Iran deal disapproval vote is blocked by Democrats in Senate: this is what they call a “victory”
As completely expected, the Iran deal disapproval measure failed to win the requisite 60+ votes to invoke cloture in the Senate and allow a vote on the merits.
We’ve known for quite some time that this would happen. But this article (and no doubt many others in the MSM) frames it as both “improbable” and a big victory for Obama and the Democrats.
That’s not surprising either; that’s the way the MSM rolls.
For example, there’s this from the article, describing the Congressional Democrats as: “overcoming ferocious Republican opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.” The reality is that Obama’s deal not only did not get a single Republican vote, it failed to get all the Democratic votes, either. So this was another bipartisan vote—but as usual with Obama, the bipartisanship was all on the side of the opposition to the president.
This “victory” of Obama’s, so “legacy-making,” therefore consisted of Obama getting just enough Democrats on his side to block a vote on the merits (that vote to invoke cloture failed by a margin of two). Even had cloture gotten the necessary 60+, and the disapproval bill come to a vote and been passed, Obama would have vetoed it and there would not have been enough votes to override that veto.
This “victory” consists of Obama’s managing to use a minority vote to allow him to get away with making a deplorable bargain conceding an enormous amoumt to one of our worst enemies, and against the will of a large majority of the American people. It’s the mullahs who are the real victors here. Some legacy.
[NOTE: Personally, I think the Republicans should have changed the rules on cloture for this (not that they were ever going to do that). However, I realize that’s just my emotion talking, because even had they done so and thus been able to vote for disapproval, Obama would have vetoed it. Because Obama has veto power, and because the Democrats are dedicated to Party First, the entire enterprise was doomed no matter what the approach.
Even had the Senate decided to vote on this as a treaty, which needs 2/3 for approval, they would have run into the same exact roadblock involving the 60-vote cloture threshold. They could not have voted on the deal as though it were a treaty without getting 60 votes to allow it to come to a vote, and the Democrats would never have given them that opportunity. Even if the Senate somehow had managed to vote on it (which was always unlikely), then Obama would simply have ignored the failure to ratify the treaty, saying that the deal was not a treaty but instead an executive agreement, and the courts would have almost certainly backed him up (if it went to the courts at all).
In fact, that scenario might still play out, because as I understand it, nothing stops the GOP from trying to vote on it as a treaty at this point. I predict they won’t even try, because of the aforementioned likelihood that it could never come to a vote for similar reasons to what happened with today’s Senate events.
It might have mattered to have been able to at least debate the disapproval bill, pass it, and force Obama to use his veto. But how many people even pay attention to that sort of thing, when the measure itself would not have stood, and the Iran deal would not have been blocked in the end?
What a sad, sad day.]
[NOTE II: Here’s an article by Steven Hayward on the limitations of the Congressional GOP majority.]
Another defeat for America and the Dems celebrate.
This thing was lost when Obama decided not to submit it as a treaty.
Given the stakes, McConnell should have gotten rid of the 60 vote rule the day he became Leader.
I agree with you.
This is a very sad day, but just another of many, many lost opportunities by the so-called “opposition party.”
When the Tea Parties/Republican base turned out in 2010 and 2014 (where the hell were we in 2008 and 2012?) to deliver the House and Senate to the feckless Boehner and McConnell, we were told over and over that now it will be different. Obama and the Democrats would finally be challenged. What a crock.
The excuse was always the same; the Democrats will block it and/or Obama will veto it, “it” being everything the Republicans tried to do. So they didn’t even try.
Even though there was little chance they would actually pass anything, or if they did, that Obama would sign it, the entire point was to force both the Democrats and/or the POTUS to go on record as being opposed to ideas the American people liked.
But they did manage to pass the Corker/Cardin bill, which made it easier for Obama to get his way on the Iran surrender. Good job, Rep Boehner and Sens Corker and McConnell.
The Republican Establishment is full of cowards.
I forget what Neo’s argument in favor of Corker-Menendez was.
geokstr:
I’m not sure what you mean by “they didn’t even try.”
This vote today is an example of “trying.” They tried to vote on this, and they were blocked by over 40 Democrats.
Or do you mean that they should have “tried” by jettisoning the cloture rule? And then voted, and had Obama veto it?
I actually think times are so bad right now that they should have done that, even though it would ultimately have failed because they could not override the veto. But is that what you’re referring to? Because what else could they have done in terms of “trying” in this instance?
If they hadn’t passed Corker-Menendez, the Democrats would have blocked any vote on the bill as a treaty, in much the same manner. So, how would “trying” have changed things? They thought there was a chance they’d get more bipartisan support on this, back when they passed Corker-Menendez. They were sadly mistaken.
But I think you overestimate the power of a sub-60-vote majority in Congress when the opposition party controls the presidency.
Maybe we shouldn’t get all worked up about the “deal” and stop worrying about Iranian nuclear facilities under mountains and how are we going to stop them.
We can always bomb Kharg Island. Iran has got to have it….the Very Large Crude Carriers are way too big to tie up anywhere else in Iran. How 90% of Iran’s oil gets out of Iran.
“Hey Khameni, better let us have full and free inspection access, or we’ll take out a part of Kharg.”
But of course that would take a spine of steel in POTUS.
Frog:
It’s easy to answer that question.
I never argued that Corker-Menendez was great or that it would work. It was more or less a Hail Mary pass. My argument was that those who said Congress could vote on the Iran deal as a treaty were dreaming (for example, I wrote here about the reasons why that was so).
Any vote in the Senate can be blocked by a 40+ minority, either a vote on the deal as a treaty, or the vote today (under the terms of Corker-Menedez). The problems are the same with both. You are dreaming if you thought the same Democrats who blocked this today would not have blocked a treaty vote, as well.
My argument for Corker-Menendez being a very marginal improvement on the situation as it stood prior to Corker-Menendez rested also on the fact that, even if somehow the Senate had managed to vote on the treaty question and failed to approve of the Iran deal as a treaty, Obama would have successfully ignored that and argued that it was an executive agreement. By the precedent of legal opinion since FDR’s day, that’s exactly what it was: an executive agreement. You may not agree, and I may not agree, but Obama was going to win that battle, and therefore voting on the treaty avenue would not have blocked a thing.
Corker-Menendez was the only chance to at least block him from lifting sanctions, becaue the sanctions had been imposed by Congress, and the bill imposed conditions for their being lifted. It was always an extreme longshot, because it required Democratic support to come to a vote in the first place, and then to override a veto. I never even came close to saying it would work; it was just better than nothing.
What’s more, I still have seen nothing that says that the Senate can’t still vote on the deal as though it were a treaty. However, as I said, that would face the same fate as the vote today in the Senate.
Clear now?
Is this so-called deal with Iran important? That is, will the so-called deal with Iran result in the Islamic Republic of Iran obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons in the near term, and is that prospect likely to result in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of people even (and not by means of nuclear weapons at all, but by merely conventional means), despite that this very evening the so-called deal’s greatest pusher, the ClownDeceptor himself, assures (i.e., lies) that the so-called deal will prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Despite, that is, that we can all see it is by design arranged by deeds and not by words to accomplish the opposite of that false claim?
And when the Islamic Republic of Iran does obtain deliverable nuclear weapons in the near term, giving the lie to the false words of the ClownCatastrophe, will good men hunt the ClownCatastrophe down and exact justice from him, or for that matter hunt down and exact justice from his enablers both in the Democrat Party and in the Republican Party?
Would it not be better to prevent the onset of such a disaster? To do everything possible to prevent that onset, even should that necessity require elimination of something so trivial as customary filibuster rules in the Senate?
Loathing for men such as Sen. McConnell, Sen. Corker and their helpers accedes too much dignity to them. A firm memory of their misbehaviors however may play a decent role in causing them to pay for their mendacities one fine day.
sdferr:
I don’t know how to make it clear to you if it’s not clear already, but eliminating the filibuster would just be a form of theater, too. It would not have prevented anything Obama is going to do.
If the Republicans had jettisoned the filibuster, and put the Iran deal to the vote and passed various bills, he would have vetoed and the veto would have stood. He would have ignored the treaty vote (I don’t believe he could have vetoed it, because it would just have been a refusal to ratify the treaty), and the courts would have supported that.
Why is that not clear?
Why is it not clear to you neo-neocon that the Constitution of the United States wants support now, even as at all times, though it has not had much in the way of that lately. Today would be a good time to begin.
sdferr:
And why is it not clear to you that I have stated in several posts that I think they SHOULD have done away with the filibuster for this? I am in agreement with you. Did you not read the “NOTE” at the end of my post? Read the first sentence there.
What I disagree with is that it would have mattered in any real way. It certainly could not have stopped Obama.
The Constitution and support for the same, what we ordinarily described in former times as respect for the rule of law . . . matters. It matters now, it mattered yesterday, it will matter when the ClownCatastrophe skips away from office singing at the top of his lungs *What a Great Country! Guilty as hell, Free as a bird!*
The evil of this vote by the Democrats in the Senate as well as those in the House needs a picture. Here is one they can put on their walls in celebration of the deal. There will be many others. Enjoy your victory liberals.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/12/iran-s-new-gay-executions.html
Here is another picture the Democrats can hang on their walls in celebration. Her name was Neda Agha-Soltan. She was butchered by the Mullahs.
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/q3cAJ6Q9QII/0.jpg
It’s been a sad, sad 2423 days. More or less.
Neo,
You and geokstr seem to be largely in agreement while you and sdferr seem be in disagreement.
geokstr’s point, if I understand it correctly, is that GOP officials should have taken the steps politically to push their opposition as far as it could go even if those steps, as you said, “would just be a form of theater, too”.
He’s saying that GOP officials taking those steps – even with assessments of their ultimate ineffectiveness – thus compelling the Obama/Democrat reaction on record would have been valuable for the political contest, even if ineffective in terms of countering the policy itself.
geokstr should articulate the political gamesman’s strategic value – activist and electoral political – for the course he wanted from GOP officials, ie, “force both the Democrats and/or the POTUS to go on record as being opposed to ideas the American people liked.”
Interesting parallel between the Corker deal and the Iran deal. Both assume that the other party to the deal is honest. Stupid.
Obama does not follow the law. Anyone negotiating with him is a fool. Because he will never follow the rules. Corker got played.
My understanding is that the Dems managed to hide behind the filibuster rather than attach their own names to a vote, like the cowards that they are.
gracepc:
I believe they had to go on record in the Senate as voting against cloture. Which is not an affirmative vote. But in the House there is no cloture and no filibuster, and they will have to affirmatively put their names on their votes to approve. I believe that vote (the vote of approval) will be occurring today.
DC’s Senate has more shadow games than Rome’s Senate had orgies.