As promised, President Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) today, setting up what could be the first Congressional override of his entire presidency. JASTA would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for that nation’s involvement in supporting the attackers.
Obama has initially been keen to hold off on the veto until after the November elections, hoping that recently reelected Democrats would feel safer in changing their votes when they won’t have to answer to voters for a long time. This is particularly true in the Senate, which is seen as the body more likely to uphold the veto.
Both the House and Senate unanimously passed JASTA this summer, and House leaders say they are confident they will have more than enough support to override a veto. Heavy Saudi lobbying, however, has raised question marks in the Senate, and multiple senators are openly suggesting they’ll switch sides next time, citing the “dangerous precedent” the bill sets.
JASTA would be a special case abrogation of sovereign immunity, a legal premise that allows governments to do whatever they want without fear of legal repercussions from individuals. President Obama has warned that the precedent of allowing American victims to sue the Saudis for their role in the deadly 9/11 attack would also potentially open up the US to lawsuits for its own substantial back catalogue of misdeeds.
Saudi officials have openly threatened to collapse the US Treasury market in retaliation if JASTA is signed into law, and that likely also plays no small role in administration aversion to the bill, though publicly they have downplayed that angle, and focused instead on the risk of damaging sovereign immunity as such.
In practice, however, US law doesn’t recognize sovereign immunity as absolute. This theoretically allows lawsuits against state sponsors of terror, though this often depends heavily on Congressional and presidential decrees singling out a specific country, which usually happens to be a rival at the time, to allow such a suit.
The Senate has not yet set a date for the override vote, but Sen. Chuck Schumer (D – NY) expressed confidence that the votes were there to keep the bill from being killed by the president.
“Saudi officials have openly threatened to collapse the US Treasury market in retaliation if JASTA is signed into law …”
No they didn’t. All they said is that no country could afford to keep it’s foreign reserves in US Treasuries if all it would take is some Cohen or Levey in the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to declare it a “supporter of terrorism” for the US to block its central bank from the SWIFT system.
Which is thus even the more clever threat in the form of political jujutsu.
It is not really a threat just a statement of fact. Would you keep your money in a bank which announces that it can confiscate it at any time?
A lot of people did have some of their money confiscated by their banks in Cyprus not long ago. Now depositors around the world are much more wary of potential “bail-ins.”
At any rate, since the Saudis are the #1 enforcer of the “only dollars for oil” rule, they would be slitting their own economic throats if they dumped the USD.
it’s not even money. Its T-bills. As in, a promise by the US to seize US taxpayer wealth at maturity and hand it to you. Great stuff.
Then why would the Saudis bring it up at all? Especially given the fact that, as Strider73 points out, the Saudis would be “slitting their own economic throats if they dumped the USD”?
Maybe each is reminding the other of the symbiotic relationship they have with each other. On the other hand, maybe the Saudis indeed have no intention of following through on their threat. Maybe it really is nothing more than to provide Obama political cover for the veto. Maybe it is all kabuki theater.
From the article: “President Obama has warned that the precedent of allowing American victims to sue the Saudis for their role in the deadly 9/11 attack would also potentially open up the US to lawsuits for its own substantial back catalogue of misdeeds.”
I can imagine only two very different reasons why one would think this was a bad thing: 1) The U.S. government is exceptional and therefore should not be held accountable for its “misdeeds.” 2) It’s the U.S. taxpayer who would be burdened with with the cost of restitution, and not those in power who actually committed those “misdeeds.”
Both inconveniently draw attention to the real problem: the unaccountability for its actions of government itself.
The “unaccountability for its actions of government itself” is a feature, not a bug — at least from the point of view of politicians and bureaucrats.
remembering they did it to the Iranians!
Sep 11, 2016 Justice In Focus After 15 Years Of 911 Truth
While covering the 15th anniversary of the September 11th attacks Dan dicks of Press For Truth spoke with Richard Gage of Architects And Engineers For 911 Truth about the progression of the movement over the last 15 years and where it needs to go from here.
https://youtu.be/KEP8-O06N_I
Richard Gage! What a fraud, a faker, and a liar, as well as a conspiracy theory wingnut. Controlled demolitions in all 3 towers? Like, the aircraft weren’t real and they set charges to bring down the 3 buildings in front of thousands of people who frequented the buildings before 911? Which would have taken weeks of work?
I’ve already told you above how steel is weakened to the point of being structurally useless when heated to even cherry red. Are you writing from an insane asylum Lincoln? And what’s your purpose?
“What is your purpose?” 3 buildings did collapse, nearly identically, into their own footprints on that day. From fires that were not burning at the base of the buildings, but nearly a third of the way up the buildings. So for people to ask questions or be skeptical is normal.
May 25, 2014 FDNY 9/11 Survivor Witness and Whistleblower Speaks on WTC 7
Listen very carefully starting at the ’20’ second mark! As a firefighter on 9/11, he was at Ground Zero and was there when Building 7 came down.
https://youtu.be/ePPdUUISQOs?list=UUhwwoeOZ3EJPobW83dgQfAg
O.k. then LIncoln, it’s just a wingnut conspiracy theory you’re tying to push and here’s why. The witness talks about a fire hot enough to melt steel and that’s pure nonsense. Anybody with a grade 9 education would know about what heppens to steel when it gets cherry red or yellow in colour. It becomes about as soft and pliable as a piece of plastice or putty. And a fire is easily capable of raising stell to that kind of temperature. And when steel is raised to that temperature it no longer is capable of holding up tall buildings.
So there’s the guts of your conspiracy dismantled. What else have you got for the stupic people who read your crap?
Sep 5, 2016 9/11 Suspects Rudy Giuliani
Mayor Giuliani oversaw the illegal destruction of the 9/11 crime scene and is criminally liable for the deaths of hundreds of emergency workers for not passing on prior warnings about the collapses of the Twin Towers. It is no wonder, then, that the Fire Department of New York so passionately detest Giuliani for his actions in disgracing their fallen brothers and covering up the 9/11 crime.
https://youtu.be/Cl85JSvDmsA
Covering up what Lincoln? Covering up the idea that it wasn’t commercial jet aircraft and it wasn’t terrorists?
Let’s hear your version of the conspiracy now?