Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Rachel Maddow points out major newspapers' scorching editorials slamming the 47 GOP senators

Rachel Maddow will not let up. She must not let up. Never in American history was a president's foreign policy negotiations undermined by senators as they did this week with the letter they sent to Iran in the attempt to scuttle nuclear negotiations.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune,

Chances are that the foolish, dangerous and arguably felonious attempt by the Obama Derangement Caucus of the Senate will soon be forgotten. Unless, as President Obama himself muttered the other day, the Senate Republicans make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran to push the region, and the world, that much closer to nuclear war.

The following forty seven Republicans senators put our citizens at risk:

Richard Shelby (AL), Jeff Sessions (AL), Dan Sullivan (AK), John McCain (AZ), John Boozman (AR), Tom Cotton (AR), Cory Gardner (CO), Marco Rubio (FL), Johnny Isakson (GA), David Perdue (GA), Mike Crapo (ID), Jim Risch (ID), Mark Kirk (IL), Chuck Grassley (IA), Joni Ernst (IA), Pat Roberts (KS), Jerry Moran (KS), Mitch McConnell (KY), Rand Paul (KY), David Vitter (LA), Bill Cassidy (LA), Roger Wicker (MS), Roy Blunt (MO), Steve Daines (MT), Deb Fischer (NE), Ben Sasse (NE), Dean Heller (NV), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Richard Burr (NC), Thom Tillis (NC), John Hoeven (ND), Rob Portman (OH), Jim Inhofe (OK), James Lankford (OK), Pat Toomey (PA), Lindsey Graham (SC), Tim Scott (SC), John Thune (SD), Mike Rounds (SD), John Cornyn (TX), Ted Cruz (TX), Orin Hatch (UT), Mike Lee (UT), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Enzi (WY), John Barrasso (WY).

There were seven Republicans who remembered that partisanship stops at our shores' end. They were more serious than those that would risk war and the nation's treasure for temporary political gain. These seven Republicans must be commended:

Lisa Murkowski (AK), Jeff Flake (AZ), Daniel Coats (IN), Susan Collins (ME), Thad Cochran (MS), Lamar Alexander (TN), and Bob Corker (TN).

CNN: 'Disrespect of Obama hits new low'

BREAKING-NEWS@dccc.org Unsubscribe 5:00 PM (22 hours ago) to me

CNN: Disrespect of Obama hits new low

Peter -- This is outrageous:

In an unprecedented move, 47 of the U.S. Senate’s 55 Republicans sent a letter directly to Iranian leaders, threatening to nullify any diplomatic deal negotiated by President Obama.

Nothing Republicans have done up until this point has reeked so much of disrespect for the President of the United States of America. The New York Daily News even called them “traitors” for sabotaging President Obama’s attempt to prevent war.

We have to get $50,000 into our Republican Accountability Fund by the end of the week to get the message out to average Americans. If you support President Obama, you need to have his back in this critical moment. You CAN’T let these Republicans tear down your President.

NEWS & POLITICS Everything You Need to Know About Tom Cotton, the Man Behind the GOP's Insane Letter to Iran Despite the myriad criticisms, it seems Tom Cotton is exactly where he wants to be. By Ali Gharib / The Nation March 11, 2015

This weekend, freshman Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas spearheaded a completely innocent effort to let Iran know that, basically, the Senate GOP would fight any nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic even after it was signed. That, at least, was the implicit threat in the open letter Cotton wrote; the explicit one was that any future president could easily undo such an accord.

Except Cotton, a Harvard-educated lawyer, got his US Constitution wrong (an “embarrassing” error, wrote one Harvard law professor and former George W. Bush administration lawyer) and failed to even mention that his threat to withdraw from an agreement would be a violation of international law—something Iran’s foreign minister, in an epic bit of trolling, brought to his attention.

None of that, though, stopped forty-six other GOP senators from signing onto the letter—including the party’s full leadership slate in the upper chamber! (Notably, Foreign Relations chair Bob Corker of Tennessee, who co-authored the bill to get congressional say-so on a deal, stayed off.) So who is this freshman senator leading his party around by the nose with factually challenged and bellicose pronouncements?

At first blush, Cotton is quite an accomplished figure. Born in Arkansas in 1977, Cotton went to Harvard, where he wrote for the school paper and joined the Republican Club, before graduating from the law school there. Then he joined the army and became an officer, deploying to Iraq in 2006 and earning decorations along the way.

His army service was no doubt a noble pursuit, but it was during this time that Cotton’s particular brand of politics began to shine through a little bit. From Iraq, Cotton published an open letter—apparently he’s a fan of the format—in the right-wing blog Power Line calling for two journalists and the then–executive editor of The New York Times to be jailed and prosecuted for publishing an investigative piece about how the United States tracks terrorist finances. (Jim Lobe pointed out yesterday that those who would defend Cotton’s latest open letter to the Iranians on free-speech grounds may want to check this episode out first.)

The Power Line item made a big splash, and, according to The Atlantic, he struck up a correspondence with neocon don Bill Kristol. When Cotton returned for a stateside army posting, the pair met frequently over drinks and dinner at Washington’s downtown Mayflower Hotel.

Again to his credit, Cotton volunteered for another combat tour, this time in Afghanistan, eventually attaining the rank of captain. Then Cotton returned stateside again as a civilian and clerked for a judge.

When Cotton entered politics in 2012, winning a House seat representing his native Arkansas, things again started to turn a little bit hawkish, then a little bit unreasonable. (The Atlantic characterized his domestic record in the House as “conservative absolutism,” as he voted, for instance, against emergency disaster relief.)

The hawkishness was, initially, pro-forma: in an interview after the election but before taking his seat, Cotton told the neoconservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, “There are evil people in the world who would do evil things.” He added that Iran was gaining influence and “It’s important to remind the American people why we’re still engaged [militarily].” Rubin, who has herself advocated attacking Iran for years, lauded Cotton as a potential ideological replacement for the Democratic hawk Joseph Lieberman.

Once in the House, Cotton’s anti-Iran advocacy showed a mean streak. When, in 2013, a new Iran sanctions bill came before the lower chamber, Cotton introduced an amendment that would “automatically” punish family members of sanctions violators. “There would be no investigation,” Cotton explained during the mark-up. “It’d be very hard to demonstrate and investigate to conclusive proof.” Cotton wanted to punish innocent people; he called it “corruption of blood,” and extended the category to include “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids.”

After some debate, Cotton withdrew the amendment. But it had earned him some attention among Iran hawks. Kristol, the neocon star-maker and founder of The Weekly Standard, which had pushed Cotton’s political career from the get-go, decided to put his money where his mouth is. When Cotton ran for a Senate seat last year, Kristol’s far-right pressure group, the Emergency Committee For Israel, threw almost a million dollars into his race.

Cotton won, and Kristol and company immediately started getting their money’s worth. In December, at a forum hosted by Kristol’s Foreign Policy Initiative (another pressure group modeled on the Project For a New American Century that pushed the Iraq War), Cotton said that the United States should allow the sale to Israel of the bombers and advanced bombs it would need to make an attack on Iran more feasible. In February, at the CPAC summit, he reportedly called for not just regime change in Tehran, but 'replacement with a pro-Western regime.' The New Republic’s David Ramsey remarked that, on almost any foreign policy issue, 'Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate.'

Most Iran hawks in Congress pushing sanctions measure that would effectively end nuclear talks insist they’re only trying to strengthen President Obama’s hand in negotiations. But Cotton, to his credit, has been much more blunt about his Bill Kristol–esque aims: to end talks and foreclose any possibility of a deal. In January, Cotton told a Heritage Foundation conference (my emphasis):

The United States must cease all appeasement, conciliation and concessions towards Iran, starting with the sham nuclear negotiations. Certain voices call for congressional restraint, urging Congress not to act now lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table, undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But, the end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of Congressional action, it is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak.

This week, Cotton launched his letter, earning forceful pushback from Democrats and hesitant criticisms from those Republicans not foolish enough to sign on. That hasn’t stopped Cotton from using Twitter to promote all the deeply flawed defenses of the letter he’s been making on cable news networks—and Bill Kristol is damned pleased. And the Intercept’s Lee Fang reported today that Cotton will appear tomorrow at an event hosted by a defense industry lobbying association—an audience sure to be receptive to his über-hawkishness, a boon to their bottom lines

Despite the myriad criticisms, it seems Tom Cotton is exactly where he wants to be.

Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to include Cotton's initial contacts with Bill Kristol and his February call for regime change in Iran.

47 GOP Senators and Members of Congress Violated the Logan Act

Why is no one calling them out?

By Lestatdelc / Daily Kos March 10, 2015

This post first appeared on Daily Kos.

The letter by 47 Senators and members of Congress trying to undermine negotiations between Iran, the United States and the 5 + 1 group is a pretty clear violation of the Logan Act:

'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.'

Why isn't anyone asking about this and pushing for answers as to how this is not a violation of the law?