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In Historic Vote, Senate Ratifies New START President Obama became the first Democratic President in history today to have an arms-control treaty ratified on his watch. The New START Treaty was approved in the Senate by a vote of 71-26. Thirteen Republicans, a quarter of the Republican caucus, broke with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). This is the first time an arms control treaty has ever passed without the support of the minority leader. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said yesterday, “In today’s Senate, 70 votes is yesterday’s 95.”
A year ago, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. The ratification of the START treaty is a small but important step toward this goal. It ensures that nuclear stability is maintained and lays the groundwork for future negotiations with Russia, paving the way for deeper cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. While the START treaty has been called a modest treaty, the implications of its failure would have been anything but and would have caused dangerous upheaval in the post-Cold War nuclear order.
Republican opposition looked increasingly petty toward the end of the START debate, with most complaints relating to Senate process. Leslie Gelb, president-emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations concluded that opposition to New START “seriously damages [Republican] credibility on national security.”
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: In Historic Vote, Senate Ratifies New START President Obama became the first Democratic President in history today to have an arms-control treaty ratified on his watch. The New START Treaty was approved in the Senate by a vote of 71-26. Thirteen Republicans, a quarter of the Republican caucus, broke with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). This is the first time an arms control treaty has ever passed without the support of the minority leader. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said yesterday, “In today’s Senate, 70 votes is yesterday’s 95.”
A year ago, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. The ratification of the START treaty is a small but important step toward this goal. It ensures that nuclear stability is maintained and lays the groundwork for future negotiations with Russia, paving the way for deeper cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. While the START treaty has been called a modest treaty, the implications of its failure would have been anything but and would have caused dangerous upheaval in the post-Cold War nuclear order.
Republican opposition looked increasingly petty toward the end of the START debate, with most complaints relating to Senate process. Leslie Gelb, president-emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations concluded that opposition to New START “seriously damages [Republican] credibility on national security.”
National security is very important, now...if only they cared as much about securing the porous border as much as they did about START.
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I am surprised that big union bosses are not complaining more vocally about illegals taking a lot of jobs, I guess they have to stay within the Democrat party ranks.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
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START Ratification Exposes Heritage’s Impotence The hard-right Heritage Foundation, one of the pillars of the conservative movement, made defeating START one of its top institutional priorities. Yet 13 Republican Senators ended up bucking Heritage and voted to ratify the START treaty. Heritage ended up so far to the right that it was unable to convince any significant number of Republicans to follow its nonsensical substantive attack on START that the treaty would lead to massive nuclear proliferation and eventually to a nuclear war.
Heritage fellows held event after event, wrote article after article, report after report, blog post after blog post, attacking the treaty. Heritage Fellow James Carafano in columns for the Daily Caller urged the Tea Party “tackle defense issues.” This summer it launched a 501c4 called Heritage Action for America and chose two issues to focus on: spending and stopping START. Josh Rogin reported in July:
Heritage Action for America was established as 501c4 organization, which means it can do direct lobbying on the Hill and broad grassroots lobbying around the country. Killing START is one of the group’s two keystone efforts, along with a drive to push a repeal of the new health-care bill in the House. The organization is now circulating a petition to its 671,000 dues-paying members featuring a video of Romney criticizing the treaty… And Heritage Action is not stopping there. The group has a detailed plan to target lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and persuading wavering senators to oppose the treaty. Votes up for grabs include moderate Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, but also conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, D-NE, and Evan Bayh, D-IN.
Heritage even produced a video that warned that if START passed it would lead to a nuclear attack in 2018.
Yet despite all this effort, a quarter of the Republican caucus bucked Heritage’s advocacy campaign and its lobbying efforts to support the treaty. As the facts came out and it became increasingly clear that none of their anti-treaty arguments held any water, Republicans increasingly relied on process complaints to oppose the treaty, rather than substance. In the end, few Senators, with the exception of Jim DeMint, really embraced the Heritage line. The pressure they exerted on Republican members was in the end outdone by the coalition of progressive groups that pressed to ratify the treaty.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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