We will soon find out just how low the GOP establishment has sunk.
Having made a blood pact with Barack Obama, Rep. Paul Ryan will go to any length to ram Obamatrade through Congress – even so far as condoning slavery.
At issue, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a global regulatory pact that integrates the economy of the U.S. with 11 countries on three continents. It's one of the largest international compacts in the history of the United States. Paul Ryan and John Boehner are working to put it on a fast track, thereby ensuring Congress will be unable to amend whatever Obama writes into the agreement.
When the Senate approved this act of self-castration, it inserted a clause into the fast track legislation barring any country that engages in human trafficking – a fancy term for slavery – from the TPP.
And that threatens to sink the whole deal, because one of the "partners" in the pact is Malaysia, a notorious slaver.
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The U.S. State Department ranks Malaysia as one of the worst offenders in the world – a destination, source and transit country for men, women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The Muslim government denies identity papers to the children of interfaith marriages, making them especially easy prey for slavers.
The world reacted in horror days ago when authorities exhumed 140 bodies from a mass grave at a camp run by human smugglers in Malaysia. It's no secret the Malaysian government is complicit in the slave trade.
This is the same government that has ripped God from the Bible and routinely persecutes Christians in a myriad of ways.
Yet Malaysia has its defenders – and some are leaders in the Republican Party. Desperate to grease the skids for Obama's TPP, Paul Ryan is now busy rounding up votes in the House to nullify the Senate's sanctions against slave states like Malaysia.
The legislative vehicle Ryan hopes to use to green light the international slave trade is a customs enforcement bill – a shocking example of doublespeak. The legislation would more properly be called the U.S. Customs Non-Enforcement Act. Under the Ryan-Hatch-Boehner plan, the customs bill would be amended to water down the upper house's prohibition against Malaysia.
But the entire effort is probably unnecessary anyway. This increasingly lawless administration regularly disregards congressional guidance, and there is no reason to believe it would do otherwise in this instance. Besides, the GOP congressional leadership has shown it has no stomach for enforcing its will when Obama does whatever he wants.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., offers a case study in how Congress works – or doesn't. Lankford properly authored an amendment to the Senate fast track bill directing the administration to consider religious freedom when negotiating trade agreements. It was approved 92-0. He then voted for the Senate fast track legislation that explicitly bars Malaysia from the TPP agreement.
But Sen. Lankford refuses to say he will vote against it if the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement Obama presents to Congress includes Malaysia. Let that sink in: Having affirmatively expressed the will of the Senate is to exclude slavers from the TPP, Lankford cannot bring himself to say he will stand by his word and uphold the law if Obama flouts it.
Sen. Lankford has made it abundantly clear that any "guidance" Congress gives to Obama via fast track legislation is meaningless. Lankford also acknowledged that attempts to make Vietnam respect human rights have been futile. Yet we would reward Vietnam with membership in the TPP.
This brings us to the present spectacle of Republican House leaders tying themselves in knots to gain favor with their paymasters on K Street and their newfound ally in the White House.
We will soon see if the party of Lincoln is willing to give its stamp of approval to slavery.