Free Republic

Sovereignty: Even if he's not re-elected, the president hopes to leave behind a treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and to which we'd be required to give half of our offshore oil revenue. The Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST) has been lurking in the shadows for decades. Like the Kyoto Protocol that pretended to be an effort to save the earth from the poisoned fruit of the Industrial Revolution, LOST pretends to be an effort to protect the world's oceans from environmental damage and remove it as a cause of potential...

Egypt informed Israel Sunday afternoon that it is unilaterally cancelling the agreement of supply of gas to Israel. The announcement was made to EMG, the firm that receives the gas from Egypt, and reported on Channel 2 news. The peace treaty with Egypt includes a financial appendix, in which Egypt agrees to supply Israel with oil. Several years ago the appendix was changed so that the oil was replaced by gas. The treaty commits Egypt to supply Israel with the amount of gas it requires for a specified period, in exchange for payment.

New York, NY --(Ammoland.com)- Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) proponents have lied from the beginning. And they persist in attempts to reassure people in countries that allow civilian firearm ownership that the ATT will not affect their national laws. We are told the Treaty will basically affect the illegal transfer of weapons, but not lawful civilian ownership. BullS#!t! That’s the Big Lie. Proponents insist that they only wish to control “illicit” weapons. That limited goal was repeated many times, and is the reason why so many countries agreed to hold Treaty talks. We are told that the control of lawfully possessed...

According to Rebeccah Heinrichs, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request reveals that “that the president has utterly failed to make good on his promises” on nuclear modernization and missile defense. During the ratification debate on the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START), President Obama promised to modernize the U.S. nuclear infrastructure, claiming that such investment is “essential to facilitating reductions while sustaining deterrence under New START and beyond.” However, the Administration failed to include in its budget the additional $4.1 billion that was promised for the nuclear weapons...

“It has come to our attention that Arms Trade Treaty proponents are attempting to change the rules mid-stream, prior to the upcoming Treaty negotiations in early July,” researchers Paul Gallant, Alan Chwick, and Joanne D. Eisen wrote in a breaking story published yesterday in AmmoLand Gun News. “Ted R. Bromund, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, alerted the public to the very real possibility that ATT proponents are changing the meaning of the term ‘consensus’ and to the political ramifications for the US if ATT proponents prevail,” they warn. “Until now, ‘consensus’ has been understood by the US and...

Negotiations for a new U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are supposed to be finalized in July 2012. Some of its supporters argue it would have no “impact on the ability of individuals within the United States to acquire and possess firearms.”[1] Even if this is true, it is not the only reason to be concerned about the treaty. But if the treaty comes before the Senate, its domestic effects will be of central importance. While the treaty is not yet complete, analysis of the current draft demonstrates that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about its potential domestic effects....

“We predict that a global Arms Trade Treaty will come into force late this year,” a report in the Jan. 2012 issue of the Dillon Blue Press by researchers Paul Gallant, Alan Chwick and Joanne D. Eisen claims. Diplomats are currently preparing for a final negotiating conference, to be held at the UN between July 2 and July 27, 2012. “So, what might an ATT look like?” they ask. Here are two highlights from the report: * We predict that small arms will be included, because that’s what this treaty is all about in the first place. But ammunition has,...

At least one veteran Capitol Hill lawmaker is quietly looking into a revealing comment contained in remarks delivered the other day to the United Nations by Laura E. Kennedy, this country’s permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament. A tempest erupted when the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms uncovered a copy of Kennedy’s remarks via a website sponsored by Reaching Critical Will, which is more normally associated with nuclear proliferation and military armament concerns. Here’s the comment that has lit everyone’s fuse: The United States signed the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of...

Egyptian prime minister Isam Sharaf told Turkish television the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty wasn't sacred and was subject to change. Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Thursday said the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is not sacred and is subject to change. "The Camp David agreement depends on what benefits the region," Sharaf said in an interview on Turkish television, adding, "Egypt will make changes to the treaty if necessary." Sharaf's statements follow the popular sentiments of the street in Cairo, but altering the treaty would require the consent of all three signatories - Egypt, Israel, and the United States. Contrary...

For awhile now I’ve gotten e-mails from people concerned about Pres. Obama and this administration restricting gun rights. I honestly thought they were being a bit conspiratorial. That is, until I read this: Twelve Democratic senators have joined 45 Republicans in a fast growing movement to halt progress on an Obama-backed United Nations effort that could bring international gun control into the United States and slap America’s gun owners with severe restrictions. Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s office today provided Whispers with their letter, signed by 11 other Democrats, urging the president to press for significant changes in the treaty....

The Vancouver Sun is reporting – perhaps inadvertently – what neighboring Washington State gun owners have long suspected, that in the eyes of a gun control advocate, all guns are potentially bad and need to be controlled., Kenneth Epps, with Canada’s Project Ploughshare, a non-governmental organization (NGO) recognized by the United Nations as a Canadian arms control group, was flustered yesterday when his country’s delegation threw a curveball into the U.N.’s negotiations over a proposed small arms trade treaty, discussed by this column earlier. Epps is ballistic that Canadians want to exempt hunting rifles from the treaty language. He used...

Two national gun rights organizations currently monitoring international gun control efforts, including the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, drew lines in the sand Thursday against a proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, while anti-gun Congressional Democrats push a new gun control measure in "the other" Washington. SAF's activities at the U.N. this week further bolster the Washington State-based group's growing prominence in the gun rights community, guaranteed by last year's McDonald v. City of Chicago Supreme Court victory, and now on an international scale. The spotlight was on the National Rifle Association yesterday, however, as Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre threw...

The fight over international gun control is unfolding anew this week at the United Nations building in New York, as the stage is being set for next year’s “final negotiations” on a proposed treaty that critics say is a threat to the Second Amendment, and a Washington State-based group is right in the thick of it. Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, is in the Big Apple this week, attending the third “preparatory committee meeting” for the proposed Arms Trade Treaty, which he says is an elaborate way of saying “international gun control.” He told this column...

NOTE The following text is a quote: New Treaty Will Ensure Stability, Flexibility By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, June 16, 2010 – The Defense Department stands firmly behind the new Strategic Arms Control and National Security Treaty, which strengthens strategic stability, enables the United States to modernize its triad of strategic delivery systems and protects its flexibility to deploy important nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities, a senior defense official told Congress yesterday. The treaty, which President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed April 8 in Prague, is framed to address specific Defense Department issues, Edward Warner,...

“Currently, the United Nations is drafting an Arms Trade Treaty to impose strict controls on firearms and other weapons,” David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne D. Eisen write in a just-released New York University Journal of Law & Liberty Article. From the Abstract: In support of hasty adoption of the Treaty, a UN-related organization of Treaty supporters have produced a report claiming that armed violence is responsible for 740,000 deaths annually. This Article carefully examines the claim. We find that the claim is based on dubious assumptions, cherry-picked data, and mathematical legerdemain which is inexplicably being withheld from the...

Does anybody know of a list of which Senators support and which Senators oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty.

After extended wrangling among lawmakers in both countries, the new START treaty between the U.S. and Russia went into effect Saturday at the global security conference in Munich. "The principles of equality, parity, equal and undivided security lay a solid foundation for the modern Russian-American cooperation in various spheres," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, appearing with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to exchange the treaty documents, said, according to RIA Novosti.

Israel's intelligence community has assessed that the fall of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak would result in an immediate crisis with the Jewish state. The most important variable is Egypt's military. Both Mubarak's vice president and the leaders of the new cabinet come from the military, which Mubarak hopes will serve as the last defense against an Islamic takeover. Israeli government sources said the intelligence community has determined that the fall of the Egyptian regime would result in a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government that would sever relations with Israel. The sources said any post-Mubarak regime would try to scuttle or...

President Obama will host Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for a private meeting at the White House on Wednesday. It will be the first meeting between the president and his 2008 Republican adversary since Obama took office. The White House said Tuesday night the Oval Office meeting would take place Wednesday afternoon, though there was no indication as to the reason for the meeting, or scheduled topics for discussion. Obama and McCain sat down for talks at transition headquarters in Chicago after the Democrat's election.

The cheer over Russia's approval of a new nuclear disarmament treaty is short-lived as it masks Moscow's reluctance to ensure further cuts, threatening US President Barack Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world. Russia is going through the final motions of ratifying a new START treaty ... The US Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that Russia has 2,050 deployed tactical warheads that could be deployed in small nuclear campaigns in its periphery. The United States has just 500. Lavrov said Russia's commitment under the new START treaty will not be "fulfilled" for another seven years, and some analysts interpreted the...