You know, for griping all the time about President Barack Obama’s supposed overreach, two votes this week show that Rep. Kristi Noem is remarkably willing to surrender her proper legislative role in checking executive power.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA28) proposed an amendment to the 2016 military appropriations bill that would have defunded our ten-month-olf military operations against ISIS until Congress actually declared war (or reauthorized the use of military force—all the same to the guys you’re shooting at, right?) on the Islamic State. On Thursday, Rep. Noem voted with 207 other Republicans and 23 Democrats to let President Obama continue to wage undeclared war without a Congressional declaration.
At the same time, Rep. Noem was flacking really hard to let the President renew the Trade Promotion Authority, the “fast-track” power he had for some agreements and wants for his negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She voted with a slim majority (191 Republicans, 28 Democrats) to give the President fast track. But she got confused and participated in a vote engineered by labor and ultimately backed by Nancy Pelosi to defeat another trade measure and delay Trade Promotion Authority from reaching the President’s desk.
At least Kristi didn’t screw up her vote on country-of-origin labeling. She properly voted against a measure that repeals country-of-origin labeling requirements on beef, pork, and poultry. Alas, 300 other Representatives gave in to the dire threats of Canada, Mexico, and the meat lobby and passed the repeal, which President Obama will likely sign.
But a failed vote to protect country-of-origin labeling is small potatoes compared to Noem’s votes on war and trade to allow the President to exercise vast authority that truer conservatives would argue more rightly rests with Congress.
NOem knows how her bread is buttered. It is buttered with the carcasses of human losses in war and in voodoo trade deals that kill the American worker by sending jobs to slavers. The only jobs that will ever come from that bullshit trade deal are actual dealing with bullshit. The jobs will be to feed, and to kill pigs to send to China and the rest of the Pacific Rim. We get the kill, along with the waste to pollute our lands and rivers, they get the product. The new agriculture will be pollution and migrant workers, the rest of us can pay the high price again for poor legislation that favors the billionaires. She only voted for COOL because she knew if was not gonna win. She sure looks like she is enjoying Obama’s milkshake.
It’s surprising and frankly a little troubling to me that Kristi and I can be so similar in our theology and so different in our politics.
Representative Dave Brat, the Virginia economics professor who upset Eric Cantor in the 2014 Republican primary (becoming the only primary challenger to oust a sitting House Majority Leader since the position’s creation in 1899), likened the push for fast track to efforts to pass immigration reform in a May 15 interview on The John Fredericks Show: “This is one of the key reasons I’m leaning a solid no on TPA and TPP, because if we’re arguing in the best interest of the average American, we should be able to make these arguments in the light of day and debate.”
Click here if you think you can stand five minutes of straight-talking libertarianism:
https://soundcloud.com/americanjobs/rep-dave-brat-on-fast-track-tpp-on-the-john-fredericks-show-5-15-15
Dave Brat is absolutely correct on this giveaway to China. Make no mistake, this is exactly what it is, a huge giveaway to our benefactors. When we think of the wars we have been involved in, with not end in sight, we have to think of how they have been financed. China, China, China. Now they are wanting to be repaid. The best way forward for them is to have us give what little left we have to further their goals. China has made all kinds of back door deals with trade agreements that hinge on this TPP. Look no further than the Smithfield takeover to see the direction we are heading with our own NOem leading the charge.
NOem’s theology is called moolah, the God of Gods. She is about as theologically inclined as a bump on a log, finding the amen corner only for its profits.
I support Country Of Origin Labeling as a rancher. More importantly I support it as a consumer. I want to know where my food comes from. E.G., I would not buy chicken, or many other food items that come from China with their lax food safety laws.
Bring back the Grange movement so farmers and ranchers can get a square deal. Bring it back for the main streets that supported them and were supported by them. Food from the farm to the table with no worries about the improper ways of handling. The movement was populist and it worked for many of the same reasons we need this very day. The only feller I see that has the stones to get this job done is Senator Bernie Sanders, a true progressive. 1877 and 2015 are way different, but very much the same. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/populism-and-agrarian-discontent/resources/grange-movement-1875
Surely there must be someone who can run against NOem that could win the day as a populist, no?
The WTO declaring COOL a violation is exactly what will happen with TPP. The various American laws to protect labor and consumers will be voided. Labor will be further degraded, as will consumer protections, while the greedy, dirty rotten scoundrels will become even worse. Congress will shrug its shoulders, palms up, declaring itself helpless and, as we all know, it is all Obama’s fault.
In this case Deb, it would be Obama’s fault as he is the main character directing it.
Every head of cattle raised for food in the US is contaminated with Bovine Growth Hormone and antibiotics that sensible people off shore know cause spontaneous abortions and birth defects. Noem is just protecting her donors from oversight.