Senator Rand Paul submitted an amendment to the Transportation and HUD appropriation bill that has nothing to do with transportation or housing (sorry, no permanent link is available). It was just tabled. It won the support of a mere 13 senators, including Sen. Paul. See if you can figure out why it had so little support.
SA 1739. Mr. PAUL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 1243, making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the end of title I, insert the following:
Sec. __XXX. (a) Congress makes the following findings:
(1) On June 30, 2012, Mohamed Morsi was elected President of Egypt in elections that were certified as free and fair by the Egyptian Presidential Election Commission and the United Nations.
(2) On July 3, 2013, the military of Egypt removed the democratically elected President of Egypt, arrested his supporters, and suspended the Constitution of Egypt. These actions fit the definition of a military coup d’état.
(3) Pursuant to section 7008 of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Act, 2012 (division I of Public Law 112-74; 125 Stat. 1195), the United States is legally prohibited from providing foreign assistance to any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by a military coup d’état, or removed in such a way that the military plays a decisive role.
(4) The United States has suspended aid to countries that have undergone military coups d’état in the past, including the Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic, Thailand, Mali, Fiji, and Honduras.
(b)(1) In accordance with section 7008 of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Act, 2012 (division I of Public Law 112-74; 125 Stat. 1195), the United States Government, including the Department of State, shall refrain from providing to the Government of Egypt the assistance restricted under such section.
(2) In addition to the restrictions referred to in paragraph (1), the following restrictions shall be in effect with respect to United States assistance to the Government of Egypt:
(A) Deliveries of defense articles currently slated for transfer to Egyptian Ministry of Defense (MOD) and Ministry of Interior (MOI) shall be suspended until the President certifies to Congress that democratic national elections have taken place in Egypt followed by a peaceful transfer of power.
(B) Provision of defense services to Egyptian MOD and MOI shall be halted immediately until the President certifies to Congress that democratic national elections have taken place in Egypt followed by a peaceful transfer of power.
(C) Processing of draft Letters of Offer and Acceptance (LOAs) for future arms sales to Egyptian MOD and MOI entities shall be halted until the President certifies to Congress that democratic national elections have taken place in Egypt followed by a peaceful transfer of power.
(D) All costs associated with the delays in deliveries and provision of services required under subparagraphs (A) through (C) shall be borne by the Government of Egypt.
(c) Any amounts retained by the United States as a result of implementing subsection (b) shall be made available to the Secretary of Transportation to carry out activities under the heading “BRIDGES IN CRITICAL CORRIDORS”.
I like how he made it germane by taking any potential savings and repurposing it to build bridges in critical corridors. How progressive of him. Very cute.
Under the letter of the law, Egypt should have its aid suspended if it is determined that a coup d’etat took place there. It’s a noble and, yet, stupid law. Aid to Egypt is part of the Camp David Accords, and if we expect Egypt to stay at peace with Israel, then we need to keep our end of the bargain. Our relationship with Egypt is controversial, as it should be, but it is also one of our most important relationships. And our policy should not be set by some catch-all pro-democracy statute, let alone by the nutcase junior senator from Kentucky. And it certainly shouldn’t be determined by language in a bill to fund the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.
The way the Obama administration is getting around the law is by refusing to define what happened in Egypt as a coup d’etat. It’s an inelegant solution to a stupid problem. But it’s a solution.
Secretary of State Kerry is trying to kickstart new peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which, if successful, would be in our national interests. Fucking with our aid package to Egypt in this context would be sub-mental. But sub-mental is what Rand Paul does for a living.
It pains me to say it, but while his motives are (to put it mildly) suspect, Paul has a point.
The Obama administration is simply ignoring the law, and everyone knows it – in essence because they think that, as you say, in this case it’s a stupid law. Criminalized pot is a stupid law, too. Yet hundreds of thousands of people are in jail or prison because of it, and even in states which have legalized medical use – or, in the case of Washington and Colorado, all use – the administration has been relentless in its harassment of dispensaries and other legal (at the state level) distributors.
The stated reason for this is that whether they think it’s a wise law or not, the Obama administration feels compelled to follow the letter of the law.
So your defense, basically, is that this (or any) administration should be able to pick and choose which laws it follows, and which it doesn’t? It doesn’t take a rabid libertarian to see that there’s all kinds of problems with that precedent.
As for the specific situation, suspending aid wouldn’t blow up Camp David – the Egyptian military is completely dependent on that aid, and methinks if it disappeared – or even if the Egyptians thought it might – there’d be elections in weeks, not months. But that’s just my conjecture, and I guess we’ll never know, will we?
On your last point, the way to deal with it is (shudders) quietly on the diplomatic front with our ambassador, military attache, and commander in the theater (without it all being published by Wikileaks, because freedom!).
On your former point, I strongly disagree with your characterization of the administration’s motives on the medical marijuana front, as well as their record. But, you’re right, it’s a problem when the law is brazenly disregarded. In this case, there is enough leeway to do the intelligent thing and, fortunately, the Senate (who passed the stupid law in the first place) overwhelmingly agrees.
No argument that a quiet approach would be best – but it’s still disregarding the law. On the pot front, sorry, but you’re simply wrong.
Talk to anyone in the medical marijuana movement, especially out west. Locally, there have been a number of coordinated raids on dispensaries, starting about a year ago (before WA passed Referendum 74, which entirely legalized it at the state level). They continue – there was another one in Tacoma only a couple of weeks ago. CA, AZ, CO, and several other states have had similar experiences. And “so long as it’s the law we have to enforce it” has been exactly the rationale given by the feds. Which is idiotic – the DoJ, DEA, and FBI, like any other law enforcement agencies, have limited resources and chooses all the time not to emphasize particular crimes.
This has, for whatever reason, become something they’re emphasizing, at least in the states I’ve heard of where federal law conflicts with state law, and probably others – I don’t really follow that issue closely at the national level. It’s been the subject of multiple meetings between our governors (WA got a new one in January) and DC. To say pot activists are disappointed with Obama is an understatement – many of them are livid. The Obama administration has been far more aggressive of late than Bush’s regime ever was, and nobody understands why.
Sorry for the tangent, but this an one issue I happen to know of where the Obama administration has specifically used – and is still using – the same rationale it’s now disavowed regarding aid to Egypt. One or both are disingenuous at best.
As you know, overall I very much appreciate Obama (on his own merits, never mind what the alternatives would have been), but there are some issues on which he’s just been abominable. Civil liberties is the obvious one. Pot is another.
In Sacramento, at least, I think the feds did a good job of controlling a situation that was getting a little out of control. You had a lot of places starting to pop up that weren’t even following California’s laws, just profiteering off of 215, really. So the feds started sending threatening letters to dispensaries’ landlords, which was a bit rude, but also I have to saw awfully efficient.
And it’s not like they stomped out medical cannabis in Sacramento, either. There are still dispensaries, but they’re back down to a reasonable number.
I guess the more general principle should be that if we’re giving a country any kind of aid, we should reserve the right to suspend that aid if the recipient begins acting in ways that are not in our interests. But the requiring the executive to suspend aid is stupid, because you need some flexibility there. It should be a tool that’s available, but it won’t always be the appropriate one.
Although if we were to start following such policies, the place to start would be Israel.
Comparing foreign policy, which the President has direct, unmediated control over, with the DEA following through with the job assigned to it by Congress is very misleading.
“The administration” is busting pot shops in Seattle. Right, I’m pretty sure it’s Biden serving the warrants.
It’s also misleading because the reason the administration cracked down on dispensaries was because a) they were frauds who were selling to everyone, and b) they were setting them up near schools causing a flood of complaints from parents.
Joe: From all appearances it’s the DoJ leading the charge. Last I checked, that’s the Executive Branch. Citing Congress because it passed the law is exactly what the administration has been doing, and that was my point – the administration is aggressively enforcing bad laws because they’re laws in one case, but somehow, for Egypt, looking the other way is just fine.
Boo: You’re right, that’s been the pretext for a number of busts here (the school issue), and especially in CA, whose dispensary system was a mess, some – but not all – of the targets were, in fact, badly abusing the system. Yet somehow, in the past, a lot of these issues were worked out quietly, not with high-profile media busts.
And there have been a number of other actions having nothing to do with location or the clientele: all dispensaries are having trouble opening bank accounts because the feds have told banks that they’ll be liable if they handle drug money. And at least three US Attorneys (Western WA, RI, and I forget the other one – maybe NM?) have intervened in state legislative legalization efforts by telling the state governments that state employees would be liable for federal prosecution if the state followed through. (The WA legalization was via initiative precisely because the then-governor vetoed a similar bill in response.) All that is well above and beyond what’s ever been done before in the nearly 20 years since the first states starting legalizing medical marijuana.
Sorry for the OT tangent, but both of you are simply trotting out the White House line here, and I know you’re both more thoughtful than that.
Your response to “the DEA is doing the job assigned to it by Congress” is to note that the DEA is in the executive branch?
Thanks, Geov! I never knew that!
BooMan, did you actually give front-page status to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between the terms “executive branch” and “administration?”
Tell me, Geov, when the EPA issued compliance orders to polluters in 2007, was that “the Bush administration” that was cracking down on polluters? Or was that the permanent executive branch, carrying out the mission given to it by Congress? Did Dick Cheney order those compliance orders to go out?
both of you are simply trotting out the White House line here
It’s sad that this is the only way you are able to consider government and politics.
Then there is the issue of trying to put those reality show two in jail for mortgage fraud while just giving a slap on the wrist to the banksters for the same thing.
I guess you missed this: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/us-financialcrisis-fraud-probes-idUSBRE96G13620130717
But that’s just my conjecture, and I guess we’ll never know, will we?
Ahem: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/24/u-s-to-delay-f-16-delivery-to-egypt/
Good for them.
Now, is this information that you somehow managed not to know going to influence your opinion?
The problem with the stupid law is it’s stupid wording. You say the law is being violated. But it’s not.
Coup d’êtat is not defined in the law so it is up to the sitting administration to define any given act. That is what happened. The law is being followed. big glaring loophole and all.
It’s a sham law, a feel-good law. If the people who wrote this law meant for it to be iron-clad then they have only themselves to blame. But the odds are no one intended this law to be iron-clad. It was all for show from the word go. Congress got to thump its chest and pretend it was the Administration for awhile.
Laws like this are in general dangerous and probably most often counter-productive. One congress should not handcuff every future administration with a one-size fits all solution to every future crisis. Congress is not prescient. We have a Section II branch of government to make exactly these sort of judgement calls. That’s what they are there to do.
so as to be liberally interpreted by all whom it meets.
While I agree with you in general, fair elections in Egypt would just return Islamists to power and we saw where that was going.
As it stands, I think the Obama administration should also ignore the marijuana law because it’s stupid. But Obama–perhaps because he is the parent of teenage girls, perhaps because he fears the black man dealer caricature the right salivates over–has proven extremely regressive about the policy.
” fair elections in Egypt would just return Islamists to power and we saw where that was going.”
And you know this, how?
Because large majorities of Egyptians want an Islamic government.
Note: This is not the same as saying they will return the MB to power.
no, not large majorities, not majorities even. hence the demonstrations
Ah thanks for clearing up that you did not mean the MusBro specifically. But still I personally would not make such iron-clad predictions on an election in another country. Reading the polls in this country I’ve lived in my entire life can be deceiving enough.
Plus IIRC (which admittedly I may not be doing) it’s my understanding several political orgs stayed out of the last Egyptian election to protest the process. I doubt they will make that same decision.
Do you think it was problematic when the President decided to stop enforcing DOMA, DADT, and deportations of non-undocumented aliens?
People in the Blogosphere often say we are a nation of laws and we should follow the rule of law. I always ask what about unjust laws like the ones I mention above. No one ever has the courage to answer.
It’s sole purpose is to waste Senate time and showboat a little. Delay. Delay. Delay.
An honest amendment would have added money for bridges and offset it with a financial transaction tax on mortgage and other real estate derivatives.
Sadly, Rand could become Kentucky’s senior senator.
Only until Ashley Judd sends Rand back home.
Considering the road to that destination, that’s not really sad news at all. Well, it’s sad for the squished turtle in the middle of that road.
Not for senior Senator sadness, may I suggest Ron Johnson (R-WI)? I know I’m cryin’.
So Rand Paul supports Muslim extremists. I wonder if the people of Kentucky realize that.
good point
The father of one of my childhood friends writes short stories that have application to broader issues.
Democratically elected but did not proceed democratically – and Rand Paul is probably ok with that. But as far as being a coup, the event could also be defined as [the beginning of] an attempt to restore the democratic process – as hopefully it will play out [I know Strunk and White don’t believe in use of that adverb]