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Exciting trade update

President Obama after meeting with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats on trade. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
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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]
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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]
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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.
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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]
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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]
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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]
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Republicans are unlikely to back it either, as conservative activist groups have decried TAA as a wasteful welfare program.
[Vox / Timothy B. Lee]
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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.
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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]
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The F-35 fighter plane just catches on fire sometimes. That's just the way it is.
[Medium / Kevin Knodell]
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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]
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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]
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Attention's finally being paid to sexual assault on campuses. But domestic violence could be just as prevalent.
[BuzzFeed / Katie JM Baker]
Verbatim
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"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]
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"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]
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"Those two apparently incompatible versions of a thing are better regarded as parts of the same, larger thing."
[New Yorker / Stephen Burt]
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"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]
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"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
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Jagged Little Pill turns 20 tomorrow, so here's "You Learn."
[YouTube]
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