Posted on 12/21/2010 7:54:11 AM PST by Fury
Republican opposition to New START is collapsing. One Senate source just told me the vote for ratification could go as high as 75. Another said, “I don’t know if it will get that high, but it’s starting to tick up there.” As the sense builds that ratification is inevitable, Republicans are lining up to get on the “right side.” Lamar Alexander’s support, noted below, is a crucial sign of which way the wind is blowing, although he’ll probably be the only member of the Republican leadership to vote for it. At least Jon Kyl was able to get more money for modernization and that letter from President Obama making assurances on missile defense. Otherwise, this is a dismaying rout.
From earlier in the Corner:
Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) announced his support for ratification of the New START treaty.
He outlined his support as follows: “The president has committed to an $85 billion, ten-year plan to make sure these weapons work. The treaty allows for inspection of Russian warheads. Our military leaders say it does nothing to interfere with development of our missile-defense system. The last six Republican secretaries of state support the treaty.”
“Americans are safer and more secure with the treaty than without it,” he said.
Alexander’s announcement means Republicans are dangerously short on votes, making it increasingly unlikely that START will be stopped before the end of the lame-duck session.
Simply amazing.
Just take names and remember in 2012, 2014 or 2016, if we get there.
Never, "What's the best thing for America", but always, "collapsing to line up on the right side" (politically).
Does anything EVER change in Washington?
Looks like my personal decision to exit the GOP was a good one.
A pox on both parties.
My concern is verification and also implications for missile defense. Additionally, there needs to be a serious discussion about the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program and the implications START will have on the RRW efforts.
Is it worth our time with these guys?? Time for a new party as the one we have now is a total waste of time.. I don’t want to hear we will split the vote and will elect Dems... We vote for Republicans and we still get this crap....
That's getting to be a big 'if'...
Seems like the Republicans are all bark and no bite.... Nothing has changed...
Extremely disappointed... Moreover, the Republican leader (Mitch McConnell) has just proved to all Republicans that he cannot job done. All we are asking for is to delay the vote a month, and he can’t even get that done.
How sad that our elected representatives abandon their principles simply because there's a gentle wind blowing. Here's an idea, you gutless wonders: Try doing what your constituents want for a change.
Guess they didn’t hear us in NOVEMBER. Is there a way to STOP ALL of the last minute legislation???? Where are the balls of the repubs? OH YEAH, in Alaska.
On the Senate side, nothing has changed. His Ladyship McConnell is a wimp. He is clearly in love with Reid (remember, he adamantly refused to campaign or even speak out against him — and please, to his apologist here at FR, don’t give us that “he sent his aides up to campaign” crapola again: those of us who work in Washington know it is a cop-out).
What will happen on the House side remains to be seen — though I personally have substantial faith in Boehner and his staff.
Effing cowards. Traitors.
Final straw for me as well. They'll not get my money or my vote. Might as well let the rats continue to destroy the country. The Republicans don't seem to care. Why even have two parties? A pox on all of them is right.
My tagline says it all mostly....and now I can add the whole Senate to that list of traitors... pffffft
Someone tell me again why a vote for a third party is a wasted vote.
DISARMING YOUR COUNTRY is a just cause for replacing a government. By any means. It has happened before: our own revolution.
Folding like a cheap paper plate.
Being a GOP Senator is the simplest job in the world yet these fools just don’t get it.
If Obama is for it. Vote against it. Period. No reading, no thinking necessary.
Has white guilt really made these numbnuts willing to sabotage the USA?
We already have a third party. It's made up of the RINOS who have joined up with their soul-mates, the 'RATS to form the "No Labels Party". Proving Rush right again when he says, conservatives are going to take our party back to its roots, and it will be the RINOS who will form any third party, not us.
The Tea Party needs to form a real party. There is not much else to do in reality.
This is unforgivable, I’m done with the GOP.
All they had to do was announce that the American people had spoken in November and that they would thus filibuster EVERYTHING until the new congress that the American people elected was seated.
This is just an extension of why I became an Independent quite a while back. These gutless baby-kissers need to be cleaned out. Start in 2012.
I EXPECT democrats to vote for it. I also EXPECTED a little more pro-Americanism from the Republican side. The POSGOP can’t even muster 34 votes to stop this.
Go to hell, GOP.
We are safer withOUT the treaty than with it. It cancels our missile defense program.
Those of the men must be in Hillary's lock box... :-)
Collapse both parties and let THE PEOPLE take over!
The political class is going to get us killed! This is insane, let the revolution begin!
Yeah but I could just sit here behind my warm computer or watch dancing with stars and let the world take care of itself!!! Maybe hope for an election to save my butt.
At some point we have to just say the war is lost and let it destroy itself and pick up the pieces from the smoldering
wreakage!
I bloody knew they would fail.
The Founders didn’t sit around and wait and see.
That's a pretty crappy deal, considering if we had just simply done NOTHING until January we could of gotten the tax cuts and had to give up NOTHING!
The Kenyan gets handed a victory on foreign policy by a pack of RINOs... unbelievable, shocking.
Any of them up for re-election 2012? Can we primary these guys?
Staggering. Just stop and absorb this message. And our friggin' LAME DUCK Senate cowers and takes orders from the Kremlin???!!!
WWRRD?
NYET!!!!!!!!
Russia says ‘Jump!”; the U. S. Senate says “How high?”
I don’t think he ever wanted to get the job done. He pretended a little, said he was against it himself, but let all of his usual ‘girls’ go out to their favorite streetcorners right on schedule. Wink, wink.
I agree the GOP is done. I was not saying to elect more RINOs. I was saying those who voted for this, and other crap, need to be replaced, hopefully the TeaParty will have candidates. If not, anything but what we got now works for me.
“A pox on both parties.”
Amen. They are idiots.
I hope so because this is effing frustrating!!!
It's not amazing. You NeoCons lost.
The Republican Foreign Policy Realists support the treaty and the NeoCons such as yourself opposed it.
It is a big powerplay, the NeoCons trying to assert themselves and say that they control foreign policy positions taken by the GOP.
They still don’t get it.
Yep. They sure did. Craven cowards.
More Support for Arms Control Treaty (BOTH TENNESSEE GOP SENATORS)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2645834/posts
TN Eagle Forum sent out the ALERT on Corker this morning, and while looking for Alexander’s contact number, up pops his support for START.
KEEP HITTING REDIAL
Sen. Corker’s office [202-224-3344]
Sen. Lamar Alexander 202-224-4944
BOTH Tennessee senators are supporting this START Treaty. Contact them and encourage them to vote NO! Elections have CONSEQUENCES! Make the call a twofer add the FCC Net Neutrality to the list,
Toll-Free number to the Congressional Switchboard (866) 338-1015.
Republican scum trampling along the plain to get their final snorts before the new congress is sworn in. There is a unified ideological agenda among the elites of this country and this is what we are seeing. Americans are divided along the wrong lines and played for fools while our national ideals are thrown into the trash. This reminds me to never again vote simply for the R.
And so, the next pod of limp-wristed RINOs prepare for extinction. Rock on, half-wits; you too, will be forgotten before being significant.
The squish Alexander should be expressing his outrage over an administration that uses the term “transparency” as a positive when making military secrets public.
Alexander’s “We still have enough bullets” comments show he has no understanding of war.
Lamar Alexander is a squish.
START / DADT = faggots tossing daisies
A relinquish of power by short timers in a treasonous lame duck congress
Yeah, kinds like Tibet was made "safer" after the ChiComs "secured" it, eh, Lamar?
Mitch McConnell
202-224-2541
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