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Mitch McConnell, the Corker Bill, and the Secret to Trump’s Success — Revealed
Ace of Spades points out a GOP pattern: They construct a compromise with the White House that gives Obama all the power he requests and then pretend to vote against it, so that “they can then they go home to their districts and states and say ‘we did everything we could to stop him, but by jiminy, we just couldn’t manage it.'”
Do you remember how Mitch McConnell schemed to increase the debt limit, while suckering conservatives with a claim that conservatives voted against it?
The scheme worked like this: Congress authorized the president to increase the debt limit on his authority. (Actually, we’re already at the stage of falsehood, because he wouldn’t be raising the debt limit on his own authority, but with the authority Congress had just voted him.)
Now, the deal also granted, supposedly, Congress the power to block the raising of the debt limit, by voting a “resolution of disapproval.”
But here’s the thing: The president can veto that.
Which is what he did, of course.
So the debt limit was raised in this way:
1. Republicans voted to give Obama the power to raise the debt limit. They didn’t take responsibility for this themselves; they just said Obama could do so, if he wanted.
2. But Republicans retain the right to “block” it, supposedly, with a vote of disapproval.
3. But which Obama can veto — which every Republican knows he will do.
4. McConnell, Corker, and all the other other con artists now get to claim they didn’t raise the debt limit. Heck, they even voted a Resolution of Disapproval against it.
What they don’t tell you is that this had been designed from the start to pass the debt limit increase, with a fake Resolution of Disapproval voted on and vetoed, which had been planned from the start, so that they could lie and say they “voted against” the increase in the debt limit.
As Ace points out, Andrew McCarthy describes the same feckless abdication of responsibility in Congress’s Corker Bill strategy:
A nuclear Iran would be a threat that is similarly transformative. To know that, we need only listen to the White House tut-tutting about how “unrealistic” it would be to expect the mullahs to renounce their support for terrorism in exchange for sanctions relief. …
So Beltway Republicans are ready to put up a fight, right? About as much of a fight, it seems, as they were ready to make against mounting debt. Cravenly elevating their own political interest over the national interest, many on the GOP side of the political class calculate that it is more important to avoid blame for frustrating Obama — this time, on his delusional Iran deal — than to succeed in actually frustrating Obama.
But alas, that annoying Constitution is again an obstacle to shirking accountability. It does not empower the president to make binding agreements with foreign countries all on his own — on the theory that the American people should not take on enforceable international obligations or see their sovereignty compromised absent approval by the elected representatives most directly accountable to them.
Thus, the Constitution mandates that no international agreement can be binding unless it achieves either of two forms of congressional endorsement: a) super-majority approval by two-thirds of the Senate (i.e., 67 aye votes), or b) enactment through the normal legislative process, meaning passage by both chambers under their burdensome rules, then signature by the president.
The Corker bill is a ploy to circumvent this constitutional roadblock. That is why our post-sovereign, post-constitutional president has warmed to it. Because it would require the president to submit any Iran deal to Congress, it is drawing plaudits for toughness. But like McConnell’s debt legerdemain, it’s a con job. Once the deal is submitted, Congress would have 60 days (or perhaps as few as 30 days) to act. If within that period both houses of Congress failed to enact a resolution of disapproval, the agreement would be deemed legally binding — meaning that the sanctions the Iranian regime is chafing under would be lifted. …
To summarize, the Constitution puts the onus on the president to find 67 Senate votes to approve an international agreement, making it virtually impossible to ratify an ill-advised deal. The Corker bill puts the onus on Congress to muster 67 votes to block an agreement.
Under the Constitution, Obama’s Iran deal would not have a prayer. Under the Corker bill, it would sail through. And once again, it would be Republicans first ensuring that self-destruction is imposed on us, then striking the pose of dogged opponents by casting futile nay votes.
This is not how our system works. Congress is supposed to make the laws we live under. … That a lawless president would undertake to eviscerate these constraints is to be expected. But is he really much worse than an entrenched political class that anxiously forfeits its powers to stop him?
Or, as Jack Nicholson once said about the Ruling Class:
Published in General, Politics
Unfortunately the premise here is false. The President has the authority to sign executive agreements with other nations and they are binding as long as the President wishes them to be. This is exactly what the President claims the JCPOA is and as such no congressional action is required. The problem we have is, as best as I understand, no congressional action is required to implement the agreement.
Now I know it’s a treaty.
I think both of these cases are unconstitutional, for a reason not too often seen:
Congress cannot delegate its constitutional powers as a legislative body to the executive branch. This is why a line-item veto was overturned by the supreme court.
I think in the case of budget authority, only the house of representatives can originate funding bills, and they cannot delegate this to the executive. The executive is not the house, and allowing the executive to spend more money directly violates this.
In the Corker bill, Congress is trying to delegate its authority to consent to a treaty to the executive by in effect switching which side has to overcome a 2/3rds supermajority, again unconstitutional on its face.
We can have an argument over whether Congress has the authority to pass legislation implementing the Iran agreement as a statute. If it did, the treaty provisions would become moot.
I think congress can pass as a statute anything that is related to what the US can do independently, but nothing in a statute can bind the US to behave in a way directed by an external sovereign country, that requires a treaty with the 2/3 supermajority vote of the senate. I don’t believe the Iran deal as constituted particularly with classified side deals between Iran and UN orginazations can be binding without such a treaty vote. I guess we will find out.
I am tired of our elected losers, caving in. Eventually they will become the Whigs. I just hope it won’t be too late.
The Trump “success” being referred to here is his campaign “success.” A significant portion of the Republican “base” has noticed electing Republicans has no practical effect on how we’re represented in government. We’re in a pre-revolutionary moment of taxation without representation. Trump is capitalizing on that.
Whether President Trump could beat back Leviathan is doubtful, even if he was so inclined. Too many Americans are working for, enamored of, or dependent on the Beast. Welcome to the fundamental transformation.
I think it does very directly. As economies are centralized and become dysfunctional and corrupt, we look for a man on horseback to fix them. It never works out that way, but it’s a recurrent theme throughout the world and history. Actually in reality, it’d be worse with Trump as he sounds highly protectionist. As Mancur Olsen suggests in his “The Rise and Decline of Nations” where he analytically develops the theme of stagnation and corruption, the way to fix it is to lose a war to the right people, as did Germany Japan, Italy and the Southern US; Revolution, which is always tricky; or free trade which constantly baths us in the reality of the harm we do to ourselves.
I propose the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
The Congressional Research Service issued this report on the various forms of international agreements earlier this year.
I fear many conservatives are falling into the leftist mindset where everything they dislike must be unconstitutional.
The JCPOA is possibly the worst agreement any American President has negotiated but that does not mean the President cannot agree to it.
VA is a perfect example of this. The entire state has been moving to the right for decades, but because of the growth of the federal government, we wind up with people moving to the DC suburbs from other states to work for it. You wind up with a pocket of the left in northern VA and a pocket around Norfolk (also highly dependent on federal money), and our statewide races end up close affairs when they shouldn’t be.
John Kerry himself said the only reason it’s not a treaty is because they knew they couldn’t get a treaty passed. This is flatly unconstitutional. I don’t know why we’re trying to provide political cover to them when they openly admit what they’re doing.
Sounds quite impressive. Care for a little reality check?
Boehner has been up for election every two years and has been in Congress since 1991. And yet in all that time not one decent conservative challenger has emerged in his district with enough support to unseat him. Now, replicate that example with McConnell (up for election every six years since 1985) and some of the other establishment Republicans who are McConnell’s and Boehner’s lieutenants. I’m no fan of Boehner or McConnell either and have hoped that other more consistent and principled conservatives would have emerged in Congress to take their leadership roles from them – but that hasn’t happened as yet.
Now Donald Trump, the “battering ram” is going to somehow magically be used to scatter GOP guards from the doors. Really? Where are the legions of new conservative candidates emerging all across the country to do that – who have stood up and shouted – I’m with the Donald Trump movement to unseat the current Republican leadership in Congress? Who are the current conservative members of Congress who are making an oath of fealty and allegiance to Donald Trump? Perhaps it’s too early to tell.
Or perhaps, it’s because Mr. Trump’s principled conservative street cred is suspect – love for single-payer healthcare, support for Planned Parenthood even after the horrific videos have emerged, raising corporate tax rates (already the highest in the world) on American companies doing business overseas, raising tax rates on more successful Americans because Trump knows a that a few of his own hedge fund managers cheat and pay nothing in taxes.
One can have a pit bull, raised to tear apart anyone who gets in its way, to make one feel secure but be careful the animal doesn’t turn on you. Elect someone like Donald Trump and you may get the Trump Wall in all its glory – but you may also find that your tax rates will go up, that the federal government will continue to grow and that he may side with Democrats much more than the current Republican leadership ever has. So good luck with that.
I would support a democrat to unseat Boehner. Not only would it cost only 1/435 of the House without giving up the speakership, it’s also a GOP-approved tactic. See Lugar. See Cochrane.
What you are describing is a cabal. And we have seen what happens to the principled conservatives we send to the GOP.
I think Klaatu is trying to gin up political cover for Mitch McConnell’s failure of leadership.
Well if it’s good enough for Klaatu, who are we to complain so viscerally?
Yeah, that has happened either.
What I’ve described is reality – as frustrating as we both admit that it is. The battering ram reference is just boastful wishful thinking not based in reality on what’s not happening on the ground. There may be surging popular support for Trump. Good for him. He knows how to whip up frustrated Americans. But thus far his support hasn’t generated a vast new crop of potential congressional candidates in the Trump camp. Without that the battering ram looks more like a swizzle stick.
What makes this a treaty as opposed to an executive agreement?
I am trying to explain reality.
Did you even watch the clip? Kerry explicitly says the only reason they aren’t calling it a treaty is because they know it wouldn’t pass. They’re only calling it an executive agreement to provide political cover for doing an end-run around the Senate, and they openly admit it. It is a treaty.
Yes I watched the clip. Are you going to answer my question?
The reality is the GOP has worked hard to distance itself from its base, and has succeeded wildly. The answer is no.
The reality is a portion of the GOP base has distanced itself from reality. The size of that portion may or may not coincide with the level of support for Donald Trump.
This is exactly correct. All the people, including Andy McCarthy, who want to rub the erogenous zones of conservative outrage need to explain how a congress was supposed to vote on a treaty that the president would never call a treaty and never put before the congress or a bill for an international agreement that the president had made clear he was going to implement by executive order. Congress while still in control of the democrats had given the president all the authority he needed to roll back sanctions on Iran by his own authority all the way back in 2010.
Short of impeachment there was no stopping this deal without some sort of maneuver like the hail mary that the Corker/Menendez bill was.
Anyone who says otherwise needs to lay out specifically how congress was ever going to get a chance to vote on a bill or treaty that the president was never going to submit to the congress.
I’m listening.
Precisely. Obama has hacked the Constitution. Since Congress will not impeach for any usurpation of power or dereliction of duty, Obama can get away with whatever he wants. Republicans are so afraid of short-term instability that they will tolerate all sorts of long-term instability.
For all the would-be constitutional scholars and arm-chair procedural experts, please revisit John Yoo’s analysis of why Obama can get away with claiming this isn’t a treaty and why all of the foot stamping and breath holding going on regarding McConnell is completely moro … em … misguided.
http://ricochet.com/why-obamas-executive-action-on-iran-does-not-violate-the-law/
It’s a treaty because Kerry says it’s a treaty. Why are you carrying water for the Obama administration making a case they won’t even seriously make themselves?
I’m not sure the unwillingness to impeach is a function of fear but rather a lack of public support for such a move. Given the impossibility of gaining a conviction in the Senate, any action by the House would be symbolic and the vast majority of Americans would not accept our explanation for what it symbolizes.
Their oath of office to uphold the Constitution doesn’t stipulate “as long as there is public support for such a move”.
Kerry is not the one empowered to make it a treaty. FWIW, he did not say it was a treaty. He said treaties are impossible to get approved.
Now are you going to answer my question?
It’s not just that McConnell et al fear political blowback or instability, its that they don’t have the votes to actually remove Obama from office. Besides, removing Obama would simply put Biden in his place. That wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Furthermore, conservatives have no one but themselves to blame when it comes to making impeachment a toxic option after the reckless and cheap way they tried to employ it with Bill Clinton. Had the GOP not gone to that well so gratuitously in the past they might have been able to raise the threat of an impeachment without everyone believing they were simply being cynical abusers of the system. The irony being that they probably have a real case for impeachment this time against a true abuser of power, but they have no political capital in reserve to carry out an impeachment.
It also does not require them to impeach if there is no possibility of conviction.
This is like listening to President Clinton explain that drilling now won’t produce oil for ten years. Twenty years later, we hear the same excuse. “Gee, we can’t oppose the president because we have already ceded so much to him. Well — guess we’ll just cede this too. Pity.”