Letter: admonish Thune, Rounds for mutiny

Couldn't have said better myself.

South Dakota citizens need to send a strong message of condemnation to Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds for signing the ill-written and poorly considered Iran letter authored by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Both South Dakota senators, along with 45 other Republican senators in Washington, disgraced our state and our nation by taking part in a seriously questionable tactic to disrupt nuclear negotiations with Iran. Expressing a short-circuited message to Tehran equates to nonfunctional U.S. policy.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the negotiations, it is important to realize that the actions taken by this now infamous "47" are inappropriate and dangerous. Had they truly considered the best needs of our country, they would have created a congressional bipartisan conference committee to meet with the president and form a cogent U.S. strategy. Instead, they resorted to a clumsy and offensive betrayal of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy by trying to wrestle away executive branch purview not unlike toddlers.

This participation in unilateral debauchery, Thune and Rounds have displayed an alarming lack of diplomacy, discernment and knowledge of our nation's governmental process, and the Constitution which they are pledged to uphold.

I call on South Dakotans to strongly admonish our senators' conduct and give them the message we will accept no more. [Mary Claus]

How We Know AIPAC Wrote The GOP's "Treason" Letter To Iran

Both the White House and Congressional Democrats aren’t happy with 47 Republican Senators who sent a letter to Iranian leaders. The 47 Republican senators, including South Dakota’s John Thune and Mike Rounds, said in the letter that an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that isn’t ratified by Congress would only be an executive agreement. This would run the risk of cancelation [sic] should the next President wish to do so. Democrats say these 47 senators are bypassing and weakening the President’s push to reach a deal to limit the Iranian nuclear program. [KELO]

From Geoffrey Cowley writing at MSNBC:

Experts estimate that Israel now has 60 to 80 nuclear bombs, ranging from 20 kilotons to one megaton (1,000 kilotons) in destructive power. By the end of this decade, Israel could have 200 nukes in its arsenal, and Iran could have 20 smaller devices. Suppose, as the authors do, that Iran could hit three Israeli cities with 15-kiloton bombs—one reaching Haifa, one reaching Beer Sheva and two reaching Tel Aviv. Roughly 400,000 people would die in the initial blasts, the simulations show, and 230,000 would survive with burns and traumatic injuries. Tel Aviv alone would lose a quarter-million people (about 17% of its population), and 147,000 of its survivors would desperately need medical care.

Zionists, terrorists, war criminals: just a few truths being spoken to power.