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

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.

watching that was extraordinary, all these urgent whispering huddles breaking out on the senate floor

mostly over export-import bank stuff which tbh is relatively obscure to me--anybody have a link/thought on that?

Its confusing to me. Have read various pro and con takes on it.

ex-im bank is a real libertarian v 'big business' hot button issue but i can't really make heads or tails of it tbh. same division exists among dems i suppose but less acutely.

my gen understanding is, it was a gov't sponsored entity to finance (or insure? same diff) 'risky' overseas operations by american firms. but now international trade is so routine, developed and rule-bound it may not be needed. but it's still up and running to... some good or ill effect, fuck, who knows

It's a slush fund

oh, cool

seems to be pretty important to boeing, at least

the lawmakers reached a deal on the Export-Import Bank that tipped the scales for Patty Murray (D) and Maria Cantwell (D), senators from Washington state, which relies on the thousands of jobs at Boeing plants that are tied to Export-Import Bank loans.

i keep waiting for george costanza to way in on this

a true architect of trade policy

to way in

smh at myself

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/21/republicans-plan-to-replace-health-law-is-_%E3%83%84_-senator-says/

wait how did I miss that Feingold is trying to get back into the Senate?!

and Ron Johnson's vulnerable. Feingold's got a good shot.

"We'll be back on Sunday, May 31, one more opportunity to act responsibly to not allow this program to expire," he said around 1:30 a.m. "This is a high-threat period. We know what's going on overseas. We know what's been tried here at home. My colleagues, do we really want this law to expire?"

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/23/politics/senate-nsa-bills-patriot-act/

Temporary extension falls 6 votes short of 60; but alas, ending NSA holding phone data (the House passed bill) also falls 3 votes short of 60.

Kinda sad that 60 votes is the new threshold in the senate. Do they teach this shit in school now or what

new? it's been the norm for the past 7 years

Hence they should be teaching it in school amirite

as GG says, may the Senate stay paralyzed

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nsa-tracking-program-20150523-story.html#page=1

this belongs here:

looks like Hastert's jail-bound
http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Ex-US-Speaker-Hastert-indicted-on-bank-related-6292720.php

sounds like he was being blackmailed? over what one can only guess

Mr. Hastert, 73, a longtime Republican leader who served as speaker from 1999 until 2007 and now works as a lobbyist in Washington, was providing money to an unnamed person in order to “compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct” against that person, according to a federal indictment issued by the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

sounds like hush money IMO, but it's a fine line

Washington Post re it:

The indictment did not spell out the exact nature of the “prior misconduct” by Hastert, but it noted that before entering state and federal politics in 1981, Has­tert served for more than a decade as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois.

In 2010, confronted about the “prior misconduct,” the former speaker agreed to pay $3.5 million to the person “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A,” prosecutors alleged.

That person, whose identity was shielded by prosecutors, has known Hastert most of his or her life, growing up in Yorkville, the city next to Hastert’s home town of Plano, in the exurbs west of Chicago. Prosecutors said the actions “occurred years earlier” than the 2010 meeting that sparked the payments.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-indicted-over-alleged-secret-payments/2015/05/29/dad237be-05f7-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?hpid=z1

Sounds creepy

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-28/obama-trade-bill-seen-gaining-enough-support-for-final-passage

Hopefully this won't be true

From some Fox site:

Hastert isn't the only recent House speaker to face ethics troubles. Former House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, resigned under a cloud of conflict in 1989 after a very short speakership. Wright, who died May 6, was investigated by the House Ethics Committee over speaking fees and purchases of his book, becoming the first speaker to resign due to a scandal.

Yeah, close to 30 years ago is not really recent, but good point, he was a democrat. Bipartisan!

the man leading the insurgence against Wright? Newt Gingrich.

Aha!

Indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paying an individual from his past to conceal sexual misconduct, two federal law enforcement officials said Friday.

One of the officials, who would not speak publicly about the federal charges in Chicago, said “Individual A,” as the person is described in Thursday’s federal indictment, was a man and that the alleged misconduct was unrelated to Hastert’s tenure in Congress. The actions date to Hastert’s time as a Yorkville, Ill., high school wrestling coach and teacher, the official said.

“It goes back a long way, back to then,” the source said. “It has nothing to do with public corruption or a corruption scandal. Or to his time in office.” Thursday’s indictment described the misconduct “against Individual A” as having “occurred years earlier.”

Asked why Hastert was making the payments, the official said it was to conceal Hastert’s past relationship with the male. “It was sex,’’ the source said. The other official confirmed that the misconduct involved sexual abuse.

i remember the wrestling factoid, and as with all gray Repugs, this possibility crossed my mind.

I assumed it was this or a lovechild tbh

I saw the love child speculation but then I got another look at his photo.

haha

man was there *anybody* on the GOP "impeach Clinton" team that wasn't hiding some sex scandal of their own?

everyone gets into politics (or wrestling) for the tail.

even Barbara Mikulski?

http://maxrust.net/HASTERT_TIMELINE/WRESTLING.JPG

state champs!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/daily/hastert2_1976.jpg

man was there *anybody* on the GOP "impeach Clinton" team that wasn't hiding some sex scandal of their own?

― Οὖτις, Friday, May 29, 2015 3:24 PM

even Hillary was a secret lesbian

so how is this not blackmail anyway

i know i shdnt be shocked but this is honestly kind of shocking wow

I'm kinda shocked that this is some decades-spanning shit

huge amounts of money too

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/here-is-a-creepy-phone-call-dennis-hastert-once-got-on-c-spa

is he running for president yet

wow that CSPAN call I wonder if Denny started shitting bricks right there

all Coach "Handsy" Hastert talk goes here!

would be surprised if there's just one victim tbh. these types of dudes are never one-and-done.

yeah already talk of another one

I'm constantly amazed at the kind of memory people have for this kind of weird shit:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/243418-dennis-hastert's-weird-2014-CSPAN-call

I wouldn't have thought twice about that call; and it might wind up being unrelated; but that it even stuck in someone's head long enough for cspan to have created a page for it and for people to bring it up now is ... i don't know how much time people have to obsess on this kind of ephemera.

― akm, Friday, May 29, 2015 8:51 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also that caller sounds kind of young to have been abused by Hastert in the 60's but maybe he's turned into some kind of man-child, like a Chuck and Buck thing.

― akm, Friday, May 29, 2015 8:52 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Denny and Benny

― akm, Friday, May 29, 2015 8:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll stop now.

well, look at those strapping Midwestern grapplers. i don't think Plato wd've done any different. xp

sorry for posting abt this on the presidential candidate thread.

there was a drivers ed teacher from my school who ended up going to prison after teaching for 25 years and every single girl at school was like that guy is creepy and up to no good

I'm sure we all have stories like this