Tom Cotton is a freshman Senator from Arkansas. He has an awesome pedigree. Cotton was born in Arkansas. His father served in Vietnam. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard and went on to Harvard Law School. After law school Cotton joined the Army and served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star.
Cotton actually wrote something on the record while at Harvard, something Obama, despite being on the Law Review, really never did.
And he ain’t afraid. Not of the press, not of democrats and not afraid of dictators in Iran or the US.
Cotton authored a letter informing Iran that the Congress would have to approve any formal agreements or treaties. The letter can be seen here.
Cotton has taken a lot of fire for that letter, with the New York Daily News calling him a traitor. democrats (democrat being defined as someone with absolutely zero long term memory) conveniently forget a lot, some of which I’ve already covered, but there’s even more. In 1984 demcorats wrote to Daniel Noriega, undermining Ronald Reagan.
Cotton made clear the intention of the letter:
“We’re making sure that Iran’s leaders understand if Congress doesn’t approve a deal, Congress won’t accept a deal,” Cotton, 38, whose letter evoked a sharp rebuke from the White House, said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “Because we’re committing to stopping Iran from getting a weapon.”
Joe Biden laced into Cotton:
“This letter, in the guise of a constitutional lesson, ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American president, whether Democrat or Republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States.”
You can see already that Biden is wrong, but Biden is seldom anything other than wrong. If you leave out being a pervert, that is.
Cotton doesn’t suffer fools well and shot right back.
“Joe Biden, as [President] Barack Obama’s own secretary of defense has said, has been wrong about nearly every foreign policy and national security decision in the last 40 years,” Cotton said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in a reference to former Pentagon chief Robert Gates, who ripped Biden in a tell-all memoir after leaving office.
“Moreover, if Joe Biden respects the dignity of the institution of the Senate he should be insisting that the president submit any deal to approval of the Senate, which is exactly what he did on numerous deals during his time in Senate,” Cotton said.
Barack Obama is a liar. He guaranteed that Iran would not get a nuke and of course, that guarantee was no better than any other Obama assurances.
Cotton is doing us all a big favor questioning Obama. Cotton is a hero. He’s got balls. I could see him as President one day.
I love this guy.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@Nathan Blue:
Nathan, I’m not saying this just to be ‘argumentative’, but to point out that the difference is significant. We do not live in a ‘democracy’. We live in a Representative Republic..
I know no one will take this seriously, but I really thinkl Obama is more concerned about improving his golfing game and making picks on the NCAA brackets. Upholding the tradition of American presidents seem to mean nothing to him except to see how much purely illegality he can ‘get away with’.
Very well said.
@Nathan Blue:
Congratulations. Your entire post is another prime example of nebulous claims made without evidence. The diarreha of your ardent soul spilled for all to see. Where it might be prudent to marshal objective facts in service of your arguments, you instead share how deeply you feel on topics: Bush was “about the office, not the man”. You “find” differences about decisiveness between GWB and Obama. Something about “transformations”. Bush “seemed” committed to honoring the law. Obama wants to be a “symbol”. Followed by a heaping serving of boilerplate liberal bashing. All handled with an avuncular hand on the shoulder: “let me tell you how the world really works, son”. But nothing can redeem this gobbledygook. Try harder.
@Redteam, #39:
He’s explaining that a President of the United States does in fact have authority to negotiate and enter into certain agreements with the leaders of foreign nations without first obtaining permission from Congress. This shouldn’t have to be explained.
@Redteam:
I hate to admit it, but you’re right: no one will take you seriously. It took you how long to figure that out?
@Greg: and he wasn’t explaining that. There is not one human alive that disputes that the
But he does not have the authority to ‘act on any thing in any of the agreements until they are approved by the US Senate.’ Yes, he can reach agreement, he can put anything he wants in it. But he can’t take any action to ‘execute that agreement’ until it has been approved by the US Senate. So, yes, he can ‘negotiate’ and ‘enter’ into an agreement. He can not ‘execute’ anything in it until it is approved by the Senate. And that shouldn’t have to be explained.
@Redteam, #45:
So, the 47 Republican Senators who signed the letter truly believe that the leadership of Iran have no understanding concerning the workings of the U.S. government, and therefore felt a need to inform them?
You gotta be fucking joking.
I bet you think you’re a patriot, too.
@Greg:
You ever see the ‘man on the street’ interviews? No one can name the vice president. All liberals support Karl Marx, our current treasury secretary for the next President, and on and on and you think the Iranians know the answers to those questions better than Americans do?
@Tom: Well Tom, nothing you say could be a bigger admission of surrender than the wash of big words offered up on a plate. It’s your tell: you throw steaming piles of pedantic nothingness…the waste of rational thought…whenever you are beat. You have nothing rational to offer, just projection and sentiment.
…like a monkey.
You never offer any facts other than conjecture, and I reduced you to passive-aggressive posturing.
So…*puts a hand on your shoulder*…”let me tell you how the world really works, son…but first, you need to do a little growing up before I do. Run on home, boy.”
Seems your god of objectivity is giving you rather subjective guidance. Nor sure what “evidence” you ever gave beyond your own prejudices, but I’ll say that a self-actualized person isn’t a machine of media-gleaned facts. They are flesh and blood, with logic, passion, and love. You might try to admit you’re being subjective about all of this, and claiming to have “facts” is a worthless argument used by children.
@Greg: The 47 members did this with the explicit purpose of undermining the power of the President. They are within in they’re right to do so, and the double-edged sword of the Obama admins “well, what does it matter anyway?” relativity is now a weapon against Obama’s regime. If you don’t indict Lerner and Hillary and Obama himself for all of these law violations that have just enough gray areas to warrant ignoring them, you can’t indict those reps in question.
Using Obama’s method’s against him. I love it.
Oh, and you really can’t say the Logan Act was violated, in a court of law. It will never fly.
So like Obama, Lerner, Holder, and Hillary, you can’t really say definitively that the letter was actually against the law.
Funny, the libs posting here don’t understand the irony of the indignation they feel.
We’ll call them loganites….
Just like birthers….
They’ll go on about his for years…(laughing hysterically), and nothing will every happen. Now the libs have their Benghazi.
How’s it feel?
@Nathan Blue
Ben Ghazi? is he the guy that’s running for VP on the Dimocrat ticket? Biden’s first cousin?
@Nathan Blue:
Pointing out mass pathology and asking people to confront their irrational bias and hysteria apparently does, at some deep level perhaps, hit home. Thank you for the implicit acknowledgment. My open invitation to rationally debate any of your paranoid accusations remains on the table.
@Nathan Blue:
So you’re admitting the idiocy of birtherism and Benghazigate? Thank you. What took so long?
@Greg:
You left out the part, “unless the president is republican.” Then of course he will need the full consent of congress, most importantly the democrats in congress.
Remember the “Dear Comandante” letter? Good times, good times.
All Obama is attempting to do is negotiate some sort of deal with Iran, which no matter what it contains, is non-binding and, thus (where liars like Iran are concerned), WORTHLESS. Thus, just as Obama did when pulling all the US troops out of Iraq prematurely blew right up in his face, he can just blame the other party. In the case of Iraq, it was (spoken in a whiney, girlie voice) “they wouldn’t let me”; in the case of the Iranian nuclear deal, it will be “What? Golly, they must have lied to me!!! Just look at my shocked face!!”. In both cases, all Obama cares about is having something to claim to be accomplished. In neither case does he care one whit if national security is served.
While people under the misconception that some sort of lasting, security-enhancing deal is the goal and believing that Congress should, rightly, have the final say in whether or not it is a good deal for the United States, this is all play acting and Constitutional steps simply get in the way of good propaganda.
Well, the Saudis just struck a $2 Billion cooperation agreement with South Korea for building two nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. Doesn’t look like the Saudis think very much of Obama’s deal with Iran either.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-nuclear-deal-raises-stakes-for-iran-talks-1426117583
Looks like Obama’s Arab Spring is turning into a Nuclear Winter.
@Greg: Telling a lie twice doesn’t make it true!!!
It is a well-known fact that the SOFA was not negotiated by the Bush administration as US troops had not left nor had our mission been completed.
You either are quite stupid or think the rest of the world is.
BTW I have no respect or manners for liars!
@Redteam #59:
” and you think the Iranians know the answers to those questions better than Americans do? ”
It is a fool’s gambit to underestimate the intelligence of the enemy.
The average Iranian PROBABLY is at least as ignorant as the average American, but the question of bureaucratic competency in either case does not relate to street-smarts.
The 47 senators managed to teach Iran nothing beyond the fact that, given half a chance, those senators would play the Iranians for fools too stupid to understand the obvious civics lesson that evidently everyone here at FA fully appreciates.
Piss off your adversary, and see how well you do with them from there.
@Redteam #49:
“Yes, they elected one man to ‘head the executive branch’ of the government, he’s called the President, but he is not called the ‘decider’. No one in this country voted for him to be a ‘decider’…”
Perhaps you have forgotten G.W. Bush’s civics lesson, in which HE explained that HE was the “decider.”
There are certainly many things that EACH of our three branches of government decide. No one branch has exclusive ownership of decision-making. Each branch attempts to strengthen its own decision-making authority from time to time, and the other branches usually reign them in.
@George Wells: 69
George, just saw the film clip where Rand Paul says the letter was intended for the Obama admin, to tell ‘them’ what the law is. Paul is aware that the Iranians likely know the American procedure, he just wanted to make sure the president does also. He said he doesn’t like being lectured about the constitution by a president that tramples it regularly.
While I question the wisdom of what the Republicans did (it would be better to simply de-fund whatever agreement he makes if it is bad or if he bucks the process, which is what they should be doing with ALL of his abuses of power), I am enjoying the left getting their panties in a wad over all of this. When Baghdad Jim McDermott and the other two stooges met with a sworn enemy of the U.S. and Pelosi did the same, the left viewed them as heroes. Now that they are getting a taste of their own medicine (and unlike the Dems, the Reps didn’t meet with a sworn enemy of the U.S. and play nice, nice) they don’t like it. They are like the little kid who goes around punching other little kids and then when one hits him back he goes running and crying to mommy.
The bottom line here is what happened is further evidence of a generally dysfunctional central government which is the direct result of an out of control executive branch, spineless legislative and judicial branches, and a complacent populace. We essentially have one branch calling all the shots as opposed to all three branches being separate but equal. The executive branch is operating above the law. The legislative branch has neither the courage to reign him in or the votes to impeach him. And the judicial branch with its first Obamacare ruling has shown that it too is wish-washy to have any real impact and will probably solidify that with its upcoming ruling on Obamacare. Finally, enough of the American people have either lowered their standards for our elected officials or are too busy in their own little worlds to notice. 40 years ago things probably would have been different. Nixon was universally shunned for a lot less abuse of power than what we’ve experienced lately.
Bottom line for Iran is that Obama will do whatever he wants. Iran will do whatever it wants meaning in due time they will become a nuclear power just like North Korea. Unless of course Israel, apparently the only ‘Will Kane’ left out there since we seemed to have abdicated that role, stops them.
@George Wells:
No I haven’t forgotten it, I’ve never heard it or seen it. Where does it exist? If he said it, he’s wrong. The president is not a ‘decider’. He’s supposed to be an executor. He might ‘decide’ how to execute the laws that congress passes, but it should only be to decided how to follow the law most correctly, not ‘if’. Congress ‘decides’ which laws to pass and when. Courts ‘decide’ if the laws are being interpreted as the Congress intended. I don’t think there is a provision in the Constitution that provides for the president to ‘decide’ anything.
@George Wells: okay George, I found the ‘decider’ statement and you certainly took his statement totally out of context. Here is his statement:
So, yes the President does get to ‘decide’ who his cabinet members are, provided that the Senate ‘agrees’ with him. Let me put it this way. He gets to ‘decide’ who to ‘nominate’ and the Senate ‘decides’ if that is ok.
Bush didn’t claim he gets to ‘decide’ which laws to enforce.
@Redteam #74:
“okay George, I found the ‘decider’ statement”
Well, good for you.
There are plenty of things that presidents “decide” to do. Remember that “executive order” issue that crops up every time an administration DECIDES to get something done that congress has failed to act on? All presidents use it.
I’ll also remind you that the president is empowered to start World War Three and launch missiles with just a few of his buddies’ concurrence. That’s a pretty hefty “decision” on his shoulders, don’t you think?
And yes, you all are right that a president’s “decisions” are generally not durable unless congress DECIDES not to undo them. But the chief exec. is responsible for “executing” the laws of the land, and if that process was devoid of decision- making, you wouldn’t need a person to do it, would you? You could probably get by with just a little timer, connected to an automatic re-dialing telephone with a recorded message saying “do it now.” If you want a powerless president, why not just elect a dash-board wobbly-head, and leave governing exclusively to congress which, if given unlimited power, couldn’t POSSIBLY do anything wrong, right? Since power DOESN’T corrupt, why bother to divide it among three different branches of government? You tell me…
@George Wells: George, you’re just trying to get into a pissing contest.
That’s not the intent of executive orders. The congress passes a law. The President executes that law. If the law just said, the president will collect one dollar from each citizen, then it is the presidents decision as to ‘how’ to collect one dollar. Not ‘if’ or ‘why’, just ‘how’. If the law is not ‘clear’, then the president can decide ‘how’, nothing else. An executive order that ‘creates’ a new law is not legal and the president does not have the power to do so. If he does, it is illegal. Yes, they get away with it, but they wouldn’t if we had a Supreme Court worth a damn.
In the case of Obama, this would be a much superior system (most other presidents also)
But, only in case of imminent threat to the US. He’s not empowered to do so on a ‘whim’. Let me point out that he is NOT empowered to decide whether to start a war, only to execute an order to ‘defend’ the US in the case of imminent threat.
That’s why there are 100 of them representing the citizens of 50 states. If done correctly, it would mean that they are governing according to the desires of a majority of the citizens, with built in protection for the smaller states. So the only decisions the president is supposed to make is how to execute a law. Not to make any laws.
@john2, #68:
Your “well known fact” isn’t true. The Status of Forces Agreement, which locked in the schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, was signed by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker on November 17, 2008, and ratified by the Iraqi parliment 10 days later. It was accepted by the Iraqi Presidential Council on December 4, 2008. (Not everyone approved. Ten days later, an Iraqi journalist became so enraged that he hurled his shoes at Bush. Maybe we should have been wondering what was up with the Secret Service at that point.)
Of course U.S. troops hadn’t yet left. The Status of Forces Agreement was the negotiated agreement that worked all the details of that out.
The Bush Administration did it. Not Obama. Further, the Bush Administration did it without consulting Congress. They kept the details of the SOFA negotiations secret until the end, when they scheduled a quick meeting with Congress to inform them what was being done.
I keep making the mistake of assuming that I’m talking to people who live in this reality, rather than in some alternate reality where historical details change whenever it’s politically convenient.
@Greg:
That you have the ability to make a ‘reasonable’ assumption. Let me give you a simple guideline to keep you from making dumbass mistatkes(sic). Whenever you assume something, write it down. Then figure out the opposite of your assumption. Select that alternate as the correct interpretation. There, now you won’t always be the dumbass on the blog.
@Greg:
And what prevented Obama from renegotiating the S of FA? Tell me why Obama could NOT renegotiate it. You keep saying “It’s Bush’s fault” but give no proof that renegotiations were impossible.
@retire05, #79:
The provisions of the S.O.F.A. negotiated and signed by the Bush Administration gave the Iraq government power to set conditions for any change in the withdrawal timetable. Their non-negotiable condition was that U.S. personnel remaining in Iraq would be placed under the legal jurisdiction of local Iraqi courts—something that no responsible U.S. Commander in Chief could ever agree to. Consequently, we left in accordance with the schedule provided by the original agreement.
These simple facts have been presented innumerable times before. You may not like them, but they’re still the facts. I suppose we could reduce them to a very direct answer to your question: It was a provision of the original Bush Administration agreement that prevented Obama from successfully renegotiating the departure timetable. Given the hostility in Iraq toward the continuing U.S. presence at the time the original agreement was negotiated and finalized, that future difficulty should have been completely obvious.
@Greg: That SOFA, not being signed by the US Senate, was not binding on the US. The US could change it at any time.
@Redteam, #81:
I suppose that’s both true and entirely consistent with the Republican Senators’ recent open letter to Iran, but I’m not sure the Iraqis would have viewed our unilateral dismissal of the agreement in quite the same way. More than shoes would likely have been thrown.
@Greg:
That’s ridiculous Greg. No agreement with a foreign country signed by Bush without the approval of the Senate is binding on any succeeding President, just as any agreement that Obozo signs with Iran without Senate approval will not be binding on the next president.
@Greg:
Actually, that is not completely true. The SoFA was a little more complicated than you indicate.
Really? You want to provide that provision verbatim? Because, frankly, all you are doing is parroting crap you have heard from left wing operators.
Now, no agreement between nations is so set in stone that it is not subject to change. You just don’t want to admit that a) Obama’s foreign negotiations ability is so bad that he couldn’t manage a new SoFA and b) he was keeping a campaign promise to remove our troops and he didn’t give a damn what happened to Iraq after that.
We see, in Iraq, the effects of electing someone who can’t manage the job of the most powerful office in the world.
@Greg:
What do you reckon they think about it along about now?
Members of Obama’s own administration have admitted Obama had no interest in negotiating the SofF and didn’t even try. He just wanted a headline.
Now look at the mess he himself created.
@retire05: So true. First they claim Bush made an agreement, then they admit that since it wasn’t signed by the Senate it can be modified by the next president, but for some reason, which they can’t explain, Obozo couldn’t change the agreement. That’s what is known as ‘total incompetence’.
05, what do you think about the deal in OK, where they’re voting to do away with state issued marriage licenses. That way, the state can’t be ordered to issue gays marriage licenses, or to recognize marriages, since marriages will only be in the church. Any church would be free to marry anyone they choose to marry. I think there will be many more states that will pass that law. If the fed wants to ‘legalize’ marriages, they can issue federal licenses.
@retire05, #84:
Paragraph #2 of Article 30 rules out any unilateral changes to the Status of Forces Agreement. Do you have some different interpretation of the effect of what it says?
I suppose you’ll argue that Obama should have cited paragraph #3, terminated the entire agreement, and then one year later done whatever the hell he wanted, with or without the consent of the Iraqi government. Others seem to be arguing that since it wasn’t ratified by the Senate, it was a completely meaningless piece of paper to begin with. Obama seems to believe that it was agreement made between two governments, the provisions of which we had a moral obligation to honor. I tend to take that same view. If the nation ceases to honor such agreements, no one will be able to trust us.
@Redteam:
There was always a method to renegotiate the SoFA. Gullible Greggie just gave us the very clause that said the agreement could be amended and under what conditions.
As to the Oklahoma thing; I think it is sad that states have to turn themselves into pretzels trying to deal with the sodomists. Knowing the history of marriage “licenses” in the U.S., which actually preceded the U.S., I understand the reason for it. But the “no-fault” divorce laws, that swept the nation decades ago, was part of the left’s movement to minimalize the importance of marriage. It’s pure Gramsci.
But I believe that eventually the pendulum will swing the other way. And when it does, it won’t be pretty. People will accept unacceptable behavior only as long as they are not affected by it, but when it is shoved down their throats, people will begin to fight back. In case you haven’t noticed, the gaystapo is out, “white privilege” is the new cause de jour.
@Bill, #85:
It would probably depend on who you asked. I doubt you could get a consensus of opinion, owing to the opposing factions that have been part of the problem all along. Some of them have actually been enabling ISIS.
@Greg:
Well, there’s paragraph 1: 1.
Then there’s paragraph 2:
Clearly because this was not an agreement that was binding, all Obama had to do was write a letter terminating it.
Then there’s paragraph 3:
Yep, there’s at least 3 ways to terminate the agreement, and I’m sure there are other ways since nothing in the agreement was legally binding on the US. But I wouldn’t expect Obozo to understand that, what, him being a constitutional scholar and all that.
@Greg:
You’re kidding? Right? just who in the hell have we ever been able to trust to uphold agreements? There are laws all over the US that says that gays can’t marry each other, but no one gives a damn if those laws (agreements) are broken.
@Greg:
This agreement SHALL be amended
Do you even know what that means, Gullible Greggie? It means that the agreement was subject to change “with the official agreement of the
Parties in writing and in accordance with the constitutional procedures in
effect in both countries” No where does it say that the agreement shall NOT be amended.
Basically, you have just shown what I have argued forever; Obama was incapable of securing a new agreement, i.e. he was inept and the things he offered the Iraqi government were unacceptable. Even the Iraqis said they knew that Obama didn’t want to ratify the agreement and he presented them with NOTHING. Obama just wanted out, and because of that we see Iraq as it is now.
Thanks for proving me right. Even a blind squirrel like you finds an acorn every now and then.
@retire05, #92:
I know what the original paragraphs mean. What they might mean after you’ve taken your snippy scissors and scotch tape to them is another matter entirely. I’ve got no more time this evening for this sort of silliness.
@Greg:
all the time you spend here is silliness.
@Greg: You sidestepping that question reminds me that you never reconciled Obama’s relationship with scumbag Soros while you complain about big money influence on government. Answering that is particularly pertinent now that two more cops have been shot due to incitement of the stupid, an endeavor Soros has been involved in financing.
But, aside from that, Obama had no intention in doing what needed to be done in Iraq (even if he could, since he shows himself to be completely bereft of any negotiating skills at all or being able to employ anyone that can negotiate) and all he wanted was a temporary grand-standing moment. It matters little that this will result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the US being drawn back into a major war.
@Greg:
Run, little rabbit, run. But then, that’s what you always do when you have been shown to be full of it.
Maybe your comprehension problem centers on the the word unilateral, which admittedly does have more than three syllables.
@Greg:
Ah, Gullible Greggie, I though you had no more time this evening for this sort of silliness.
You never fail to disappoint.
Just like the military stormed the beaches, I would like to see them storm congress, and run for office.
G.O.P. Letter by Republican Senators Is Evidence of ‘Decline,’ Iranian Says
The situation has become pretty damn pathetic when we’re being lectured by the likes of these people. Of course republicans gave them the opportunity when they presumed to lecture the Iranian government, and openly displayed their disdain for the authority of the office of President of the United States before the entire world.