The House rejects the Iran deal with bipartisan support
Twenty-five House Democrats joined all the House Republicans (save Massie of Kentucky, who voted “present”) in voting “no” to approval of Obama’s Iran deal.
So once again, a bill has bipartisan support—and that support goes against the president. And once again, it probably won’t matter. The only possible significance of this bill might be (a) for future reference, because it puts the deal’s supporters and opponents on the record, and (b) possible grounds for a lawsuit against Obama.
As for Massie, he has explained his vote here. Simply put, he thinks the Iran deal was a treaty, and his vote is a refusal to cooperate with not voting on it as a treaty. So his position is more hardline that those of the other Republicans, not less.
As for the Senate, McConnell went ahead yesterday with a very different move and tried to vote on a disapproval of the deal in the Senate, one that was blocked by 42 Democrats voting not to invoke cloture. One can speculate on what went on in McConnell’s mind, and one would almost have to speculate because it’s hard to find any explanation of what he did other than the “failure theater” scenario of not really wanting to win in the first place, but just trying to give the appearance of wanting to win.
I cannot stand McConnell, but I’ve not bought 100% into the “failure theater” explanation (maybe just 85%). Politico says he’s got plans:
Republicans are plotting to make Democrats pay dearly for backing an agreement the GOP argues hinges on an historic enemy of the United States playing nice. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to return to the floor next week to force Democrats to take more votes Republicans say they’ll regret as soon as Iran violates the terms of the deal or sponsors terrorist attacks, which critics believe is just a matter of time.
Is he planning to take up a vote of approval, like the House did? Is he planning to vote on the deal as though it were a treaty, as so many people have suggested it is? And what will he do about those 42 Democrats this time? What is to stop them from doing exactly the same thing the did yesterday and vote against cloture, thereby scuttling every single one of those proposals? What will he do about that?
I’ll believe it when I see it with Mitch. I doubt it. They are all buds; members of the professional political class.
so 41 Democrats can stop anything from passing. Well, that brings up an interesting question. HOW DID THE DEMOCRATS PASS OBAMACARE IN 2010? Didn’t we have at least 41 Republicans in the Senate?
neo: “…..and (b) possible grounds for a lawsuit against Obama.”
Since the votes aren’t there for an impeachment conviction in the Senate, this would at least establish the facts of Obama’s violations of law in a court.
Impeachment sounds like a good way of holding a President in check, until you encounter a party like the dems that will put their power ahead of the good of the nation. At some point we are going to have to find another remedy for a President that enforces only those laws he agrees with and ignores those he doesn’t like. If we don’t do that, we are going to sink further and further into Banana Republic status.
Jack:
Don’t you recall “reconciliation”? That was a special trick to get around the problem, a remedy unavailable in this instance for various reasons too complex to go into here. On this blog and others, look for posts on Obamacare and “reconciliation” and you’ll see. Of course, once Obamacare was passed, Obama was going to sign it, so there was no veto hurdle to get over.
Republicans actually faced a situation there where they tried and were powerless. Scott Brown could explain it to you.
Who would have thunk it!
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/iran-says-finds-unexpectedly-high-uranium-104622948.html
McConnell is an incompetent fool who was too comfortable with his minority party leadership role to be able to handle success.
The problem is that the Minority Leader just has to complain, not to actually accomplish anything. Mitch is incapable of accomplishing anything, and is scared witless that the country will discover the truth about him.
The Tea Party’s biggest failure was not mounting a credible primary challenger to that old RINO.
Neo:
If you believe what you read in Politico, you are a sucker. You are no sucker, so stop it with Politico.
Frog:
I use different sources at different times for different reasons.
Politico is not an especially favored source of mine. But sometimes it is the best source available for a certain purpose, at a particular time.
For example, in the case of this post, I very much wanted to get the statements of Boehner and McConnell on why they did what they did, and what their plans were to do next about voting on the Iran deal. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find the full text of their statements. Sometimes the internet has that sort of thing and something it does not. In this case, nada.
So the next step was to find experts—quotes—from their statements on what they planned next. It was very hard to find, and it was taking a long time, and I had to write the post rather than keep going with it.
So I went with the best source I could come up with. It was actually one of the very few source that even mentioned McConnell’s plans. It didn’t even contain a direct quote (I always prefer a quote to a summary of what the person said) from McConnell about what he plans to do next. But it had something, at least, so I went with it.
Some time after I wrote the post, I found another source that corroborated it. So that was fine.
Just now, though, as I Googled it again, I found another site (one that hadn’t come up earlier when I wrote the post; it may not have been put up yet) that discussed McConnell’s statements and plans for the next step. Here it is, and it’s even got a video.
Sometimes the internet has that sort of thing and something it does not. In this case, nada.
Gotta love gov transparency.
Ah, “experts”, our rulers that we must respect. That probably wasn’t your implication, Neo, but the West itself is a very different beast on this subject.
The Tea Party’s biggest failure was not mounting a credible primary challenger to that old RINO.
That’s why the GOP called in the Democrats to land an artillery strike on the Tea Party formation. Problem solved.