UPDATE
This action may not have gone as well as intended:
Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that "in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.
….added that "I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law."
http://tinyurl.com/nrs8e99
Would somebody PLEASE tell me how much farther this complete and arrogant disregard for the man in the White House can possibly go? (See what I did there?)
It's NOT enough that none of the Congressmen invited to have lunch or dinner with President Obama soon after his first electoral win accepted his offer……they were BUSY with governing things, I am sure. It's NOT enough that within 24 hours of his swearing in that a large of group of Republicans met in secret and vowed to oppose everything this man intended to do….even before he presented it. It's NOT enough that Mitch McConnell publicly stated that his one job was to make "Obama a one term president." (How'd that turn out, Mitch?)
It's NOT enough that when the President worked for (and Congress passed) a healthcare initiative for the people of this country…and it was a plan endorsed and presented by the Right Wing Heritage Foundation years ago…the GOP raised holy hell and have been dead set on gutting for years now. (As well as voting rights, women's reproductive rights and equal pay, citizenship for immigrants, the education system, and unions.) It is NOT bad enough that Boehner was thinking of uninviting Mr. Obama to the Annual Prayer Breakfast and telling him to "mail in" his State of the Union speech. It's NOT enough that they have their "unofficial" own FOX network to keep repeating their fear and falsehoods to the masses.
John Boehner and his cohorts not only thought it was a great idea for the Repubs to ask Netanyahu, Israel Prime Minister, to bolster their threat of war against Iran and also improve HIS election chances. (A two-for, in their minds.) This, in their thinking showed, who the leaders in THIS country were….and it wasn't Obama. Never mind that Bibi was just as much an propagandist and liar as they are.
NOW, in another act of defiance…and almost sedition…several Republican Congressman have actually WRITTEN a letter (signed their real names and everything) to the leader of Iran telling him NOT to agree to anything, or to sign anything anything with President Obama:
“It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system … Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,” the senators wrote. “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
In other words…."don't get too friendly with the black guy in the White House 'cause when we get in we're gonna kick your ass."
Or as this Republican says: "The end of these negotiations isn't an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so speak," Sen. Tom Cotton said in January, speaking at a conservative conference hosted by the advocacy group Heritage Action for America.
Seems like this has escaped their memory:
The Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 30 January 1799, currently codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953) is a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.
