- Iran Treaty repeal promise “repealed”
- Obamacare repeal promise reinvigorated?
- Cynics can claim vindication, realists can still rely on that the alternative was immensely worse (prospects of a Clinton administration)
Our advice to voters, instead of “Trust but verify? Better: “examine, verify, hold accountable”
From The Daily Caller: (excerpt)
The Trump administration recertified the Iranian nuclear deal Monday
The agreement, also known as the JCPOA, went into effect in October 2015 and is between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the U.S., the European Union, and Iran. President Obama said the agreement would stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, although then-candidate Trump slammed it and promised to “rip up” the deal.
“My number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” Trump said in a May 2016 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Senior administration officials, however, told reporters that Iran has followed the conditions laid out in the nuclear deal and thus it will be recertified. A senior official said that Iran is not following the “spirit” of the agreement, therefore new sanctions will be levied against Iran. A senior administration official pointed to Iran’s missile development, hostility to Israel, cyberattacks against foreign nations, and human rights abuses as causes for concern.
A senior official said that “moving forward the administration intends to employ a strategy that will address the totality of Iran’s malign behavior and not just narrowly focus on the nuclear agreement.”
All I can say is WTF and please educate us ignorant deplorables. Indeed, from the above regarding Iran’performance vis a vi Obama’s agreement with them: “has followed” but “not kept to the spirit”? So the conditions of the agreement were weak, the only thing Iran would keep to is weak conditions, but because IRAN technically kept to a weak deal for peace-loving people, the Trump administration will recertify something he vociferously opposed, a “deal” that was unconstitutional. It was a treaty requiring Senate confirmation. Great. Forget the human rights abuses of a nuclear bomb, the purpose of which is cataclysmic hostility to Israel and the West. Lets work on the cyber attacks hostility.
Also from The Daily Caller
BREAKING: Trump, McConnell, Pence Call For Full, Clean Obamacare Repeal
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the full, clean repeal of Obamacare in late-night statements Monday.
The statements were released after four Republican senators backed away from the repeal-and-replace bill, leaving McConnell unable to reach the 50 votes required to pass the Obamacare rewrite. (RELATED: Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill Dead In Current Form)
“Regretfully, it is not apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell followed in a statement 31 minutes later, at 11:48 p.m.
“So,” he continued, “in the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority of the Senate already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama: a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a state transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.”
Republican Sens. Rand Paul, a Kentucky conservative, and Susan Collins, a Maine liberal, had opposed the Senate’s second repeal-and-replace bill early on. Paul, because he felt it left Obamacare in place; Collins, because she opposed repealing the welfare programs it entailed. They were joined in their opposition Monday by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas.
“If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now,” Trump tweeted on June 30, referencing the first attempt to repeal and replace, “they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!”
The plan to pass a clean repeal bill was first heralded by conservatives, including Sen. Paul and Heritage Action, because they believed the horse-trading necessary to accomplish both repeal and replace at the same time would hobble the effort. Their plan was to push for a two-year window where congressmen and senators would be able to craft replacement legislation after Obamacare’s fate was set.
Democrats, who have vowed to torpedo any GOP effort to repeal Obamacare, might then be pulled to the negotiation table, enabling Washington to pass a bill with support from both parties.
The likeliness of bipartisan support is still low, given the atmosphere in Washington, the parties’ widely differing agendas, and the polarized mood of the parties’ supporters.
There is political hope in this if it gets around Susan Collins, or isolates her enough to provide the necessary margin from others. For the record, because this was apparently not feasible even a few weeks ago, in part for lack of explanation to the general public, (the time period for the actual repeal is two years giving time for replacement), Ted Cruz’s amendment offering “choice” had much merit. “If you like your mandates and cost of Obamacare you can keep it”. The problem was it was being amended down so as to adulterate the economics. But it was a worthy effort with potential.
Now bets are being taken as to what will happen in two years should this pass, another two-year extension with a promise to replace after that?
R Mall
