party….bribes, and strong arming ain’t gonna work this time!
Those representatives know Obama is worse than a lame-duck, he’s a dead-beat ass (symbol of the Dims). They’ve got to go before their voters back home – and they can’t steal elections as easy as Dem Chicago gangsters! Snark!
I heard 0 left immediately for the golf course … will probably shoot a lousy game today.
Well, there goes my medical marijuana export business idea.
What to do with all this product I’ve got on the shelf?
Do we bake it? No, no, no!
The Rasta Gourmet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN_RZGXlKvc
Five hundred and eighty seven days until the next inauguration. Plenty of time left to bribe, intimidate, blackmail, and murder our way toward a newer, stronger, and more rigid form of tyranny.
al-Chicagi already has the John Pelosi and Mitch Reid caucus sewn up. @creeper is spot on – here comes the Crony Capitalism and the taxpayers get screwed.
Again.
Hey man, we tolerate it.
It’s time someone with some moxy dragged this out into the daylight so people could KNOW what it portends.
Jeff Sessions has come as close as anyone. Maybe we can get some others to join him.
That’s the question. Is this a “free trade” agreement, an equitable trade agreement, or something else? There isn’t a consensus opinion in the public interpretations. It’s not at all obvious that it preserves the status quo, which is unfair to nations with higher standards for the environment, people, etc., and to people living in nations with lower standards.
You just know Bunky is crouched in the shadows behind the White House, mumbling, pissing, and moaning about how the United States has completely let him down, failed to measure up to his historic presence, how nothing is fair and it’s nothing but pure, capital R, RACISM, and all the while he’s chain-smoking Marlboro Lights like a jailbird on the yard and eating Twinkies he stole from Mooch’s stash under the bed.
With Reggie Love adoringly giving him a huge sloppy wet kiss, while doing a two fisted reach around and grabbing both a$$ cheeks.
Damn those homoerotic daydreams, right? lol j/k
I envision Mama Val spoon-feeding him some nice ice-cream and whispering in his ear how great he is and how he’ll get them back soon.
I bet she has a bib for him with the presidential seal on it.
Well. Democrats are good for something after all! Who knew?
If we could say that about the Republicans, I might even consider rejoining the party.
Sigh.
Fast-track passed.
The package of goodies to mollify left-wing interest groups did not, for the moment.
Let me reiterate: fast-track passed.
Republicans don’t care about the bill that didn’t pass, and passage of the trade agreement itself is not, from Republicans’ point of view, conditional on that bill at all. It’s only Democrats who care about the goodies package. They’re still free to negotiate with themselves on it and “rescue” the deal.
Until proven otherwise, I think it’s all theater. And should the Senate pass fast-track without the goodies package, you won’t see the Senate majority leader mourn.
I need to amend my comment a little because… confusing reporting has made it really hard. I try to read very thoroughly, but it’s a mess.
The Senate can indeed pass fast-track just like the House did, but for whatever technical reason, even though there were two votes the TAA part is considered part of the same bill so… the Senate has already passed fast-track plus TAA as one bill. That means the House does a successful do-over, they have reconciliation, or the whole thing dies.
…But yeah, the Senate could pass fast-track without the goodies package. Maybe it’s not likely. But it’s a bizarre mess…
Nice touch here by the ruling class, playing all of this in a way that intelligent citizens have great difficulty understanding what is happening.
“I will be voting to slow down fast-track,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the floor moments before the vote, after keeping her intentions private for months.”
“Congressman Paul Ryan pleaded with fellow Republicans to give Obama the authority to negotiate with countries ranging from Canada to Chile, Brunei to Vietnam.”
Okay, now they’re just f/cking with our heads.
Bizarro world: Crazy Nancy Pelosi saves the Republic, while Boehner, Ryan and McTurtle continue to conspire to destroy it. What’s next, Hillary Clinton’s foundation giving money to charity?
How pathetically disgusting these GOP backstabbing, traitorous bastards are. But not as grotesquely pathetic as we, the base, who collectively tolerate them in the highest offices of our political party.
The GOP is dead. Long live the Tea Party.
The GOP is dead. Long live the Tea Party.
National Journal just called it the Democrats’ Tea-Party Moment. This is exactly what the Dems needed to revive the 2016 campaign. The Narcissist-in-Chief called the vote a victory. This time he may be right.
And I’m so disappointed with Ted Cruz. He may be technically correct, but he didn’t get the bigger picture. The GOPe may have just deep-six’ed their chances in 2016 — if they had any intention of winning in the first place.
Power players don’t mind making their profits from a foreign factory, and with America corroding from within, men like Jim Rogers move to Singapore, and make sure their kids learn Mandarin.
“Protectionist” is used as a derogatory attack on any advocacy for protecting American jobs, but of course we need to protect our citizens. The globalist vision of “multi-polarity”, the propaganda that power shared globally is safer and freer, was the cover under which the Clintons sold our missile tech to China, and perhaps why we gave them the Panama Canal.
We know Obama wants America weaker, and has been weakening us on all fronts, under cover of fairness. He imports a new third world people, blocks the XL Pipeline and gulf drilling, to comply with some globalist billionaires.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisprandoni/2014/07/30/breaking-senate-committee-report-details-environmentalists-inner-workings/
If we are to remain the global leader, we have to act in our interests, not bowing to billionaires. But our government acts like a mafia, with the “Dons” needing their palms greased before anything gets done, and Clintons accept any country’s money. Meanwhile unexceptional Obama essentially calls capitalist America the evil empire, and seeks to bring us lower, to be on par with other third world commie/socialist hell holes.
At least the unions still have some interest in protecting their workers, even if only for nefarious reasons. Our homes are already filled with Chinese made junk, we need to read the bill to see what they are pulling over our eyes this time. Why trust leaders that lie to us so freely, as do our GOP con men that sneer at the tea party?