This is not going to be good news for those wacky unquestioning Republicans true believers who have been tweeting support for the 47 unpatriotic senators fixin' for war:
Didn't the rank and file know it was all a joke? From the loyalists tweet above, guess not.
Rachel Maddow noticed, pointing to public blowback that caught these idiots by surprise, and the newspaper editorial boards brutal bashing of the 47 Senators who jumped into the clown car with Tom Cotton. Yup, it was just a joke...yea, that's the ticket.
So many Americans were outraged over this freakish attempt to belittle Obama and march off to war, that they managed to force the administration to say whether they will charge the senators for their violation of the Logan Act:
ABC News: A petition on whitehouse.gov calling for charges to be filed against the 47 senators who sent an open letter to the leaders of Iran, possibly in violation of the Logan Act, has collected more than 165,000 signatures in less than two days. Because the petition exceeded 100,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House is required to respond. The creator of this petition, known only by the initials C.H., alleges that the 47 senators “committed a treasonous offense when they decided to violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.” The letter, which was published on Monday, warned Iranian leaders that any nuclear deal they sign with President Obama won’t last past his second term.
Sen. Tom Cotton's Letter to Iran: It'll be some time before Republicans can outdo what they did to Obama's efforts to prevent another war and to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear threat. Imagine "President" Scott Walker at the helm:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also did not say that he’d sign the letter, but said, “Unless the White House is prepared to submit the Iran deal it negotiates for congressional approval, the next president should not be bound (by) it.”
What, "word salad" Walker didn't commit again? Who cares, opposition won't be a problem under a one party system.
Traitors? Reading the Logan Act, Republican do look like traitors, yet legal experts and historians don't agree. Here's the Act;
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments: 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.
Surprisingly, our own Rep. James Sensenbrenner tried to rewrite the act in 2006, focusing instead on false statements, which Sen. Tom Cotton's release contained:
Sec. 923. False statements influencing foreign government — Whoever, in relation to any dispute or controversy between a foreign government and the United States, knowingly makes any untrue statement, either orally or in writing, under oath ... to the injury of the United States, or with a view or intent to influence any measure of or action by the United States or any department or agency thereof, to the injury of the United States, shall be imprisoned not more than ten years.
Here's how the media pundits presented it. starting with the Logan Act and dissecting presidential/congressional power:
Right Wing Callers Wrong Again: WPR's morning guest, Ohio State Professor Richard K. Herrmann, answered questions from some very conservative callers:
Although their goal was interfering with “measures of the United States,” the Iranians are smart and took the open letter for exactly what it was; pathetic propaganda and a gross display of Republican ignorance of the Constitution and international law. It is what one expects from a bunch of petulant punks who are too stupid to understand they embarrassed themselves by lacking even an eighth-grader’s understanding of the document the swore to uphold.
Of course, the always frightened panicky guy from Wisconsin Dumb Ron Johnson, knew more than anyone else:
"I agreed to sign Senator Cotton’s open letter because
I believe it describes reality — it tells the truth," Johnson wrote … that
the president is mistaken for "acknowledging Iran’s right to enrich
uranium. As a result, the negotiation was lost before it even
began."
One final word:
Anthony Cordesman, a senior national security analyst for
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the letter was “an
appalling mess.” “One thing about sending international letters, they better be
serious, they better be well-drafted, they better have a convincing
intellectual content, and they better not seem just a hollow political gesture
for partisan purposes,” Cordesman said. “This letter can’t meet any of those
four tests.”
I just came across this loony tunes interview Sen. Tom Cotton, by ABC's Jonathan Carl. Keep this one thing in mind; Executive foreign agreements do not involve congress. It's the UN P-5 +1-China, Russia, Germany, Brits, France that make these agreements, they are not treaties, with requires Senate approval:
