March 10, 2015 09:50 AM UTC

Senate Republicans Want Iran to Know How Important They Are

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• by: Colorado Pols

TUESDAY UPDATE: Senate Republicans are getting hammered by national media outlets for the now infamous “Iran Letter.” Bloomberg News looks at reactions from around the country, and the New York Daily News…well, the front page (right) is pretty clear.

Original post follows…

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Senate Republicans have taken a bizarre step in foreign relations, as Politico reports:

In a highly unusual move, a group of 47 Republicans in the upper chamber has written to Iran’s top leaders to let them know that any nuclear deal they reach with the United States would be “nothing more than an executive agreement.”…

…California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the letter “deeply irresponsible.”

“We are so far beyond politics ending at the water’s edge,” Schiff said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “And on an issue of this seminal importance while sensitive negotiations are going forward, for these senators to interfere in this way, it’s really unthinkable. And it just shows how the political process has degenerated that these senators would take such a step.”

Colorado Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is among the 47 signatories on the letter. Republicans control the largest majority in Congress since the New Deal…and they are writing letters to foreign leaders telling them to ignore the rest of the government.