Free Republic

The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said all Nato allies are backing a plan to give Ukraine a fast track to Nato membership of the kind offered to Sweden and Finland earlier this year. Speaking on the margins of the two-day Ukraine Recovery conference in London, Cleverly said the UK was “very, very supportive” of Ukraine being able to join Nato without the usual need for it to meet the conditions set out in a Nato membership action plan (Map). The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, was more cautious but said circumstances had changed since 2008 when Ukraine was...

The program, which now has fewer than 600,000 enrollees, never offered a pathway to citizenship.

FDA Lets NeuroRx, Relief Therapeutics Test RLF-100 in COVID-19 PatientsZURICH — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted NeuroRx Inc Investigational New Drug (IND) permission to test RLF-100 (aviptadil) for inhaled use in patients with moderate and severe COVID-19 to prevent progression to respiratory failure, it and partner Relief Therapeutics Holdings said on Thursday. ... They said aviptadil is shown as the first COVID therapeutic to block replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human lung cells and monocytes while also preventing synthesis of cytokines in the lung. ... has been granted FDA fast track designation, FDA emergency use IND...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can move forward with expanding a procedure for quickly deporting undocumented immigrants while a lawsuit against the program moves forward. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) new rule that significantly expands the number of undocumented immigrants who can be deported without being able to make their case to an judge or accessing an attorney. The panel majority ruled that a group of nonprofits had legal standing to bring the lawsuit but that immigration law...

Trump-backing congressman says GOP will use budget 'reconciliation' to repeal Obamacare in first 100 days – depriving Democrats of the chance to filibuster it * Rep. Chris Collins, the first Republican to endorse President-elect Trump, says the GOP will move legislation to repeal Obamacare within Trump's first 100 days * Party would use budget procedure that would let them jam it through on a simple majority vote, depriving Senate Democrats of the filibuster * Medical device tax, 30-hour workweek for coverage, employer mandate, employee mandate all could go, gutting the plan * Says there would be a 'transition' for 2017...

Are we be better off today with the thousands of U.S. factories that have shut down and millions of American jobs lost and the trillions in accumulated debt that we've run up in the last couple decades of free trade? And, of course, this is due to many factors including such things as: Big government Regulations High taxes Unions driving up costs Cheap labor overseas Fewer regulations overseas Lower taxes overseas Trade deficits etc., And doubly exasperated by poor trade deals? Or is this all a myth? Are we better off with cheaper foreign (cheap) goods, fewer U.S. factories, fewer...

Bad Trade Deal 'Worse Than I Thought,' Sanders Says Sen. Bernie e Sanders issued the following statement today after the text of a proposed 12-nation trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was made public. "Now that the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has finally been released, it is even worse than I thought. It is clear to me that the proposed agreement is not, nor has it ever been, the gold standard of trade agreements. "This trade deal would make it easier for corporations to shut down more factories in the U.S. and ship more jobs to Vietnam and Malaysia where...

As a general matter, I agree (as did Ronald Reagan) that free trade is good for America; when we open up foreign markets, it helps American farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers. But TPA in this Congress has become enmeshed in corrupt Washington backroom deal-making, along with serious concerns that it would open up the potential for sweeping changes in our laws that trade agreements typically do not include. Since the Senate first voted on TPA, there have been two material changes. First, WikiLeaks subsequently revealed new troubling information regarding the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA, one of the trade deals...

The Senate is set to vote on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation the House passed last week that gives President Obama fast track trade authority to finalize his trade negotiations without Congressional amendments. Right now, Obama is finalizing negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Under fast-track trade authority, Congress only gets an up or down vote on the final negotiation, and is not part of the negotiating process. The legislation passed the House because it did not contain TAA – Trade Adjustment Assistance – a...

Fast-Track, or Trade Promotion Authority, will receive a final cloture vote in the Senate on Tuesday morning. This is the bill that passed the House. If cloture is invoked, the bill will pass the Senate and go to the President’s desk. More than four weeks have passed since the Senate first voted on whether to grant the Executive six years of fast-track authority. In that time, an enormous amount has been discovered about how the President plans to use this authority – information that was either not known or understood when the vote was held. This includes the Administration’s pledge...

CLICK HERE for the list of House Republicans who spat upon our Constitution today and ignored its expressed requirement for a two thirds approval vote for any deals cooked up by our president with foreign powers. In effect, these Republicans have unconstitutionally lowered the two thirds requirement to a simple majority to approve deals consummated by our president with foreign powers and engaged in the same despotic action the President has engaged in when signing Executive Orders that violate statutory law and/or our Constitution’s written provisions. These Republican turncoat and lying scoundrels tell us that the Pacific Rim deal is...

Republican leaders will try to resurrect the trade deal Democrats sank less than a week ago, planning a new vote Thursday and insisting they will corral enough votes to approve fast-track negotiating powers President Obama needs to complete a legacy-building Pacific Rim trade deal...“We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature,” House Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a joint statement, pushing back against claims that the issue is dead after last week’s embarrassing failure...The White House has...

STOP FIGHTING AGAINST PATRIOTS.TPA, TAA, TPP, TED CRUZ, JEFF SESSIONS AND YOU There is a lot of confusion about these acronyms; about what Jeff Sessions believed and what Ted Cruz voted for. But I hope you are able to see when I finish, why we should be careful in fighting our own about every thing we hear. Sometimes they will even differ in their understanding. I was ignorant about it up until a week or two ago, when I looked into the matter carefully. First of all not one person up there understands more about international rulings and how they...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional free trade agreement (FTA) among 12 countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. The negotiating partners have expressed an interest in allowing this proposed “living agreement” to cover new trade topics and to include new members that are willing to adopt the proposed agreement’s high standards. Japan is the most recent country to seek entry into the TPP. The Administration gave Congress notice of its intent to negotiate with Japan in the TPP on April 24, 2013......

Senator Cruz entirely understands the widespread suspicion of the President. Nobody has been more vocal in pointing out the President’s lawlessness or more passionate about fighting his usurpation of congressional authority. Senator Cruz would not and will not give President Obama one more inch of unrestricted power. There have been a lot of questions and concerns about the ongoing Pacific trade negotiations. Many of those concerns, fueled by the media, stem from confusion about Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Let’s unpack the issues one by one. What are TPA and TPP? TPA stands for Trade...

ObamaTrade is on hold for now - thanks to a handful of Democrats who were surprised and offended that Big Guy came to solicit their votes by guilting them and impugning their integrity.Why the surprise? That’s how Barry always deals with people who dare question his directives. So Democrats rejected a Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) measure (like dozens of others they’ve always  approved enthusiastically and unconditionally). That negated the subsequent symbolic passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which was not allowed to high-speed railroad us into economic suicide without the accompanying TAA. Apparently the donkey balls couldn’t convince their union...

The free trade debate is really about two questions: Capitalism, has it failed because we have slipped into an era of crony capitalism? Representative democracy, has it failed because it is no longer representative? To set the context: Most conservatives and most economists indeed most Americans, agree that fair trade is economically beneficial. By the Milton Friedman analysis, those who efficiently produce goods do so and trade them for goods made by people who make other goods more efficiently. Everybody wins. As a theoretical and even practical analysis this is something we conservatives obviously favor but it is not something...

On Friday, there will likely be a vote on fast-tracking President Obama's most progressive trade deal(s) in history. Here is why the House should vote no on granting the president what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called "an enormous grant of power." 1. Obama is a terrible negotiator, so he needs full oversight. Remember the Iranian nuclear deal, the China climate deal, the Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl release deal? These are just three examples that prove a simple fact: Obama is not a very good negotiator when it comes to representing U.S. interests. Fast-track trade authority denies Congress the...

The House of Representatives will vote Friday on a bill to establish what's called TPA, or trade promotion authority. A yes vote would be a huge win for conservatives, free-market principles and American leadership. Still, there's a lot of confusion out there about what exactly TPA is. It's not a trade deal, but a process in Congress for considering trade deals. Sounds complicated, I know, but it's actually pretty simple. If Congress establishes TPA, the public will be able to read the text of a trade deal well before Congress votes on it. So if you want to know more...

Hoping to attract more conservative support for the Fast Track trade authority deal that will probably be voted on today, Rep. Paul Ryan is trying to address some major concerns that conservatives have with the bill by offering an amendment that would prevent the president from negotiating any changes to US immigration or climate change law. Wall Street Journal: [.....WSJ quote.....] I don't think these concerns are "far fetched" at all, and Ryan's amendment is both wise and prudent. The fact that Congress has a vote on whether to accept the final deal - just like they have an up...