Vox Sentences: Just when you thought it was out, Obama’s trade bill claws its way back in

Fast-tracked

Ron Wyden, the top Senate Democrat on trade. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which will let President Obama get an up-or-down vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal with Pacific Rim nations, has broken a Senate filibuster, meaning it will likely pass and be signed into law soon.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee and Jonathan Allen]

• TPA (also known as "fast-track" authority) had already passed the Senate in late May, but only because it was attached to a reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which helps people who lose jobs due to trade.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• That created a conundrum for the House, where fast-track was popular among Republicans but TAA wasn't, and TAA was popular among Democrats but fast-track and TPP weren't.

• The first plan that trade advocates in the White House and Republican congressional leadership tried was to have the House separately pass TPA with Republican votes and TAA with Democratic votes.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• But because House Democrats weren't born yesterday, they realized that a vote for TAA was a vote for fast-track and a Pacific trade deal they loathed, and so they voted down TAA.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• House Republicans responded by passing TPA without adjustment assistance attached, and sent it up to the Senate, where passage required support from Democrats who had backed it before at least partially because of the inclusion of adjustment assistance.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• That Democratic support materialized, and exactly 60 senators voted to break a filibuster.

  [The Hill / Alexander Bolton]

• Thirteen Democrats backed it in total: Michael Bennet (CO), Maria Cantwell (WA), Tom Carper (DE), Chris Coons (DE), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Tim Kaine (VA), Claire McCaskill (MO), Patty Murray (WA), Bill Nelson (FL), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Mark Warner (VA), and Ron Wyden (OR).

  [US Senate]

• Congressional Republicans have assured those Democrats that they'll shepherd a reauthorization of TAA through now; a Senate vote is set for Thursday.

  [Politico / Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim]

• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reversed his support for TPA in protest of a deal Senate Republicans cut with Cantwell and Murray to extend the Export-Import Bank in exchange for support on trade.

  [Politico / Manu Raju]

• Many conservatives consider the Ex-Im Bank corporate welfare, but its biggest beneficiary is Boeing, in Cantwell and Murray's home state of Washington; Boeing got over 70 percent of Ex-Im loan guarantees in fiscal year 2014.

  [Washington Examiner / Timothy P. Carney]

• Want to learn more? Check out our card stack explaining TPP, TPA, and TAA, among other acronymed trade policies.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

Retailers against treason

Protesters burn a Confederate battle flag in LA. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/Getty Images)

• A huge wave of businesses and politicians are turning against the Confederate flag and other Confederate symbols in the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina, shooting last week and South Carolina leaders' subsequent calls for the flag at the statehouse to come down.

  [NYT / Campbell Robertson and Richard Pérez-Peña]

• Amazon, Walmart, Sears, and eBay are ceasing sales of Confederate flag merchandise.

  [NYT / Hilary Stout]

• Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is banning Confederate-themed license plates, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled that states could reject offensive license designs.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) called for the state to remove the Confederate design from its own flag; Gov. Phil Bryant (R) expressed opposition to changing the design, citing a 2001 ballot referendum in which Mississippians backed the current flag.

  [Clarion Ledger / Clay Chandler]

• Georgia and Mississippi are the two states that still have Confederate designs in their flags; Georgia's is based on the less recognizable first national flag of the Confederacy, Mississippi's on the very recognizable battle flag.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) expressed support for changing the state's Confederate license plate designs, which incorporate the battle flag design, but suggested that he thinks the official state flag is a settled matter.

  [Atlanta Constitution-Journal / Greg Bluestein]

• A bipartisan group in Tennessee is calling for the removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest — the Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan founder — from the statehouse in Nashville.

  [The Tennessean / Dave Boucher]

• Matt Bevin, the Republican nominee for Kentucky governor who challenged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from the right for the Republican nomination last year, called for the removal of a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from the state Capitol rotunda.

  [AP]

• The Charleston controversy has served as an important reminder of just how many memorials there are in the American South to Confederates who committed treason to defend slavery and white supremacy.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Matt Yglesias: "The United States has historically been very unusual in its official commemoration of the leaders of a failed rebellion against the government, and the story behind that commemoration is one of a rather sordid bargain in which white Americans from the North and the South agreed to sweep the interests of black Americans under the rug. The stability of that 'compromise' is now coming undone, and rightly so."

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Be sure to read Libby Nelson's full Confederate flag explainer here.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

Whip it, whip it good ("it" being leftist members of Greek parliament)

May the eternal recurrence of this flag image remind you of how interminable this whole Greece debacle has been. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

• With Greece potentially reaching a deal with its European creditors tomorrow, one expected provision is a requirement that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pass reforms immediately through Greek parliament.

  [FT / Stefan Wagstyl, Peter Spiegel, and Henry Foy]

• That sets up a tough vote within Tsipras's left-wing Syriza party, many members of which argue that his concessions — including more austerity through higher taxes and pension contributions — give too much away.

  [FT / Kerin Hope]

• The IMF, one of Greece's big creditors, and which is a big payment soon, argues that the package is too heavy on tax increases and too light on tax cuts.

  [The Guardian]

• Matt O'Brien: Europe is destroying Greece's economy by demanding austerity for no good reason.

  [Washington Post / Matt O'Brien]

• Not familiar with the Greek debt crisis? See Matthew Yglesias's explainer here.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

Misc.

• Shaun McCutcheon: engineer. Republican mega-donor. Supreme Court plaintiff. Paris Hilton BFF.

  [Washingtonian / Luke Mullins]

• Bobby Jindal adopted the name "Bobby" from Bobby Brady, of the Brady Bunch.

  [Washington Post / Annie Gowen and Tyler Bridges]

• If you're even slightly interested in the future of foreign aid, you owe it to yourself to read this phenomenal essay on how to improve it going forward.

  [Foreign Affairs / David Miliband and Ravi Gurumurthy]

• Momentum for a basic income is building in Alberta, Canada, with the mayors of Calgary and Edmonton both expressing interest.

  [Toronto Star / Robin Levinson King]

Verbatim

• "By tradition and by default, books aren’t verified to anything near the standard of a magazine piece."

  [NY Mag / Boris Kachka]

• "A future of less work still holds a glint of hope, because the necessity of salaried jobs now prevents so many from seeking immersive activities that they enjoy."

  [The Atlantic / Derek Thompson]

• "Companies … 'experiment' on us without our consent every time they implement a new policy, practice or product without knowing its consequences."

  [NYT / Michelle Meyer and Christopher Chabris]

• "Everyone keeps telling me to get a new cat. Or just assumes I will. But no fucking way. No fucking way am I getting another lovable, adorable, cuddly, affectionate, loyal little creature who is in fact a ticking time bomb set to explode my heart into a thousand pieces at some unknown point in the future. (I’m single.)"

  [The Awl / Mikki Halpin]

Song of the day

• A$AP Rocky, "Holy Ghost"

  [YouTube]