Obama Blasts Republicans Over Letter to Iranian Leadership [W:251]

ttwtt78640 said:

Hmm... If the House passes a bill must the Senate vote on it? You seem to have very partisan blinders on when it comes to what congress "should" do.

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iliveonramen said:

No they didn't...they shut down the government and tried to impeach him.

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iliveonramen said:

Yup...that's exactly what I said! Good job! You won our conversation!

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Thrilla said:

:lamo

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iliveonramen said:

Obama's executive orders were signed 6 years into his tenure and well after Congress has failed to solve problems. This is undermining a negotiation without even giving it a chance. It's more comparable to Obama walking in and signing executive orders on day 1.


Okay, so you admit Congress is actively undermining a negotiation without even knowing what they are undermining.

The worst part is...sanctions depends on other countries actively supporting the sanctions. The countries that are apart of this negotiation? Yeah, they are the countries that co-operated and made the current sanctions work. If congress ultimately undermines these negotiations the chance are slim they are going to jump back into sanctions.

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iliveonramen said:

No...not sure where I said that. it was a major bill that had bi-partisan support including groups that typically support the Republican Party (chamber of commerce etc).

It also included both a path to citizenship and increased funding and border security. It was the best deal possible, and House Republicans torpedoed it.

House Republicans decided not to proceed so the White House took action.

That's the cost of obstructionism...if you think the other side will walk away saying "shucks...I guess we're done here" then you are making a serious miscalculation based on something that never happens.

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WASHINGTON, April 19— Members of Congress are always writing ''Dear Colleague'' letters to other members, promoting a bill or noting an event. Now 10 Democratic lawmakers have written a ''Dear Comandante'' letter that is kicking up a fuss on Capitol Hill.

The letter is addressed to Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the coordinator of the junta that rules Nicaragua. In it, the lawmakers commend his Government ''for taking steps to open up the political process in your country'' and urge greater efforts toward freer and more open elections.

'At Best Unwise'

After the letter came to light in a Congressional debate on Nicaragua last week, Representative Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, flew into a letter-writing frenzy of his own. Mr. Gingrich is circulating the ''Dear Comandante'' missive to reporters around town, accompanied by a statement that accuses the authors of undercutting the Administration's foreign policy.

''This letter,'' Mr. Gingrich wrote, ''clearly violates the constitutional separation of powers. It's at best unwise, and at worst illegal.''

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eohrnberger said:

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that point, or save it for another thread.

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Cardinal said:

No, your example wasn't a valid analogy as I explained. And again, regarding Gingrich's comment, was he right? And what you also never directly answered is, do you accept this as being standard fare for when a Republican president is in difficult negotiations with a foreign leader?

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CanadaJohn said:

To be clear, the Republican letter does not "warn Iran to not work with Obama" - it does, however, advise Iran that any agreement Obama enters into that does not have Congressional approval is an agreement that will potentially stand void once Obama leaves office. Better to have that upfront and transparent than to have the Iranians claim the US lied.

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laurcunningham said:

Was this letter sent with Obama's knowledge? Or was it done behind his back in an attempt to let Iran know that if they enter into an agreement with Obama that after he leaves office it's very possible that Congress will void the deal completely?

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It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.
More In Iran

First, under 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.

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics.

For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then — perhaps decades.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

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laurcunningham said:

I'm just curious. Do you believe that Republicans have gone above and beyond, throughout Obama's entire presidency, to try to work with him?

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laurcunningham said:

Do you believe that the only reason why there is friction within his presidency is because he alone is refusing to be bipartisan?

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laurcunningham said:

There haven't been any situations at all where Republicans have purposefully shown evidence of being 100% partisan and purposefully refusing to work with him to come to an agreement on an issue?

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WASHINGTON, April 19— Members of Congress are always writing ''Dear Colleague'' letters to other members, promoting a bill or noting an event. Now 10 Democratic lawmakers have written a ''Dear Comandante'' letter that is kicking up a fuss on Capitol Hill.

The letter is addressed to Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the coordinator of the junta that rules Nicaragua. In it, the lawmakers commend his Government ''for taking steps to open up the political process in your country'' and urge greater efforts toward freer and more open elections.

'At Best Unwise'

After the letter came to light in a Congressional debate on Nicaragua last week, Representative Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, flew into a letter-writing frenzy of his own. Mr. Gingrich is circulating the ''Dear Comandante'' missive to reporters around town, accompanied by a statement that accuses the authors of undercutting the Administration's foreign policy.

''This letter,'' Mr. Gingrich wrote, ''clearly violates the constitutional separation of powers. It's at best unwise, and at worst illegal.''

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laurcunningham said:

That's fine. I wasn't really trying to argue about it, I was just saying that I disagree with the statement you made. Even if we discussed it your opinion wouldn't change, so it's a moot point.

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CanadaJohn said:

Obama Blasts Republicans Over Letter to Iranian Leadership - Bloomberg Politics

President Obama: "It's somewhat ironic seeing some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran..... It's an unlikely coalition."

Interesting. Seems to me, the President distorts the issue for political gain and is subtly trying to claim that Republicans are fraternizing with the enemy or perhaps even treasonous. And yet no reaction or condemnation from Democrats or their friends in the media. Rudy Guilliani states that he believes that President Obama doesn't love his country and all hell breaks lose, the full force of the Democrat party and their media puppets attacking with all force. But when the shoe is on the other foot, again the attack is on the Republican party and the Democrat media protects their saviour and master.

Interesting. Also, isn't President Obama trying to 'make common cause with the hardliners in Iran" through the deal negotiations he's involved in?

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Cardinal said:

So you accept this precedent then? If a Republican president is in difficult negotiations with a foreign leader you'll be perfectly happy if a Democrat-controlled congress writes that leader to say, "Oh, hey, by the way, no matter what you guys arrive at we're not going to ratify it because our president doesn't have the authority to negotiate with you...wacka wacka!"

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eohrnberger said:

Indeed.

My read of the negotiations is that Obama is desperate for a foreign policy win for his legacy. We can see this with Cuba and other, where he's failed pretty much on all of them.

Check me if I'm wrong, but there's a long and strong history of bargaining, negotiation in the Bazaar in Persia. Being such, those negotiation skills are probably very sharp and well honed, unlike Obama's negotiating skills, as we've seen.

When those skills and cultural background are presented with a desperate Obama negotiating, it's perceived as a sign of weakness, a sign of the easily exploited.

Sure, the Iranians would like to have a deal where they are allowed nuclear arms and nuclear fuel refinement (precursor to nuclear weapon). Short of that, any delay in further economic sanctions being imposed or the lifting of existing economic sanctions in order to afford their covert nuclear refinement program is a win for them. They aren't losing anything in this process, they have only wins.

It also come to question whether they will actually adhere and honor their commitments in the future. So far they've not. They've missed every deadline, delayed every sequence of steps, and haven't complied with the UN inspectors. So Obama sees fit to trust them?

The GOP Senators, with their letter to Iranian leadership, are expressing their distrust of both the Iranian leadership and Obama.



Nope. But I'm sure that Obama, in his narcissistic arrogance that's displayed from the beginning, finds this severely offensive. I'd hazard a guess that he sees this as little more than racist in it's motivation, where it's nothing of the sort. It's not racist. It's a distinct lack of trust in Obama that the GOP have. Obama has done nothing to earn any trust from the GOP, as all they get from him is a right cross instead of a hand shake. Obama's been spoiling for fighting with congress and the GOP from his very first day in office.

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Deuce said:

Republicans undermine negotiations with Iran and the right wingers here fall all over themselves to defend it.

because, to them, hurting Obama is more important than protecting America. Or Israel.

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Ockham said:

This last 8 years has been a myriad of precedents. A President legislating from the Executive offices, making changes to bills without Congress, forcing people to buy government backed insurance, announcing "I have a pen and a phone" to bully though whatever he wants without Congress and as the SCOTUS has identified now multiple times, exceeded his authority. All of that doesn't now stop but continues... so why then would Congress pushing the envelope and setting a precedent in this case be surprising? Do I accept it? I have no choice but to accept it as I cannot, as an individual, deny their ability or right to send a letter to anyone they choose, just like I could not stop the Senate from using the nuclear option to bypass a filibuster or to shelve bills on the Senate floor from ever going to committee or be discussed at all.

Do I think that all these precedents are a good thing? No I do not.... but that's the world we now live in isn't it.

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WASHINGTON, April 19— Members of Congress are always writing ''Dear Colleague'' letters to other members, promoting a bill or noting an event. Now 10 Democratic lawmakers have written a ''Dear Comandante'' letter that is kicking up a fuss on Capitol Hill.

The letter is addressed to Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the coordinator of the junta that rules Nicaragua. In it, the lawmakers commend his Government ''for taking steps to open up the political process in your country'' and urge greater efforts toward freer and more open elections.

'At Best Unwise'

After the letter came to light in a Congressional debate on Nicaragua last week, Representative Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, flew into a letter-writing frenzy of his own. Mr. Gingrich is circulating the ''Dear Comandante'' missive to reporters around town, accompanied by a statement that accuses the authors of undercutting the Administration's foreign policy.

''This letter,'' Mr. Gingrich wrote, ''clearly violates the constitutional separation of powers. It's at best unwise, and at worst illegal.''

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Cardinal said:

The problem with your post is the Republicans didn't have to do this. It's not something they were forced into doing.

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Cardinal said:

The problem with your post is the Republicans didn't have to do this. It's not something they were forced into doing.

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Fearandloathing said:

At this point, with the 1967 borders issue, his fumbling at the G-20 in Paris, Libya's 'regime change', the troop withdrawal in Iraq, the stalled war in Afghanistan, the Crimean invasion, Ukraine, wars in seven countries, the Netanyahu speech and its consequences, the lies upon lies he has been caught in on foreign affairs [the world is watching stupid!], upheaval across the middle east, increasing strongholds for ISIS, the Keystone pipeline, naming
Venezuela as a 'security threat' his ignorance of international affairs, "desperate" is much too soft a word.

This guy is scrambling for one simple little win.....one where there is no contest

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