Senate Republicans write a letter to Iran

[anvi]

Well, it's often important to have goals in life.  Nice to see Congress constantly achieving greater and greater feats of pathos.

[anvi]

Ok, well, it seems that Cotton has been the source of even weirder things from the House.  Apparently others have heard of this, but I didn't before today, so I'm posting it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/11/for-tom-cotton-letter-to-iran-is-anything-but-a-fiasco/

"While in the House in 2013, Cotton introduced an amendment to prosecute the relatives of those who violated sanctions on Iran, saying that his proposed penalties of up to 20 years in prison would 'include a spouse and any relative to the third degree,' including 'parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids.' Forget about the fact that the Constitution expressly prohibits 'corruption of blood' penalties — just consider that Cotton wanted to take someone who had violated sanctions and imprison their grandchildren. Needless to say, this deranged piece of legislation was too much even for Republicans to stomach, and it went nowhere."

[anvi]

I mean, don't people get reputations on the Hill after proposing "blood guilt" amendments like that?  Even if they win elections and all, shouldn't 40+ Senators at least think twice before signing onto a letter authored by someone who has proven himself an absolute crackpot? 

I dunno, folks.  I've read two political stories today.  One was this one.  The other was about Zhu Weiqun, a Chinese Communist Party official with some oversight regarding Tibet issues, authoring a statement declaring that the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama would be decided by China's central government.  It's the kind of day that makes me think all political reporting should be done only by the Daily Show and the Onion, because the world is just too bizarre for anything else now.

[anvi]

As I understand it, the text of Cotton's proposed amendment included prison sentences, which would presumably be given to non-citizen relatives of those found violating sanctions living in the U.S., as such sentences couldn't be imposed in Iran.  The sentences would be imposed "automatically" without investigation and extended to relatives of the third degree.  The text thus violated several provisions of the Constitution and SCOTUS decisions dating back to the late 19th century, which assure due process even to non-citizens.  This was pointed out to Cotton by fellow committee members at the markup meeting before he withdrew the amendment.