congress overrides President Obama's Veto; the fools!
whites are in for a surprise; this current bill that the congress passed allowing so-called victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia think they are gonna get paid. What you fools have done is opened up the process to destroy America. You see these idiots feel like they'll be able to file their suits in American courts and win. Well Saudi Arabia has courts of their own too; they'll lose their. Then there is the World Court and just a host of other things these fools aren't counting on. You have signed the papers of your own doom!
Congress Votes to Override Obama Veto on 9/11 Victims Bill
Photo
President Obama during a speech last week. He has conceded that Congress did not support his veto of the bill.Credit
Al Drago/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — An overwhelming majority in Congress on Wednesday overturned President Obama’s veto of legislation that would allow families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, the first successful override vote of his presidency.
The
9/11 override is a remarkable yet complicated bipartisan rebuttal, even
as some of its supporters conceded that they did not fully support the
legislation they had just voted for. Mr. Obama and his allies vowed to
find a way to tweak the legislation later.
In
recent days, Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and General
Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all
wrote letters to Congress warning of the dangers of overriding the veto.
The
law “could be devastating to the Department of Defense and its service
members,” Mr. Obama wrote, “and there is no doubt that the consequences
could be equally significant for our foreign affairs and intelligence
communities.” The White House and some lawmakers were already plotting
how they could weaken the law in the near future.
Yet
most of Mr. Obama’s greatest allies on Capitol Hill, who have labored
for nearly eight years to stop most bills he opposes from even crossing
his desk, turned against him, joining Republicans in the remonstrance.
“This
is a decision I do not take lightly,” said Senator Chuck Schumer,
Democrat of New York and one of the authors of this legislation. “This
bill is near and dear to my heart as a New Yorker, because it would
allow the victims of 9/11 to pursue some small measure of justice,
finally giving them a legal avenue to pursue foreign sponsors of the
terrorist attack that took from them the lives of their loved ones.”
Only
one senator, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, sided with the president
as 97 others voted Wednesday to override. In the House, the veto
override was approved a few hours later, 348 to 77.
The
bill succeeded not with significant congressional debate or intense
pressure from voters, but rather through the sheer will of the victims’
families, who seized on the 15th anniversary of the attack and an
election year to lean on members of Congress. That effort was aided by
the waning patience of lawmakers with the kingdom in recent years.
The
Senate vote also represents another White House miscalculation on
Capitol Hill, where it was once again slow to pressure members and to
see the cracks in its firewall against the bill.
Further,
the veto override, while thrilling to many Republicans, came on a bill
that was far from the Republicans’ priorities of unraveling the health care law
and pushing back on government regulations. Nor was it a measure they
had hoped to secure with the president’s help, like overhauling the tax
code or passing a major trade agreement.
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Senator
Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, gave voice to the unusual
ambivalence that many members of Congress have expressed since they
together unanimously passed the bill.
“I
do want to say I don’t think the Senate nor House has functioned in an
appropriate manner as it relates to a very important piece of
legislation,” said Mr. Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, who presumably could have played a role in the
hearings and debate he said went lacking. “I have tremendous concerns
about the sovereign immunity procedures that would be set in place by
the countries as a result of this vote,” which he then cast.
The
measure would amend a 1976 law that granted other countries broad
immunity from American lawsuits, allowing nations to be sued in federal
court if they are found to have played any role in terrorist attacks
that killed Americans on United States soil.
For several weeks this summer, a handful of Republican senators blocked the bill as they worked to soften its impact.
They
managed to add a provision that would allow the executive branch to
halt the litigation if the executive branch proved in court that
good-faith negotiations for a settlement with a nation were underway.
This would preserve the executive branch’s purview over foreign policy
while still giving a pathway for family members to sue.
The
Senate then voted unanimously to pass the bill and send it to the
House, with many lawmakers and many White House officials believing that
the House would never take up the legislation. Speaker Paul D. Ryan of
Wisconsin has made skeptical remarks about the measure, and
Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman
of the House Judiciary committee, did little with it.
Then
earlier this month, Mr. Ryan, who had encountered families of the Sept.
11 victims at a fund-raiser on Long Island, reversed suddenly his usual
position of bringing no major bill to the House floor that had not
passed muster with the relevant committee, and put the bill on a fast
track. The House voted hastily and overwhelmingly in favor, sending it
to Mr. Obama’s desk.
This led to some of the bill’s co-sponsors to express fear that it would actually become law.
The
bill’s path reflects a growing desire to re-examine Washington’s
alliance with Saudi Arabia, which for decades has been a cornerstone of
American foreign policy in the Middle East, and deep ambivalence,
especially among Republicans, of how to move forward.
Shortly
before the vote to override, for instance, Senator Mitch McConnell,
Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, fast-tracked a vote on a
measure that sought to block the sale of some tanks to the kingdom, which failed, signaling to Saudi Arabia that Congress had not turned its back on the nation.
Saudi Arabia
has warned the Obama administration and members of Congress that the
law could force them to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth
of American assets to avoid them from being seized in court settlements.
Next came the argument, made by the kingdom’s phalanx of lobbyists,
that the law would expose the United States to lawsuits abroad and
possibly cause complications for its armed forces.
That
view was rejected on the Senate floor Wednesday. “This is pretty much
close to a miraculous occurrence,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican
of Texas and one of the biggest champions of the measure, noting how
divided Congress is generally along partisan lines. “All of us have come
together and agreed that this is appropriate and the right thing to
do,” he said.
The
Senate vote was less a swipe at Saudi Arabia, he added, and more about
giving victims a voice. “When our interests diverge and it’s a question
of protecting American rights and American values, I think we should do
that,” he said. “This is not about severing our relationship with any
ally. This is simply a matter of justice.”
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