Paul Manafort is the new head of Donald Trump’s campaign. A longtime Washington insider and heavy duty lobbyist for third world dictators, Manafort appeared this morning on Fox News Sunday and inadvertently let slip some revealing truths.
MANAFORT: …What we’re trying to do right now is work with the Mitch McConnells who we didn’t depose in Kentucky even though he won the election and we worked with him to put a unity slate together. We’re trying to bring the party together. That’s what —
WALLACE: Wait, because I think this is interesting. You’re saying that you’re working with the Senate majority leader, who to a lot of the grassroots is a symbol of the problem?
MANAFORT: We’re working with party officials and that was an example on Saturday where we could have — we won the state. We could have gone in there and tried to be disruptive as Cruz does in these states.
Manafort’s lobbying firm has been termed “the torturer’s lobby”, having represented Filipino dictator Marcos, Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi, ousted Ukrainian president and Putin ally Victor Yanukovych, to name but a few.
Yes, Donald Trump would be vastly superior to Hillary Clinton, because a malfunctioning pencil sharpener would be vastly superior to Hillary Clinton.
But anyone expecting Trump to fight the McConnells and Ryans and the Chamber of Commerce is going to sorely disappointed. Trump has surrounded himself with Beltway cronies, lobbyists and insiders. He is a longtime Democrat and liberal.
That is what he is and will always be. Caveat emptor. (For more from the author of “TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHIEF/LOBBYIST MANAFORT: Yeah, We’re Secretly Working With Mitch McConnell” please click HERE)
By Ralph Z. Hallow. With John Boehner now departing as House speaker, an influential Republican Party official is now seeking the ouster of another GOP leader who has frustrated conservatives: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“McConnell needs to resign!!” Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger Villere wrote in a Facebook posting.
Mr. Villere isn’t just any Republican. He’s the longest-serving state GOP chairman in the nation, with 12 years on the job, and is the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, the GOP’s national governing body. He also serves on the RNC’s executive committee that makes decisions alongside Chairman Reince Priebus.
“Mitch is a good and honorable guy, but the base is leaving our party,” Mr. Villere said in an interview with The Washington Times. “I’m out in the field all the time and we have all our elections this year for state offices, and it’s hurting us tremendously with our elections.”
Aides for Mr. McConnell, Kentucky Republican, did not return repeated calls and emails seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Priebus said he was unavailable Sunday. (Read more from “Top GOP Official Calling for McConnell to Resign” HERE)
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Conservatives to 2016 GOP Field: Defy Us at Your Own Peril
By Steve Peoples and Jill Colvin. The Republican Party’s conservative wing, pumped up by House Speaker John Boehner’s stepping down, is warning the 2016 presidential candidates that defying its wishes will come at their peril.
Religious activists forcefully conveyed this message Saturday: embrace our uncompromising stance against abortion rights and gay marriage, among other priorities, even if doing so risks a federal government shutdown.
An emboldened conservative movement signals fresh trouble for White House candidates viewed by the party’s frustrated base as insufficiently committed to their cause. Chief among them is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-28 00:49:312016-04-11 10:57:58Top GOP Official Calling for McConnell to Resign
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants you to think he opposes the effort to defund Planned Parenthood in the continuing resolution (CR) because it could cause a government shutdown.
He also wants you to think it’s because he doesn’t have 60 votes in the Senate when in fact it only takes 41 votes to filibuster funding for the organization . . .
Here are the facts that he doesn’t want you to know:
(1) In 1992, McConnell voted to allow taxpayer-funded research using body parts from aborted babies . . .
(2) Also in 1992, McConnell voted to overturn the so-called “Reagan Rule” that prohibited Planned Parenthood from using taxpayer dollars for pro-abortion counseling.
(Read more from “No Surprise: Mitch McConnell Has Funded the Abortion Industry for Years” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-09-26 01:58:252016-04-11 10:58:01No Surprise: Mitch McConnell Has Funded the Abortion Industry for Years
When is it actually worse for Republicans to control the Senate, from an operational standpoint, than to have Harry Reid control the Senate?
This is not a tough riddle. The answer is when Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is sabotaging conservatives in a way even Harry Reid couldn’t orchestrate were he in charge.
Here is the incipient plan of attack from McConnell’s strategy to fund Planned Parenthood.
After going through the motions to fight abortion in a standalone bill, McConnell has filed cloture on a Continuing Resolution that funds every other odious activity of this administration – from the Iran deal and Obama’s Syrian rebels and refugee program to Obama’s amnesty and EPA regulations – through December 11. How fitting that he is using H.J. Res 61 as the legislative vehicle for the CR, which was the shell for the first phony fight of the month – the resolution to disapprove the Iran deal. McConnell can’t sell out to Obama on enough issues fast enough. This vote will take place on Thursday.
What about funding for Planned Parenthood? This bill contains the half-measure the House passed last week, which would defer $235 million from Planned Parenthood to community health centers, but stop short of prohibiting all grants through Medicaid and other programs. Then, after Democrats filibuster it knowing that McConnell is just putting on Kabuki Theater for phony Republicans, McConnell will bring out the real bill. CNN explains the next step:
The second bill would also fund the government through early December, but leave the Planned Parenthood funding intact. It is expected to pass the Senate with the support of Democrats and many Republicans who are wary of shutting the government over the Planned Parenthood issue. Cornyn said Senate Republicans are “trying to figure out how to advance the pro-life agenda without attaching it to a failed strategy like a shutdown.” House Republican leaders are still struggling with their own path forward, and are hoping they can convince their rank-and-file members to back a short-term funding bill that doesn’t include the provision to defund Planned Parenthood. Instead, GOP leaders are urging members to back a strategy to address the controversy over Planned Parenthood through a budget process known as “reconciliation” that would allow them to pass a bill to defund the group by a simple majority in the Senate and avoid a Democratic filibuster.
What Republican leaders plan to do is jam their own party in the House by first passing the abortion-funding CR in the Senate, thereby placing pressure on the House to follow suit. This is the ultimate act of treachery that serves to disenfranchise the House GOP majority the voters elected back in 2011. Typically, a party committed to fighting for their priorities in this scenario would first pass a CR defunding Planned Parenthood out of the House and jam the Senate. Then accuse Senate Democrats of blocking government funding in order to fund harvesting of baby organs.
McConnell is doing just the opposite. He is jamming his own party and the majoritarian body they control with the other party’s bill! This is a worse outcome than what we would have had with Reid still in charge of the Senate. Now Democrats can isolate and marginalize House conservatives by having Senate Republicans do the dirty work for them.
Some inside-D.C. conservative pundits criticize the grassroots for focusing so much of their fire on the GOP establishment instead of the Democrats. But what they fail to understand is that we will never defeat the Democrats if we have “our own” party leaders scoring points for the other side. (For more from the author of “RINO Mitch McConnell Is Sabotaging Conservatives Worse Than Harry Reid” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-23 23:29:112015-09-23 23:29:11RINO Mitch McConnell Is Sabotaging Conservatives Worse Than Harry Reid
Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spent tens of millions of dollars on his reelection bid last year promising voters all the magnanimous things he’d do to stop Obama’s radical agenda were he crowned Majority Leader of the Senate. After less than a year in office McConnell has resigned his position and has bestowed the privilege of majority leader on the Democrat leader indefinitely.
Speaking to a local reporter in Hazard, Kentucky, McConnell has, once again, reiterated his intent to pass a budget bill continuing to fund Planned Parenthood because the Democrats told him so:
“We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like,” McConnell said. “I would remind all of your viewers: The way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it and the president has to sign it. The president has made it very clear he’s not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood.”
Let me remind all of our viewers that there is a legislative process and there is a budget process. With regards to the legislative process, both houses of Congress must pass a new statute in order to change the law, and the president must agree to sign the bill. Accordingly, McConnell is correct in asserting that without control of all branches of government, Republicans are unable to pass new laws. But the budget process works just the opposite. So long as just one body of Congress is controlled by Republicans and they refuse to fund a certain aspect of government, that function is not funded. It takes just one body of government to wield the power of the purse; it takes all three branches to fund government.
But won’t the federal government shutdown when the Democrats balk at a funding bill that excludes their sacred funding for #PlannedButcherhood?
Freeze frame at this point. It is this question and this political dynamic that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the current Republican Party does not share our values. We are not asking for a funding fight over something like Social Security, the minimum wage, or labor laws. We are asking that, in chronicling the barbaric harvesting and selling of organs from babies, taxpayer funding not be sent to these groups. If Republicans are incapable of messaging this to the American people and confidently declaring without a shred of diffidence in their voices that Democrats will rue the day for shutting down the government in order to fund torture of babies, they should just shut the lights in their stuffy offices and resign.
Here’s the dirty little secret Mitch McConnell refuses to divulge. He is accepting the premise that Democrats win every showdown – no matter the issue or the circumstances. Under his premise and his system of governance, it will make absolutely no difference if Republicans win back the White House in 2016. Well, let’s take a trip into the future and picture this scenario unfolding in 2017. Republicans win the White House and maintain control of Congress, albeit with a slim majority in the Senate. Democrats will filibuster every single minor legislative vehicle, much less something as important to them as funding for abortions. What will McConnell do come budget time? They simply won’t have the votes to even get the bill to the president’s desk.
What’s worse, the public is more likely to blame Republicans for a shutdown when they officially control all levers of government. Wait for McConnell’s lame excuses: “just wait until 2019 and let us win a super-majority in the Senate.” And you know what? Even if that happens, there will always be a number of Republicans who will join with the Democrats in opposing any bold reforms.
Without real leadership and without leaders who share our values, every noble idea will be stymied by insurmountable odds. The excuses never end.
Earlier this summer, Mark Levin publicly called for McConnell to resign. It’s time for all conservatives to follow suit. It’s time for the GOP presidential candidates to be asked if this is the leader they want in the Senate as quarterback for their legislative and budgetary initiatives. Perhaps, the answer to that question will reveal more about them than any of their statements on policy issues. (For more from the author of “McConnell Plans to Fund Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-01 23:25:462015-09-01 23:25:46McConnell Plans to Fund Planned Parenthood
It defies logic that the elected leadership in the House and Senate for the Republican Party can be so lame.
Politico reports today that “House GOP leaders desperate to avoid shutdown.” This headline speaks volumes why presidential candidates like billionaire Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are doing so well in the polls. Republican voters have lost confidence in their own leadership and they don’t want to fall in behind traditional politicians.
Politico reports:
An explosive confrontation brewing between the House Republican leadership and conservatives over Planned Parenthood is threatening to shut down the government for the second time in three years. And House GOP leaders have yet to settle on a strategy to avert it.
The leaders in the House and Senate know that this Planned Parenthood issue is burning hot, yet they don’t have a strategy to avoid it.
They have come up with an idea that inside the beltway geeks love. It is the “Let’s Have Hearings and Study the Issue Strategy.” The easiest way to slow walk an issue and avoid a fight is to study it. They argue that a series of hearings would build an “overwhelming case” against the group. Hearings are a classic shiny object for politicians because they think they can use a hearing to avoid doing their real job – legislating.
Politico reports “desperate to avoid another closure, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his team would prefer to build bipartisan opposition to funding the group through a series of high-profile Congressional investigations. But, at this point, that seems unlikely to cut it with a bloc of House conservatives who have said they simply won’t vote for a large-scale spending plan that funds Planned Parenthood.”
The House Freedom Caucus and a handful of Tea Party-minded senators are expected to oppose the idea of funding Planned Parenthood while Congress holds toothless hearings that are set up for the sole purpose of avoiding a fight.
Over the next few weeks you are going to see a parade of Senate and House members of the surrender caucus – those who believe that the strategy of surrender is helpful, because if they don’t fight then they will be blameless when Republicans fail – say the following: “I have been rated one of the most pro-life members of Congress and I get an A+ rating from all pro-life groups. Nobody takes a back seat to me on pro-life issues, but…”. These squishy members will cry about a filibuster in the Senate and President Obama’s promised veto of any appropriations bill that does not fully fund Planned Parenthood. You can never win if you don’t fight. Pre-emptive surrender (#8 of the Rules for RINOs) is never a good strategy.
It defies logic that these so-called leaders are going to march right up to a government shutdown on September 30 and try to bully members into passing a continuing resolution that punts the tough funding decisions on Planned Parenthood to the end of the year. This leadership seems incapable of coming up with any strategy to defund Planned Parenthood, yet they will try to blame conservatives if the government shuts down because they never came up with a plan.
The broken promises of this leadership team are important. Why?
First, the leadership publicly promised regular order and a process where both chambers would take up individual appropriations bills and work to fine tune them to provide a better policy outcome for conservatives. At least that would have provided a way for conservatives to force vote after vote to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, and Obama’s array of executive amnesties. Regular order never happened in the Senate.
Both GOP leaders promised t they were going to use the budget process to send a bill to fully repeal Obamacare that would avoid a senate filibuster because of the budget reconciliation special rules. That is not going to happen.
As I wrote in Human Events months ago when Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued another Supreme Court decision saving Obamacare that said, in essence, “Congress is America’s last hope to repeal Obamacare.”
Take a look at the House Budget Committee’s one-pager where they promised that the congressionally passed budget “Repeals Obamacare.” The document’s first bullet point relating to health care swore that the budget “Repeals Obamacare in full – including all of its taxes, regulations and mandates.” The Senate Budget Committee posted a press release where they made a similar promise, that the budget “provides for Repeal of Obamacare to Start Over with Patient-Centered Reforms.” The House and Senate Budget Committees are set to break those promises.
The government is going to shut down over this issue and hearings are not going to save leadership from a fight. The idea that Republicans can run a strategy that consists of doing nothing and hoping that Democrats make a mistake and give away the next election doomed Romney and will doom the Republican presidential nominee next fall if these so-called leaders don’t change course quickly.
The time to dig in and fight is now. (Re-posted with permission, “Surrender Caucus Strikes Again in Pending Budget Fight” originally appeared HERE)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would like everyone to know that Obama’s Iran deal has “a great likelihood of success” in Congress.
“He can win by getting one-third plus one of either house. So he’s still got a great likelihood of success.” […]
“I hope we can defeat it, but the procedure is obviously stacked in the president’s favor.”
And one more doozey from the AP report of McConnell’s speech:
McConnell said he hoped to have a “respectful, uplifting debate” when the deal reaches the Senate floor.
“What I’ve asked my colleagues to do is to sit at their desks, listen to each other and treat the consideration of this agreement with the respect that it deserves,” he said. “This is a major, major foreign policy decision.”
Them fightin’ words, Mitch!
Anyone who has followed Mitch McConnell’s career, especially as the sitting GOP leader in the Senate, will notice that instead of sounding like a confident and defiant leader fighting the existential threats of our time, he often sounds like a Fox News commentator prognosticating and pontificating about the political dynamic and the likely outcome of a vote. So Mitch, tell us how you really feel.
These timid statements from McConnell are undoubtedly resonating in the halls of the White House at the same time the AP has publicly confirmed the UN will allow Iran to inspect its nuclear sites with its own nuclear scientists! It is now clear that one of the side agreements Obama cut with Ayatollah Khamenei was to allow their foxes to guard their own nuclear hen house. This comes on the heels of the revelation that the Obama administration promised Iran, as early as 2011, they could continue enriching uranium while enjoying relief from sanctions.
Instead of sounding like a confident and defiant leader fighting the existential threats of our time, he often sounds like a Fox News commentator prognosticating and pontificating about the political dynamic and the likely outcome of a vote.
Couple these acts of treachery with Obama preempting the congressional review period by consummating the deal at the UN Security Council, and it is clear Obama has reneged on every facet of the unconstitutional Corker-Cardin review process. Yet, McConnell is still legitimizing the process that is designed to fail until the bitter end. Why is he not working on defunding implementation of the deal and promising to block State Department nominees until Obama comes clean on his multiple lies and acts of treachery – assuming he really does think the Iran deal is such a calamity? Why is he not bringing the Iran deal up for a vote of approval – now that Obama has nullified Corker-Cardin – and voting it down to help delegitimize the deal?
Instead, McConnell is openly legitimizing the deal by admitting that as long as one-third of one house of Congress supports it, the deal is a success.
And speaking of this absurdly new low threshold of congressional support that can now bestow validity on a deal of such magnitude, why didn’t McConnell divulge this to the American people during the debate over Corker-Cardin? At the time, he offered the vague promise that the Senate would “take a vote to approve or disprove of the agreement before congressional sanctions could be lifted.” Clearly, anyone who doesn’t understand McConnell’s modus operandi would have concluded that Congress must affirmatively approve the deal before sanctions are lifted. Now he lets us know it’s just a show vote.
This show vote in many ways emblematizes Mitch McConnell and the GOP establishment. Far from being disgruntled about the high vote-threshold he accepted as part of this deal, McConnell embraces every opportunity to protest a Democrat policy without using live ammo that will actually hit the target down range.
In 2011, McConnell concocted his infamous debt ceiling plan, which would have allowed Obama to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling but afford Congress the opportunity to overturn it…if they mustered two-thirds support in both houses for the resolution of disapproval. This plan was formally incorporated into the debt ceiling suspension bill (section 1002 (b)) on October 16, 2013. On that day, all but 18 Republicans voted to waive the debt limit, but 13 days later the entire GOP conference, led by McConnell, lodged their show vote of disapproval to the very process they had set into motion.
On that very day, McConnell issued a press release titled,” McConnell Rejects Schumer-Obama Plan for Permanent Debt Ceiling Extension.” He acted as if he had just successfully blocked the permanent debt ceiling increase he just consummated with the October 16 vote and knowingly failed to block during the October 29 vote. He even had the nerve to repudiate his own plan by calling it the “Schumer plan,” even though Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) previously tweaked McConnell by introducing his debt ceiling plan as permanent law.
This duplicitous form of ‘press release conservatism’ is exactly what McConnell has in store for the Iran resolution of disapproval in September. McConnell wants all of the senators to sit at their desks during the debate with the full display of theatrics feigning outrage over the Iran deal that McConnell did nothing to stop over the past two years. Each senator will then issue a press release and breathe a sigh of relief that they can oppose this deal without actually taking the ownership for blowing it up.
Sadly, this insidious display of cowardice and showmanship is not unique to the debt ceiling or Iran alliance. Yesterday, yet another Planned Parenthood video was released – this time showing an organization official discussing harvesting the brains of babies with beating hearts.
I’ve seen many conservative pundits, even those who weren’t with the grassroots on previous budget fights, openly predicting there is no way GOP leadership can shirk their responsibility to defund Planned Parenthood in the September budget bill. One would also think there is no way they can continue funding the DHS without defunding Obama’s amnesty, which has directly led to a trail of blood through releasing violent criminal aliens into the population.
Think again. McConnell would like you to know: “there will be no government shutdown” and they don’t have a “great likelihood of success.”
That September budget bill is one vote you can rest assured will not be cast with all of the senators present at their desks. (Re-posted with permission, “McConnell Declares Iran Failure a Success”, originally appeared HERE)
Perhaps the most enlightening, yet underreported moment during last Thursday’s debate was when the crowd started cheering at the mention of Texas Senator Ted Cruz calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar. Yes, indeed the GOP base is more offended by the GOP establishment than any outrageous and offensive thing Donald Trump has said. It’s time for elected Republicans and the rest of the presidential field to follow their base.
At this point, there is nothing more important than using the power of the purse to stop Obama’s increasingly dangerous lawlessness. But that will never occur unless there is an immediate change in leadership. Mitch McConnell has made it clear to Obama that he will never force a budget fight – no matter what Obama chooses to do in the coming weeks. Not even the thousands of lost coal jobs in his state will prompt him to fulfill his campaign promises.
After several bloody weeks last month of murders at the hands of illegal aliens, nothing illustrates the crisis at hand more than the story of Marilyn Pharis. On July 24, Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez, an illegal alien from Mexico, broke into Pharis’ home at night with an accomplice and beat her with a claw hammer, raped her, and strangled her to death.
So who is Victor Ramirez? Fox reports:
Ramirez has been arrested six times in last 15 months, for crimes including sexual assault, possession of methamphetamine and weapons and driving without a license. His most recent arrest occurred just eight days before the attack on Pharis.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in a statement it did not issue an immigration detainer, which would have led to deportation, for Ramirez following the most recent arrest. The agency said its decision was “based on the agency’s enforcement priorities after a thorough review of his case history showed he had no prior deportations or felony criminal convictions.”
You read that correctly. Even an illegal alien with six arrests, for crimes including sexual assault, was not considered a priority under Obama’s amnesty and new “Priority Enforcement Program (PEP)” that Obama established to supplant the effective Secure Communities program. As Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin candidly said, “I am not remiss to say that from Washington DC to Sacramento, there is a blood trail to Marilyn Pharis’ bedroom.”
There is a trail of blood flowing from the White House across America – the blood of thousands of aborted babies funded by taxpayers and the blood of Americans killed by illegal aliens who were set free by Obama’s lawlessness.
Both the GOP presidential candidates and congressional Republicans have a choice to make as it relates to this issue.
For presidential candidates, will they get sucked in to the “flowing blood” tabloid scandal between Trump and Megyn Kelly or will they focus on the blood trail of Obama’s amnesty and hold rallies with victims of illegal immigration?
It is truly a shame that every American has heard about Megyn Kelly but so few know about Marilyn Pharis and Margaret Kostelnik – the two most recent victims of illegal aliens. But here’s the good news: all of those candidates and elected officials trying to run as conservatives have the opportunity to change that.
For congressional Republicans, will they fight to defund Obama’s amnesty and tie all DHS funding to the restoration of the Secure Communities program or will they be complicit in this avoidable lawlessness? Will they continue to follow their failed leaders and the current course into an electoral abyss, as proven by the decline in Republicans favorability rating?
Last week, Mitch McConnell reiterated has fervent opposition to any budget battle with Obama, once again revoking the power of the purse from the hands of the people’s representatives. Unfortunately, there is no practical way, unlike in the House, to remove McConnell from power because he is appointed by the party, not the entire Senate body. This is why it is even more important to preserve the power of the purse in the people’s House and use it as the last remaining deterrent against Obama’s dangerous and lawless policies for the next 17 months. And in the House, where Speaker John Boehner is elected by the full body, conservatives have the ability to join with Democrats and vote him out any time, as Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) has demonstrated.
When Meadows introduced the resolution to toss out Boehner, some of his “conservative colleagues” trashed him to the liberal media, insinuating that he acted irresponsibly. But they are the ones who are irresponsible for keeping a leader who will be complicit in the literal bloodletting of Americans – both at the hands of illegal aliens and Planned Parenthood – by not using the congressional power of the purse in September. McConnell’s recent comments about ceding that power to Obama should make it clear that Meadows was right to go after Boehner so that there is at least one leader in one house of Congress committed to fighting this insanity. (Re-posted with permission from the author, “McConnell Proves Meadows Right in His Effort to Depose Boehner”, originally appeared HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-12 01:48:272015-08-12 01:48:27McConnell Proves Meadows Right in His Effort to Depose Boehner
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)
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)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-15 03:41:582016-04-11 11:00:01McConnell Gets All Slippery When Cornered on the Secrecy That Surrounds Obamatrade
There is nothing more rare in Washington than the opportunity to shutter the doors of a profligate federal agency. Thus the prospect of ending the wasteful and corrupt Export-Import Bank is even more enticing. Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has just handed the Democrats another gift that could possibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Republicans and reauthorize the poster child of corporate welfare.
In an irony of all ironies, McConnell was giving away political favors last week to Democrats willing to join him to…pass one of Obama’s biggest legislative priorities, Trade Promotion Authority and dubbed by others as Obamatrade for the special privileges granted to the potential trade deal. Irrespective of one’s views on trade in general, the idea that Republicans would expend political capital to pay off Democrats in order to help pass one of Obama’s top priorities is absurd. Yet, that is exactly what McConnell did when he promised Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) a vote on the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank charter in exchange for her and a contingent of Democrats agreeing to vote for cloture on Obamatrade last Thursday.
McConnell has refused to negotiate or fight vigorously to allow votes on conservative priorities, but he is willing to surrender the one impending victory against corporate welfare in order to bail out Obama from troubles with his own party! Even more troubling, at a time when McConnell has blocked conservatives from offering amendments, even those that are germane to pending legislation, he is abdicating his authority as Majority Leader to set the Senate to Cantwell next month by allowing her to file cloture on a bill reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank. And according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), this non-germane bill will be attached to the eventual highway bill, which is regarded by the Washington political class as “must pass legislation.” This will make it very difficult for conservatives to block the bill. And to top it all off, McConnell is doing all this while he claims to oppose the Export-Import Bank.
Republicans can pocket a victory that would shrink the size of government by simply doing nothing and allowing the Bank’s charter to expire, but McConnell, in order to help Obama, is willing to forgo that victory. The entire purpose of winning back the Senate when lacking 60 votes to affirmatively pass legislation is to control the floor and block liberal initiatives from coming to a vote. With every Democrat and many establishment Republicans potentially supporting Ex-Im’s reauthorization, allowing Cantwell control over the floor will ensure the passage of this handout to Boeing and General Motors – at a time when conservatives are working overtime to re-establish the Republican Party as a free market beacon for all.
McConnell’s double game is so infuriating because there has never been more momentum behind eliminating the charter of this corruption-laden federal entity. In addition to the conservative leaders in the House, the ranks of those who want to see Ex-Im expire include Reps. Jeb Hensarling, Paul Ryan, Steve Scalise, and Kevin McCarthy. Why can’t McConnell just take yes for an answer?
Sadly, McConnell doesn’t share conservative policy goals so naturally he has no qualms about sabotaging this impending victory over big government. In fact, he supports the big government cronies pushing for the Ex-Im Bank.
While McConnell works on his new memoir, The Long Game, he ought to include a lengthy chapter titled: The Double Game. (See “McConnell Gives Poster Child of Corporate Welfare a Pass”, originally posted HERE)
