From the Thursday Morning Jolt…

For the First Time, Congress Overrides President Obama’s Veto
You’ve never seen President Obama rebuked by both parties like this before:
The Senate approved the override on a 97-1 vote, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid the lone Senator voting to sustain the president’s veto. Hours later, the vote in the House was 348-77, with one Democratic member voting “present.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said aboard Air Force One before the House had voted that the Senate’s override is the “single most embarrassing thing the Senate has done since 1983,” referring to the last time the Senate overrode a veto by such a large margin.
The remark immediately infuriated lawmakers and staffers.
“It’s amateur hour at the White House,” one Democratic aide said.
“Asking us to stand between 9/11 families and their day in court is asking a lot,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said in response.
The editorial board of the New York Times tried to make the case against allowing American citizens to sue Saudi Arabia or other foreign governments for alleged aid to terrorist groups.
While the aim — to give the families their day in court — is compassionate, the bill complicates the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia…
Well… so what? The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is complicated by a lot of things –our once-huge and now shrinking demand for their oil, their territorial claim to Mecca and Medina, their awful human rights record, the fact that they don’t allow Jews to work in their country, the fact that they see us as a hedonistic, materialist, corrupt influence on their youth… We enact our own laws and policies to serve our own citizens and our own interests, not to avoid offending other countries’ rulers.
Why is “complicating” a relationship with a foreign state a sufficient reason to deny an American citizen his or her day in court?
“Everyone is entitled to their day in court.” When we say that, what do we mean? We mean that every American citizen, if they believe they have been wronged unjustly in violation of criminal or civil law, is allowed to make their argument and seek a remedy from a judge or jury (or both). You’re not entitled to victory. You’re not entitled to those remedies. But you’re entitled the opportunity to make your argument to impartial fellow citizens and let them decide if an unjust act has been done. If you want to get that remedy or redress, you had better have a strong argument and a lot of supporting evidence, or else the judge will toss it out.
If we feel like the current system doesn’t do enough to discourage nuisance or frivolous lawsuits, we can and should enact a variation of “loser pays” tort reform to deter baseless suits that can still cost a defendant time and money.
We’ve all had days where we’ve lost faith in the good judgment of juries…
… but this is our system, and so far, no one has found a better one.
“The new bill would clarify that foreign governments can be held liable for aiding terrorist groups, even if that conduct occurred overseas.” If the evidence to suggest that the Saudi Arabian government or royal family helped the 9/11 attacks is sketchy and unpersuasive, then either the lawsuit will be dismissed or Saudi Arabia will win the case and no harm will be done. If the evidence to suggest that Saudi Arabian government or royal family helped the 9/11 attacks is through and persuasive, then getting sued in U.S. court should be the least of many, many severe consequences.
Then there’s an argument that other countries are likely to retaliate by permitting civil suits and criminal suits against the U.S. government in their court systems. But this already happens!
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia. At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
We never expected Americans to get a fair trial in North Korea or Iran or any other hostile state. Foreign governments have the power to allow suits against the United States government with or without this new U.S. law.
The argument seems to be that the U.S. government should deny its citizens the right to seek redress, hoping that foreign governments will reciprocate… when it’s already clear that many foreign governments won’t.