Well, well, well, and well, again. How the worm turns!
Our illustrious SecState, John "Xmas in Cambodia" Kerry, who made a name for himself by accusing his fellow soldiers of atrocities and hanging around with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegations in Paris during the Vietnam War peace talks, is in a tiff because 47 US Senators had the temerity to send an "open letter," drafted by Senator Cotton, to the despots in Iran.
All that angry talk about the Logan Act from the Democrats! The party that played around with the Sandinistas, the FMLN, the Castroites, Chavez, and Assad, who repeatedly sabotaged negotiations on free trade, and on and on, is now upset because 47 US Senators had the nerve to remind Iran, and the Obama Misadministration, that the US Constitution gives a very important role to the US Congress, especially the Senate, when it comes to international agreements. Cotton's letter states,
[U]nder our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.Wow! Is that treason or what?
Calling Attorney General Holder! Better go arrest all those middle school textbook publishers! They're giving away national secrets!
Maybe, just maybe, you'd think that our President, the World's Most Intelligent Man, as well as a Harvard-educated lawyer and self-proclaimed "Professor of Constitutional Law," might know of the Constitution's very carefully established separation of powers among the three branches of government.
Checks and Balances? Does any of this ring a bell, Professor Obama?
It must not, since this President insists that all government powers belong to him, e.g., see his immigration actions, and, apparently, that Congress is just a place for him to deliver his State of the Union speeches.
You can always count on Kerry to misspeak in the most marvelous and revealing of ways. Yes, the same man who openly acknowledged that we would deliver an "unbelievably small" strike against Assad, this while Obama pounded his chest and roared on about "red lines," now has undermined his chief, again.
In the Senate hearing, Kerry, as reported by CNN no less, said,
Cotton's letter stemmed from the false premise that any agreement brokered with Iran would be legally binding, though the letter doesn't use that language.
"We're not negotiating a legally binding plan," Kerry said, pointing out that an eventual agreement would have the same power as the "thousands" of executive agreements between the U.S. and foreign countries that Congress has not approved.
Kerry said that the letter is "incorrect when it says that Congress could modify the terms of an agreement."Let's put aside the nonsense about Congress not being able to modify an agreement and not mention the amendments to agreements on trade, for example, introduced by the Democrats in Congress.
Let's focus on Kerry's wonderful phrase, "We're not negotiating a legally binding plan." What in the Sam Hill does that mean? What are we negotiating? A gentlemen's agreement? With the Ayatollahs who daily proclaim their intention to wipe out Israel and the West?
So, as we all thought from the start, and as Bibi so eloquently reminded, this "deal" is a nothing burger. A Hoax. Worse. It sends a clear signal to the Iranians that the Obamistas will not do anything about Iran's nuclear weapon's program, not even ask Congress to take a look at the deal. Iran will get nuclear weapons, and Obama is quite content for that to happen.
Quite literally, nothing is better than this deal.
I frankly do not understand the goal of all this. But, then, that statement applies to all this administration's international relations activity. Your allies must all be scratching their heads (I know in Canada we are seriously peeved) while your enemies can't believe their luck and are elbowing away.
ReplyDeleteYou have professionals in the State department, this amateurism cannot be deliberate, can it?
On another note, in Canada, their is much discussion concerning the renewal of the 6 month involvement in Iraq/Syria in conjunction with the "International Coalition". I want to say we should continue, but only with a clear strategy, which the Leader of the Free World does not, or cannot, or will not, articulate. I'm sure other "allies" are in the same boat.
Very understandable from your perch. Right now, the United States is one nation under Canada. Thank God you folks are up there.
DeleteThis is one reason why I find it very hard to follow the Left Wing of the Democratic Party, neighbor--we don't know what The-Most-Intelligent-POTUS-Ever-Whose-Academic-Records-Are-the-Only-Secret-America-Can-Keep is thinking, either. He's a cipher. Maybe he's really just an empty suit, or a malevolent Mr. Bean limited only by his secret incompetence.
DeleteAfter a short and ignominious time with our State Department, I'm willing to guess we've got a lot of brilliant professional people (along with more than a few overrated stuffed shirts especially skilled at brown-nosing the right people) being led by a cabal of jackasses.
The goal of this caper may NOT be to just play footsies with the Mullahs, but to piss off enough citizens to the extent that someone "loses it", big-time.
DeleteAt that point, the already threadbare gloves come off and the "domestic enemies", (as specifically mentioned in the "optional" (apparently) clause of his oath and sometimes spotted in constitutional documents), will be given the "treatment", to MUCH domestic and foreign media fanfare.
Does anyone think that there have not been practice runs made in the past?
I don't even live there, but it seems like a distinct possibility that this scenario is the real end-game.
While traitor Nancy Pelosi was meeting in Syria a number of years ago, with our fully declared enemies, wearing her silly scarf over her head, a young hero, whose sister married into our family, returned to Iraq, after being with his parents in Fredricksburg, Tx. He was a Lt, graduate of West Point. During the time Nancy spoke, his military group, hit a planted IED, and he was killed.
ReplyDeleteOur family knows who the traitors are. We know full well.
I met his parents some six months later. In all my life I have never met more grief stricken parents.....and I mean in all of my life. And I thought, perhaps the pain has to do with not just their son's death, but the fact that one of our country's leaders, was meeting with our enemies, while he was killed.
I know this. Pelosi may declare that she had Bush's permission, as she did last week, but she did not.
This family knows who its friends and enemies are.
So do most Americans.....we just cannot speak and get printed in the press.
East Texas Rancher
I'm not American but I worked in Irving Texas a while back and admittedly have a romanticized view of both the USA in general and Texas in particular. Cowboys and Indians; Texas Rangers; Davey Crockett and the Alamo; Clint. You know; that sort of stuff.
DeleteMany ancestors from the country of my birth died to build and preserve the American dream and yes they did apply, as did I, whether they liked it or not. Love of America and the freedoms she represents were embedded in my DNA through my antecedents and it is pursuit of these denied freedoms that brought generation after generation of us to your shores, with cap in hand and a willingness to contribute and build and preserve and safeguard; with our blood when required.
It sickens me to see the evil cabal that now steers America onto the rocks. Traitors with botoxed instead of furrowed brows. I will pick up arms in defence of America, Israel and my homeland and not necessarily in that order. If I have to do it for America I will not be led by the gutless, lying likes of kerry/obama/holder/pelosi/norquist. Traitors who waste the lives and limbs of America’s finest; young men and women who answered their nation’s call because that is how they were raised; in the belief of protecting the last great experiment in human freedom.
Max Modine.
As a long time resident of Massachusetts, Lurch as he's referred to in these parts, is not known for his intelligence. After all, he was second banana to Teddy Kennedy for years, also a man not known for his intellectual capabilities either before or after his first Chivas of the morning. If you want to grade him in descending order there's a box of door knobs, Al Gore, a box of rocks, and finally Lurch.
ReplyDeleteThe real mystery of the universe is how such people get elected over and over and ascend to higher and higher positions of authority.
I tire of people comparing Kerry to a box of rocks. Some of my best friends are rocks.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at State lots of my colleagues proclaimed Sen. Kerry a Rock Star. I now understand the joke . . .
DeleteKerry IS the joke. On all of us.
DeleteAnd boxes are in fact useful!
DeleteOne of my lines is "I'd call him a scumbag but that would be an insult to an actual bag full of scum." It applies to Mr. Heinz as well.
DeleteSo it comes out that all of this Kabuki Theater seems to have been done just to have some piece of paper to which Ozymandias-on-the-Potomac can point, as he rides his Higher-than-most horse out of town, claiming, "I have left behind an historic legacy!" (Not to be confused with the legacy that the MSM seem to be perpetually humping!)
ReplyDeleteDo you smell something burning?
Ah, nothing like the smell of a planned -- and thwarted (we hope!) -- Dem legacy going up/down in smoke in the morning.
At the least Chamberlin thought that the Munich Agreement was real, even if Hitler had no intention of honouring the terms; can you imagine Chamberlain emerging from the the aircraft, standing before the microphone and proclaiming that there would be 'peace in our time' because of the non-binging document in his hand?
ReplyDeleteThe concept of 'binding' makes no sense in international relations.
DeleteA treaty is "binding on the US" if it's ratified.
There are no consequences to abrogating a treaty with the US, outside of presumably angering the US.
There's just no concept of a 'binding' agreement without an enforcement entity, and there is no enforcement entity in international relations.
None of this makes any sense to me.
- reader #1482
One reason for this "hoax" agreement is to provide cover for the U.N. to lift sanctions on Iran since our negotiating "partners" really want more Iranian business. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteYes, remember when Kerry, in a debate with Bush in 2000, said "A preemptive strike must pass a global test.?" They have planned all along to go to the UN for this deal and ignore Congress. Maybe the UN budget debate can be revived. And, from Powerline:
Delete"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."
Max Modine said...
ReplyDelete"World's Most Intelligent Man"
I am the most intelligent man in the world and I don't smoke Crack much anymore; but when I do I smoke Choom Crack from Iran.
Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Insane Obama)
i would love to see senator cotton charged with violating the logan act and the ensuing donnybrook as team obama is finally compelled to tell the whole truth under oath.
ReplyDeleteAs a state senator, Obama was never charged with violating the Logan Act when he campaigned in Kenya for Odinga. When the latter failed to unseat the government, Odinga's henchmen slaughtered black Xtians.
Deletejt:
ReplyDeleteTeam Obama is as likely to "tell the whole truth" as was Sandy Berger when asked about the papers missing from the National Archives. The whole lot of them have no compunction about lying, even under oath. F
sadly, you are correct.
DeleteRO, (Ww, K) Of course excellent notes, but if you and all people could study, learn what is the gang of satan’s devils, the ultimate bandits who answer to no one, but play all others until enslaved or dead, essentially just like the mafia or nazis, if one needs to shop a similar con’cept, one needs to know at least that hussein, the fraud potus, was born a mohammadan, to a line of mohammadans, hate whites, colonialists, and anyone who wasn’t muslim or black. Know that always, under koranic rules, if born and raised muslim always muslim, unless in writing, such individual declares apostasy, and of course consequential death at will of whomever feels like doing it! Few muslims have ever studied the implications of the full “monty” muslim bandit responsibilities, by the way.
ReplyDeleteHe went for 20 years to a former muslim so called preacher Wright, who preached proper hatred as well. To understand all that has, is and still will go on, one has to accept that the fools elected a muslim crook traitor as a potus. And with at least an open mind read this and all the items in the additional series. If you can read this, you will have full understanding of what is going on, how money persuades the unprincipled brown nosers, how criminals thrive, against the fundamental interests of Amerika. Kerry is a lifetime continuous ass, every intelligent one knows, can see, just by his idiocy in words. Unfortunately, hussein and many others are far far worse, pure benedict arnolds, at best. Just traitors. There has been a series of high level plots, against America’s interests, and allies, since 2009, and here is a revelation of some of these plots. By people who are risking much, by the way, akin to our “treasonous heroic founder’s and their Declaration of Independence.
I just got this subject line: Tom Cotton Stands Firm: Obama ‘Paving The Path’ for Iran to Get Nuke...
It reminds me, that for the first time in 6 or 7 years at minimum, I am proud of the Republicans (whom I had been a lifelong proud member, until recent times, and could never be a traitorous democrat in my life—“that FREEDOM shall not perish from this Earth”) for acting somewhat like our founders, at least a small amount! Remember, I’m an independent for the first time of my long life, not a libertarian quite ever, though close, because I am for wiping out IS, and any other potential threat, and even at my crippled age will be happy to risk my life on site to work towards the wipe out of my, America’s, the Wests, enemy, physically.
Read this: http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/02/26/the-benghazi-brief-a-power-point-presentation/
And this series: http://theamericanreport.org/ (which was brought to my attention by the Gates of Vienna, thank you Baron Bodissey). Select the full “Betrayal Papers” section or series of 5, and you will at least begin to understand, the details, of what has befallen us in America, including Hillary, and the West, our allies, whom I personally apologize to, for which I, for one of many intelligent voters, tried to avoid this disaster in history. To which I must add GO ISRAEL, my Brave and Dear Brothers, in Christianity and Judaism, in life. La Chaim!
Think as you will, to me it is part of all the logical activities we’ve all seen, and I see NO cognitive dissonance in the above pieces, at all with the current regime, formerly prior to this 2008 election, “administrations”, even the amateur Carter.
Jack
The point of those articles, I forgot to add, is to show how hussein, and his internal added cohorts, thinks, or dreams, certainly behaves as though, he is aiding the establishment of the new caliphate, through America, and it's transformation into mohammadanism, of the world.
DeleteThe fact that half the voters elected him, as total unlearned, uneducated, undisciplined, ignorant individuals, in spite of his detailed disclosures of who and what he was in at least one open autobiography textbook well available well before elections, as prophetically illustrated here; ”And saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths, A young man devoid of understanding,” -Proverbs 7:7
”To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion” -Proverbs 1:4
Prophetically in Proverbs, from the Bible, such people, elected perhaps the beast, the absurd mahdi, in his mind, a pure American tragedy, and a tremendous danger to the world and history. That is how big this is. I believe he published the text of his autobiography to illustrate just how dumb, lazy, crooked, unlearned, has become the American voter, to have the truth available, and do nothing about it! It's "easier to not vote at all, or for poor reasons", and "it's all good", "just chill", remember? Moral equivalence? All equals nothing?
Jack
"We're not negotiating a legally binding agreement."
ReplyDeleteBut if it's it suffices to have the international community remove any remaining sanctions on Iran, and shortly after the inauguration of President Whoever in a couple of years Iran conducts a successful nuclear test.
So what if President Jindal repudiates the deal? At that point, what does it matter?
Senate Dems are now in a tight spot. "The Letter" notwithstanding, there still seems to be enough for a veto proof majority if some "deal" comes down the pike. Now that the hoax has been proved by John Kerry and the spokesgirl at State, what are poor Dems to do?
ReplyDeleteOf course, what are the alternatives? It seems as if it's either Iran gets a nuke, or we have a war in a difficult place. Perhaps the best is to pass on via diplomatic channels that certain people remain under a US nuclear umbrella.
ReplyDeleteWe also survived Mao Zedong having atomic weapons--and he was as certiiably bonkers as the Mad Mullahs of Mashad.
IMO, the only route to removing Iran as a nuclear power is to reduce their oil infrastructure. As noted many places, rebuilding clandestine centrifuge bunkers is cheap even while playing games with the IAEA..... so long as there's money to fund it.
DeleteWithout the oil infrastructure, Iran is backwards even for a 3rd world country.
I trust that the ayatollah and his cadres are true believers in their faith. I don't know what that says, but a lot of the tyrants we've dealt with previously worshipped themselves (I'm guessing chairman Mao fits into this?), so this *might* be a different beast. I don't know that for sure.
- reader #1482
Submitted for your thoughts, oh diplomad. Jen Psaki is now saying that State has no record of Frau Clinton ever signing an OF-109 on her departure from the department. Moreover, she's claiming that signing the security exit form is somehow optional.
ReplyDelete"'It’s not a violation of any rule, no,' she said, saying that signing the form may not be a common departure practice and that 'there are differences between regulations and, certainly, recommendations.'"
So the administration's line is that that it's merely just a suggestion, not a requirement, that employees sign that form. No law or administrative rule requires that the employee sign it.
Why would anyone except a fool sign a form subjecting themselves to perjury and all sorts of criminal sanctions if they could avoid all that by not signing what Psaki is saying is a completely optional form?
Somehow, Saki's answer reminds of oh..."unintended consequences" in elections, among so much else (like prematurely withdrawing from iraq, “pounding enemy interruptus”, and blaming the “unintended consequences” on Bush, and uh, the kind of thing called “corruption” that so many existing under dictatorships, et. al. complain of. The Bush blaming again for his own failures to be a patriotic American, and for taking iran and hezbollah (and lying about a false “format change” of said list) off the terrorism lists, and oh generally being as described herein: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/03/obamas-treason-is-new-patriotism.html or the likes of http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2015/03/is-john-kerry-moron.html and so much, much, more, globally.
ReplyDeleteJack
A comprehensive review of Obomber's Iran policy, although I tend to agree with Elliot Abram's response. His grand strategy is based upon left ideology, after all socialists hate America and American dominance.
ReplyDeletehttp://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/