RINO Boehner Uses Every Game in the Book to Keep Obamatrade Alive [+video]

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After suffering a defeat last week when Democrats voted down the trade subsidy component of the trade bill (TAA), Obama and Boehner realized they lacked the votes to pass TPA at this juncture. So, Plan B ensued. Just how far is Boehner willing to go to pass Obamatrade? Boehner had the House Rules Committee draft a resolution enabling leadership to bring up TPA at a moment’s notice on any day through July 31. Today, the House passed the rule 236-189.

Only six conservatives voted against this rule today. Aside from the complications of it being conflated with the intelligence bill, they were sternly warned not to vote against the rule. Last week, 34 Republicans voted against the rule to debate the TPA in the first place and almost defeated the bill – before Pelosi delivered eight Democrats to Boehner’s column and saved the process. Today we learned that three Republicans – Reps. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Trent Franks (R-AZ), and Steve Pearce (R-NM) were tossed off the whip team for voting down the rule.

Typically, rules for debate on a specific bill expire after a few days or a week and cannot be brought to the floor without crafting a new rule. Boehner took the unprecedented step of granting Obamatrade this privileged floor status for a full six weeks so that GOP Leadership and Obama can engage in horse-trading in an attempt to secure the necessary votes for passage.

Instead of awarding this status to something that actually addresses a current crisis, like say, an Iran sanctions bill, GOP leadership has proven the only fight they’re willing to engage in is passing Obama’s trade promotion at all costs.

What’s worse is that this rule to grant the trade bill such privileged status was not a standalone resolution. It was attached to a completely unrelated resolution governing the rule for the upcoming bill to reauthorize our intelligence programs. Hence, Boehner engaged in cowardice and deceit by forcing members to support this chicanery or be viewed as blowing up an intelligence authorization bill.

Ironically, the privileged status is not even for the underlying TPA, which already passed both houses of Congress. It is for the liberal Trade Adjustment Assistance program. Leadership needs that program to pass and get enmeshed into the underlying bill so that the final bill will contain the same language as the Senate legislation, thereby paving the road to the president’s desk.

Leadership pursued this strategy for two reasons. First, it gives them six weeks to bribe, threaten, cajole, and horse-trade in order to buy off enough votes to pass the final TPA. And once again, they are not negotiating with conservatives by promising them a strong push on important priorities, such as immigration, Iran, Obamacare, or protecting religious liberty. They are fully negotiating with the Democrats and will promise them almost anything in order to consummate their support for their own leader’s trade deal.

And secondly, passage of this duplicitous rule enables leadership to potentially slam the bill on the floor at any moment between now and the August recess. They have the ability to find a vulnerable time for members and pass the trade assistance (and thereby finalize the broader trade package) with a simple voice vote. Leadership has already employed this tactic before. Conservatives have stood guard on the floor to watch for any attempt to voice vote the TAA into law. Now they will have to post sentries on the floor for six more weeks.

Consequently, an entire group of conservatives will have to divert their time away from critical issues in order to guard against treachery from their own party.

What is GOP leadership doing to address the most pressing issues of our time?

Are they pulling out all the stops to prevent Obama from releasing six Al Qaeda terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, including three former bodyguards of Osama bin Laden? Are they using every must-pass bill to address the emergency created by Obama releasing tens of thousands of criminal aliens from prison, including murders and rapists? Are they planning a full-scale assault against Obama’s appeasement of Iran come June 30?

Not a chance. None of these issues are even on their radar.

Even those conservatives who support the underlying trade agreement must realize that the price of the process and politics being employed by leadership to pass this bill has become too steep. It’s time for all conservatives to unite and shut this down and force leadership to focus on some of the critical national security, economic, and social problems that plague this country.

Or put another way, it’s time for them to actually become the party they campaigned as during the November elections. (“Boehner Uses Every Game in the Book to Keep Obamatrade Alive”, originally posted HERE)

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Dangerous Game?: Feds Say Terror Suspect Eyed Attack on Super Bowl

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Authorities said Tuesday that a Phoenix man who helped orchestrate a shootout at last month’s “Draw Muhammad” event in Texas also had aspirations to join ISIS and attack the Super Bowl.

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, 43, was arrested last week on charges related to the May 3 attack in Garland, Texas that led to the deaths of two roommates from Phoenix. An indictment filed in federal court in Phoenix says Kareem hosted the gunmen in his home beginning in January and provided the guns they used when they attacked security guards outside the event.

At Tuesday’s hearing, FBI special agent Dina McCarthy described how a witness and a confidential informant learned about Kareem’s intentions to join ISIS, including watching the group’s propaganda videos with the Texas shooters Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi.

McCarthy said a 2012 investigation into Kareem determined he had a terrorism training document on his computer. She alleged he wanted to attack the Super Bowl when it was in Arizona this year, but didn’t provide the specifics about how serious he was.

The magistrate denied bail for Kareem, who is charged with conspiracy, making false statements and interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit a felony. (Read more from “Dangerous Game?: Feds Say Terror Suspect Eyed Attack on Super Bowl” HERE)

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Strange Earthquakes Strike Across the United States

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Alabama Earthquakes Stun Residents And Geologists Alike

By Weather.com. Early one morning last November, Jim Sterling was frightened when the ground began shaking outside his 156-year-old antebellum home in Alabama. . .”I heard a boom and felt the shaking,” Sterling said. “It really upset me.”

Since that day, more than a dozen weak earthquakes have shaken western Alabama’s Greene County. Geologists are now working to find out what has caused this swarm over the last seven months, in an area of the South that’s used to large tornadoes but not light tremors.

“It is interesting that recently there has been more activity there than in the last four decades,” said Sandy Ebersole, an earthquake expert with the Geological Survey of Alabama.

Records from the U.S. Geological Survey show the first of 14 earthquakes occurred on Nov. 20, when a magnitude 3.8 earthquake was recorded about 10 miles northwest of the community of Eutaw. The second occurred in mid-December, followed by another in January and three within a few hours of each other on Feb. 19.

The tremors have continued ever since, with the most recent occurring June 6, when a magnitude 3.0 quake rattled the area. All the tremors have been weaker than the initial jolt in November, and Ebersole said some have been too slight for residents to detect. (Read more from “Strange Earthquakes Strike Across the United States” HERE)

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Mysterious Quake Hits Wyoming, One of the Deepest in History

By Matt Walker. A mysterious earthquake that struck the centre of the US was one of the deepest earthquakes of its type ever recorded, say scientists.

The quake, known as the Wind River Earthquake, struck the state of Wyoming in 2013 with a magnitude of 4.7 Mw (Moment magnitude scale). . .

The Wind River area of Wyoming is usually quiet, seismically speaking. In the past 60 years since records have been collected, few earthquakes in the region have been recorded with magnitudes of 4 Mw, while just one surpassed 5 Mw. . .

[T]he region is also tectonically quiet – that is, there is little movement in the Earth’s tectonic plates below the site. The nearest tectonic movement occurs 200 km away to the northwest, at the so-called Yellowstone Hotspot, an area that produces volcanic activity across the states of Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming. . .

Now scientists have evidence that the Wind River earthquake actually occurred deeper within the Earth, in its mantle, rather than within the Earth’s crust.

Their measurements suggest the earthquake occurred at a depth of 75 km.
In the local area, known as the Wyoming Craton, the Earth’s crust is no deeper than 40-50 km, forming part of the cold, stable lithosphere that underlies much of North America. (Read more from this story HERE)

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What Was Spotted Behind Hillary at Her Big Announcement Has Many Crying ‘Conspiracy!’

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Twitter lit up over the weekend with speculation over whether Hillary Clinton’s campaign planted a gay couple prominently behind her on the platform, who just happened to kiss on queue when the candidate stated her support for homosexual marriage.

Clinton has made a well-publicized flip-flop on the issue since her last time as a candidate in 2008.

As reported by Western Journalism, Clinton claims her position on the issue has evolved over time.

When she ran for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000, she said: “Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”

She also indicated that if she had been in the Senate at the time, she would have voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which her husband signed into law.

In 2004, from the Senate floor, Clinton said:

I believe that marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman. I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I take umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman, going back into the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults.

(Read more from “What Was Spotted Behind Hillary at Her Big Announcement Has Many Crying ‘Conspiracy!'” HERE)

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NAACP Imposter Sued School Over Race Claims

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The NAACP official who today resigned in the face of evidence that she masqueraded as black once sued Howard University for denying her teaching posts and a scholarship because she was a white woman, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Rachel Dolezal, 37, who headed the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington chapter, sued Howard for discrimination in 2002, the year she graduated from the historically black college with a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Dolezal, then known as Rachel Moore, named the university and Professor Alfred Smith as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C.’s Superior Court. During the pendency of the civil case, Smith was chairman of Howard’s Department of Art.

According to a Court of Appeals opinion, Dolezal’s lawsuit “claimed discrimination based on race, pregnancy, family responsibilities and gender.” She alleged that Smith and other school officials improperly blocked her appointment to a teaching assistant post, rejected her application for a post-graduate instructorship, and denied her scholarship aid while she was a student.

The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her. (Read more from “NAACP Imposter Sued School Over Race Claims” HERE)

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Possible Pentagon Destruction of Evidence in NSA Leak Case Probed

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The PentagonTwo government watchdog agencies are investigating whether the Pentagon inspector general destroyed evidence improperly during the high-profile leak investigation of former National Security Agency senior official Thomas Drake.

The Justice Department acknowledged the probes in a letter last week to a federal magistrate judge who recently received the allegations from Drake’s lawyers. The judge is determining whether she should take further action in a case that ended in 2011 when Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The Justice Department told the judge the inquiries are being conducted by a committee that looks into allegations of misconduct by inspectors general offices and the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that investigates whistleblower complaints.

“DOD OIG’s handling of documents … is within the scope of an ongoing inquiry by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC),” Raymond Hulser, the chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, wrote to U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Gallagher in a letter dated June 11. “In the event that OSC finds evidence of criminal conduct during the course of its work, it will refer that evidence to the Department of Justice for appropriate action.”

The pair of executive branch probes renews questions about the federal government’s controversial pursuit of Drake on charges that he improperly retained classified information under the Espionage Act. (Read more from “Possible Pentagon Destruction of Evidence in NSA Leak Case Probed” HERE)

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TSA Hired Dozens With Links to Terror Groups

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On the heels of a revealing report demonstrating its ineptitude at catching would-be bombers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been targeted with a second damning report — this time for failing to properly vet new employees, several of whom turned out to be linked with the very terror groups agencies like TSA take pride in thwarting.

An Inspector General’s (IG) report Monday revealed the beleaguered agency “did not identify 73 individuals with terrorism-related category codes because TSA is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related information under current interagency watchlisting policy.”

While the review found the agency’s performance in using available employee-vetting practices to be “generally effective,” it also noted that TSA’s limited ability to cross-reference potential hires with all available watchlist information allowed more than six dozen applicants with possible terror ties to be hired and receive security clearance.

The report also notes that TSA left much of the vetting process to airports, which themselves did not uniformly apply the same set of standards to weeding through the agency’s pool of job applicants . . .

TSA took a beating in the public eye last week, with even mainstream media picking up an IG report explaining how auditors from the Department of Homeland Security were able to sneak weapons and bomb materials past TSA screeners 95 percent of the time. (Read more from “TSA Hired Dozens With Links to Terror Groups” HERE)

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McConnell Gets All Slippery When Cornered on the Secrecy That Surrounds Obamatrade

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By Personal Liberty News Desk. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may butt heads with Barack Obama on many things — but Obamatrade, apparently, isn’t one of them.

Speaking with Fox News this week, McConnell had a lot of trouble explaining why the White House has been so secretive with the contents of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the backbone for Obama’s plans to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He was similarly dodgy when attempting to explain why he supports the president’s plan.

“The trade agreement will be completely transparent,” he told Fox. “We’ll have a chance to vote whether to approve it or not.” (Read more from “McConnell Gets All Slippery When Cornered on the Secrecy That Surrounds Obamatrade” HERE)

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GOP Leadership’s Latest Obamatrade Ploy Revealed

By Alex Swoyer. Establishment Republicans are desperately trying to secure the passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would give President Obama fast-track authority to secure congressional approval of at least three secretive trade deals, are now willing to increase taxes on small businesses in a way that would violate a pledge almost every Republican Congressman has taken when elected into office.

To secure final passage through Congress of a package that would include TPA fast-track authority—which would ensure finalization of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), among other deals—the House would need to pass the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) package that was necessary for Senate passage of TPA. The House voted TAA down 302-126 with widespread bipartisan opposition to last week, but House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his allies in House GOP leadership have pledged that they will try to pass it again early next week. The vote would potentially be on Monday, but more likely on Tuesday—and if there is no vote by Tuesday, it’s unlikely that Ryan will be able to succeed in his ploy to revive TPA.

TAA is a big government program usually favored by Democrats—it increases the size and scope of government, and is essentially viewed by Republicans as a welfare program—so their opposition to it during Friday’s complicated and confusing House vote schedule was not opposition to TAA as a specific concept, but opposition to the full Obamatrade package, especially TPA.

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave a blistering floor speech against the full Obamatrade deal, causing a Democratic rebellion against TAA—and forcing Ryan to push Republicans to vote for that part of the package.

TAA was originally supposed to be financed with Medicare cuts – which sparked major outrage, and cries of hypocrisy in what would have certainly turned into boldly negative campaign advertisements against Republicans by Democrats this next cycle. But under pressure, Republican leadership, mainly Boehner and Ryan, negotiated with Democrats to remove the Medicare cuts from the financial backing of TAA and instead using direct tax hikes by raising the penalties for misfiled taxes. (Read more from this story HERE)

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ICE Freed Sex Offenders Without Notifying States

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For years, doctors warned federal immigration officials: Do not take your eyes off Santos Hernandez Carrera.

He had raped a woman at knifepoint and spent roughly half his life in jail, where immigration officials hoped to keep him until they could send him home to Cuba. As far as the public knew, the strategy worked: Until last month, the public sex offender registry said Hernandez Carrera, who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, had been deported.

He never was. Instead, the Globe discovered that Hernandez Carrera is in Florida, one of hundreds of immigrants convicted of sex crimes who should have been deported but instead were released in the United States because their homelands refused to take them back.

They are convicted rapists, child molesters, and kidnappers — among “the worst of the worst,” as one law enforcement agency put it. Yet the Globe found that immigration officials have released them without making sure they register with local authorities as sex offenders.

And once US Immigration and Customs Enforcement frees them, agency officials often lose track of the criminals, despite outstanding deportation orders against them. The Globe determined that Hernandez Carrera and several other offenders had failed to register as sex offenders, a crime. By law, police are supposed to investigate if such offenders fail to update their address within days of their release. But local officials said they did not learn that ICE had released the offenders until after the Globe inquired about their cases. (Read more from “ICE Freed Sex Offenders Without Notifying States” HERE)

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Hillary’s EPIC FAIL: Where Were the Adoring Throngs for Her Campaign’s New Launch?

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Hillary Clinton’s “don’t-call-it-a-relaunch” presidential campaign launch wasn’t as well-attended as she would have liked– and nowhere near what a Democratic Party would expect if it wants to hold onto the White House next year.

Organizers were so optimistic that they designated an “overflow” area to handle progressive partisans who were sure to crowd New York’s Roosevelt Island to get a glimpse of the former secretary of state according to multiple media outlets.

Instead, a photo tweeted by CNN’s Dan Merica showed a dismally empty overflow area: . . .

It’s a sad showing, especially when you compare the turnout to the crowd U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ announcement speech attracted. Even though mainstream media pundits would have you believe the Independent from Vermont has exactly zero chance of winning, he was able to turn out a crowd estimated at 5,000 when he announced his run for the presidency in Burlington, according to this tweet:

Sanders has actually been turning some heads for his ability to draw unexpectedly large crowds. The Washington Post reported that nearly 2,000 supporters packed a Minneapolis gym for in late May to hear the senator speak – about as many who showed up for Clinton on Roosevelt Island. (Read more from “Hillary’s EPIC FAIL: Where Were the Adoring Throngs for Her Campaign’s New Launch?” HERE)

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