Free Republic

Transition: Amid the heavyweights on Barack Obama's economic team, his choice for trade rep doesn't measure up. Congressman Xavier Becerra is not only a protectionist, he would compromise U.S. moral authority.Would someone who favors tariffs, backs subsidies and opposes free-trade pacts be the best face to put forward as U.S. trade representative? Not in this case. Becerra's name has apparently been put forward for USTR as a sop to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She wants her people in the new administration, and she has always seen to it that the former congressional aide has gotten plum assignments. Becerra, whose district...

The president of the AFL-CIO stepped down from a council advising the White House on Tuesday, hours after President Trump reiterated that both sides were to blame for deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacist groups rallied over the weekend. "President Trump’s remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. He announced that both he and AFL-CIO leader Thea Lee would step down from Trump's Manufacturing Advisory Board. "We must resign on behalf of America’s working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups."...