2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

but back to Congress:

when does Bibi speak again?

former speaker Jim Wright dies: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/us/politics/jim-wright-house-speaker-who-resigned-amid-ethics-charges-dies-at-92.html?ref=politics&_r=0&gwh=2AE6B4C1BCD62365697D74DCF184AB4D&gwt=pay

nice to see the courts starting to do their job re: the Patriot Act and the NSA: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/appeals-court-rules-nsa-record-collection-violates-patriot-act/2015/05/07/c4fabfb8-f4bf-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html

Yes. Not gonna think about possible appeal or Congressional action.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--1HILRGV8--/o5u63o3xrktxcvrjoifq.jpg

newt

oculus rift

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html

Hersh story have potential to credibly damage anyone? Seems... a bit tinfoil hat.

A link, sure there's more

It's nice to see that Matt Bai is still perpetrating the unreadable Beltway brownnosing that was his signature at the NYTimes, so thx Mordy.

fyi unreadable does not mean the same thing as "I can't read."

...right to left

don't you accuse us of going the other way most of the time?

holy fuuuuu

http://i.gyazo.com/58fdbf5dac8201cf423a2da5dfb84b22.png

The fate of the bill was further in question when eight pro-trade Senate Democrats emerged from a strategy meeting to declare their opposition to the motion to take up the bill.

“This is a group that is thoroughly committed to getting this bill passed,” declared Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee. But he criticized “a lack of a commitment to trade enforcement.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/business/senate-vote-obama-fast-track-trade-deal.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

did

did wyden just piledrive his tag team partner

http://i.imgur.com/hURWMXb.jpg

You know, I hate Harry Reid, but I'm going to miss him all the same.

DELICIOUS IRONING

“If there are senators with concerns about particular details of the trade agenda before us, that’s all the more reason to vote to debate it,” Mr. McConnell said. “Let’s have those conversations in an open and transparent way. But we can’t debate any of the provisions senators want to consider if they vote to filibuster even getting on this bill.”

wow

cloture vote failed

two weeks ago this thing was supposed to sail through the senate and we were just fighting to make it a close vote

this is blowing my mind

senator turtleman speaking now really sounding like he's ready to bring this back around asap but we just knocked a leg off this tripod

at least Bam can console himself with the drilling off Alaska he signed off on this week.

on the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill - just curious, but how do they define "workers displaced by trade agreements"?

obviously it's a good idea, but wondering how it works logistically. it's one thing when an auto manufacturer in the U.S. gets bought out by an overseas company, which then shuts down the plant. but what about situations where the connection isn't so obvious?

xpost yeah, it's gonna be a ton of fun when there's a Deepwater Horizon in the Arctic Ocean. i swear our collective memory span is about 14 seconds

social security birth to the earth, or no deal

maybe repeatedly kicking your own party in the balls to get this passed was a bad route to take for our boy barry.. when mitch mcconnell is your ally in getting something passed ur fucked.

bbbut 'bipartisanship'

on the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill - just curious, but how do they define "workers displaced by trade agreements"?

a group of workers have to file a petition and the petition is investigated by DOL to see if trade 'contributed notably' to the layoffs, basically looking for a shift in the company's production to some country where we have a trade deal

that's about 102% of what i know about TAA tbh

this is encouraging!

incredible

"This is about trying to accomplish something important for the country that happens to be the president’s No. 1 domestic priority,” Mr. McConnell said.

lol how does he say this with a straight blobfishface

very slowly

I like how the implication is that Obama's no. 1 domestic priority is just, y'know totally coincidentally, important for the country

This take on it makes it just sound like a slight delay

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_05/fasttrack_sidestepped_by_senat055516.php

Democratic fast-track supporters, including original cosponsor of the TPA bill in question, Ron Wyden, refused to let the bill go because Republicans would not agree to schedule voters on two related bills, one on currency manipulation and another on trade preferences for African countries.

Oh Chuck Schumer:

From that NY Times article Hoos posted

But if Democrats successfully force Mr. McConnell to include that currency measure in the trade promotion bill, the negotiations could collapse.

“I’m strongly against it,” said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.

The way forward is likely to be a negotiated package of trade-enforcement amendments that would be guaranteed a vote, Republican leadership aides said. Before talks collapsed Tuesday morning, talks on that amendment had begun, with Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, offering to drop the currency measure in exchange for a promised vote later this Congress.

there are so many key people with contradictory requirements to secure their votes, that's whats so great about this

this may just be a delay, granted, but this is gonna give opposition in the house even more to crow about and there's no way the senate takes it up before mid next month

wyden's ppl had been shrugging off currency manipulation all this time and now suddenly he's going "but wait actually this matters," i think he wanted an out

this morning before this came up ppl in wyden's office said "we've been getting a lot of calls about fast track--some for, some against.......but mostly against *nervous laughter*"

alright, pop quiz you political know it alls

http://i.imgur.com/F5tqXdq.jpg

that tom cruise is a looker

Wyden flipflops from yesterday after meeting in the White House

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/13/senate-reaches-deal-to-move-fast-track-trade-authority/?tid=sm_tw

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced a plan that allows for a controversial provision that Democrats have been demanding – legislation targeting China’s alleged manipulation of its currency to make its exports cheaper – a separate vote Thursday afternoon. Not a part of the broader trade package, the China currency legislation has been opposed by the Obama administration but favored by many senators from Midwest states hit hard by manufacturing job losses in the last two decades.

This legislation, which also contains other measures for enforcing trade deals, is likely to pass the Senate but its ultimate fate remains in doubt in the House, with a potential presidential veto awaiting it.

...

Led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Finance Committee, the group initially wanted a guarantee that the currency language would be signed into law, but they were summoned to the White House “Cabinet Room” after Tuesday’s embarrassing vote left Obama facing a filibuster from his own party. According to those in attendance, the president spoke to the group for two hours and made clear that he wants this trade legislation approved and was willing to accept most of their enforcement measures on trade deals, just not the currency bill.

reid said yesterday he wouldn't vote if currency manipulation was stripped out, but word today is he will

Yep. Hopefully Senate vote on fast-track and on separate currency manipulation will at least be close.

Does this mean that Fast Track will pass? Not necessarily. If Fast Track gets past the first procedural vote, next up is an open amendment process. Even if Fast Track does ultimately pass the Senate, then it has to get through the House, which could prove even tougher. But today’s events are a reminder that Fast Track is anything but dead. And if it keeps moving forward, Hillary Clinton just may feel compelled one of these days to tell us what she thinks of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/13/fast-track-may-not-be-dead-after-all/

Senator Blowfish speaks:

He insisted that the news media and Democrats had long exaggerated his determination to thwart the White House as a matter of partisan strategy. His often-cited vow to make Mr. Obama “a one-term president,” he explained, was followed by acknowledgment that “the American people would like for us to look for things that we agree on and to make progress.”

“The reason we haven’t done more things together is because we don’t agree on much,” he said. “The president, I believe, is the most left-wing president since Woodrow Wilson, who believed the Founding Fathers kind of got it wrong when they made the Congress as strong as it is.

“The last few years, he didn’t need anything from Congress other than to be left alone,” Mr. McConnell said. “They wanted their regulators to be free to overregulate America.”

Wilson notoriously even more of a commie than FDR

He has kept us out of war, oh wait

House Republicans voted Wednesday to chop $260 million from Amtrak’s budget, less than a day after a deadly train crash

Oh no overregulation! That is a serious matter that affects all of my closest personal friends that are corporations!

you can maybe have your new trade deal when the estate tax is 100% after the first million $$ of inheritance

really disappointed that i didn't come up with

all about abe
bout abe
no trade bill

during abe's visit

"Kansans are perfectly capable of improving the Prairie Chicken population through state and local efforts without putting any undue burden on our military or our state and local economies," Rep. Kevin Yoder said Friday.

http://cjonline.com/news/2015-05-15/us-house-takes-steps-remove-lesser-prairie-chicken-threatened-list

no conscience necessary

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2015/05/21/e54c539a-ffbd-11e4-8b6c-0dcce21e223d_story.html?hpid=z1

On a 62 to 38 vote, the push for fast-track authority to secure a sweeping Pacific-rim trade deal secured just enough Democratic support to kep the legislation moving, following a last-ditch lobbying effort by Obama and his top advisers. The fate of legislation, known as Trade Promotion Authority, hung in the balance for more than 30 minutes during the vote, as it remained shy of the 60 votes needed to advance and more than a dozen senators from both parties negotiated over the last details of the legislation and other side issues.

...

The TPA bill is now almost certain to pass the Senate, possibly over the weekend, and then heads for an uncertain fate in the House, where Democratic opposition to Obama’s trade agenda is more deeply ingrained.

[i]After last week’s temporary blockade, 13 Democrats joined with almost every Republican to begin debate on the legislation.