Free Republic

The United States is making headway on two historic trade agreements, one with 11 countries on the Pacific Rim and another with America’s friends in Europe. These two agreements alone would mean greater access to a billion customers for American manufacturers, farmers and ranchers. But before the U.S. can complete the agreements, Congress needs to strengthen the country’s bargaining position by establishing trade-promotion authority, also known as TPA, which is an arrangement between Congress and the president for negotiating and considering trade agreements. In short, TPA is what U.S. negotiators need to win a fair deal for the American worker....

Fear not, intrepid professor: Tenure isn't dead in Wisconsin. Those changes to shared governance? Minor stuff. And that new policy written into the state budget to make it easier to fire tenured professors like you? Just a little additional "flexibility" for your boss. Don't worry: Teach an extra class or something. The faculty in the University of Wisconsin System isn't buying this hokum, and you shouldn't, either. At the behest of a governor fast on his way to the presidential sweepstakes, the Legislature's budget-writing committee has voted to remove tenure for university professors from state statute, weaken the faculty's voice...

Could you just give me a straight answer? Like a simple yes or no? Please don't try to squirm your way out of it. You still won't answer? Aggghhh! Aggghhh! AGGGGHHHHHHH!!!! One could forgive Jake Tapper if he felt like channeling his inner Sam Kinison on CNN's The Lead today while he was trying to get a simple answer from Hillary Clinton spokeswoman, Karen Finney, on the subject of Hillary's position on the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade bill in Congress. Tapper's very visible exasperation with Finney's nonanswers were  completely understandable as she continued her evasive shuffle on the topic all through...

Washington, DC1031 Despite staying largely silent on the issue—he’s quietly supported it for weeks, but hasn’t said anything at all in quite a long time—Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker crossed most conservatives by coming out in support of Obamatrade on Thursday evening in an interview with Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin. Walker, Bloomberg’s Halperin and John McCormick wrote, “expressed agreement with President Barack Obama on the pressing issue of fast-track trade legislation.” “Walker said he supports giving Obama the authority to submit trade agreements to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote without amendments,” they wrote, before quoting Walker himself. “If we don’t go...

. CLICK This LINK to HEAR the Entire Kuhner Radio Interview A Note to Conservatives on Trade Agreements 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 2the 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...

It’s going to be weird when John Boehner and John McCain are returned to Congress next November by landslide margins while Mr. Entitlement Reform is busy clearing out his desk. Oh well. The Ted Cruz primary fight in 2018 will be interesting, at least. Laura Ingraham ✔ ‎@IngrahamAngle Wisconsin sources say discussions building in favor of challenging @RepPaulRyan over his role in the #ObamaTrade. #PeoplesCandidate 10:05 AM - 12 Jun 2015 Laura Ingraham ✔ ‎@IngrahamAngle FACT: @RepPaulRyan will have mega bucks to defend his reelection from the same Corps that benefit from & lobbied for #ObamaTrade. 10:30 AM - 12...

The Republican nominating race is a mess: a strong field, but with ten declared candidates and a half-dozen more to come, we need a bouncer to keep order. I’ve given myself the job. Rope lines separate the four categories. A. Top tier: 1. Jeb Bush. Solid, no sizzle. Sizzle may be in less demand than eight years ago, but his inability to separate from the pack, his recent campaign shakeup and his four-day stumble over Megyn Kelly’s “knowing what we know now” Iraq question have given even his supporters pause. Nonetheless, a bulging war chest, a fine gubernatorial record, and...

President Barack Obama's free-trade agenda, known as Obamatrade, faces close votes in the GOP-controlled House. But it's Democrats, not Republicans, who want to derail the process. Ahead of Friday's votes, House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan said he hopes Democrats will come around and support Obama on trade. It's a rather confusing issue with lots of acronyms, but here's the story. The House is set to consider fast-track trade legislation Friday. The Senate has already backed the measure known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which puts the White House and Republicans on the same side. It would renew presidential...

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn has made no secret that he thinks criminals can and will obtain permits to carry hidden guns. Supporters of concealed carry say he's overreacting, and the vast majority of permit holders are law-abiding citizens. In between are permit holders like Darrail Smith, who has no prior criminal convictions but who police say has a habit of turning up at shooting and homicide scenes, serving as a human holster. It took months of police work before prosecutors had enough evidence to issue an unusual gun-related charge against him. How many more cases like Darrail Smith are...

Sessions’ final “critical alert,” one of several he’s issued throughout the Obamatrade process, shows House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)60% has been engaged in deception as he attempts to guide Obamatrade’s passage through the House. “Promoters of fast-track executive authority have relied on semantic obfuscation in an effort to deny the obvious: the President’s top priority is obtaining fast-track authority because he knows it will expand his powers and allow him to cement his legacy through the formation of a new political and economic union,” Sessions said. The authority granted in “Trade Promotion Authority” is authority...

On Wednesday morning, the parent company said it will sell some small-group business lines to National General Holdings Corp. but exit the individual-health lines that are based in Milwaukee at 501 W. Michigan St. The first phase of job reductions at Assurant Health will occur this summer and impact an estimated 300 employees of approximately 1,700 positions in Milwaukee and other locations, Assurant Inc. said. Assurant Inc. said it will exit the health-insurance market over the next 18 months. ... Assurant Health has been losing money the past two years, and Assurant Inc. executives cited the challenges of running Assurant’s...

MADISON (WKOW) -- Madison Mayor Paul Soglin's frustration with a growing population of overnight campers at city hall boils over, as the mayor snaps photos of the overflow of homeless persons, and draws the ire of someone sleeping at the building. Soglin says he took an emergency step when the man became hostile. "Called 911 to bring the police in," Soglin tells 27 News. Soglin maintains city hall has become a "destination point" for homeless persons, due to the lack of rules on drinking and other behavior homeless shelters impose. But some members of the city-county committee that acts as...

FULL TITLE: PAUL RYAN UNCHAINED: LASHES OUT AT BREITBART, DRUDGE, ‘DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET’ You know you’re losing when you’re reduced to attacking the Internet. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan is now attacking the Web, proving he shouldn’t be trusted by Republican members of Congress to tell the truth about controversial trade legislation. In an appearance Thursday on Fox and Friends, Ryan criticized Breitbart News and other conservative media including the highly influential Drudge Report, which have revealed the immigration and climate change provisions within President Obama’s trade agenda. “Let’s talk about...

Hillary Clinton has a new crusade. The Democrats’ only name female candidate for president sees “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.” In a speech at Texas Southern University, Clinton also charged, “Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting.” She called on “Republicans at all levels of government with all manner of ambition to stop fearmongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they’re so scared of letting citizens have their say.”...

As Scott Walker appears to be preparing a bid for the 2016 Republican nomination, he has been suggesting that his time spent as governor of Wisconsin demonstrates some leadership qualities that would be useful in a commander-in-chief. Critics reply that Walker’s gubernatorial experience is irrelevant to the presidency. President Obama himself has chimed in, saying that Walker needs to “bone up” on foreign policy. But Walker has a point. Here’s why. Obviously, any plausible candidate for president needs to familiarize himself with a broad range of international issues. And that is exactly what Walker has been doing over the past...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Four years after taking union rights away from teachers and other public workers in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker now wants to strip job protections for University of Wisconsin professors in a move he likens to the 2011 law that made him a national figure and set up his expected presidential run. Eliminating tenure in state law, as Walker proposed in January and a Republican-controlled legislative committee approved earlier this month, is part of a larger overhaul of higher education policy that he is talking about to Republican voters around the country. Walker and Republican backers defend...

Scott Walker’s war on Wisconsin’s public colleges will result in lower quality and higher debt for students and families, which is precisely what his right wing political patrons at the Bradley Foundation have been planning for decades. Wisconsin students have experienced first hand Scott Walker’s assault on public higher education over the last four years. Double-digit tuition increases and historic, unprecedented budget cuts have resulted in declining enrollment, rising costs, and exploding student loan debt for millions of Wisconsin families. The groundwork for Walker’s crusade against public higher education in Wisconsin was first being laid as Walker began his political...

Madison — Amid a lengthy and wrenching debate, the Wisconsin Senate passed a Republican-backed bill Tuesday to ban abortions after 20 weeks from fertilization. The bill is moving quickly toward becoming law but would be struck down by a federal trial court if a lawsuit against the measure is eventually brought, legal experts said. Only the U.S. Supreme Court could uphold the measure, which carries no exemptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother, the constitutional law experts said. For district and appellate judges, existing Supreme Court precedent leaves them little leeway to sustain the legislation, which now...

Across the key issues related to both legal and undocumented immigration, significantly more Republicans without a college degree expressed conservative views than Republicans who have completed at least four years of higher education, according to detailed results provided to Next America from a Pew Research Center national survey. Likewise, older Republicans embraced conservative views more often than the party's younger members, the survey found. These consistent contrasts may help explain why several of the likely 2016 GOP candidates jostling for blue-collar support have camped out positions not only opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but also urging reductions...

While seven GOP presidential contenders were in Boone, Iowa for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) Roast and Ride over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was in North Carolina organizing his campaign in the state and meeting with party leaders. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wasn’t in Iowa either, as he had events in New Hampshire. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also skipped the Roast and Ride. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, Cruz needled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) from afar, saying they “don’t fit naturally into any bracket.” “Either or both could choose to...