Discussion for article #240416
The outcome was especially notable for a White House with a history of bungling legislative initiatives on Capitol Hill…
I’m curious what this history of bungled legislative initiatives is?
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Some GOP congressional aides are calling the Iran deal the president’s “Foreign Policy Obamacare” because it was secured over unanimous Republican opposition and will be Democrats’ to defend for years
I’d take that as a compliment if I were President Obama. As this agreement plays out, I expect more folks to realize that it is in fact a pretty good deal for us, certainly compared to the alternatives.
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Beat me to it.
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“Obama threw everything into uniting Democrats behind the accord, writing
letters and flying lawmakers on Air Force One with him to Africa. House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gave the White House the names
of 57 House Democrats to call in August; Obama called each one.”
This is the style LBJ followed. He strong armed, cajoled, and twisted arms on his way into getting the legislation he wanted. It sometimes is necessary to get legislation past obstructing republicans.
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Good question for the writers of the article. What, exactly, has gone wrong for this president? After all, he alone, among all other presidents, save Harry Truman during World War II, stepped into the largest crisis that an American President has ever faced and righted the world economy. And he did it in spite of the aggressively contentious and petty GOP Congress throwing darts at him and his administration throughout those white knuckle months when no one had easy solutions.
Obamacare? Same drill: not one GOP vote for and, when added up as the sum total of member’s individual votes, tens of thousands of votes against what has become an enormous step forward for the nation. (unless you are worried about the Cadillac tax, and then you have a problem that is perhaps as large as your salary:)
On the other side of the aisle, Boehner is forced to manage his caucus as if he is handling a box full of live grenades. The Republicans have no legislative record to exhibit. With both bodies and the backing of every group of well heeled knee-jerkers, they still can’t organize what a grown-up would recognize as a cogent process of governance. In fact, they see government as the enemy and are again cogitating shutting it down, this time to punish the nation for funding Planned Parenthood’s diverse set of well-care programs that it has delivered to millions of women over the past 50 some years.
Bungled? Please elucidate.
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Something that’s been overlooked has been the reaction of the Iranian people to this deal. Lifting economic sanctions will bring sanity to their lives at last. There is a lot on the Web about the Iranians’ joyful response, but I like this pic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/farshad-farahat/hello-world-a-message-fro_b_7921796.html
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Such an irony, ain’t it? The next generation of Iranian leaders are as pro-American as any other group in the world. Yet our own GOP is not capable of grasping this. Perhaps our troglodyte sect is as backward thinking as Iran’s?
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Indeed. My thoughts, too. And just what did Obama bungle before this?
LBJ once stood over a smaller congressman and just stared him in the face until he relented on a vote.
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Yup, there were people crowding the streets actually shouting, “We love America!” I especially loved this little trendlet, from back when Obama announced the preliminary agreement:
Selfies with Obama!
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Opponents took bitter consolation in the fact that Republicans united against the deal, even if they couldn’t stop it.
Yes, I’m certain AIPAC and Netanyahu are positively thrilled about this development. I guess they win again.
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When Moniz learned that a top Israeli official was in Montana to step up pressure on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, the secretary contacted a local newspaper for an interview.
WTF? Was this made public at the time? If not, why? Will the US sanction this “top Israeli officer”, perhaps by withdrawing its permission for this foreign agent to be here? Will the US sanction the State of Israel for its arrogant intrusion into American political matters, perhaps by reducing the amount of unreimbursed military aid we provide? Will the pretense that AIPAC is a non-profit group that educates Americans about Israel be dropped, and legally recognize it as a lobby group for a foreign state?
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The irony is that if the R’s had not automatically turned this into a bitter partisan fight, they actually might have gotten the outcome they wanted. But Obama Derangement Syndrome kicked in and the rest is history.
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“Let’s face it. On foreign policy, the administration holds more cards,” said Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Thank God ( or the diety of you choice )
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Bungled? One category that immediately comes to mind is the numerous appointees and judgeships that, even while the Dems had majorities in congress, were allowed to be roadblocked due to absurd cable news hysteria tactics by conservatives and fearful, hand-wringing Dems.
And let’s not overlook the over-complicated contraption that Obamacare ended up being. It could have been far simpler and better than what we got.
And Guantanamo… lack of administration influence in Congress lead to them making it impossible to try the prisoners on US soil.
That’s off the top of my head. I think there’s a long list of things not on the top of my head where we got a regrettable result because the administration didn’t play Congress right.
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Well, the basic dynamic which AP and the other media heather fuck-wits fail to grasp is the only people opposing this deal are people with a vested interest in trying to fuck over the President, even if it means putting national security (and those of our allies) at risk.
So it wasn’t really the bar fight the AP seems to want to portray this as. Sounds like typical lobbying on a high-profile bill.
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There is no real evidence for any strong-arming here, despite the APs best effort to paint it that way.
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11th dimensional chess, motherfuckers. Meanwhile, the GOP is playing checkers. Badly.
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it’s an AP rethug propoganda piece
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Citizen Genet does not apply to Israel’s actions