Rand Paul opposed to massive Saudi Arm sales, will force vote in a week !

[Shadows]

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul is expected to offer legislation as soon as Wednesday that would block President Donald Trump's $110 billion weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Paul recently joined three Democrats in proposing to make future arms sales contingent on reining in Saudi military involvement in Yemen's civil war, and he is likely to take advantage of a 1976 law that allows any senator to force a vote on halting overseas arms sales.

Murphy has worked on a possible bill with Paul, according to a source familiar with the discussions, but it remains unclear how many Democrats are preparing to sign onto the disapproval measure.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/23/rand-paul-saudi-arabia-arms-sales-238730

The Kentucky Republican is concerned that giving more arms to Saudi Arabia could drag the US further into the Saudi-led war in Yemen and worsen the humanitarian situation there.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/rand-paul-saudi-arms-deal/

[Mr. Morden]

This isn't the first time Paul and Murphy have worked together on this issue.  Last fall, they put forward a measure to block a much smaller ($1 billion) arms sale to Saudi Arabia, and it only got 27 votes (of whom only 4 were Republicans) in the Senate:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-defense-congress-idUSKCN11R2LU

And here's the roll call:

link

Note that in something of a reversal from the 2000s when almost every Dem. with presidential ambition backed the Iraq War, the current zeitgeist has ambitious Dems getting more dovish.  All the Senators thought to be weighing a presidential bid (Booker, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Murphy, Sanders, Warren) voted to kill the arms sale.  And this was when Obama was president, so they were opposing Obama to do this.

[dead0man]

good and good luck

[Dr. Arch]

good and good luck

[Hindsight was 2020]

I got to say Murph is building a good resume for 2020

[Mr. Morden]

I got to say Murph is building a good resume for 2020

He's the only one of the prospective 2020ers sitting on a foreign policy-related committee who actually seems to care that much about foreign policy (unless you count Gabbard ).  The other ones (e.g., Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren, for example) use their perches on Armed Services and Foreign Relations to sneak in domestic policy battles.

[Shadows]

This isn't the first time Paul and Murphy have worked together on this issue.  Last fall, they put forward a measure to block a much smaller ($1 billion) arms sale to Saudi Arabia, and it only got 27 votes (of whom only 4 were Republicans) in the Senate:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-defense-congress-idUSKCN11R2LU

And here's the roll call:

link

Note that in something of a reversal from the 2000s when almost every Dem. with presidential ambition backed the Iraq War, the current zeitgeist has ambitious Dems getting more dovish.  All the Senators thought to be weighing a presidential bid (Booker, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Murphy, Sanders, Warren) voted to kill the arms sale.  And this was when Obama was president, so they were opposing Obama to do this.

Well Sanders has been dissenter in the Vietnam war, voted against the Iraq war & has spoken out against giving endless money to even Israel, has always taken a hard line on Saudi due to their human rights abuses & even didn't oppose Saudis being sued for 9/11 while HRC took a more non-committal approach.

If he was that calculative, I doubt he would have taken a potentially politically suicidal step in the NY Debate, talking about Israeli over-reaction to Palestine attacks (That is a suicidal step in NY & even opposing settlements is a more nuanced step)! It will be interesting to see how other Republicans voted, you would need more than 4 people to stop this. I think this move could get more than 23 odd Democrats (given 100B$ is massively higher than 1B $ odd), the whole 9/11 suing Saudi issue, Saudi's role in Yemen etc.

But I don't expect any of the Republicans to show some spine & stand up to Trump, they're all lackeys anyways! For all his faults, Obama was very cautious about giving Saudis additional weapons when they got involved in Yemen in a big way considering American weapons could be used to kill & butcher many innocent people!

I got to say Murph is building a good resume for 2020

He's the only one of the prospective 2020ers sitting on a foreign policy-related committee who actually seems to care that much about foreign policy (unless you count Gabbard ).  The other ones (e.g., Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren, for example) use their perches on Armed Services and Foreign Relations to sneak in domestic policy battles.

Apart from Foreign policy, the main concern of Murphy is gun control. He is like a crusader & would be easy to paint as the big bad taking away all guns. At a time when Democrats need to decrease the margin of losses in rural areas (which could decide House & Senate seats), Murphy could damage that. Democrats are not very popular when it comes to religious stuff or abortion & this will 1 more reason to lose rural people. Murphy atleast doesn't have the nuanced approach to balance his appeal to make rural people understand. (Easy to paint a connecticut liberal who wants guns gone).

I think a chunk of rural votes are in play in 2020 because Trump is a likely failure as President, his budget will harm rural folks & so will his healthcare thing. Many of them are ripe for picking for the Democrats - The margin of rural areas of Obama vs Hillary could decide state like Iowa !

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

good and good luck

[Antonio the Sixth]

good and good luck

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

It's good to see Rand Paul acting like Rand Paul again.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

That's a huge, disturbing amount in arms sales.  $110 billion in arms sales is $3k for every man woman and child in their country, twice as much per person as the annual pentagon budget for the US.

[Bismarck]

I don't like Saudi Arabia, but they are an important counterweight to Iran. I don't know the specifics of this deal, so perhaps there are issues. I'm not opposed to this in principle.

[dead0man]

just for reference, not for points....$110B is a lot, but there is a precedent.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

just for reference, not for points....$110B is a lot, but there is a precedent.

Yes, Hillary approved a lot of sales to Saudi Arabia after they gave the Clinton Foundation $10 million.

[Zioneer]

Good luck, Senators. Here's hoping you can block this arm sale to a vicious and brutal regime.

[Shadows]

Iran has terrible issues but Saudi is in a league of it's own with the way they kill gays, atheists & treat women like dirt. Not only that, they are essentially the think-tank for all ISIS type militants, th raey have been spreading radicalisation.

Iran also had a lot of problems, but had 3 Presidential debates, an election for President & even Khomeini is chosen by some body (which is elected by the people). There are actually real women entrepreneurs in Iran. Saudi is at the bottom of the pyramid & has a shady role when it comes to 9/11.

Just because Iran does terrible things, doesn't mean you arm Saudi!

[Hammy]

Part of me says Paul would've made a good cabinet secretary, but at the same time that would mean he wouldn't be able to do things like this. I have to genuinely respect him for actually doing something rather than having a passing "expressing reservations" on something like most so-called skeptics.

[I Won - Get Over It]

just for reference, not for points....$110B is a lot, but there is a precedent.

Trump keeps improving Obama's legacy.