Vox Sentences: Is this the untimely end of Obama’s trade agenda?

Exciting trade update

President Obama after meeting with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats on trade. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

• The House rejected a bill to extend the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program for workers displaced by competition from foreign imports, by a vote of 302 to 126.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• The bill was one half of an overall package whose more notable component is Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which guarantees President Obama an up-or-down vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal he's negotiating with a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• The Senate passed a bill that both extends TAA and grants Obama TPA, but House Republicans balked at the latter and Democrats at the former.

• The hope was that House Republicans would pass TPA and Democrats would pass TAA, so the Senate bill as a whole could pass, but Democrats mostly opposed TAA, killing that plan.

  [House Clerk]

• After that bill failed, Republicans and a handful of Democrats passed TPA — but without TAA, it can't reach President Obama's desk.

  [House Clerk]

• There's a chance that there will be another TAA vote next week, but it's considered unlikely that enough Democrats would change their votes for it to pass.

  [NYT / Jonathan Weisman]

• Republicans are unlikely to back it either, as conservative activist groups have decried TAA as a wasteful welfare program.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• The White House downplayed the defeat, noting that the Senate initially rejected TPA before passing it.

  [Politico / Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan, and Lauren French]

Misc.

• Pat Brown quit his job as a biochemist at Stanford to invent the best fake meat ever. It even bleeds like real beef.

  [Grub Street / Daniel Fromson]

• The F-35 fighter plane just catches on fire sometimes. That's just the way it is.

  [Medium / Kevin Knodell]

• Earlier this year, Neil Moore was in a maximum-security prison in England. So he sent a faked email from a fake court authorizing his release, and was subsequently let free.

  [Now I Know / Dan Lewis]

• Most maps of the US by county boil down to two things, in practice: population density, and the share of the population that's black.

  [Kieran Healy]

• Attention's finally being paid to sexual assault on campuses. But domestic violence could be just as prevalent.

  [BuzzFeed / Katie JM Baker]

Verbatim

• "In late October 2001, Elon Musk went to Moscow to buy an intercontinental ballistic missile … Musk figured it would be a good vehicle for sending a plant or some mice to Mars."

  [Bloomberg / Ashlee Vance]

• "Fortunately, the Federal Reserve is more Lord Varys than Littlefinger. Like the Fed, Varys truly serves the best interest of the realm above all."

  [Washington Post / Adam Ozimek]

• "Those two apparently incompatible versions of a thing are better regarded as parts of the same, larger thing."

  [New Yorker / Stephen Burt]

• "There are rumors that if the cats approve of your performance they will bring you actual treasures, although when the first treasure comes it is a shell earring, and you put it on and wonder whether this is a true gift or a symbol of your obedience."

  [The Billfold / Nicole Dieker]

• "I live with this word, though; I am the word. But it is not a word you can just drop into a conversation and follow with 'It’s not a big deal, though.'"

  [NYT / Michael Hedrick]

Song of the day

• Jagged Little Pill turns 20 tomorrow, so here's "You Learn."

  [YouTube]