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Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday voiced new concerns over President Obamas trade agenda as congressional Democrats ramp up efforts to slow the administrations bid to finalize a major free-trade pact in Asia that the president has called a top priority.

The disagreement threatens to expose old divisions over international trade and hamper Democrats efforts to unify their party going into the 2016 elections.

Warren (D-Mass.), fresh off her break with the White House on the budget last week, said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could erode U.S. financial safeguards designed to prevent future financial crises.

We cannot afford a trade deal that undermines the governments ability to protect the American economy, Warren said in the letter, also signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). The Washington Post obtained a copy.

The senators are focused on three specific provisions, and they do not state outright opposition to the 12-nation pact, which is still being negotiated. But Warrens status as the emerging leader of the progressive wing of the party could complicate the Obama administrations attempt to rally support from enough Democrats to get the deal completed.

Warren was a key voice in the debate over the $1trillion spending plan, delivering a blistering attack on a measure in the bill that loosens restrictions on derivative trading.. Though the budget was approved with backing from the White House, Warren further burnished her credentials with progressives, who have urged her to mount a presidential bid.

Obama has called trade an area where he hopes to find common ground with Republicans, who take control of the Senate next month and have expressed support for liberalizing trade policy.

The president has also said the proposed pact is a cornerstone of his Asia policy, which aims to balance a greater U.S. military presence with deeper economic ties to the region, and Obama has pledged that the final trade deal will have higher labor and environmental standards than past free-trade agreements.

In her letter, Warren raises concerns that the deal could include provisions that would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. policies before a judicial panel outside the domestic legal system, increasing exposure of American taxpayers to potential damages.

She also objects to potential provisions that she said would grant foreign companies access to U.S. markets without being subject to restrictions on predatory or toxic financial products and that would restrict the U.S. governments ability to impose capital controls, such as transaction taxes, on international firms.

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Elizabeth Warren, other Democrats raise concerns about free-trade pact with Asia

Burn Your Base: Democrats Diss Blacks, Back CRomnibus Alien Job Surge
If the Democratic Party is committed to any one principle these days, it seems to be burn your base. Of course, the same might be said of the Republicans. In the first episode of this...

By: PJ Media

Original post:
Burn Your Base: Democrats Diss Blacks, Back CRomnibus Alien Job Surge - Video

By Alexandra Jaffe, CNN

updated 9:39 AM EST, Tue December 16, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Democrats are taunting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for effectively allowing them a victory on a controversial nominee for surgeon general.

Physician Vivek Murthy was confirmed Monday night on a 51-43 vote despite stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association, due in large part to Cruz's unsuccessful maneuver this weekend meant to register GOP opposition to Obama's executive action on deportations.

The Texas Republican kept his colleagues in the Capitol through Saturday, intending to get a vote on whether the President's move was constitutional. With the Senate in session, Democrats were able to clear procedural barriers in the nomination process, originally thought to be too time consuming to finish before the Christmas recess. Cruz's keeping the Senate open allowed Democrats to clear those steps on a number of presidential nominees, some of them controversial, making it easier for them to win final confirmation this week.

READ: Murthy confirmed as surgeon general

Murthy had long faced fierce opposition from Republicans, and particularly the gun lobby, for a letter he had signed calling for stricter gun control policies, and because he launched the pro-Obamacare group Doctors for America.

So when he was confirmed on Monday night, Democrats could barely contain their glee expressing it in part on Twitter.

The Senate Democrats' account blamed both Cruz and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, both of whom forced their colleagues to stay in session through the weekend.

Read the original here:
Why Democrats are taunting Cruz

By Ted Barrett, CNN

updated 6:44 PM EST, Tue December 16, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- As they make a final push to approve presidential nominations before Republicans take control of the Senate, Democrats said Tuesday the confirmation of a record number of federal judges was evidence they were right to make controversial changes to filibuster rules, despite objections from Republicans.

"Yes," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded loudly when asked if still believes he was right to employ the so-called "nuclear option" a year ago in order to clear a backlog of nominees.

The No. 2 Senate Democrat explained that at the time there was a "breakdown in the relationship between the executive and legislative branch."

READ: Democrats taunt Cruz over surgeon general vote

"If you just look at where we were, with all of the nominations stacked on the calendar, most of which had been reported from committees with overwhelming bipartisan votes," Sen. Dick Durbin said. "Republicans were trying to keep as many nominations from final approval as possible. So we had no choice."

During the first year of the congressional session, before the nuclear option, the Senate confirmed a total of 36 federal district and circuit court judges appointed by the President. After the rules changes, which took place Nov. 21, 2013, the number of judges confirmed more than doubled to 84.

The rules change lowered the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster from 60 to 51, making it much easier for Democrats, who currently have a 54 to 46 majority, to approve judges to those lifetime positions.

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Democrats use nuclear option

In these waning days of the Democratic Senate, the majority is taking advantage of a muffed procedural maneuver by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to confirm a passel of otherwise stalled executive branch appointees.

Carolyn W. Colvin, who President Obamanominated last June to be Social Security commissioner, won't be among them. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid withdrew her confirmation vote from the calendar for unexplained reasons. What his action means is that as Social Security faces the sharpest increase in its workload and its most bitter political challenges since its creation in 1935, it will continue to chug along without an official commissioner. Colvin, 72, will stay on as acting commissioner, a post she has held since February 2013.

Do the Democrats care about Social Security? This latest failure to provide the program with a fully accredited boss inspires doubt. It's another example of the not-so-benign neglect that the party has shown toward its most important achievements, such as the Affordable Care Act, and it may be the real reason that the Democrats have lost credibility with the middle class.

Democratic politicians have failed utterly to communicate to the great mass of American voters how the Affordable Care Act is a boon to them, and they're not doing nearly enough to protect and promote Social Security, which is the most important program for the middle class ever devised by the U.S.

This is not to denigrate Colvin's performance as acting commissioner. Senate Republicans have said they held up her nomination because of questions regarding a nonfunctional $300-million computer project; Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has mumbled something about "criminal conduct."

This is typically fatuous GOP chatter. The computer project began under Colvin's predecessor, Michael Astrue, a George W. Bush appointee; Social Security expert Eric Laursen points outthat the investigation on which the Republicans are basing their complaints was ordered by Colvin.

In any event, there's no reason to doubt Colvin's commitment to Social Security, which she served as a high-level executive from 1994 to 2001, returning in 2010 as deputy commissioner. As Paul Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities observes, Colvin has to work with the budget cards she's dealt: "She been doing a good job under very difficult circumstances, with a continually shrinking real budget," he said.

Indeed, the problem is Social Security's budget -- and the Democrats' failure to safeguard it. The crisis emerged in 2011, when Congress started to pare the president's budget requests for the Social Security Administration. From then through fiscal 2013, Social Security got $2.7 billion less than the president sought. Some of the shortfall was restored this year, but most of the increase was designated for anti-fraud programs, not pure administration.

A study by the Senate Committee on Aging released this spring examined the consequences. Staffing in Social Security field offices fell by 14%, to 25,420 from 29,481. Across the country, field office hours were slashed. By March 2013, about 12,000 visitors a week had to wait two hours or more to get served, "a figure that had almost tripled in the previous four months." For those who tried to obtain information via the program's 800 number, the rate of busy signals also tripled. The agency tried to pare down foot traffic to its offices by eliminating some face-to-face services, advising people to resort to the Internet instead.

Field offices themselves are disappearing. Since 2010, the report found, the agency has eliminated 64 offices, the largest such reduction in any five-year span in its history.

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Are the Democrats allowing Social Security to twist in the wind?