Blue Mass Group

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Wow  Charging US citizens to evacuate them from a war zone.  A war zone we want to keep raging by opposing a cease-fire.

Gary, Bostonshepard, Peter, can you help me out explaining why this is a good idea?

This is like do do do do do do do

John Stewart should be funny tonight!

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Comments

  1. Looks like it was a COBRA law:  The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985 (Pub. L. 99-272).

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    Law of the land for 21 years (reimbursement for use of commercial vessel) and executed with robotic, unthinking precision by bureacrats, until someone at Congress yelps ‘oh my God how can you be so cruel as to enforce that law we passed. We never meant for you to enforce what we wrote!”

    • As Tony Snow notes in the NY Times story, the original law was strengthened in 2003 in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (P.L. 107-228).  Here’s the language that was included:

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      Section 4(b)(2)(A) of the State Department Basic Authorities
      Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 2671(b)(2)(A)) is amended to read as follows:
      ‘‘(A) the evacuation when their lives are endangered by
      war, civil unrest, or natural disaster of—
      ‘‘(i) United States Government employees and their
      dependents; and
      ‘‘(ii) private United States citizens or third-country
      nationals, on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent
      practicable       (emphasis added)

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      And gee, who was in control of Congress and the WH when the language was strengthened?  Yup, it was the Republicans.  I guess the ownership society extends to getting your own butt out of harm’s way.

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