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- - Treason? (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=218887)

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Republican Idiocy on Iran

(...)

After helping to ignite a firestorm over a possible nuclear agreement with Iran, Senator John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate, is now sort of acknowledging his error. “Maybe that wasn’t exactly the best way to do that,” he said on Fox News on Tuesday.

He was referring to the disgraceful and irresponsible letter that he and 46 Senate colleagues sent to Iran’s leaders this week that generated outrage from Democrats and even some conservatives.

(...)

Besides being willing to sabotage any deal with Iran (before they know the final details), these Republicans are perfectly willing to diminish America’s standing as a global power capable of crafting international commitments and adhering to them.

(...)

The Republican efforts have so infuriated Democrats that even those who might have supported legislation that would have given Congress leverage over an Iranian pact are having second thoughts. Before this, the thinking was that the two bills most in play — one that would increase sanctions on Iran and another that would force the administration to bring any agreement to Congress for a review — might draw enough Democratic support to override a veto by President Obama. Both measures would surely scuttle a deal, but the Republicans’ actions may have set back their senseless cause.

The best and only practical way to restrain Iran from developing a bomb is through negotiating a strict agreement with tough monitoring. In rejecting diplomacy, the Republicans make an Iranian bomb and military conflict more likely.

Ah yes, the GOP shooting itself in the foot again, how surprising.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/op...an-region&_r=0

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngusJS (Post 2296080)

Uhh, it is unprecedented. As I have already explained, none of those instances involved almost half the Senate trying to hamper important negotiations going on with an important adversary. Rather a material difference, I should say.

Oh so to you it's only a crime if more than one person is involved. I see. :roll:

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:/\\!! The Logan Act, for the millionth time:

The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution, for the millionth time and spare me the yelling fire in a theater exceptions. Totally different thing.

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Show me where it says that proposals or demands have to be made to run afoul of this law.

If you really believe this silliness then go complain to your congressman. See if anyone in any kind of authority agrees with you. End of story.

Oh and...

Quote:

The Obama administration has excoriated Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 other Republicans for writing to Iran’s leaders informing them of the Senate’s constitutional role in approving international agreements. Vice President Joe Biden went so far as to declare that “In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country — much less a longtime foreign adversary — that the president does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”
Really? Biden has an awfully short memory.
In June 2000, when Biden was ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Bill Clinton set off for Moscow to negotiate a new arms control treaty with Vladimir Putin that would have limited the United States’ ability to build defenses against ballistic missile attack. The morning the talks were scheduled to begin, the president was greeted by on op-ed on the front page of Izvestia by committee chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). “After dragging his feet on missile defense for nearly eight years, Mr. Clinton now fervently hopes that he will be permitted, in his final months in office, to tie the hands of the next President,” Helms wrote. “Well I, for one, have a message for the President: Not on my watch. Let’s be clear, to avoid any misunderstandings: Any modified ABM treaty negotiated by this administration will be dead-on-arrival at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . . The Russian government should not be under any illusion whatsoever that any commitments made by this lame-duck Administration, will be binding on the next administration.”
The message was received in Moscow. There was no new arms control deal.
Biden also surely remembers how in 1998, when the Clinton administration was negotiating a U.N. treaty to create an International Criminal Court, Helms did more than send a letter expressing his opposition — he sent his aides to Rome to join the negotiations and make his opposition clear. I was a member of that team. Meeting with the United Nations delegates (with Biden’s aides present), we delivered a clear message from the chairman: Any treaty Clinton negotiated that did not give the U.S. a veto over the ICC in the Security Council was “dead on arrival” in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, unlike the Obama administration, the Clinton team smartly tried to use Helms’s opposition as leverage to negotiate more protections for Americans.

Helms did not simply write to foreign leaders explaining the Senate’s constitutional role in foreign policy. Together with Biden, he went to the U.N. headquarters in New York to deliver the message in person. On Jan. 20, 2000, Helms became the first U.S. senator ever to address the U.N. Security Council, where he warned of steep consequences if the U.N. failed to accept the U.N. reforms he and Biden had passed. And he explained to the gathered world leaders what a mistake it was to try to ignore the role of the Senate in foreign policy. Citing the example of Woodrow Wilson’s failure to secure congressional approval for the League of Nations, Helms declared, “Wilson probably could have achieved ratification of the League of Nations if he had worked with Congress.” Helms and Biden then invited the Security Council to Washington, where he gathered all the U.N. ambassadors in the old Senate chamber for a lecture from Senate historian Richard Baker on the Senate’s role in U.S. foreign policy. (Russia’s then-U.N. ambassador, and current foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov turned to Helms’s aide after the lecture and asked, “Where in the bastion of democracy can I have a smoke?”)
In this context, Cotton’s open letter to Iran is mild by comparison. It contains no warning that a nuclear deal is “dead on arrival” or declaration that Obama is a “lame duck.” The letter simply spells out the Senate’s constitutional role in the treaty ratification process and points out that any agreement Obama reaches with Iran that is “not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.”
The folly here is not in Cotton’s decision to write the mullahs, but in Obama’s petulant response that Cotton and his colleagues were “making common cause with the hard-liners in Iran.” Please. The deal Obama is negotiating is opposed not only by Republicans in Congress, but also by leading Democrats, the government of Israel and most Arab leaders. Are they all “making common cause with the hard-liners in Iran” too?
Rather than having a temper tantrum, Obama should emulate Clinton and use congressional and international opposition as leverage at the negotiating table to get a better deal with Iran. And rather than rail against those who are speaking out against his deal, Obama should ask himself why so many are going to such great lengths to stop it. The problem is not their criticism, but Obama running roughshod over the concerns of Congress and U.S. allies. The fact is that any deal Obama reaches that does not have broad bipartisan backing in Congress and the support of governments in the region is in fact “dead on arrival” — even if Cotton and company are too polite to put it that bluntly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...9d2_story.html

I don't think the First Amendment will protect these senators from being charged as there is nothing in the First Amendment that specifically gives the right of freedom of speech to a group of people who are part of a government body who sent a letter to a foreign government without authorization.

Quote:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Quote:

Originally Posted by August (Post 2296300)

Oh so to you it's only a crime if more than one person is involved. I see. :roll:

Yup, that's exactly what I meant, good job picking up on that. I certainly didn't mean that the 47 letter was unprecedented in terms of the sheer scale and mendacity of it.

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The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution, for the millionth time and spare me the yelling fire in a theater exceptions. Totally different thing.

Wow. Just wow. You made the inane claim that the right to free speech is absolute. I showed how blatantly wrong that is - free speech, like all rights, is circumscribed by law. Just as there is law against speech that incites a panic, there is a law against unauthorized speech directed at other governments which strives to undermine the US position in ongoing disputes.

But apparently that wasn't clear enough. Please drop your pathetic attempt to take a 4th grader's understanding of the Bill of Rights and pretend that it actually means anything in the real world. It doesn't. It hasn't for centuries. Get with the @#$%^&%$ times.

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If you really believe this silliness then go complain to your congressman. See if anyone in any kind of authority agrees with you. End of story.

I see. You can't or won't read a simple, short citation of the statute to see that the interpretation you proffered of it was not borne out by the plain meaning of the text. Instead, you tell me to talk to my congressman. Why - is he the arbiter of what counts as a federal crime and what doesn't? What does he have to do with anything?

Well as far as i'm concerned you Dems can whine about it all you want, I just don't care. But I will leave you this.

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...360x500_1_.jpg

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Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat (Post 2296256)

Ah yes, the GOP shooting itself in the foot again, how surprising.

Quote:

The best and only practical way to restrain Iran from developing a bomb is through negotiating a strict agreement with tough monitoring. In rejecting diplomacy, the Republicans make an Iranian bomb and military conflict more likely.

Hmmm...

I wonder whose "constituents" would profit the most from an Iranian bomb and military conflict'?...

Country Joe would be proud:

Quote:

Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,...

Maybe Dubbya can give Jeb a few pointers when Jeb is in office... :03:

<O>

Quote:

Originally Posted by August (Post 2296373)

Well as far as i'm concerned you Dems can whine about it all you want, I just don't care. But I will leave you this.

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...360x500_1_.jpg

You're unable to counter my points, but also unable to admit that you might be wrong, so you post that.

Ok, have fun.

I don't have to refute your "points": enough people before me already have do so quite well. I don't really like to pile on...

As far as tears go, well, when the GOP staggers from the self-inflicted wreckage of their upcoming 2016 campaign, come see me for a hanky to sop up your tears...

Oh, btw, I'm not a Dem...

<O>

Hey we'll see right? I'd rather see a President Hillary than a Congress and the Administration in the hands of one party regardless of which one it is. That never turns out good for the American people. Political gridlock is the best form of government for the common man.

As for Angus it comes down to to this. He thinks that these Senators actually committed treason. I think that's both insane and hypocritical given the history of his party. He's not going to change his mind and i'm not going to change mine so i'm stepping off this merry go round and going on to more fun discussions. He can declare victory on an internet forum and when nothing comes of this like i've said repeatedly then i'll win in real life.

I'll of course remember this little discussion and be quick to stick him with it someday when the tables are turned, and turn they will. What the Democrats have done before they will do again.

:roll:

I never said it was treason. I asked if it was treason, because I don't know. I do know that it violates a federal statute and is thus a crime. Whether that crime falls under treason or something else, I don't know.

And I never said that anything will come of this, and in fact expressed doubt that it would. If the Republican Senate was ever held responsible for this, conservatives across the country would go absolutely ape. They would see it as everything they have said about Indonesian Muslim Atheist Communist Fascist Antichrist Emperor Obama coming to pass, and there would be open revolt. In a way, it's a crime so audacious that it can't be punished.

And on the level of internet forum discussions, whether these guys are ever prosecuted and convicted has no bearing on whether a crime has been committed. Just looking at the fact pattern and comparing it to the statute and case law is enough.

Because they will almost certainly never be charged for this, legally they will not have committed a crime. They will be innocent, in the same sense that OJ is completely innocent of the crime of murder.

It was a blowjob...don't you like blowjobs?:woot:

:doh:

interesting article in Politico.

one-third of GOP insiders surveyed think blowback form the letter will hurt the Party in 2016, both senators who signed the letter and are up for re-election, but also presidential contenders like Paul and Cruz:

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POLITICO Caucus: Iran-letter backlash spreads to early states

(...)

“The GOP letter — while sound in substance — caused the debate to shift from the administration’s wrongheadedness to the GOP’s tactics,” said a New Hampshire Republican, who — like all 92 respondents this week — completed the survey anonymously in order to speak candidly. “That’s not helpful.”

“Policy wise, the deal Obama is trying to cut is a bad one,” said another. “Politically speaking, however, the letter has been a disaster. The Democrats have totally framed and owned the debate, and our GOP senators are getting pummeled.”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat (Post 2296583)

interesting article in Politico.

one-third of GOP insiders surveyed

I'd like to know who these GOP insiders are that would talk to a liberal rag like Politico let alone dis their own party to them.