NY Times Email:
BREAKING NEWS Senate Democrats clear way for Iran nuclear deal
Thursday, September 10, 2015 4:08 PM EDT
Senate Democrats delivered a major victory to President Obama on Thursday when they blocked a Republican resolution to reject a six-nation nuclear accord with Iran, ensuring that the landmark deal will take effect without a veto showdown between Congress and the White House.
A procedural vote fell short of the number needed to break a Democratic filibuster. It culminated hours of debate on the Senate floor and capped months of discord since the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China announced the agreement with Iran in July.
After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attempts to rewrite history, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid points out that McConnell lives in an alternate reality.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) shows some spine and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) melts in a puddle of Obama Derangement Syndrome on the Senate floor.
Film at 11 below the fold.
From CSPAN:
Transcript (from memory):
00:00 Mitch McConnell: We’ll never give up as long as that black guy is in the White House. And then if any other Democrat becomes president, expect more of the same. Don’t you understand???!? BOMB BOMB IRAN!!!
09:15 Harry Reid: HAHAHAHAHA!! You are reality challenged.
21:25 Smirky McChinless: Iraq, blah blah, George W. Bush – best president evah. Blah blah. And we hate Hillary Clinton, too!
27:40 Give ‘Em Hell Harry: I renounced my vote on Iraq.
~
—Looking for second clip—
Transcript (from memory):
Tim Kaine: You knew it was 60 votes, it has always been 60 votes!
Bob Corker: President Obama hurt our feelings!! Waahhhh!!
~
Today, the Senate took an historic step forward and voted to enable the United States to work with our international partners to enable the implementation of the comprehensive, long-term deal that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. This vote is a victory for diplomacy, for American national security, and for the safety and security of the world. For nearly two years, we negotiated from a position of strength to reach an agreement that meets our core objectives. Since we concluded these negotiations, we have had the most consequential national security debate since the decision to invade Iraq more than a decade ago. Over the last several weeks, the more members studied the details of this deal, the more they came out in support. Today, I am heartened that so many Senators judged this deal on the merits, and am gratified by the strong support of lawmakers and citizens alike. Going forward, we will turn to the critical work of implementing and verifying this deal so that Iran cannot pursue a nuclear weapon, while pursuing a foreign policy that leaves our country – and the world – a safer place.
Republicans not giving up. After all they voted 60 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and are still trying to destroy Medicare and Social Security …
If anything, the post vote attacks on the president will harden opposition to cloture.
p.s. Chuck Schumer and Ben Cardin handed Bob Corker the cudgel he used to bash the Democrats who support the agreement, the president, Secretary Kerry .. and the people who think think that a non-nuclear Iran is possible without starting a new war in the middle-east.
Excellent news!!! Am very very happy and relieved. If only we had had such a senate before the Iraq War :(
They were afraid of their own shadows.
This Senate saw the awfulness of Bush’s wars of choice and want to give diplomacy a chance. Good for them … and for us.
That’s part of it but only part. I’m assuming this is a reference to the AUMF vote. Quite a number of them were voting to give the president a negotiating tool to get the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. They thought having the weapons inspectors in there, doing their jobs, and finding nothing would prevent W from going to war there. Not being used to the kind of slimeball W was and is, they thought a bunch of his verbiage was political fodder to his base and truly did not expect him to pull the inspectors out before the final report and invade on his own. I doubt many Dems will make that mistake again about any R in any position.
From my point of view, they acceded to the Bush-Cheney Administration in hundreds of different ways. The USA PATRIOT Act, the 9/11 whitewash, the looking the other way over wiretapping and torture, John Roberts, Samuel Alito. They were scared to look weak when the Cowboy President and his Bring It On bragadocia was eating the scenery.
Now we have a president who doesn’t think that bombing stuff is how you prove your manliness, who wants to change hearts and minds by example not at the end of a gun so it is much easier to do the right thing.
But doing the right thing even when it’s difficult is what I want my Senators to do.
Yes and again no – the Rs most certainly backed, even pushed, Bush towards being the most evil administration we’ve ever had – and we’ve had some pretty damned evil ones. But most of the Dems didn’t vote for those things. We just barely had a majority in the Senate, when we had a majority in the Senate, so it only took a few Blue Dogs to put evil into law. So. As far as Dems were concerned, we had a few evil, a few weak, a few misguided early on who got over it, and a whole bunch outvoted.
The main thing I hold against them – and even then I can see why they didn’t – is not filibustering everything and it’s pet poodle that came from the Rs.
Harry Reid has done a good job during the Obama Administration but I have never forgiven him for not filibustering Samuel Alito. Alito is poised to do more damage on the court than Scalia and Thomas combined. He was replacing a swing justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, and as such we deserved, first, someone who was qualified to sit on the highest court on the land, and second, someone who would not reflexively vote against every good government, good-for-people matter coming before him. The number of potentially gettable votes went down by one and women’s reproductive rights suffered a huge blow.
Agree on Reid. On another, almost related note, I do NOT want Schumer replacing him.
Well, as has often been said, twenty-three Senators, nearly a quarter of the senate, voted against it. They, too, had carefully considered everything (the intelligence reports, the people making recommendations and the political repercussions) and they made the right call. They deserve credit. They are profiles in courage in my opinion.
And I do give them credit for seeing just what a socipathic person W was and not trusting him an inch. You are correct about their courage as well as their foresight. I just don’t blame the ones who erroneously thought they were building a roadblock to war with their vote.
Well they all had a chance to reconsider in 2007 with the Kyl Liberman vote when they knew a lot more. Jim Webb, to his credit, called it “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.” and voted against. So did Kerry and Biden, perhaps in atonement for their aumf vote. Feingold ,Sanders and Kennedy and some others (surprisingly Hagel), also voted against it. Obama wasn’t there but said he was opposed to it. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/09/26/16530/breaking-lieberman-kyls-iran-amendment-passes/
That’s actually more of an indictment because by 2007 we knew the craptastrophe that the Iraq War had become and to vote to go into Iran would have been insane. At least Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he wanted to pursue sanctions and diplomacy. It is interesting that McCain and Obama did not choose to vote at all. I suspect that the bill was a gotcha vote (non-binding, LIEberman involved) that neither of them wanted to fall for.
I hope we can get Feingold back in the Senate.