PAUL RYAN’S PELOSI-ESQUE OBAMATRADE MOMENT: ‘IT’S DECLASSIFIED AND MADE PUBLIC ONCE IT’S AGREED TO’

Chief Obamatrade proponent House Ways and Means Committee chairman 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

60%

 admitted during Congressional testimony on Wednesday evening that despite tons of claims from him and other Obamatrade supporters to the contrary, the process is highly secretive.

He also made a gaffe in his House Rules Committee testimony on par with former Speaker

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

7%

’s push to pass Obamacare, in which she said infamously said: “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

“It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to,” Ryan said of Obamatrade in Rules Committee testimony on Wednesday during questioning from 

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX)

79%

.

What Ryan is trying to convince House Republicans to do is vote for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) which would fast-track at least three highly secretive trade deals—specifically the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP)—and potentially more deals.

Right now, TiSA and T-TIP text are completely secretive and unavailable for even members of Congress to read while TPP text is available for members to review—although they need to go to a secret room inside the Capitol where only members of Congress and certain staffers high-level security clearances, who can only go when members are present, can read the bill.

Ryan’s exchange in which he made this gaffe came as Burgess, who opposes Obamatrade, and Rules Committee chairman 

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)

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, who stands with Ryan supporting it, were discussing the secrecy of the deal with him. It came right after an incredible exchange where Ryan attempted a ploy to try to save immigration provisions contained within the Obamatrade package as a whole—specifically TiSA—that wereexposed by Breitbart News earlier on Wednesday, a problem for which he put forward a phony non-solution designed to get more votes for his Obamatrade agenda but not stop the immigration provisions.

Via: Breitbart

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GOP Calls on AG to Prosecute Lois Lerner in IRS Scandal

(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Republican lawmakers are petitioning the new attorney general, Loretta Lynch, to criminally prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner over the agency's targeting scandal, having failed to convince her predecessor to do so.

According to The Hill, 24 Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to Lynch asking for her to take up the panel's 2014 request to charge Lerner for possible crimes. 

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The allegations include using her position at the agency to pursue heightened scrutiny of conservative groups; obstructing investigations by giving misleading information; and disclosing confidential taxpayer information, The Hill said.

Before former Attorney General Eric Holder stepped down from his post, House Speaker John Boehner was informed by the department that Lerner would not be prosecuted for refusing to testify at a congressional hearing.

The letter, which was circulated by the committee's chairman, Paul Ryan, also prompted statements of support from Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

"The American people deserve the truth as to how the IRS was used as a political tool to target and harass Americans for their beliefs. … It is outrageous that despite having evidence right at their fingertips, the DOJ has refused to investigate potential criminal acts taken by Lois Lerner at the IRS," Boehner said in a stat

Via: Newsmax

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Democrats Say Pass Extension of Unemployment Benefits First; Pay Later

(CNSNews.com) - Interrupting their vacation on Thursday, two Democrats -- Sen. Jack Reed of R.I. and Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan -- demanded that Republicans go along with a three-month extension of long-term unemployment benefits without immediately paying for them. The cost of a three-month extension is around $6.5 billion.

Losing jobless benefits is like being hit by an "economic hurricane," said Rep. Levin, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee.

"And so that's the reason why, in the past -- much more often than not -- there has not been a pay-for. They haven't been offset. And I think what we hope to do both in the Senate and the House is to pass this three-month provision on a bipartisan basis -- not offset, and then we can sit down and talk further about where we go from here."

Sen. Reed said Democrats have introduced a bill providing a three-month, unpaid-for extension because "it will us the time to work on changes to the program that's necessary, but also time to look for appropriate pay-fors. And there are a long list of pay-fors, from offshore tax breaks, several (tax) loophole closings." He said any "serious discussion about tax policy" would produce a way to pay for the extension.

Via: CNS News

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Rep. Todd Young: Require Obamacare Only for 40-Hour Workers

The federal government should require only employees working 40 hours a week to be eligible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, rather than the current 30-hour threshold, U.S. Rep. Todd Young says.

"With respect to Obamacare, they want employers that employ people 30 hours a week or more to provide them with government-sanctioned health insurance," Young, a Republican from Indiana, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. 

"Let's move that up to 40 hours so that we can keep businesses competitive and prevent workers from losing hours that they desperately need to put food on the table and pay their bills."

Young, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he is hearing horror stories about people losing the healthcare that President Barack Obama originally promised they could keep.

"We continue to make the argument that this is a fundamentally flawed law. We're going to see the premiums go up. We're going to see people continue to lose coverage," Young said Tuesday.

"I try not to employ the three-letter L-word, but let's just say there's inconsistency in the facts that needs to be explained, and there's certainly an inconsistency between previous promises and what's been delivered with this healthcare law," he said.

"We've got 1.5 million Americans who received a letter from an insurance company indicating that they're being canceled, and so, I mean, that's what happened to Mike out of Bloomington, Ind. He received such a letter and showed it to our office. He also discovered subsequently that he's going to see a premium increase from $500 up to $1,400. 

Via: Newsmax

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Investigation IDs IRS Leaker - But the law he broke actually prevents NOM, the victim, from learning more.

A House committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-leaning groups has identified the IRS agent who leaked the confidential donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage. NOM’s donor list, contained in a Form 990 Schedule B, which it is required by law to file with the IRS, was obtained in March 2012 by its chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign, and subsequently became the subject of several national news stories that centered on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s donation to the group.

Though the House Ways and Means Committee, which began investigating the scandal in the wake of revelations that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups, has identified the individual who divulged the information as an employee in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, it can’t divulge his name to the public or to NOM. It can’t even confirm when the leak took place, whether the perpetrator was disciplined, or even whether he is still employed by the IRS or the U.S. government. That’s because of a peculiarity of the Internal Revenue Code’s section 6103, which is intended to protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information. The law makes it a felony to disclose tax returns or related information to the public, but in an odd twist, the results of investigations conducted by congressional committees or by inspectors general are considered the confidential tax information of the alleged perpetrator.

Via: NRO
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'Are You Serious?' Lawmakers Spar at ObamaCare Hearing

FOX NEWS INSIDER - Fireworks erupted between New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell and Arkansas Republican Tim Griffin during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the ObamaCare rollout.

Pascrell shouted, “What are you going to do about the approximately 17 million children with pre-existing conditions who can no longer be denied health insurance coverage? You want to go back? You want to say you are no longer covered?”

Griffin responded, saying, “It’s a false choice to say it’s ObamaCare or nothing.” He then pointed to a proposal that he co-sponsored dealing with pre-existing conditions.

Pascrell blasted back, “Are you serious?! […] After what we have gone through in the last three and a half years? You can sit there and say that you had a legitimate alternative?! We’ve gone through 44 votes, 48 votes now of you trying to dismantle this legislation.”  

Via: Fox News

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