SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
For the first time since President Obama took office in 2009, Congress has overridden his veto.
The U.S. Senate voted 97-1 to override President Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which would allow victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. The lone dissenting vote was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who has "always had the president's back":
In a letter Monday to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter warned that allowing the bill to become law risked "damaging our close and effective cooperation with other countries" and "could ultimately have a chilling effect on our own counter-terrorism efforts." Thornberry and Smith both circulated letters among members in the last few days, urging them to vote against overriding the veto. CIA Director John O. Brennan also warned of the 9/11 bill's "grave implications for the national security of the United States" in a statement Wednesday.
The House of Representatives voted 348-to-77:
Congress on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to override a veto by President Obama for the first time, passing into law a bill that would allow the families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot.
Democrats in large numbers joined with Republicans to deliver a remarkable rebuke to the president. The 97-to-1 vote in the Senate and the 348-to-77 vote in the House displayed the enduring power of the Sept. 11 families in Washington and the diminishing influence here of the Saudi government.
See also: The Risks of Suing the Saudis for 9/11 by the New York Times Editorial Board and this article in the Saudi Gazette.
Previously: President Obama to Veto Bill Allowing September 11 Victims to Sue Saudi Arabia
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:14PM
These dummies just hamstrung US covert operations. We have a long history of supporting violent groups in other countries. Bay of Pigs for example. Then there are all the rebel groups in Syria today. And, in the ultimate display of hypocrisy, 28 senators who voted for this veto over-ride immediately published a letter that basically says to ignore their votes. [senate.gov] That right there is a list of the most craven people in the Senate, politicians in the worst sense of the word who want to have their cake (get their flag-waving, grandma-and-apple-pie vote on the record) and eat it too (have it not actually count).
Personally, I think I am in favor of this law passing. Not because I'm a brainless jingoist, but because of those unintended consequences. Maybe this will cause the CIA to have second thoughts about meddling in other countries.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:32PM
The other unintended consequence, of course, is that foreign governments and investors might be a little less confident in holding assets in the US if those assets are suddenly subject to forfeiture in the event of some random lawsuit. It will be interesting to see if there is a sudden exodus of Saudi cash from the US to other markets when this legislation passes.
In a way I guess this is not so different to what the US authorities have been doing for decades: Grabbing darker skinned people off the street, accusing them of crimes[1] and using it as a pretext to take all their cash and valuables.
[1] Not that I am entirely convinced the Saudis are blameless in 9/11, but that's hardly the point. This is not the right way to go about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Thursday September 29 2016, @04:41PM
28 senators who voted for this veto over-ride immediately published a letter that basically says to ignore their votes
Don't worry, history has been rewritten
"You don't have permission to access "http://serve-403-cf.www.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d8eee900-5ffc-4204-a4f1-8072c104d9c2/Bipartisan%20Senate%20JASTA%20Letter%20092816.pdf" on this server."
https://www.scribd.com/document/325673727/Bipartisan-Senate-JASTA-Letter-092816 [scribd.com] has a copy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @05:02PM
The link in the OP still works for me. Its pulling the PDF from corker's server at the senate which is a different one from your error message.