Senate GOP hopes to move new NAFTA deal before impeachment trial
By: BY ALEXANDER BOLTON
Republican senators are hoping to pass President Trump ’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico before they begin a multi-week impeachment trial that would leave unfinished legislation in limbo.
GOP senators say they hope the committees with jurisdiction over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which would replace the 1994 NAFTA accord, will complete their reviews this week setting up a floor vote for next week.
The timing, however, depends on when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sends over articles of impeachment from the House, which would automatically trigger a Senate trial and put most if not all other legislative activity on hold. She has been holding onto the articles as Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate have failed to pass a resolution setting rules for the trial.
“I’m not sure we can get it all cleared by the end of the week, but I would like to have been able to wedge this in before the impeachment process starts,” said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the Finance Committee, which has lead jurisdiction over the trade deal.
“The committees are deciding now to move fairly quickly to expedite it,” he added, noting that the Appropriations and Environment and Public Works Committees also have jurisdiction.
Thune said the chances of approving the NAFTA replacement deal before the start of the impeachment trial depends “on when the trial were to begin.”
The House voted overwhelmingly to approve the trade deal on Dec. 19 by a vote of 385 to 41.
If Pelosi sends the articles of impeachment to the Senate by the end of this week or the start of next week, the trade deal will probably have to wait, Thune predicted. But if the standoff over the trial’s rules last until the end of next week, then there’s a window to act on trade.
“If we get the articles at the end of the week and we start [the trial] next week, it’s looking less likely only because there are so many committees that have to act on it,” he said. “My hope was, starting this week, that we could get all that done and get it on the floor by the end of the week.”
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a vocal proponent of the trade deal, said “there’s a lot of support for moving this to the floor as fast as possible.”
“For farmers, ranchers and growers around the country this has been delayed for too long,” Roberts said, adding that the trade deal could move before the impeachment trial if the fight over procedure continues to drag on.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he doesn’t know when Pelosi will send the impeachment articles to the Senate.
“I think she will be moving on it. I can’t tell you what her timetable will be,” he said. “I hope she’ll consider it this week.
“I think there’s patience. I think we understand to this point we’ve had limited opportunity even if she sent the articles earlier to get started with this. I don’t think we’ve lost any opportunity or time,” he added.
The US Senate should be doing the peoples business. Let Pelosi keep the Articles tucked away in her purse and lets get some work done.
What work would that be? What work has the 'president' been doing since he became 'president'.
Golfing and tweeting don't count.
Oh and his 'rallies' don't count either.
The work of sucking on Crooked donnie's little member
Damn. His own??
And you guys say he's fat and out of shape? He's either limber as hell or certain poster's dreams of his "small size" have just been shattered
Let's not bring any liberal habits into this
That is a crooked donnie supporter habit
Are you sure?
Yep, I'm sure that republicans are sucking on Crooked donnie's little member
Lady - is that all you can do?? "Crooked donnie - Crooked donnie - Crocked donnie". I'm sure you know other things to say and also that you can, if you wanted to, actually discuss the topic.
Well I hear there's a trade agreement that needs approving. I think there might even be a seed about it somewhere around here. I'll see if I can find you a link.
Oh wait . . .
Again, what work would that be?
It's right in the title. Right up there
The media has done quite a job in keeping all of his achievements in the background. Any other president with that record would have an 80% approval rating right now.
What work has he been doing?
I know of no promises this 'president' has kept.
What achievements?
The examiner is a 'conservative' rag.
Read Post 2.3.2
Again read Post 2.3.2
I knew you were going to say that. Then don't bother asking about the Commander-in-Chief's many accomplishments.
"Why bother when you'll just dismiss the source or shoot the messenger?"
There is only one accomplishment conservatives are monumentally proud of from dirty dishonest Donald, and that is pissing off liberals, progressives, the educated and those with even a cursory knowledge of history and the US constitution. Everything else he's done is just frosting on their bitter piss and vinegar white nationalist pie.
You mean the indoctrinated, over paid snobs who gained way too much power over the past 50 years. Be very, very afraid. We are going to take it back!
Read post 2.3.6
Which would be actually nada, zip, zilch, zero, diddly squat.
Read post 2.3.9
Read post 2.3.6
To you? I'm afraid so.
To anyone who is not in the 1% or this 'president's' administration.
How so?
tRump has said he loves the poorly educated, which includes himself.
So you now have 90%. That's amazing
It's called democracy. Tell all your friends about it.
That's freaking hilarious.
Your 'president' has no clue.
You're confused.
The 1%, the most wealthy.
We fall in the 99%, including yourself.
You don't like those who couldn't afford higher education? Why not?
which includes himself.
He does seem to talk like a construction worker more than a RE developer, dosen't he? Maybe that's what plays so well with the common folk. I think you have touched on something. Donald Trump has made the GOP the party of the blue collar worker!
Yeah, no. Not going to happen. You're welcome to shake in your boots all you want, but time and progress marches on and America is never going back to the tired bigoted conservative ignorance of the 1950's. This was their last gasp with dishonest Donald, they get no more chances, take them off the grill before they're burnt, they are done.
How old are you, anyway?
The Finance Committee managed to review and vote on the USMCA today. They should be ready to rock and roll after almost 3 weeks at home so WTF are the other committee Chairman waiting for? No one is stopping any of those GOP Chairman from getting their jobs done, certainly not Nancy Pelosi.
So which is it Vic?
You're contradicting yourself in the same seed.
Much like this 'president' contradicting himself in the same sentence.
Why don't you think about it. Where are blue collar workers today? Which party?
Nothing to think about.
Both parties.
Not sure what that has to do with anything but I was born in the early 60's into a large religious conservative evangelical family in Ohio and grew up around dozens of confederate loving cousins on my mothers side still living in Arkansas where we would spend much of our summers. My parents did not believe in higher education and wanted me to go straight into the ministry so I didn't attend college till I was in my mid-to late 30's. Thankfully, I moved out west in the late 1980's and found a refuge of sanity far from the bastions of ignorance that the rest of my family continue to wallow in. They too still believe they are going to "take Amurica back!" but they'll first have to get off their couches, take their insulin and try not to die of overexertion on their way to the polls in November, at least that's the case for my older brother and at least three of my cousins still milking disability. But they make it to church each Sunday, two of them in their electric motor scooters paid for by my and your tax dollars, so I've no doubt they'll show up to vote for Trump in November like so many of their conservative doppelgangers across the Midwest and south.
That has a lot to do with it. If you had lived during the Splendid Decade you would have known that it was an era of goodwill and tremendous American influence. A time when a single individual could easily raise a family. An orderly era with a minimum of social dissent. Prices & inflation were extremely low, with anyone who had a decent job able to buy a home. It was an era of optimism about the future when GI's came home, took advantage of the GI Bill, found education & good paying jobs and started families - thus the baby boom.
Yet when you think of it, you think of what was going on in the deep south. Is that what you were taught in college? Honest answer..
Nah....I think you got the rich & poor. Plus this:
We have what is in between.
The democrats have the rich and the poor and everything in between.
The gop has?
You didn't read it right.
The democrats have the rich and the poor
and we have everything in between.
It's almost 3PM. Talk to you tomrrow!
If I had lived through the 1960's as a straight white Christian conservative male you mean...
1. In the 1960s, many Americans openly encouraged violence against protestors.
"I clearly remember my parents and their friends sitting around the kitchen table having a lively discussion/debate about the pros and cons of killing all the protesters," recalls fishingman, who grew up "in a rural poor white family in Minnesota." He adds: "Some of the more conservative men kept saying the national guard should just come in with machine guns and 'mow down all the hippies and n*****s'." The more "moderate" adults in the room argued that "we probably don't have to kill all of them, just the agitators."
2. Racism was openly practiced and enshrined in law.
"Thank goodness my parents weren't real racist[s]," staffcrafter comments, "but they still felt that the 'colored' was wanting too much [too] fast. When MLK was killed I heard lots of comments about how he deserved it."
3. Social divides were deeper back then.
"The protests were much larger, communication between different cultures was harder, and violence against blacks was accepted as necessary," fishingman says.
Many of the recollections speak of the divide between "agitators" or "instigators" and so-called "regular" people. "My paternal grandfather had been in the Air Force just before Korea and served with a lot of black men," fightinscot remembers, "but still felt the 'troublemakers' needed to be dealt with so the 'good and decent people' could go about their lives in their side of town."
And of course there were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK and the Vietnam war protests and violence.
Sure, if you lived in small rural town leave it to beaver America and were a young white Christian male, the town, the country, heck, the world was your oyster. But that is a very insulated ignorant world view to have of the 1960's. I didn't have to be an adult through the 1960's to be able to remember some of the late 1960's or be able to read the history of the horrific open racism and hate that was espoused by millions of Americans towards anyone they labeled "other".
Or were you perhaps referring to the 1950's? Pre-Brown v Board of education, pre-civil rights and voting rights acts where we had open segregation, Jim Crow laws and black children being hit with fire hoses to keep them from the whites only schools? I'm trying to figure out what decade you're calling "splendid".
They clearly never did. That generations weakness was heir kids. The boomers was a spoiled generation which overwhelmed all the institutions which were required to civilize them. The bombings by the "Weathermen" and the killings by the "Black Panthers" were what should have concerned you.
"Thank goodness my parents weren't real racist[s]," staffcrafter comments, "but they still felt that the 'colored' was wanting too much [too] fast. When MLK was killed I heard lots of comments about how he deserved it."
I wish the blacks didn't have to go through that, but they overcame. Had they been able to benefit from that time and some did they would be more vocal than I.
"The protests were much larger, communication between different cultures was harder, and violence against blacks was accepted as necessary,"
How many times are you going to say the same thing? I knew what you were going to say didn't I. It STILL was the high point of our civilization.
Sure, if you lived in small rural town leave it to beaver America and were a young white Christian male, the town, the country, heck, the world was your oyster. But that is a very insulated ignorant world view to have of the 1960's.
Nope even if you suffered some form of discrimination (I lived in a city BTW), fought to get to and from school, you still knew it was a better time.
I didn't have to be an adult through the 1960's to be able to remember some of the late 1960's or be able to read the history of the horrific open racism and hate that was espoused by millions of Americans towards anyone they labeled "other".
No, you needed some teacher or professor to lead you by the nose and say whites are bad and racism is the most important thing in all our lives and here is some weed. Fuck them! Those haters.
Or were you perhaps referring to the 1950's? Pre-Brown v Board of education, pre-civil rights and voting rights acts where we had open segregation, Jim Crow laws and black children being hit with fire hoses to keep them from the whites only schools? I'm trying to figure out what decade you're calling "splendid".
I'm referring to MOST of America where there was no segregation. Grow up!
Key Senate panel approves USMCA
The full GOP-run Senate is now poised to approve the agreement in the coming days or weeks.