This just in: Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is running for president of the United States.
Is rightwing Dezi trying to grab attention for himself with the two bill-killing amendments to the "bipartisan" Corker-Menendez bill purportedly "giving Congress a say" in any nuclear "deal" with Iran that he dropped today? Sure he is. That's presidential politics, especially for senators who aspire to a job for which they are woefully unqualified, which pretty much describes any senator who has ever lived. Will it work? Which is to say, will it re-endear him to conservative voters alienated by his amnesty flirtations? Well, it can't hurt.
Let's remember what the Corker-Menendez legislation really does:
[T]he Constitution mandates that no international agreement can be binding unless it achieves either of two forms of congressional endorsement: a) super-majority approval by two-thirds of the Senate (i.e., sixty-seven aye votes), or b) enactment through the normal legislative process, meaning passage by both chambers under their burdensome rules, then signature by the president.
The Corker bill is a ploy to circumvent this constitutional roadblock. That is why our post-sovereign, post-constitutional president has warmed to it.
Because it would require the president to submit any Iran deal to Congress, it is drawing plaudits for toughness. But....[o]nce the deal is submitted, Congress would have sixty days (or perhaps as few as thirty days) to act. If within that period both houses of Congress failed to enact a resolution of disapproval, the agreement would be deemed legally binding — meaning that the sanctions the Iranian regime is chafing [?] under would be lifted.
As Corker, other Republican leaders, and the president well know, passage of a resolution of disapproval — even if assured in the House with its commanding Republican majority — could be blocked by the familiar, lockstep parliamentary maneuvering of just forty Senate Democrats. More significantly, even if enacted in the Senate, the resolution would be vetoed by Obama. As with the resolutions of disapproval on debt increases, it is nearly inconceivable that Obama’s veto would be overridden.
To summarize, the Constitution puts the onus on the president to find sixty-seven Senate votes to approve an international agreement, making it virtually impossible to ratify an ill-advised deal. The Corker bill puts the onus on Congress to muster sixty-seven votes to block an agreement.
Under the Constitution, Obama’s Iran deal would not have a prayer. Under the Corker bill, it would sail through. And once again, it would be Republicans first ensuring that self-destruction is imposed on us, then striking the pose of dogged opponents by casting futile nay votes.
This is not how our system works. Congress is supposed to make the laws we live under. It is the first branch of government, not a rubber-stamping Supreme Soviet. [emphasis added]
One correction to Mr. McCarthy's punchline: This is not how our system is supposed to work. But Congress, alas, has not been the first branch of government for over four years, ever since the Democrats lost unified control of it, and Congress is indeed a rubber-stamping Supreme Soviet even under unified GOP control. Or a ceremonial advisory rump entity, take your pick.
That is the "works" into which Senator Rubio is trying to throw his sibling monkey wrenches. Neither has much, if any, chance of passing, but they're worth a look.
First, if the purpose of Iran's nuclear program really is "peaceful," then they should have no problem with or objection to recognizing Israel, now should they? Seems reasonable and logical, does it not? However, some of Rubio's fellow Pachyderms appear to have other priorities:
Marco Rubio is refusing to back down from his fight to force Iran to recognize Israel, a stance that threatens to disrupt a delicately negotiated bipartisan bill that would allow Congress to review any nuclear deal with Tehran…
Some Republicans who want to see legislation passed are wary of Rubio’s move on Israel with Graham arguing the amendment could “unravel the coalition” backing the bill.
Graham said he’d vote against Rubio’s Israel amendment on the Senate floor if he felt that was the only way to keep the legislation on track to be signed by the president.
“I don’t think anybody is going to accuse Lindsey Graham of being anti-Israel,” Graham said. “I’ve been working for a year … to put this coalition together. And failure is not an option.”
Obvious question: Why should any Republican care a whit about "unraveling the coalition" backing a bad bill, a flat forfeiture of the Senate's Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 ratification power, which Corker-Menendez so clearly is? Hell, since O is amenable to it, for the reasons cited above, why should they care whether it has a supermajority or not? Couldn't the majority party at least make the vote a photo-finish, just for appearances? For that matter, why did they want to take back control of the Senate if they were just going to bow the knee to The One at the first opportunity?
Sorry, I'm getting off track. But you can hardly blame me, right?
Will anybody accuse Lindsey Graham of being anti-Israel? Well, I wouldn't have before his defense of Corker-Menendez, which guts the Constitution still further in service to a betrayal of the Jewish State that puts its very existence in mortal danger, as well as that of America itself. Now? I'd say the accusation is at least fair game. Although I would characterize it more along the lines of morbid GOP fear of Obama overwhelming the loyalties they used to value and possess.
On the other hand, guess who is also a staunch supporter and proponent of Corker-Menendez? So your mileage may vary, and all that. Or leftwing American Jews are more leftwing than Jewish. Which we've always pretty much known.
Regardless, if that characterization doesn't strike you at first glance, listen to how closely Senator Graham's rhetoric apes that of his "close friend and bipartisan colleague" Ben Cardin (D-MD):
Cardin said he doesn’t disagree with the language of Rubio’s amendment, but thinks the results would be “counterproductive” to Rubio’s goal. Speaking to a group of reporters Wednesday afternoon, Cardin said the amendment would do one of three things: cause the bill to fail, prevent the U.S. from negotiating any deal with Iran, or give Iran the upper hand during the negotiations.
“All three are horrible results,” he said. “It’s counterproductive to the intent what the amendment is.”
Cardin is lying, of course, as Rubio's goals are (1) to protect and retain the Senate's Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 ratification power and (2) expose Iran's and Obama's rabid anti-Semitism (as if it wasn't day-glo, hairlip obvious already). Killing the bill and preventing the U.S. from negotiating any "deal" with Iran would advance both of those objectives, as well as U.S. national security, whereas the bill itself is part and parcel of maintaining the upper hand that the mullahs have always had in this interminable twelve-year circle-jerk.
Which is why the amendment will never pass. For all the ballyhoo and falderol about congressional Dems "breaking" with Obama over the Iran sellout, the reality is that they've hogtied the purported Republican "majority" into yet another "deal" with the White House that confirms and legitimizes yet another in the long line of his tyrannical usurpations. They're not going to allow a single amendment from an "inauthentic Hispanic" to derail what is most definitely an ironclad goal of theirs, as well as not a few Stockholm Syndromized 'Pubbies.
Which brings us to Senator Rubio's other amendment, which is the teriyaki filet mignon of poison pills:
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and aspirant for his party's presidential nomination, has a very poisonous pill he is seeking to add to Iran legislation this week before the Senate.
No, it's not his much discussed amendment saying Congress would not lift its sanctions on Iran unless Iran recognized Israel. Rather Rubio just wants the Iran deal to conform to the president's own description of a nuclear framework agreement. As Rubio said Wednesday, "It requires this final deal be the deal the president says it is."
On the surface, this seems like small ball. On April 2nd, the White House released a "fact sheet" that spelled out Iran's obligations to modify some of its nuclear facilities and limit its enrichment. The "fact sheet" said sanctions would be phased out over time as Iran complied with the terms of the framework.
Rubio's amendment simply quotes that "fact sheet" verbatim and says the president may not waive or lift any Congressional sanctions until he certifies Iran has met the White House conditions.
"For the life of me, I don't understand why that would be controversial," Rubio said Wednesday. "Yet somehow, I was told this would box the White House in." [emphasis added]
Oh, don't worry, peeps, Marco knows why this amendment is "controversial" every bit as well as we do: Because The One's "fact sheet" is a "bullshit sheet," as the mullahs themselves have been gleefully telling us. And the proof, as they say, is in the "pudding" of this amendment. If what Barack Obama and John Kerry are telling us this "deal" really is is true, then, again, they and their congressional minions should have no problem with or objection to codifying it in Corker-Menendez. And yet this amendment too is somehow "controversial". Which means that, just as Red Barry and his merry Marxist minions have implicitly conceded their Jew-hatred, they are also giving up the ghost on their demigod being a filthy, shameless liar to everybody except the mullahs themselves.
Again, not exactly a newsflash. But the only way to even begin to attempt to rein in the rampaging Obama dictatorship is by exposing its vile, extremist, Ameriphobic trappings, which both of Senator Rubio's doomed amendments accomplish quite nicely.
However, ultimately, the rampaging Obama dictatorship cannot be reined in without a full out, knock-down, no-holds barred, Hell-In-A-Cell inter-branch constitutional crisis showdown. It has always been thus for over four years and running, and yet it never seems to ever take place.
If you're still wondering why, let's take a look at Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and his amendment, and the fate it met:
If you want to get worked up about an amendment, get worked up instead at the fact that Ron Johnson’s amendment to have the Iran deal treated as a treaty for constitutional purposes — which would require two-thirds approval, just as Article II demands — failed miserably two days ago, 39/54. It was destined to be filibustered by Democrats, of course, but a party-line filibuster should have produced a final cloture vote of 54/46. Fully twelve Republicans, led by Corker and including our old friends Orrin Hatch and John McCain, voted with the Democrats in the name of protecting Corker’s bill. Disgraceful.
It's difficult to know what to adequately say about this - again - but I'm sure y'all will think of something.
If you're looking for an appropriate and fitting postscript to the preceding depressing parade of perfidy, we can't do any better than this:
Britain has informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms, according to a confidential report by the panel seen by Reuters.
The existence of such a network could add to Western concerns over whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal due by June 30th in which it would agree to restrict sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.
Don't count on it, Reuters. As Mr. McCarthy observed, "In Washington, you see, insisting that Iran act like a normal country is nutter stuff, but trusting Iran to enrich uranium only for 'peaceful' purposes is totally logical."
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