Politics #47traitors

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donkiez

donkiez

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A group of rogue Republican senators may be getting a taste of Jeffersonian democracy—and find themselves facing charges for treason.

A petition on the White House’s website has received over 100,000 signatures in a single day, enough to mandate an official response from the president, and spark atrending hashtag in the process.


The petition calls for criminal charges against 47 senators who “committed a treasonous offense” in writing a menacing letter to the government of Iran, now in the middle of negotiations with President Obama aimed at reaching a nuclear energy agreement.

The letter, penned by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and signed by 46 other Republican senators, warned Iran that any deal reached by the president could be undone by a future commander-in-chief “with the stroke of a pen.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Dr. Javad Zarif responded to the senators’ letter, saying “in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.”

The move, decried as highly unusual by a cover story in the New York Daily News, follows the highly unorthodox saga of Iran nuclear negotiations and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s uninvited address to Congress earlier this month.

The petition's legal basis is found under Chapter 18 of the U.S. Code §953, also known as the Logan Act. The law, passed in 1799 and revised in 1994, states:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
According to a 2006 report by the Library of Congress, no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act, and only one person has ever been indicted under it: a Kentucky farmer in 1803.

Old as it is, the Logan Act still remains in effect as federal statute—it’s the law of the land. Its application in actual criminal proceedings is unprecedented, but so is the groundswell of public outrage calling for politicians to be put behind bars. Being almost 100 years old hasn’t stopped the Espionage Act being invoked to prosecute and convict several U.S. whistleblowers—including Chelsea Manning—even though it was originally intended to punish seditious spies sharing information with the enemy during World War I.
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http://www.dailydot.com/politics/white-house-petition-treason-iran-tom-cotton/?fb=dd

and the petition currently at 193,148

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...tempting-undermine-nuclear-agreement/NKQnpJS9
 
I can't see this going anywhere, but at least it is funny.
 
Call me a selfish old bastard - but I really prefer when our elected officials put our country first. I would challenge even 1 of those 47 lackwits to explain how war with Iran serves American interests.
 
What a bunch of morons.

We need more government. Clearly.
 
The 47 losers wrote condescendingly to Iran that they were "educating" Iran about how they're more powerful than Obama. So the Iranian Foreign Minister returned the tweet to the leader of the 47 (Tom Cotton, who has been been a senator for less than 2 months), educating him that if they pull the stunt abrogating a treaty, they will break international law, and thus undermine U.S. credibility in all past and future treaties. No country will ever make a treaty, including trade deals, with the U.S. again.

The Iranian Foreign Minister has more IQ than all 47 Republican senators combined. Read his answer!

http://en.mfa.ir/index.aspx?siteid=3&fkeyid=&siteid=3&fkeyid=&siteid=3&pageid=1997&newsview=330948
 
Treaties have to be approved by the senate.

So much for that logic.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause

Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate.

Full text of the clause[edit]
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...
 
The Iranian Foreign Minister makes 2 points that the U.S. media is covering up.

1) An "executive agreement" is an agreement between heads of state (and under U.S. law does not need ratification by the Senate). Most so-called treaties by the U.S. have actually been executive agreements. If this one gets reversed by a future president or congress, that will destroy U.S. credibility on most of its treaties, since most past ones were, and future ones will be, executive agreements.

2) This executive agreement is multilateral, not bilateral. The treaty will be between Iran and the "P5+1." That is dipomatese for the 5 members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. If Republican yokels try to pull the U.S. out of the treaty, the other 5 countries will put extreme pressure on the U.S. not to do so, because if so, THEIR credibility in making future treaties will ALSO be destroyed, not just the credibility of the U.S. And with 3 of the 5 countries being in the EU and NATO, all EU and NATO members, too, will have to give more than they get in all future treaties. So they, too, will engage in trade war with the U.S. to stop the Republican yokels who think they know more than world diplomats about international law.

If you want foreign trade, you must have international law. Dumbshit Southern lawyers who elect themselves to the Senate will find they can't bully everyone like they did as prosecutors.
 
Seems to me if the president is making treaties without approval of the senate, it is he that is violating the constitution and thus the traitor.

You can't have it both ways.

My opinion is Obama should go negotiate what he wants and have the senate approve it. That's the right course. I have no beef with Obama working within the confines of existing laws granting him whatever authorities.
 
Stupid lawsuit and stupid 47. Nothing will come of the suit, but it is kind of funny.
 
If they wrote this letter and published it in the NY Times, it would not at all be unprecedented. If they sent it to the Iranians, then I'm not so sure.
 
The fact that nobody has ever been convicted of this crime I believe would be viewed as precedent so for any conviction to occurs the bar would be very high. A letter won't reach that bar, it would have to me much more in-depth correspondence with threats or stuff like that.

At least this is my best guess.
 
Further said:
The fact that nobody has ever been convicted of this crime I believe would be viewed as precedent so for any conviction to occurs the bar would be very high. A letter won't reach that bar, it would have to me much more in-depth correspondence with threats or stuff like that.

At least this is my best guess.
Click to expand...

Also, it was done publicly and with the weight of Article II behind them.

I think they look like morons in any case.
 
Denny Crane said:
Also, it was done publicly and with the weight of Article II behind them.

I think they look like morons in any case.
Click to expand...
I actually think they look bad, very bad, but I just don't see it as illegal. But they tried to obviscate peace talks with Iran and inserted themselves in our attempt to de-nuke them. It makes them look not only petty, but dangerous and war-happy. But, it plays to their base to go head on at Obama, so I doubt it will have much effect either way.
 
Traitors no, morons yes. Its fun watching them twist in the wind though because they deserve it. What an incredible opportunity to clean house and start from scratch though. :)
 
I'm quite sure lots of congressmen and congresswomen and senators have gone overseas on "fact finding" trips and met with foreign leaders outside of the president's plans.
 
We shouldn't be conflating these two actions, writing letters and visiting dignitaries. They can both be morons for different reasons.
 
Denny Crane said:
I'm quite sure lots of congressmen and congresswomen and senators have gone overseas on "fact finding" trips and met with foreign leaders outside of the president's plans.
Click to expand...

True but thats no reason to dismiss the behavior. Pelosi's trip was bipartisan at least and almost 10 years ago. These senators are so eager to partisan pile on Obama and one up the repubs in congress who invited Netanyahu, that they didnt event stop to consider how stupid they were being. Also the end goal of these types of actions are to kill negotiations and potentially put us in war. Where Pelosi wasn't threatening other leaders and insinuation that Bush has no real power as a president.
 
donkiez said:
True but thats no reason to dismiss the behavior. Pelosi's trip was bipartisan at least and almost 10 years ago. These senators are so eager to partisan pile on Obama and one up the repubs in congress who invited Netanyahu, that they didnt event stop to consider how stupid they were being. Also the end goal of these types of actions are to kill negotiations and potentially put us in war. Where Pelosi wasn't threatening other leaders and insinuation that Bush has no real power as a president.
Click to expand...

Inviting Netanyahu was fine.

The end goal of these types of actions are to have article 2 rights to approve a treaty of this sort (with a terrorist nation).

What did Obama promise leaders overseas when he traveled there during the 2008 campaign?

http://www.journalism.org/2008/07/21/pej-campaign-coverage-index-july-14-20-2008/

War Takes Center Stage as Obama Moves Overseas
PEJ Campaign Coverage Index July 14 - 20, 2008

As the week ended, however, two events unfolded that seemed to break Obama’s way and dampen the perception that the trip would backfire. First, President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed on a “time horizon” for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq as part of a “long-term security accord.” Then, on Saturday, Maliki told a German magazine that he supported Obama’s 16-month redeployment proposal. “That, we think, would be the right timeframe for withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” Maliki said, referring to Obama by name.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/17/blair.transcript/

Transcript of Blair's speech to Congress

Thursday, July 17, 2003 Posted: 9:44 PM EDT (0144 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Thursday, July 17, 2003. Here is a transcript of his speech.
 
What did the Senators do wrong? Tell the facts? I can not understand why Obama/Kerry are negotiating with Iran. What has changed since they failed to adhere to the standard of conduct as a Nation?
What have they ever done to redeem themselves as a nation after taking our people in the Tehran embassy hostage?
That was about as untrustworthy as you can get, so what agreement can you trust now? The Senate will not agree to what ever it is because it is worthless what ever it is.

They must not be permitted to get Nuclear weapon period. Only a fool would trust them and it seem we have some, but fortunately, not enough in the Senate.
 
MarAzul said:
What did the Senators do wrong? Tell the facts? I can not understand why Obama/Kerry are negotiating with Iran. What has changed since they failed to adhere to the standard of conduct as a Nation?
What have they ever done to redeem themselves as a nation after taking our people in the Tehran embassy hostage?
That was about as untrustworthy as you can get, so what agreement can you trust now? The Senate will not agree to what ever it is because it is worthless what ever it is.

They must not be permitted to get Nuclear weapon period. Only a fool would trust them and it seem we have some, but fortunately, not enough in the Senate.
Click to expand...
The fact is that regardless of how we may feel about Iran or whether or not there should be any agreement made with them, it is the executive branch's decision to make whether or not to engage in negotiations therewith. The letter from the Senate 47 intentionally undermines any diplomatic efforts the president may seek to undertake.

We can disagree with the president, we can comment on the president, we can write to the president, and if we have the opportunity we can even yell at the president, but we don't have the right to interfere with the president's ability to do his job.
 
That's silly.

People do all kinds of things to influence policy.
 
MarAzul said:
What did the Senators do wrong? Tell the facts? I can not understand why Obama/Kerry are negotiating with Iran. What has changed since they failed to adhere to the standard of conduct as a Nation?
What have they ever done to redeem themselves as a nation after taking our people in the Tehran embassy hostage?
That was about as untrustworthy as you can get, so what agreement can you trust now? The Senate will not agree to what ever it is because it is worthless what ever it is.

They must not be permitted to get Nuclear weapon period. Only a fool would trust them and it seem we have some, but fortunately, not enough in the Senate.
Click to expand...

your mentioning trustworthy is pretty laughable when it was our cia and british intelligence agencies that planned and backed the coup to replace their DEMOCRATICLLY elected prime minister and parliament in 1953, to be replaced by a dictator backed by a brutal secret police on par with gestapo Germany in their torture and terror tactics trained by our very own cia. the middle east had democratic governments following the end of WWII but we didn't like their politics so we replaced them with our own dictators(see also Pakistan).the Tehran embassy take over by student protesters was directly a result of our own actions and complicity. the authoritarian theocracy that is now there filled the void left by the shah fleeing and the students not really having a solid plan for the aftermath... do I trust them completely? no but I certainly can see why they are a wee bit skeptical of our motives. I also think that to try to offer the perception of our government having the moral authority and high ground to dictate to the Iranians is laughable too.
 
lawai'a said:
your mentioning trustworthy is pretty laughable when it was our cia and british intelligence agencies that planned and backed the coup to replace their DEMOCRATICLLY elected prime minister and parliament in 1953, to be replaced by a dictator backed by a brutal secret police on par with gestapo Germany in their torture and terror tactics trained by our very own cia. the middle east had democratic governments following the end of WWII but we didn't like their politics so we replaced them with our own dictators(see also Pakistan).the Tehran embassy take over by student protesters was directly a result of our own actions and complicity. the authoritarian theocracy that is now there filled the void left by the shah fleeing and the students not really having a solid plan for the aftermath... do I trust them completely? no but I certainly can see why they are a wee bit skeptical of our motives. I also think that to try to offer the perception of our government having the moral authority and high ground to dictate to the Iranians is laughable too.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
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