A House Divided! House Rejects Iran Deal (Matthew 12:21)

 
House rejects Iran nuclear deal
By Deirdre Walsh, CNN Senior Congressional Producer
Updated 3:23 PM ET, Fri September 11, 2015

Washington (CNN)A day after the Senate secured President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, blocking a Republican resolution to scuttle it, the GOP-led House pressed forward with a pair of votes designed to show a majority of the chamber disapproves of the agreement.

The votes come at the same time that the White House announced a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the works. Netanyahu has strenuously opposed the deal and appeared before Congress in March to lobby against it.

The Prime Minister will probably visit the White House in “early November,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a press briefing Friday. No specific date was given.

The fresh House votes can’t prevent the administration from starting to implement the agreement later this month, but Republicans want to send a political message.

A bill approving of the nuclear deal was resoundingly defeated, with 25 Democrats joining House Republicans in expressing opposition to the pact. One Republican, Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie, voted “present.”

On a second vote largely along party lines, the House passed legislation stating that the President could not unilaterally lift statutory sanctions. The measure was non-binding, and Senate Republicans have no plans to advance the bill. The vote was 247 to 186, with two Democrats voting with Republicans.

House Republicans recognize that after a relentless White House campaign to bolster Democratic support — giving Obama enough votes to sustain a veto of any anti-Iran deal bill — that they would not be able to prevent the administration from beginning implementation of the pact later this month. But they insisted that their framework of votes on the nuclear deal, in particular a vote Thursday afternoon, would set up a potential lawsuit.

That non-binding resolution states that the President violated the law by not giving Congress the details on “side deals” to the nuclear agreement related to inspections of Iranian sites, which are government by secret arrangements between Tehran and the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ahead of the House votes Friday, Illinois GOP Rep. Peter Roskam railed against the Iran deal and suggested the fight against it isn’t over in a speech on the House floor.

“Is this just a bad idea or is it the worst idea ever?” he asked. “The notion that this is all done and this is just a settled case — it’s not.”

Coming on the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the debate on the House floor Friday was at times emotional.

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly stood next to a large poster of New York’s Twin Towers and argued that letting the deal go through threatened national security.

New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley called out Republicans for scheduling the final vote on 9/11, accusing them of trying to “stir emotions.”

Noting that he lost a cousin in the 9/11 attacks, along with friends and constituents, he said his decision to support the White House was a tough one.

But Crowley added that after giving then-President George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt to approve the war in Iraq in 2002, he would give the same benefit to the current president “to take us to peace.”

Obama released a statement after the House votes stressing that the vast majority of House Democrats went on record supporting the deal.

“As we conclude the most consequential national security debate since the decision to invade Iraq, I am gratified that the lawmakers, led by Democratic Leader (Nancy) Pelosi, who have taken care to judge the deal on the merits are joining our allies and partners around the world in taking steps that will allow for the implementation of this long-term, comprehensive deal,” he said.

Karma Is About To Teach Babylon A Very Hard Lesson (Rev 16)

U.S. Judge Dismisses Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuit

The Bikini Atoll Hydrogen Bomb

February 9, 2015

February 6, 2015 – On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, U.S. Federal Court Judge Jeffrey White dismissed the U.S. Nuclear Zero Lawsuit.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits against all nine nuclear-armed nations in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and separately against the United States in U.S. Federal District Court. The lawsuits call upon these nations to fulfill their legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and for total nuclear disarmament.

Judge White granted the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the RMI, although a party to the NPT, lacked standing to bring the case. White also ruled that the lawsuit is barred by the political question doctrine.

The Marshall Islands, a former U.S. territory in the northern Pacific, was the ground zero for 67 U.S. nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958 and suffered the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. The lawsuit, which the RMI plans to appeal, does not seek compensation, but rather, a court order requiring the U.S. to enter negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

Laurie Ashton, counsel for the RMI, respectfully expressed disappointment with the Court’s ruling, saying, “The next step is an appeal of the Court’s Order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As the RMI continues to pursue legal remedies to enforce the most important clause of the NPT, we implore the U.S. to honor its binding Article VI obligations, and call for and pursue the negotiations that have never begun—namely negotiations in good faith relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.”

David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and consultant to the RMI noted, “The Court’s decision on this is akin to turning the matter over to the foxes to guard the nuclear henhouse. This will cause many national leaders to reconsider the value of entering into treaties with the U.S.”

The RMI remains engaged in the three lawsuits for which there is compulsory jurisdiction at the ICJ – those against India, Pakistan and the UK. To learn more about the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, go to nuclearzero.org.