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PA-Sen: Casey Hammers Senate Republicans, Calls Iran Letter “Reckless”

Casey and ToomeyDemocratic Senator Bob Casey made a strong statement against Senate Republicans who sent a controversial letter to Iranian leaders on Wednesday regarding its nuclear weapons program.

“This is a misguided and reckless attempt to circumvent a sitting U.S. President by going directly to the leader of the Iranian regime – a longtime adversary of the United States,” Sen. Casey said.

“It is clear that many Americans find it offensive.”

The letter was the brainchild of Arkansas freshman Senator Tom Cotton.

In a USA Today article by Cotton, he said the letter was written to “inform [Iran] of the role Congress plays in approving their agreement. Our goal is simple: to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey was one of those other 46 Republicans who also signed the letter.

“No one has been tougher on this issue than I,” Casey wrote. “We should be focusing on bipartisan policy, not engaging in partisan theatrics.”

The letter could discourage Tehran from reaching a deal with President Obama because it stated that any nuclear agreement could be voided by a future administration or Congress itself.

Cotton claims that the Senators who signed the letter were “simply speaking for the American people” with the hope to prevent a bad deal which could lead to Iran developing a nuclear weapon.

Many Democrats and some Republicans have joined the outcry against the letter, asserting that it was an unprecedented attempt to undermine President Obama.

20 Responses

  1. Toomey and Casey should offer up a 2fer for the residents of Pa. Both should resign the same day.

  2. Senator Casey is the one who is reckless! Where has he been? What has he done for PA? He has been completely absent in national issues since taking office! I guess that is what happens when you’re elected based on name only. I’m sure at least half the voters thought they were voting for daddy when they casted a vote for Casey for Senate! Come out from hiding Bob! We’re dying to hear your voice and see your leadership! What a waste of a US Senate seat!

  3. Seriously Tom? The only difference I see is that Jim Wright and Nancy Pelosi were Democratic legislators injecting themselves into foriegn policy negotiations of Repulican presidents and now we have 47 Republican legislators interjecting into the business of a Democratic president. One seems to piss you off more than the other…wonder why?

  4. Hey Pete if you cant tell the difference between individual actions in foreign policy as opposed to 47 Senators in a concentrated effort to interject themselves in foreign policy negotiations undercutting not only the President but also the integrity of the United States world wide, I don’t know what to tell you.

  5. It may or may not have been treasonous or seditious, and it may have actually helped the administration in its negotiations with Iran, but what really matters to me as a Pennsylvanian is that, in signing the letter, Toomey just made it much easier to replace him with a Democrat in 2016.

  6. Hey Lee, here is a little historical perspective that we don’t have to image…Jim Wright directly negotiating with Daniel Ortega, the Communist dictator of Nicaragua,in the 1980’s or perhaps more recently, Nancy Pelosi meeting with Assad. You guys are such hypocrites.

  7. You don’t have to be a Persian scholar to know that Iran has repeatedly called for the total destruction of Israel and therefore can not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. I realize that Pakistan has nuclear weapons as a deterrence to India, but they are not a Theocracy. I’m not at all confident that the concept of MAD will work with a culture that so readily adopts the tactics of suicide bombing.

  8. Let’s put this into a historical prospective about
    these 47 Senators who wrote the Iranian Government. What do you think President Lyndon Johnson ‘s reply would have been to Senators that wrote a similar letter to Ho Chi Minh in 1965. I believe Treasonous Action would have been the catch word with heavy consequences for those who wrote the letter.

  9. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I hope the pedantry will be forgiven because meaning is important. This is why foreign languages need greater focus in US schools – the Persian “marg bar Amrika” is deceptively translated as “Death to America” and so many conservatives I know (many of whom struggle with proper English) love to get their pants in a bunch over it as this great existential threat. If you talk to anyone who actually, you know, speaks Persian, they’ll tell you it’s like saying “down with America” and generally has connotations of being against perceived American imperialism among mainstream Iranians, not an actual wish to annihilate America or kill Americans.

    After the CIA’s deposition of Iran’s democratically elected leader and installation of a brutal and incompetent dictator, I can appreciate their skepticism. That isn’t to excuse present bad behavior, but this isn’t some good versus evil fantasy – it’s international relations. The grown ups should handle the diplomacy instead of the people sucking the teat of the military industrial complex.

  10. This smells like treason to me… those 47 Senators violated their oath of office and should be immediately impeached.

  11. “George” is full of crap. The 47 senators think that the South won the Civil War and that states’ rights trump federal law. Wrong. Yes, Obama is mediocre, or worse. But we either live by the Constitution, or we don’t. The senators should be voted out of office.

  12. Unsanctioned-

    The only “help” Obama gets from this is the GOP looking so bad/stupid that it makes him look like the smartest/sanest elected official in our country. But, let’s be clear, the GOP’s goal was to weaken Obama and scuttle a treaty/agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions instead of resorting to war. The GOP wants war.

  13. Already established is that this letter helps our president to negotiate the strictest terms he can. The only reason for someone to object is because they don’t mind Iran having the tools to bring, “Death to America,” as Sestak correctly quoted their Supreme Leader.

  14. The foreign press is eating this up.. Headlines around the globe declaring ‘United States Senators Warn Iran Not to Trust President’ .. And ‘US Senators Demand US Unable, Not to be Trusted with Negotiations..,. Or this heartbreaking one ‘United States Senators Vote no Confidence in United States’…..FIVE of the countries running with such headlines, were IN the discussions with the US…. Damaging damaging stuff.

    A huge pox of shame on the Republican House..

    I’d like to think it was one big horrible mistake and they will come around and admit they goofed and try like patriots to get their act together for the sake of the country and all of us who live here,

    Instead, I see this morning they have doubled down with fangs drawn and are defending the nonsense. Which makes me realize they are not making mistakes, they are calculatedly evil and self serving to the extreme.

  15. Bless the 47 Senators who signed this letter. In the face of incompetence by Obama and Kerry they did the right thing, In my lifetime I never thought we would see leaders more corrupt and arrogant than Nixon- and more incompetent than Carter. To paraphrase what Senator Graham said about Kerry- we could stay the same about Casey- Bob doesn’t know what he is talking about! More Americans are turned off by the arrogance of Obama, Reid and Pelosi than 47 republican senators. Bob gave us Reid, Obamacare, greater corruption and polarization , and a sell out to the killers of Tehran. He should not be so quick in condemning others- Casey is a political hack-unlike his Dad who stood for some core values

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