Jeb Bush, aka Strike Three, learned the hard way that he needs armed goons to keep thinking people out of his hand-picked cameo events.  That was the standard for Republican candidates in 2011 and 2012.  But Strike Three forgot to check at the door, to make sure every attendee said “BA-A-A-A-A-A”, before being allowed in.  So just as Jeb was lying that ISIS is Obama’s fault, a young American Hero popped up to school him.

Jeb Bush isn’t even an official presidential candidate yet, but he’s already facing a serious challenge to his candidacy — and it just got worse because of a 19-year-old.

"Your brother created ISIS," college student Ivy Ziedrich told Bush during a town-hall-style meeting in Reno, Nevada, on Wednesday. "ISIS" is a common name for the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State, and the "brother" in question, of course, is former President George W. Bush.

Moments earlier, the former Florida governor had been telling the audience that President Barack Obama was responsible for the rise of the militant group. But Ziedrich, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, replied that Bush’s version of history glossed over a few key events.

"You stated that ISIS was created because we don’t have enough presence and we’ve been pulling out of the Middle East," she said. "However, the threat of ISIS was created by the Iraqi coalition authority, which ousted the entire government of Iraq. It was when 30,000 individuals who are part of the Iraqi military were forced out. They had no employment, they had no income, yet they were left with access to all the same arms and weapons."…

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed Ivy last night.

Kudos to Ivy Ziedrich!  It takes a lot of courage to learn the facts and used them to combat publicly recognized authority figures.  America needs several million more just like her!

Yesterday I wrote about a Senate vote refusing to move forward on fast track authority for the TPP and future trade deals.  In that article, stated that I expected only temporary success and hoped for inclusions with safeguards for working Americans.  It appears that success will be far too temporary and that my hope was in vain.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday relented in their opposition to the consideration of legislation expediting trade agreements, just 24 hours after their vote blocking the bill put a temporary halt on President Obama’s trade agenda.

In exchange for allowing Trade Promotion Authority to move forward, Democrats will get to vote Thursday on bills cracking down on Chinese currency manipulation and giving preferential treatment to imports from African countries.  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the deal on the Senate floor on Wednesday. Trade Promotion Authority allows the president to negotiate agreements that Congress must vote on without amendment. To secure Democratic votes, McConnell will combine that bill with a separate measure providing aid to workers displaced by foreign trade. Senate Democrats on Tuesday had demanded that McConnell package all four bills together, but he refused on the grounds that the currency proposal would have sunk the underlying trade legislation in the House. Now House Republicans can choose to ignore the currency and Africa measures even if they clear the Senate… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Atlantic>

If I understand it correctly, all the accompanying bills will stand or fail on their own.  Even if the separate measures pass, the House will be able to pass Fast Track and send it on while rejecting everything else.  I could be mistaken, because I have read contradicting sources on the issue.  The down side is that Fast Track looks like it will pass, if it has not done so already.

I wish I could tell you that the headline tells the whole story, but it does not.  As good as it felt to see fast track sent packing, I fear it was only a temporary victory that we won only because Bought Bitch Mitch tried to pull a fast one by welching on the deal Republicans made with a handful of Senate Democrats.

Divisive trade promotion authority legislation the White House is seeking to put the Trans-Pacific partnership on a fast-track to passage ran off the rails today, with the United States Senate voting mostly along party lines not to invoke cloture on the bill. The legislation could still come up again, but at least for the time being, it is blocked, much to the displeasure of Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama.

Fifty-two senators voted to proceed to final passage on the bill, not counting McConnell, who switched his vote from yes to no so that he could bring the legislation up again later. Forty-four senators voted to filibuster.

Although a number of Democrats support granting President Obama the fast-track authority he wants (including, unfortunately, the Pacific Northwest’s Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, and Ron Wyden), they all voted to filibuster today, with the lone exception of Thomas Carper of Delaware.

The reason? Leverage. Fast-track is a major priority for Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican. He wants it bad. Knowing this, Democrats insisted that McConnell bring up three other semi-related pieces of trade legislation as well.

The first, called Trade Adjustment Assistance, is meant to help workers who find themselves out of work due to foreign competition. Another  pertains to custom and trade enforcement, and has provisions concerning currency manipulation. The third would set up trade preferences for nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

McConnell refused to bring up the latter two bills, and so the Democrats stuck together and filibustered the fast-track bill…

Inserted from <The Cascadia Advocate>

Click through for the rest.  The Author did a fine job.

Chris Hayes also covered this quite well, interviewing Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and economist Joseph Stieglitz.

I do agree with them.  As much as I’d like TPP to fail permanently, I fear that out best hope is to get a modified version, with provisions to safeguard US workers.