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On the subject of the fast-track trade bill… — 23 Comments

  1. Senator Jeff Sessions has done yeoman work on all these trade bills. His comments, speeches and reports have all been detailed and very much fact based.

    He is also a lawyer and nearly a federal judge so he knows what he is talking about when he speaks of transferring authority from one branch to another.

    I have lost all respect for Paul Ryan. A complete shill.

    If these bills are so great, why all the secrecy?

    Obama is upset about this as if doesn’t, then his post-presidency speaking fees go down.

    This was Pelosi’s finest hour; stabbing Barack in the back.

  2. The Republicans have proven to the base that they too can lie as easily as Obama.
    As I was reading about the Enabling Act I kept trying to convince myself (albeit with no supporting evidence) that Republicans weren’t this stupid then I remembered the saying…there are 2 parties in this country the dangerous and the stupid. Well the stupid party is about to hand over more power to the dangerous, heaven help us all.

  3. Excellent post, Neo, thanks.

    I’d point out that the TPP, which was supposed to be the problematic part, was not defeated. It passed 219 – 211.

    TAA, which the Dems like, was supposed to be passed first, enabling passage of TPP by pulling in Dem votes. The opposite happened.

    It’s almost like Pelosi decided to stick it in Obama’s eye. Noow that that’s done, I expect TAA to pass next week, unless something unusual happens.

    Sessions on TAA next week

  4. neo…

    You left out one key legislative tactic of the Nazis: they pulled the vote on a SHORT FUSE.

    (This is where Goring came in — as he grabbed the gavel.)

    MANY of Hitler’s legislative opponents were merely out of town — and couldn’t get back in time.

    THAT’S how the Nazis pulled off their majority vote.

    He simply violated German custom — the equivalent of the American Senate’s rules — to get the vote hyper-accelerated.

    The opposition never imagined that such a bombshell could’ve/ would’ve raced through the process — lightning speed — and that Goring ruled that there was a quorum.

    Yes, that ruling did NOT tabulate those present, being too few.

    Goring mere called for yeas and nays and on the call out declared that a quorum existed.

    At that moment, the building was STUFFED with every Nazi, as Hitler and crew made sure that his boys did not leave town in front of the instant vote.

    An act that voted itself out of existence was something that was totally beyond the imaginations of the non-Nazis.

  5. blert:

    The Wiki article for the Enabling Act (to which I linked in my post) goes into that topic. But I didn’t discuss it because I didn’t see it as especially relevant to my post, which was about how even Hitler’s opponents who were there cooperated, in the main, and voted for it. Perhaps because they feared if they defied him he’d do it anyway, and they hoped the crocodile would eat them last.

    From Wiki:

    Meanwhile, the Social Democrats initially planned to hinder the passage of the Act by boycotting the Reichstag session, rendering that body short of the quorum (two thirds) needed to vote on a constitutional amendment. The Reichstag, however, led by its President, Hermann Gé¶ring, changed its rules of procedure, allowing the President to declare that any deputy who was “absent without excuse” was to be considered as present, in order to overcome obstructions. Because of this procedural change, the Social Democrats were obliged to attend the session, and committed to voting against the Act. Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to detain several SPD deputies. A few others saw the writing on the wall and fled into exile.

    So he finessed their plan to boycott and thwart him, and he thwarted them. You are correct that most ordinary politicians had no idea how the Nazis were willing to operate, and by the time they realized, it was too late.

    Happens a lot with evil, unfortunately.

  6. Cornhead wrote:

    This was Pelosi’s finest hour; stabbing Barack in the back.

    Continuing Neo’s theme, one might dub this a Dolchstoss.

  7. I’m not sure whether the comparison with the Nazi takeover of Germany is correct or not. I tend to doubt it since there are so many Democrats in Congress who oppose the bill whereas the Nazis walked lockstep together to take over Germany. Only time will tell how this will all shake out and whether Neo’s Nazi comparison has merit.

  8. Dennis:

    At the moment it’s certainly not going the way of the Enabling Act—fortunately. Nor is Obama having a bunch of armed men standing around threatening members of Congress, or arresting members of a party.

    The IRS, however…

    I do think that studying how tyrannies succeed give us a heads-up on what to look out for, and how it can happen.

  9. How is this fast-track authority different from other fast-track authorities granted to the President over the years?

    As I understand it, the fast-track authority grants the President the authority to negotiate trade treaties without amendment from the Senate.

    The Senate, however, retains its authority to approve the treaty on a straight up-or-down vote, without amendment or filibuster.

  10. Eric:

    The Sessions quotes explain some of the way it would work, but not necessarily what the differences are from previous presidents. The important thing (I think) is that previous presidents had not previously so strongly signaled their determination to abuse their power. Obama has. Nor do I think previous administrations were secretive about what the deals they were contemplaying actually were.

    Some of what Sessions says, from the link:

    “The so-called negotiating objectives in the fast-track bill are merely for show,” Nucor Steel chairman emeritus Dan DiMicco says, according to Sessions. “The President can and does sign the agreement before Congress views or votes on it.”

    Sessions then wrote how fast-track authority is “the action that empowers the President to put America’s name on the deal sitting in that walled-off room–before a page of it has been shared with the public.”…

    In a Ways and Means document on the new Pacific Union being formed by Obama, the Committee hints at some of this union’s powers: ‘if a proposed change to a trade agreement is contemplated [by the TPP Commission] that would require a change in U.S. law, all of TPA’s congressional notification, consultation, and transparency requirements would apply. In other words, Ways and Means is intimating that this new secret Pacific Union would function like a third house of Congress, with legislative primacy, sending changes to the House and Senate under fast-track procedures (receiving less legislative procedure than, for instance, Post Office reform).

    Moreover, this legislative fast-track, Ways and Means implies, is limited to that which requires a ‘change in U.S. law’–meaning if this President (or the next) argues it is simply an executive action, not a legal action, the Executive could have a free hand to implement the Commission’s decrees without Congress. This is not merely a loophole; this is purposeful delegation of congressional authority to the Executive and to an international body. The fast-tracked implementing legislation would have the ability to make these delegations binding as a matter of law.

    More here.

  11. If Bruce Jenner can really be a girl (and let’s face it the top elites and “progressives” universally say the entity formerly known as Bruce is a girl!), then there is even less claim to race since it is only skin deep and X and Y chromosomes are in every cell of the body and every single drop of blood.

    NO blood is black or white or any color but red. No cell is racial. A scant few produce slightly more melanin than other. That’s it.

    Black is an invention. White is a fiction. Yellow is only yellow.

    The race mongers – EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM – are every bit as fascists as Hitler himself.

    They are enemies to humanity itself.

  12. As a matter of principle, Democrats do not care about people, but rather environmental stability. As a matter of principle, Republicans care about people, but may be exceptionally (i.e. individually) corrupt. The reality is that both groups have overlapping and even converging interests.

    Unfortunately, the dynamic is complicated, and difficult to unravel. However, we know that Democrat politicians and interests lead the financial collapse of 2007. We know that Obamacare, a “populist economic” program, does not support universal medical care, borrowed from other social programs (e.g. Medicare), massively increased the national debt (i.e. devaluation of capital and labor), and shifted responsibility for medical reform (i.e. Medicaid).

    The Democrats clearly have ulterior motives to support and oppose aspects of the trade bill. The Republicans would do well to be perfectly transparent about the direct and indirect benefits and consequences of these bills.

    That said, I wonder who is telling the truth, if anyone.

  13. Libertarians are controlled by the Left’s propaganda branch. A few generations hasn’t changed that.

  14. The Libertarians were promised that so long as they cooked up pretexts domestically for homo salvation and Gaystapo coverage, that the foreign wars sabotaged by Democrats, would cease entirely.

    As such, the neo cons can take the great share of blame for foreign wars, which Paul Ryan ilks blame for much of America’s misfortune.

    That is not the same as hating or blaming the Leftist alliance domestically, however. That is not the same at all.

    An alliance is made from mutual interest or common objectives. It does not necessitate common beliefs or agreement on religious truths. The Libertarian hierarchy may believe that the way to utopia will be clear once the Republicans are stepped over, in favor of Democrat peace. But Democrats are more warlike than people realize.

  15. Looking over Ryan’s history at a gloss, his economic policy goes way back to Ayn Rand, pillar of the Libertarian movement, almost.

    His foreign policy wasn’t particularly outstanding or abnormal. He followed along with the Republican administration more or less.

    A deal maker, Ryan is. Perhaps he believes Hussein is also a deal maker, that Hussein will obey his side of the deal. Or perhaps Ryan is getting some kind of critical mass return deal that he needs for Ryan’s other projects to go through.

    Or perhaps there’s the blackmail angle. Or the government leak of so and so information, which can be false flagged back to Snowden or China or Russia.

  16. Reminds me of the establishment of the CC, NLRB, FCC, SEC, TVA, WPA, TSA,…..

    Why go for a strained analogy with Hitler’s Enabling Act when US history provides plenty of nearly-identical acts of Congress surrendering power to the executive?

  17. One aspect of the fast track trade bill that has received little attention is that it will create an INTERNATIONAL EPA, that will have regulatory authority that bypasses congress. In the long term, that may be the most harmful aspect of this abomination.

  18. Cowardice? What legal action might we take sir?
    Call & write Congress? Done… repeatedly. Vote for another party’s candidate? Done… repeatedly. Attend another party’s (Tea party) meetings? Done…

    The simple reality is that if Congressional representatives are deaf to reasoned persuasion or political threat, then no legal remedy exists. And, absent sufficient political consensus for reform, no practical means of change is available.

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