BLOOD IN THE WATER: 34 COURAGEOUS CONSERVATIVES WOUND OBAMATRADE ON WAY TO FINAL HOUSE VOTE

A whopping 34 courageous conservative Republicans shocked the political world on Thursday by severely wounding—and nearly killing—Obamatrade on a purely procedural vote.

Most importantly about this is that the vote passed with less than a majority of the full House of Representatives. Speaker 

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

40%

 was only able to — on a purely procedural vote — obtain 217, rather than the 218 votes for a majority, votes for the rule. It passed the House 217-212.

The vote, which nearly failed and would have ended Obamatrade right there, was a necessary procedural hurdle—a rule—that was must-pass for Obamatrade to make its way to the House floor for final consideration on Friday. What’s more, the nearly successful effort to kill Obamatrade—which has been lobbied heavily for by House GOP leadership, particularly the program’s chief architect Ways and Means Committee chairman 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

60%

—means that there’s blood in the water around Obamatrade everywhere in the eleventh hour.

The 34 conservatives who stood up to the Washington establishment are: Reps. 

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)

95%

, 

Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA)

100%

, Dave Brat (R-VA),

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)

80%

, 

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC)

95%

, 

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA)

82%

, 

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)

90%

, 

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)

88%

, 

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY)

42%

, 

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

94%

, 

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)

80%

, 

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA)

65%

, 

Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD)

78%

, 

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)

60%

,

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)

70%

, 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

92%

, 

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)

95%

, 

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)

78%

, 

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)

91%

, 

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

95%

, 

Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV)

60%

, 

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)

92%

, 

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL)

100%

, 

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)

70%

, 

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)

68%

, 

Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL)

78%

, 

Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA)

59%

, 

Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ)

91%

, 

Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ)

95%

, 

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN)

83%

, 

Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL)

62%

, 

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)

80%

, 

Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK)

95%

 and 

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL)

73%

.

“Americans should be proud that 34 Republicans put their country before their political party today,” Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning tells Breitbart News. “Their vote to stop Obamatrade dead in its tracks is one that sets the stage for tomorrow’s defeat of enabling him to fast track the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other treaties.  The nation owes these 34 heroes a debt of gratitude.”

Via: Breitbart

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LIVE UPDATES: OBAMATRADE VOTES IN THE HOUSE

Via: Breitbart.com

Obama trade push hits roadblock, key vote fails in House

DEVELOPING ... 

President Obama's trade push hit a major roadblock Friday as Democrats helped torpedo a bill considered crucial for the agenda to pass. 

In a 126-302 vote, the House killed the so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance bill -- a program that retrains workers displaced by trade. The bill was originally put on the table as a sweetener to help entice recalcitrant Democrats to back the president's overall agenda. 

But the president's own party is so opposed to that agenda, they voted down the sweetener. 

In a major defection for Obama, even House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined the rebellion in opposing TAA minutes before the vote. Though she supports the worker aid, she said it was the only way to "slow down the fast track." 

She predicted the main trade bill would be "stuck in the station" without TAA. 

Now, the president's entire trade plan indeed is up in the air, leaving Obama faced with a potentially humiliating defeat at the hands of his party. 

Despite the setback, the House was moving ahead immediately with the marquee item -- a bill giving Obama so-called "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals that Congress could approve or reject, but not amend. He hoped to use the authority, already agreed to by the Senate, to complete a sweeping pact with 11 other Pacific Rim nations which would constitute the economic centerpiece of his second term. 

Via: Fox News

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Spokane NAACP Leader Falsely Portrays Herself as Black, Her Own Family Says

SPOKANE, Wash. — Controversy is swirling around one of the Spokane region’s most prominent civil rights activists, with family members saying the local leader of the NAACP has falsely portrayed herself as black for years.

Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, chair of the city’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, and an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University.

The Spokesman-Review reported Thursday that questions have arisen about her background and her numerous complaints to police of harassment. The story was first reported by the Coeur d’Alene Press.

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Dolezal’s mother, Ruthanne, says the family’s ancestry is Czech, Swedish and German, with a touch of Native American heritage.

Dolezal has identified herself in application materials as white, black and Native American.

Police say they have found little evidence of racial harassment.

Via: Washington Times

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Sequoyah Elementary School Takes Proactive Steps to Ensure Inclusion for All

The name Sequoyah is synonymous with education and progress. Sequoyah, the great legendary Cherokee figure, worked towards these goals and preserved his native language by creating the first Cherokee alphabet, eventually propelling it to be the strongest surviving indigenous American language. In the spirit of his name, the Sequoyah Elementary School also takes great strides towards education and progress. In working to make a more open and accepting environment for its students, the school is creating a more productive learning environment.

On Tuesday morning, upon invitation by school officials, Adam Soltani and Veronica Laizure of the Council on American Islamic Relations Oklahoma Chapter held a diversity-training program for the school’s educational staff. In this diversity-training program, the two CAIR officials made presentations outlining some of the basics of the Islamic faith and the challenges faced by Muslim Students, and they answered questions in an environment which was truly open and inviting.

Veronica, CAIR Oklahoma’s Civil Rights Director, gave an outline of some of the basic tenets of Islam and showed the teachers how these would affect their students in their school. Her topics ranged from the significance and procedure of prayer and proper religious attire, to the meaning and scheduling of Islamic holy days. She and Adam also answered questions on how these religious matters would affect the students in during the school day and how to have an open, comfortable dialogue with Muslim families to facilitate a productive environment.

Executive Director Adam Soltani gave the next presentation on how “Islamic Extremism” is perceived in the public and in the media. He also inspired an insightful discussion on how miscommunication and misunderstanding can cause problems for the overwhelming majority of Muslims who do not prescribe to this extremist ideology. These problems can be especially harmful to young students, which can affect the way that society continues to develop in the future as a whole.

The diversity-training program at Sequoyah Elementary School was a positive step forward in the cause of making our community more inclusive and open for all. From my own perspective, as a white-American-born-Muslim convert, I often find myself living in the midst of a common identity crisis among Muslim converts: that of living in two different worlds at the same time. This identity crisis is often exacerbated by feelings of abandonment and isolation because of personal choices, and it often results in an individual feeling as if they must abandon everything about one of these identities in order to be accepted in one of these worlds. Educational events like this go a long way as to help encourage inclusiveness in our society and ensure that these worlds do not become mutually exclusive.

Setting aside all personal feelings and opinions towards Islam, in this event, a group of adults got together and learned about Islam in order to achieve this common goal of creating an open and inclusive educational environment for the children of the community.

No matter what our beliefs are, we can all agree that our public schools need to be as open and inclusive as possible to create a more positive and productive learning environment; we can all agree that the education and protection of the children is more important than personal dogma. We hope that other schools and organizations will follow Sequoyah Elementary’s example.

Via: Cair Oklahoma
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WHISTLEBLOWER: Senior State Department Officials Under Hillary Clinton Quashed Investigations into Alleged Misconduct

AP

The Washington Examiner has followed up on a previous report exposing the Clinton State Department’s efforts to cover up alleged misconduct with new details about some of the “most egregious” examples of investigations thwarted by agency staff, and the frustration felt by investigators:

The eight cases mentioned in the memo included an incident in which at least five members of Clinton’s security detail allegedly solicited prostitutes in a number of countries while on official travel, including on trips to Russia and Colombia. A diplomatic security guard was permitted to continue overseeing Clinton’s security operations at a Moscow hotel after allegedly soliciting prostitutes “despite obvious counterintelligence questions,” the memo said.

A top official in the bureau of diplomatic security “reportedly told [an investigator] to shut down the four investigations” into the accused security guards, three of whom received one-day suspensions before being transferred to other assignments.

Another case involved a regional security officer in Lebanon who was alleged to have sexually assaulted local embassy staff, and who had a “long history of misconduct allegations” at his other posting in North Africa and the Middle East. Officials looking into the matter were given just three days to investigate, after a State Department official described the inquiry as a “witch hunt.” An inspector general’s report published in 2014 noted that investigators “encountered resistance” from senior State Department officials, who exhibited “undue influence and favoritism” in the case.

Perhaps the most egregious of the episodes involved “an ambassador in Belgium” who in May 2011 was accused of “ditch[ing] his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” according to an inspector general’s memo. A subsequent review found

a number of flaws in the subsequent probe of the Belgian ambassador.

“[Diplomatic security] assigned an agent from its internal investigations unit to conduct a preliminary inquiry. However, two days later, the agent was directed to stop further inquiry because of a decision by senior department officials to treat the matter as a ‘management issue,’” the Linick report said.

“The ambassador was recalled to Washington and, in June 2011, met with the undersecretary of state for management and the then chief of staff and counselor to the secretary of state. At the meeting, the ambassador denied the allegations and was then permitted to return to post,” the report continued. “The department took no further action affecting the ambassador.”

Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s undersecretary for management, told the inspector general’s office that he declined to pursue the Belgian matter further because “solicitation of a prostitute … was not a crime in the host country.”

Before becoming Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton successfully defended a child rapist she (most likely) believed to be guilty.

Via: WFB

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Obama makes last-ditch plea to Dems ahead of showdown vote on trade

President Obama went to Capitol Hill Friday morning to make a final plea to congressional Democrats for his trade agenda, ahead of a showdown vote in the House. 

The president met with House Democratic leaders ahead of a caucus meeting. While it is extremely rare for a president to make a visit like this before a big vote, the last-minute lobbying comes after the president also made a surprise appearance at the annual congressional baseball game between Democrats and Republicans the night before. His personal involvement underscores how fragile the effort is -- Fox News is told the effort is still short on the votes -- and how important he sees it to his second-term legacy. 

The night before, a bizarre scene unfolded as the crowd crammed inside Nationals Park lurched into a chant about the legislation. 

“TPA! TPA! TPA!” chanted Republican congressional aides seated near the first base dugout when Obama stepped onto the field at the top of the fourth inning.  

This wasn’t quite the drunken, Bronx throng at Yankee Stadium cantillating “Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!” after Reggie Jackson swatted three consecutive home runs in Game Six of the 1977 World Series. This was gamesmanship, Washington-style. A game in which most congressional Republicans find themselves backing the Democratic president’s efforts to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), a framework for a big trade deal the administration hopes to advance later this year.

Via: Fox News

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