General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders Faces Feisty Democratic Challenger [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Bernie's actual reason for voting against the bill was that it imposed sanctions against Iran, sanctions that threatened to destroy the agreement with Iran that was one of the Obama administration's greatest achievements.
(As a side note, this thread is full of denunciations of Bernie for suggesting that Obama should be primaried in 2012. Let's just note that, when we get beyond passing comments and look at actual Senate votes, Bernie was the only member of the Democratic caucus to stand up on behalf of this aspect of Obama's legacy.)
Your post talked about Russia without even mentioning the rest of the bill, the part that actually motivated Bernie's vote. That's misleading.
You're correct that only two Senators voted against the bill. So what? Only two Senators voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Only ONE Senator voted against the so-called "Patriot" Act. That Gruening and Morse in 1964 and Feingold in 2001 were tiny minorities doesn't prove they wrong. I personally believe they were right.
As to Bernie, you write, "There's no way to rationalize his vote." He stated his reasons and I quoted his statement. (BTW, I agree with him.) You are of course free to believe that the Iran sanctions were a good thing, or that the good of the Russia sanctions outweighed the bad of the Iran sanctions, but those views don't exonerate a false implication that Bernie was against the Russia sanctions.