"Time short as Kerry pushes arms treaty OK
WASHINGTON — Senator John Kerry, the Obama administration’s point man in Congress on foreign policy, is racing to line up the votes for ratification of a key arms treaty with Russia before the newly elected Congress can try to block it next year.
Given the results of the election I would not be very confident in Kerry.
Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, shepherded the New START treaty through his committee in September, winning bipartisan support.
But Republican holdouts may delay a Senate ratification vote until next year, when the new Congress is sworn in and Democrats’ Senate majority shrinks from 59 to 53. That will make ratification — which requires 67 votes — more difficult.
They should wait. This whole idea of doing this stuff after we tossed 'em is offensive to me as a citizen. You guys should have done all these things earlier!
Ratification is one of President Obama’s top priorities for the lame-duck session of Congress that began this week....
**************
“I think Senator Kerry is just sounding the trumpet in the hopes that nobody will pay attention to how many people he has behind him,’’ John Bolton, former adviser to President George W. Bush and the US ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06, said in an interview yesterday. “I don’t know anyone on the Republican side who is anxious to vote on this in the lame-duck session.’’
That's who the Globe turned to for expert analysis?
A Nov. 5 memo from the Republican Policy Committee, which helps to set the GOP’s policy goals, called for a delay in voting on the treaty until senators have more confidence in the Obama administration’s plans to make improvements to the current arsenal and develop missile defense systems. Some analysts see the delay as a tactic to gain concessions from the administration....
Republicans have already pressured the administration to pledge $80 billion over the next decade for improvements to the remaining US nuclear arsenal, along with $180 billion more for missiles and other delivery systems that carry warheads.
Yeah, no one else (excepting Israel, of course) can have a weapon while the U.S. devotes billions to "improving" ours.
Oh, the RANK STENCH of AmeriKan HYPOCRISY!
In recent days, the administration has thrown in a sweetener: a promise of $4 billion more if the GOP ratifies the treaty in the lame-duck session....
That's YOUR TAX LOOT, taxpayers!!
Is that where you REALLY WANT the BILLIONS GOING?
Yup, the administration has BILLIONS of YOUR TAX DOLLARS for POLITICAL BRIBES to BUY VOTES!
Related: Russia's Cheat and Retreat
All for a scrap of paper that don't mean s***!!
It's nothing but a POLITICAL ASS WIPE!!!
The sprint to the finish to win ratification, which has top administration officials launching a full-court press to garner the necessary votes this year, has also opened Kerry to some criticism from arms control groups who believe he should have pushed for a full vote on the treaty sooner, before the midterm elections.
That's what the Democrats did with so many things.
“He could have worked more closely with the Republicans on this and he could have moved it faster,’’ said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a nonprofit group that advocates reducing nuclear weapons. “It would have been much better to have a vote in August than in November. He could have pushed it more, the administration could have pushed it more. You wish they had the intensity they have now back in August.’’
The late hour on the congressional schedule has left the treaty’s ratification in some doubt, agreed Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “It is unfortunate the votes are going to come in a lame-duck session, when some people don’t want to conduct the nation’s business,’’ he said....
New START’s most outspoken conservative opponents say the agreement would jeopardize America’s security.
“New START’s faults are legion,’’ wrote Bolton and another former Bush adviser, John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general, in a column published last week in The New York Times....
Oh, the guy who AUTHORIZED TORTURE gets a New York Times space?
"Bush administration lawyer John Yoo did not commit professional misconduct in authorizing CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics."
I'm glad I never read them.
Not everyone on the Russian side is keen on New START, either, according to Nikolai Sokov, a former Russian arms negotiator, now a senior research associate and a specialist in nuclear nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
“If there is someone who would be privately happy about the US Senate rejecting New START, it’s the Russian military,’’ said Sokov, who participated in negotiations for two prior START treaties. The Russian military, he said, sees the verification regime in New START as disruptive and expensive.
“They can live without any verification whatsoever. They know what our arsenal will look like in the future, so they do not think they need the treaty. . . . They will be glad if New START does not enter into force and the blame would be on the US side.’’
The treaty’s prospects this year will rest largely on Kerry’s ability to bring along his fellow senators, according to Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Success or failure,’’ he said, “depends on how persuasive Kerry is.’’
It's dead then.
--more--"
What else are the quacks in Washington up to?
"Lame-duck Congress takes seats with a gaping divide; Lawmakers face issues as GOP freshmen check in" by Jim Abrams, Associated Press / November 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — Dejected Democrats and invigorated Republicans returned to the Capitol yesterday to face a mountain of unfinished work and greet more than 100 mainly Republican freshmen-elect lawmakers determined to change how Congress does business....
In its first action of the lame-duck session, the House voted yesterday to ban so-called crush videos that depict the abuse and killing of animals. The measure would revive, with some modifications, a 1999 law that was struck down by the Supreme Court last April on the grounds it was too broadly written and violated constitutional free speech protections.
Congress has been trying since then to come up with a more narrowly crafted law, and the measure the House passed still differs slightly from a version approved by the Senate in September. It now goes back to the Senate
Lawmakers must act before year’s end on expiring Bush-era tax cuts to protect millions of people from significant tax increases. Congress failed to pass even a single annual spending bill this year, and funds are needed to keep federal agencies financed and avoid a government shutdown....
Until January, Democrats still command majorities in the House and Senate and have other ambitions for the lame-duck session. Most will go unfulfilled.
Congress will be in session for a week, break for Thanksgiving week, and return on Nov. 29. Lawmakers will continue until they complete their work or give up. Most of the attention this week will be on activities off the House and Senate floors....
--more--"
"Top Senate Republican endorses halt to earmarks
The Globe reported last week that earmark requests submitted this year are also now in jeopardy, affecting projects throughout the Bay State. Congress has not yet approved any appropriations bills this year, and has limited time to pass those bills during a busy lame duck session.
Related: Bay State Rip-Off Reduced
Earmarks have been a Washington tradition, a way for Congress to pick specific causes it wishes to fund — and giving local congressmen a way to deliver for their districts. But the projects have also become controversial, after pay-to-play scandals and several controversial earmarks, including Alaska’s so-called Bridge to Nowhere....
--more--"
Looks like they have a wounded wing.
