Obama to use UN to impose Nuke Deal. Senate was told about John Kerry’s approval of Obama’s plans to circumvent Congress on Iranian nukes at his Confirmation hearings back in 2013. They rubber-stamped Kerry’s nomination anyway.
For all the public outrage over His Heinous Barack Obama’s Dictatorial end-run around Congress and ignoring the Constitutional requirement for treaties to be ratified in the Senate, the truth is that the very same people now speaking out against Obama’s unilateral nuke deal agreement with Tehran – VOTED TO CONFIRM the very man who told them he approved of Obama using that tactic back in 2013.
It’s not like the Senate and the GOP did not know that Obama was planning to negotiate a deal with Iran without them. They knew! John Effing Kerry TOLD them during his confirmation hearing in 2013 that HE SUPPORTED OBAMA ENACTING SUCH A DEAL BY HIMSELF and using methods outside of the ‘ideological restraint’ of Congress!!!! Here’s excerpts from the transcript of his confirmation hearing:
SENATOR JAMES RISCH (R-ID)
There are a lot of us that are becoming increasingly concerned about all this talk regarding executive agreements as opposed to treaties that are negotiated by the executive branch as contemplated by the Founding Fathers and ratified, if appropriate, by this committee and eventually by the full Senate. Can you give us your view on matters regarding executive agreements? How do you feel about that and the bypassing of the committee?
SEN. KERRY: Well, it would depend — I would say to you, Senator, that it would depend on what the subject matter is and what the sort of scope is and whether or not it falls under a traditional treaty purview or it falls under executive agreement purview.
I can’t — I don’t want to be commenting in some prophylactic way one side or the other without the specific situation in front of me. But I’m confident the president is committed to upholding the Constitution. He’s — I don’t think he’s — you know, and I think — and I’ll say this to all of you.
There’s no better way to guarantee that whatever concerns you have about the president’s desire to move on an executive agreement would be greatly, you know, nullified or mollified if we could find a way to cooperate on a treaty or on the broader issues that face the nation. But you know, I think — I think there’s a lot of frustration out there that some of the automatic ideological restraint here that prevents the majority from being able to express their voice has restrained people and pushed people in a way where they’ve got to consider some other ways of getting things done.
SEN. RISCH: Well, and that’s exactly what concerns us, Senator Kerry, is the fact that it’s OK to do this through the regular order if it gets done, but if it’s not going to get done, then it’s — the ends justify the means; it’s OK to end-run around the Constitution.
So even when Kerry confirmed to these Senators that he was going to support an end-run around the Constitution in regards to Obama enacting treaties outside of Congress – these same Senators voted to confirm him as Secretary of State ANYWAY.
It’s all kabuki theater.
They say they oppose ObamaCare – the GOP FUNDS IT. They say they oppose Obama’s Executive Amnesty and automatic citizenship for illegals – THE GOP FULLY FUNDS IT. They say they oppose Obama’s usurpation of power and using the ATF, the FCC, FEC and other alphabets to impose “Law” by decree – they not only FULLY FUND IT – they refuse to use the tools the Constitution provides them to defund and oppose what Obama is implementing.
Kabuki.
These same GOP leaders will no doubt feign outrage over upcoming dictatorial decrees and usurpations by Obama and his Executive branch – yet they will no doubt confirm radical Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder at the Justice Department, even after she told them she approves of Obama making law outside the Constitution and handing rights to illegal aliens in preference over American citizens.
The Constitution is irrelevant to this regime now, and the GOP refuses to uphold it – or their oaths to support and defend it.
Obama will cut out Congress and take his Iran ‘deal’ to give the Mullah’s nukes to the UN Security Council, and this letter will be about the only effort they employ to assuage an outraged and bewildered American people.
Senate Was Warned About Obama’s End Run on Iran
Congress is struggling to thwart President Obama’s attempt to strike a nuclear deal with Iran on his own, in violation of the Constitution. Lawmakers are taking unprecedented measures — the invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Corker-Menendez bill and even a letter to Tehran to stop it. None of this would be necessary if the U.S. Senate had done its job instead of rubber-stamping John Kerry’s nomination as secretary of state.
In January 2013, Kerry plainly warned Senate Foreign Relations Committee members — the same people now leading the charge against the Iran deal — that he intended to support Obama’s end run around the Constitution because “they’ve got to consider some other ways of getting things done.” Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and John McCain, R-Ariz., all heard Kerry’s statement first-hand, ignored it and voted for him, offering effusive praise for their former Senate buddy. Now they are getting what they should have seen coming.
Too bad the U.S. Senate abdicated its responsibility. It has final say on presidential appointments, but our senators would rather go along and get along than make sure nominees will follow the Constitution.
Have the senators learned their lesson? This month, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general — the nation’s top law enforcement official. During a Judiciary Committee hearing in January, Lynch indicated she thought Obama’s executive actions to rewrite immigration laws were “reasonable.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz calls her views “disqualifying” and says the Senate has a choice: defend the rule of law or “confirm an attorney general who has candidly admitted she will impose no limits on the president whatsoever.” Ensuring that top government officials are committed to the U.S. Constitution, it’s a no-brainer.
That’s what Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, tried to do at Kerry’s confirmation hearing. The U.S. Constitution requires that treaties be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, something Obama foresees he cannot get. Obama calls the possible deal with Iran an “agreement.” Presidents have always made “agreements” without Senate approval, but none of the importance and duration of the Iran deal. “To allege that this doesn’t have all of the marks of a treaty is an insult to everybody’s intelligence,” says McCain now. But at the hearing, McCain was mum about the point.
Only Risch pressed Kerry, insisting that calling it an agreement, not a treaty, amounted to an “end run around the Constitution” that reflected a dangerous “ends justify the means” mentality. With masterful obfuscation, Kerry said maybe things could get done in “the regular order” — meaning constitutionally — but he wouldn’t guarantee it. “It would depend.”
Fast-forward to February 24, 2015, when Kerry returned to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a budget hearing. When Menendez and Corker pressed him for information about the Iran negotiations, he stonewalled. “I’m not going to go into the details of where we are and what we’re doing.”
Worse, Kerry said there should be no “formal approval process” by Congress. “This is the president’s prerogative.” Kerry threw the senators a few crumbs, conceding that though the president can suspend sanctions against Iran, permanently removing them would require a vote in Congress.
A vote, but not the two-thirds majority of the Senate that the Constitution requires for treaty approval. That is why the Senate’s effort at curbing the president — the Corker-Menendez bill — is a shameful retreat. The bill says Obama must submit a final Iran arms deal to Congress within 60 days for hearings and a vote, and bars the president from suspending sanctions against Iran in the meantime. This puts the burden on Congress to cobble together a veto-proof majority, instead of the president having to win over two-thirds of senators. That’s not what the founders intended.
The Senate failed to do its job during Kerry’s confirmation hearings, and now the nation faces the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Senators treat these hearings as media opportunities and quibble about getting their 10 minutes on camera instead of asking tough questions. In fact, they request that answers be kept short so as not to infringe on their own time. It’s hardly the deliberative body the framers envisioned to provide “advice and consent” on critical issues.
Would the White House really try to get around the Constitution?
bizarre as it may seem — is that the administration would go to the United Nations Security Council to pass the Iran agreement and thereby boost its status as enforceable international law.
…the State Department refused to rule out the end run around the Senate and the Constitution. (“State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Tuesday: ‘I’m just not going to get ahead of how this would be implemented at this point in time.’”)
There are multiple, serious problems with such an approach. For one thing, Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it was a non-binding deal that the next president could demolish with “a stroke of the pen.” Was he misleading the Senate, or is he willing to rule out the end run around the Senate?
Second, the entire legal theory is dubious at best. To believe it could work is to assert the president can unilaterally supersede the dictates of the Constitution.
Sword At-The-Ready 