Why America Hates the GOP-Obamatrade Deal  

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

 

Constitutional conservatives don't like it. Trade unions abhor it. Obama critics hate it. Environmentalists despise it.

 

Outside the Beltway bubble, a broad coalition of voters from the left, right and center opposes the mega-trade deal getting rammed through Congress this week by the Republican establishment on behalf of the White House. Here's why.

The Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission will have sweeping authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and commerce regulations.

As alert watchdogs U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest and U.S. Rep Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., warn: "By adopting fast-track, Congress would be formally authorizing the President to finalize the creation of this Pacific Union and will have surrendered its legislative prerogatives. Before a word, line, paragraph, or page of this plan is made public, Congress will have agreed to give up its treaty powers. ... In effect, one of the most sweeping international agreements seen in years will be given less legislative scrutiny and process than a Post Office reform bill."

The Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out legislative transparency. Boehner smugly asserts that so-called Trade Promotion Authority puts Congress in charge and promotes "more openness" on trade talks. Nonsense.

Under the Boehner/Obama plan, Congress gives up its ability to amend any trade deals under fast track, severely limits the ability to debate and lowers the vote threshold in the Senate from 61 to 51. The 11 international parties negotiating with Obama on TPP refuse to sign their dotted lines until Congress agrees to pre-agree to behemoth global trade pacts -- sight unseen.

As Obamatrade cheerleader and Big Business crony Sen. Orrin Hack, I mean Hatch, admitted, "I don't know fully what's in TPP myself."

The secretive wheeling and dealing on the massive 29-chapter draft (kept under classified lock-and-key and only a tiny portion of which have been publicly disclosed through WikiLeaks) make the backroom Obamacare negotiations look like a gigantic solar flare of openness and public deliberation. Fast-track Republicans, who rightfully made a stink when Nancy Pelosi declared that "we have to pass the [Obamacare] bill so that you can find out what is in it," now have no transparency legs to stand on.

Baltimore Cops on Increased Violence: They Wanted a Soft Police Force, Now They Have One  

Katie Pavlich / Townhall Tipsheet

Back in April, rioters, criminals and yes, "peaceful" protestors made it clear they did not want police in their Baltimore neighborhoods.

The police took notice.

Since then, violent crime and murders in the Maryland city have skyrocketed. Some stats:

Homicides in 2015 so far stand at 100, up from 71 for the same period last year, and on pace to be the Charm City’s deadliest year since 2007. Nonfatal shootings are up 70 percent this year, following a particularly violent week that saw 19 people shot on Tuesday and Wednesday alone.

Arrests are down, crime is up and cops realize it's just not worth the trouble to go after even the worst criminals, especially when their mayor is willing to give thugs the benefit of the doubt first. 

 

Yesterday, two Baltimore police officers sat down with CNN's Brooke Baldwin to explain the moral inside the Baltimore Police Department and to talk about why officers have decided to take a step back from aggressive policing in the neighborhoods that need it the most.

"We believe there are outside influences such as the activists that request a softer police department. Some of the citizens request a softer police department and now they have the softer police department," a Baltimore police officer, whose identity was masked for fear of retribution, said."The proactive, self-initiated policing has stopped."

"We are now in a reactive mode," another officer said.

As I've always said. The vast majority of anti-cop agitators aren't anti-cop because of police brutality, they're anti-cop because cops interrupt their criminal behavior. Law abiding citizens suffer as a result and criminals rule. Further, if you think citizens can protect themselves, think again. Maryland has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

Pennsylvania school officials schooled on Islam at mosque, at taxpayer expense
 

By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

Imagine if school officials really had gone to a Baptist church to learn about Christianity, at taxpayer expense, as Owens suggests in his analogy scenario. The outcry would have been intense. But no one will take much notice of this. “School Staff Trained On Islam, BOWS TO ALLAH At Local Mosque On Taxpayer Dime,” by […]

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Map: Is the Islamic State in your neighborhood?

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Mr. Roger’s neighborhood took a decidedly different turn in the last decade. Let’s hope Rogers keeps an AK-47.

“Map: Is Islamic State in a neighborhood near you?” By Adam Goldman, The Washington Post, June 11, 2015

Since the creation of the Islamic State in early 2014, the terrorist group has blitzed social media with propaganda aimed at luring adherents overseas to join the fight in Iraq and Syria, take up arms at home or provide other support. In the United States, the FBI has taken the lead in trying to prevent extremists from aiding the group.

U.S. authorities have charged more than three dozen men and women around the country in connection with the Islamic State. Men outnumber women in those cases by...

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