The Rand Paul Countdown to 2016 Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

he he

I thought we had a treaty obligation to give that money every year to Egypt.  Wasn't that the bribe for Sadat to sign Camp David?

[DGuller]

he he

I thought we had a treaty obligation to give that money every year to Egypt.  Wasn't that the bribe for Sadat to sign Camp David?

I thought so too.  But then why is it important whether we call a coup a coup? 

[Admiral Yi]

I thought so too.  But then why is it important whether we call a coup a coup?

Huh?

[DGuller]

I thought so too.  But then why is it important whether we call a coup a coup?

Huh?

I've been hearing that if US recognizes the removal of Morsi as a coup, then Egypt loses the monetary payments from US.  We're still investigating what it was. 

[garbon]

I thought so too.  But then why is it important whether we call a coup a coup?

Huh?

I've been hearing that if US recognizes the removal of Morsi as a coup, then Egypt loses the monetary payments from US.  We're still investigating what it was. 

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/2013/07/27/analysis-stand-egypt-coup-may-have-costs/HDKfDjpdLg6FvJJs9ysYmN/story.html

''The law does not require us to make a formal determination ... as to whether a coup took place, and it is not in our national interest to make such a determination,'' State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Friday. She spoke in the administration's only on-camera news briefing a day after members of Congress were informed privately that the U.S. laws was no longer necessarily applicable.

That interpretation of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act might come as a surprise to juntas and militaries in Mali, Madagascar, Honduras and Pakistan. All of them, and others, have coped with U.S. aid suspensions over the past decade or so because of coups. In each case, there was a presumption that the United States would make a coup determination based on the law, and it did.

The law allows aid to resume only once a democratically elected government is restored. Exceptions have been made before, notably in the case of Pakistan.

Aid to Pakistan was suspended in 1999 when Army chief Pervez Musharraf ousted then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, now back in the job, in a bloodless coup. The assistance was restored by an act of Congress in 2001 for national security reasons before democracy returned after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Psaki would or could not say why the administration had decided against such a solution in the case of Egypt, clearly a vital American ally in the Middle East.

But such a fix would have required a determination that the Egyptian army had ousted President Mohammed Morsi in coup, and that step would have triggered a suspension in the $1.5 billion in aid the U.S. provides each year. Of that, $1.3 billion goes to the military.

[DGuller]

Missed it.  I guess what happened to Morsi's government is fated to be one of those unsolved mysteries.

[Razgovory]

Chicago is overrun with violence?

[Sheilbh]

It's a shame. I think the US probably should cut aid to Egypt.

[derspiess]

Chicago is overrun with violence?

Yes, it is.  Cubs fans

[garbon]

Chicago is overrun with violence?

Yes, it is.  Cubs fans

Fair. Wrigleyville is like a portal unto hell.

[derspiess]

Our own Cal is there as we speak.

[fhdz]

Chicago is overrun with violence?

Yes, it is.  Cubs fans

Fair. Wrigleyville is like a portal unto hell.

[garbon]

It is true though. Whenever I walked too far west of boystown is was like what is this garish place full of ruffians?

[Ed Anger]

Mobs armed with Deep dish pizzas storm the strongholds of thin crust pizza.

[Razgovory]

Mobs armed with Deep dish pizzas storm the strongholds of thin crust pizza.

I support this.