http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/26/1415628/-Tom-Cotton-thinks-Congress-and-the-president-should-speak-with-one-voice-on-Iran-Guess-whose
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton is a piece of work.
With the possibility having arisen that Republicans may not be able to get the 60 votes they need to block a Senate filibuster of their efforts to reject the nuclear agreement with Iran, Cotton released a truly remarkable statement Tuesday. In it he accused President Obama of making an "end run around the Constitution" by not submitting the Iran nuclear agreement to the Senate as a treaty requiring a two-thirds vote.
He also blasted Minority Leader Harry Reid for wanting "to deny the American people a voice entirely by blocking an up-or-down vote on this terrible deal." And he topped it off by saying Congress and Obama "should speak with one voice when it comes to dealing with the Iranians, but it seems that Harry Reid believes that only his and the president’s voices matter."
This would be hilarious if Cotton's record in this matter weren't so despicable. Steve Benen at the Rachel Maddow Blog vivisected the senator's position Wednesday morning:
Tom Cotton, in case anyone has forgotten, wrote a letter to Iranian officials in March, telling them not to trust U.S. officials, all in the hopes of sabotaging American foreign policy and derailing the international diplomatic talks. The Republican senator corralled 46 of his GOP Senate colleagues to join him in this dangerous stunt, which according to our allies, had the effect of helping Iran during delicate negotiations and embarrassing the United States.
Here’s a radical idea: maybe Tom Cotton should avoid lectures about the importance of Congress and the White House speaking “with one voice when it comes to dealing with the Iranians.” Unless the right-wing senator is deliberately trying to become a laughingstock, he should take a moment to acknowledge his lack of credibility on the subject.
WAIT FOR IT;
In that little lecture Cotton didn't remind anyone that his was the lone voice when the Senate voted 98-1 against the Nuclear Agreement Review Act last spring. That vote amounted to a tantrum that capped off his irking of Republican colleagues with parliamentary shenanigans designed to get his amendments to the act considered.
He also didn't acknowledge that since World War II, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have entered into some 17,000 international agreements without a vote of the Senate.
Nor did the freshman senator, as Benen points out, take note of the fact that it is Republicans who have made straight up-and-down votes impossible by requiring 60 affirmative votes on almost anything that matters.
Given his record so far, it's kind of amazing that Cotton hasn't yet joined this year's parade of Republicans running for the presidency.
this is more of them being so trigger happy they don't take the time to research what they might have or did say on the very subject they are ranting and raving about. they have linked everything they contest with Pres. as some violation of the constitution and downplaying his bona fides as a constitutional professor which the University of Chicago law school confirms he was
the only laws he put out and were called unconstitutional by the right wing side of the scotus were the ones they opposed anyway as republican leaners, immigration, guns etc which to me don't count because there was bias within the decision not made by deliberation.
also all those things that were another day at the office are now and have been the last 7 years firewalls constructed by those who pledged to do nothing but make Pres. fail, their base being to stupid to realize if he failed so did they for now 8 years, internationally 17,000 Iran goose egg by republicans not to mention their 60 vote affirmation votes to pass anything. who's zoomin' who?????????
