Tom Cotton Stands By Letter
Tom Cotton
Newly-elected junior senator Tom Cotton has recently gone under criticism for his open letter to Iran about their negotiations with the US, since many believed that it undermined not only the Obama administration, but also the authority of America abroad. However, in a statement yesterday, Senator Tom Cotton stood behind the letter, stating that he had “no regrets at all”. The letter, signed last Monday by Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican senators, starts out with educating the Iranian leaders about the finer workings of the Constitution and the American political system. Then, it suggests that any international deal to limit Iran’s uranium-enrichment efforts toward a nuclear weapon without a congressional vote could be modified by a future Congress or revoked by whoever replaces Obama in 2017.
Tom Cotton’s actions have drawn criticism from both sides of the political spectrum, who argue that it breached foreign policy, and put partisan politics above foreign policy. On the other hand, supporters of the letter have argued that congressional Republicans are trying to stop the President from making a bad deal. They claim that they’ve otherwise exhausted their options for trying to get a vote on a final agreement before Iran gets Obama’s signature.
After years of stalled negotiation, Obama and the Iranian leaders have set a March deadline to agree on a framework for a final deal, set for June. According to Cotton, the Iranians frequently bluff to walk away from the table. Therefore, he believes it’s important to call their bluff. On the other side of the spectrum, Secretary of State John kerry called Cotton’s gambit “unconstitutional, un-thought-out action”. These remarks come alongside Obama’s accusation that these senators are looking to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran. Cotton, however, has suggested that Obama isn’t negotiating for the best deal, and took issue with the Iranian Foreign Minister dismissing the letter as a “propaganda ploy”.
The Great Patriotic War
In this iconic photograph, a Soviet soldier hoists the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin.
The Western image of World War II, particularly the American one, is one of a conflict that we won, whether at Normandy or Iwo Jima, through the help of such men as George S. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill, or thanks to such weapons as the atomic bomb. In Russia, however, World War II, or as they call it, “The Great Patriotic War”, is portrayed in a vastly different light. This past Saturday marked the 70th annual “Victory Day” in Russia. It marked one of Moscow’s largest military parades ever, with more than 16,000 troops, 140 aircraft and 190 armored vehicles, including the debut of Russia’s brand new next-generation tank. Unfortunately, few of the world’s major leaders were in attendance, and much of western media didn’t pay much attention to it, except to laugh when something didn’t go right.
Unfortunately, current tensions between Russia and much of the West have obscured the scale of what the Soviets are commemorating with Victory Day; starting in 1941, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the Nazi offensive, and played a major role in the defeat of Hitler. By one calculation, for every single American soldier killed fighting the Germans, the Soviets lost 80. In the same vein, roughly three quarters of Germany’s casualties in World War II occurred on its eastern front. While the Russians emerged victorious, it was at an extremely high cost of life; an estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II, 11 million of those being soldiers.
The epic, brutal battles that rolled back the Nazi advance in the Soviet Union, such as the brutal winter siege of Stalingrad and the clash of thousands of armored vehicles at Kursk, had no parallel on the Western Front. Unlike the US, where the war was fought on distant shores, for the Soviet Union, it was fought in their own backyard, against a foe who viewed the Communist Russians as an ethnically, ideologically and politically inferior people, who deserved to be reduced to servitude and ultimate extermination. Hitler viewed Eastern Europe as “lebensraum”, land that needed to be cleared of “inferior” Slavic peoples so that it could be settled by the German race. Therefore, the Soviet Union’s success at pushing back the German onslaught not only meant their victory against the Nazis, but its peoples’ very survival.
By 1943, the Soviet Union had already lost some 5 million soldiers, as well as two-thirds of its industrial capacity, to the Nazis. Yet they were still able to turn back the German invasion and march onto Berlin, a testament to the courage and tenacity of the Soviet war effort. Even before the start of World War II, the Soviet Union under Stalin had the blood of millions on its hands. In the 8 years leading up to World War II, some four million people were shot or starved to death in Ukraine, Belarus and the Leningrad district through the Stalinist purges. However, the Germans managed to starve and shoot even more Russians in half the time. Between 1933 and 1945 in the “bloodlands”, that territory on the Geman-Soviet border, some 14 million civilians were killed. By some accounts, 60 percent of Soviet households lost a member of their nuclear family. Unfortunately, many of the countries that were conquered by the Nazis were subsequently occupied by the Soviets, often with matching brutality, and many have found it hard to separate the Soviet victory from the decades of Cold War domination in that triumph’s aftermath.
About Nelson Lewis
An exposure to politics at a young age had a profound effect on media maven Nelson Lewis, who worked as a volunteer for numerous Republican politicians in and around his native Savannah. Nelson worked as a reporter and eventually anchor at two Savannah television stations growing up, WJCL ABC-22 and WTGS FOX-28, also recording voice teasers for airing on Fridays on WJCL-FM KIX 96 and previewing his upcoming stories, which aired on the Sunday evening news.
One of Nelson’s favorite experiences at WJCL was reporting live from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade (America’s second largest) from 1998-2000. Continuing in the spirit of his grandfather’s pioneering and trailblazing footsteps (he was the first to bring all-color television and stereo to the Savannah market), Nelson became the first person in Savannah market to bring a kid’s perspective to local news as its first youth reporter. In fact, one of the competing stations, WSAV NBC-3 hired their own youth reporter, Sean Champion, 18 months after Nelson began his reports and WJCL/TGS’s ratings dramatically increased.
Work In Political Media
While a sophomore and junior at Lynn University, Nelson Lewis hosted “Politijam”, a lively political debate show that became well known across the university campus and served as the media editor of the univeristy’s weekly EPulse newspaper. While at Lynn, Nelson was selected to represent the entire undergraduate student population as a member of Lynn University’s Academic Task Force, charged with the duty of streamlining the core curriculum of the universities.
While attending Lynn’s College of International Communication, Nelson developed a friendship with Irving R. Levine, a well-known and nationally recognized correspondent for NBC News who became the network’s first full time economics correspondent, and was the creator of the precursor to CNBC. After a 45-year career in journalism, Levine went on to become Dean of Lynn’s communication program. After finishing college, Nelson Lewis followed Levine’s suggestion and moved to Washington, DC where his first job was as a press intern for a Republican congressman, which then led to a job booking at the Fox News Channel from 2006-2010. Here, he was able to put his love of politics and interest in the Republican Party to good use.
Upon the suggestion of Mr. Levine, Nelson Lewis enrolled in the Masters of Professional Studies in Journalism (International Politics) program at Georgetown University in 2009, where a special emphasis was placed on the dissolution of America’s Fairness Doctrine and on the major player in its demise, Bruce Fein.
Nelson was honored to be invited to speak at a roast honoring Levine’s 2009 death at the National Press Club, where he spoke alongside Levine family members and contemporaries such as former Meet the Press Moderator Marvin Kalb. He subsequently wrote a letter to the editor published in The Hill newspaper eulogizing Levine as a “top-notch raconteur” who many others have tried to emulate.
From his work at Fox News, Nelson Lewis was able to take a firsthand role in the DC journalism scene, and was blessed with the opportunity of meeting entertainment, political, and academic luminaries on a daily basis, including numerous sitting and former representatives, senators, governors and cabinet secretaries. These unique experiences gave Nelson a front row seat to many historic events and gave him a firsthand experience of how the Washington system works, from how laws are created to how news is made.
Through Nelson Lewis’ work creating Her Golf Network, coupled with his extensive booking experiences in segment producing gained at America’s highest rated cable news channel and through his time performing key internships at places such as WPBT’s Nightly Business Report in Miami, where he honed his scriptwriting skills, and at WTOC in Savannah, where he provided copyediting and on-site production assistance at the 2004 Sea Island G-8 summit, have provided him with a solid foundation and understanding of the news business. His time as a reporter/anchor growing up prior to his undergraduate studies helped him get an early start at doing what he loves most, reporting.
