Wednesday Open Thread [3.11.15]

“The U.S. Senate Historian’s Office has so far been unable to find another example in the chamber’s history where one political party openly tried to deal with a foreign power against a presidential policy, as Republicans have attempted in their open letter to Iran this week,” McClatchy reports.

That is because the letter is an act of unmitigated treason, designed to aid America’s adversary, Iran, and directly harm the United States. All those involved in the preparation, signing, and delivery of the letter must be detained.

Dana Milbank has some thoughts:

It’s true that 47 Republican senators did their level best to bring us closer to war by writing a letter to Iran’s mullahs, attempting to scuttle nuclear talks with the United States. But Republicans aren’t exactly subverting the United States. It’s more as if they’re operating their own independent republic on Capitol Hill. Call it the State of Republicania. […] The defense industry contributed more than $25 million in the 2014 election cycle and spent more than $250 million lobbying over that time period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For the defense industry, this is a good investment: If Senate Republicans blow up nuclear talks, it makes war with Iran that much more likely — and nobody would benefit as much from that war as military contractors. […]

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of just seven Republican senators not to sign Cotton’s letter to the ayatollahs, said she thought it “more appropriate for members of the Senate to give advice to the president” and U.S. negotiators.

Spoken like a true American — which, in the corridors of Republicania these days, is nigh unto treason.

Michael Tomasky:

I have probably written many times in the past that Republicans hit a new low, but as of this week you can toss all those. This Senate letter is the definite low of all time. I didn’t think these people could shock me, but this one genuinely was shocking in so many ways—not least the dishonor it brings on the United States Senate—that every other nutso thing they’ve done drops down one notch on the charts.

Treason, as the Daily News blared? I don’t know for sure about that. But I know to a certainty that if a group of Democratic senators had done this to a Republican president, Republicans and conservative pundits would be screaming the T-word and demanding the Justice Department investigate the senators.

Imagine 47 Democrats sending a letter to Gorbachev during the Start II talks? Republicans would call that treason.

Jay Bookman at The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

[I]n their stubborn righteousness, in their self-satisfied belief that they and only they are the wise and proper spokesmen for this country, they have made the United States look weak in the eyes of the world. They have taken the true source of whatever influence we might carry — our unity — and they have debased it. They have done real harm to this country.
There’s no excuse for it. […]

You don’t invite foreign leaders into your councils of government to undercut your own duly chosen leaders, no matter how much you may dislike those leaders. Nor do you reach out to a foreign enemy, opening your own negotiation channels, to try to sabotage the policies of those who were elected by your people and designated in the Constitution to handle those responsibilities.

When we speak to the world, we speak in one voice, as the United States of America, not as subsets of Americans who can be played off each other for the advantage of outsiders. We do not allow outsiders to divide us. We don’t invite outsiders to become players in our own affairs.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 42% of Republican primary voters say they couldn’t see themselves supporting Jeb Bush for the GOP presidential nomination, while only 49% who said they could. That’s devastating. I have to assume that with those numbers, if Bush is nominated, we will see a third party conservative candidacy.

“The results underscore an early theme of the Republican nominating contest: Mr. Bush might be the favorite of many top donors and operatives, but he faces hurdles in appealing to the party’s voters, giving him little room to maneuver in what promises to be a crowded field.”

Although Vice President Joe Biden has said he is seriously considering a run for president and has visited some early-primary states, National Journal says he’s not running.

“He’s doing nothing—nothing—to stand up an operation. No exploratory committee. No organizing in early states. No super PAC or allied nonprofit. Indeed, no ‘Ready for Joe’ bumper stickers are being printed and sent to field offices.”

The media is “concerned” that the Democrats have Plan B, clutching their pearls and screaming ‘won’t someone think of the children!?!’ Yes, that Plan B is not Papa Joe. The Plan B is Elizabeth Warren. Warren will jump in the minute Hillary looks mortally wounded in the campaign.

One of the racist fucks at the SAE Fraternity at the University of Oklahoma has apologized. I would take that apology and burn it up right in front of him. It is nice that you apologized, but who the hell cares? We are still going to destroy your life. Why? Because you are a racist. If you are a racist, you must be destroyed, no matter your latter regret. Racism must be made so forbidden that not only do you not say the racism you are thinking for fear that you will be destroyed, but you do not think it either.

If you notice that I am more strident than usual today in some of my opinions, blame the Philadelphia Eagles.