Sea Treaty all but dead, 34 GOP senators oppose

SFGate.com ^ | 7/16/12 | Donna Cassata - ap

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A treaty governing the high seas is all but dead in the Senate as two Republican senators announced their opposition Monday, giving conservative foes the necessary votes to scuttle the pact.

Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — both mentioned as possible running mates for likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — said they had serious concerns about the breadth and ambiguity of the Law of the Sea treaty and would oppose it if called up for a vote. The Constitution requires two-thirds of the Senate — 67 votes — to ratify a treaty; Portman and Ayotte bring the number of opponents to 34 along with Sens. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.

The development was a blow to the Obama administration, military leaders and the business community led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who had argued that the treaty would improve national security and enhance U.S. standing in the world. They had pressed for ratification of the treaty, which was concluded in 1982 and has been in force since 1994. The United States is the only major nation that has refused to sign the pact.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and other conservatives have led the campaign against the treaty, contending that it would undermine U.S. sovereignty. DeMint heralded the latest development on Twitter, saying, "34 Senators now oppose LOST, sinking the misguided treaty."

[xzins]

While I agree that democrats are liars, if there is such a provision, then each of these 34 needs to make such a filing. Not doing so suggests a soft opposition to the treaty, and doing so could help.

[Carry_Okie]

Do you have any idea what happened to get it deleted?

Apparently the author of the article is unwelcome at FR. Bad blood between him and JR.

[Carry_Okie]

So, how do Bo and Billary get to plow right trough and sign the ATT Treaty on July 27th?

Signing, no, and there will be consequences. As to getting the Senate to reject it, the key is to make certain it goes to committee.

To quote Henry Lamb (God rest his soul):

The Law of the Seas Treaty was rejected by Ronald Reagan in 1982. After some polishing around the edges of the treaty language, Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1994, and sent it to the Senate for ratification. There it sat, dormant, until October 7, 2003. Mysteriously, the treaty appeared on the Foreign Relations Committee hearings calendar on October 14, and October 21, but no opposing voices were allowed to present testimony. This is precisely the same procedure used with the Convention on Desertification.

Next, a request for unanimous consent is issued. If no Senator files an objection within a specified period of time, then the treaty can be approved by a voice vote, with no votes recorded.

The last paragraph is the key. We need to let our Senators know that we know this and are watching. It only takes ONE Senator to object to a request for unanimous consent. The problem is that he has to be there at exactly the right time. Unfortunately, we don't have a pro-gun parliamentarian in Jim DeMint. He may need to be educated.

There is no guarantee that this will go to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There are treaties that have been ratified without a committee vote. We need a real hawk on this stuff ready to go.

[scrabblehack]

If BJ Clinton were running the show, he’d rename it as “the Law of the Sea Agreement” and declare victory with a mere majority.

[publius911]

Sea Treaty all but dead, 34 GOP senators oppose

I am so glad to read that.
There should be at least one major item of good news a week.

[ElPaseo]

Well some good news!

[Jane Long]

Thanks for your informed reply, Carry!! Surely, the NRA is on this, too.

Perhaps the ATT Treaty warrants a thread of it's own - if there's not already one.

[Carry_Okie]

Thanks for your informed reply, Carry!! Surely, the NRA is on this, too.

Wayne LaPierre's last speech had ambiguities in it regarding "civilian firearms" that no one in his position should ever offer, AND posited that it took 67 Senators to ratify. BOTH were wrong, one on policy and the other on fact. I have little to no confidence in the NRA.

[ak267]

You can also add Lamar Alexander to the list (35*).

* He’s voting “no” if it’s brought up this year but you take what you can get. Inhofe hinted today that several more “no” votes will occur if the treaty is taken for a floor vote.

I wonder if this monster will even get 60 votes for cloture.

Kerry knows that this is “make or break” for LOST for the foreseeable future. If the GOP gains control the Senate, and has a new batch of GOP conservatives (Fischer, Cruz, Mourdock, etc.,) then this treaty might not get out of committee in 2013 (or for many, many years).

If the whip count isn’t there, I can guess that those who support this treaty might either switch their vote (after making a lame excuse) or simply not show up. If you hear the quorum call with several Democrats not on the list, then you know it’s truly DOA.

Will Kerry, like a bulldog, try to ram a floor vote? At this rate he might not get cloture and risks getting egg on his face....his followers might not be so fanatical when voters hear the scope of this bad treaty.

Until the vote, get your senators on-the-record on LOST. Even the ones who the press believes are supporters.

GOP
Enzi (WY)
Graham (SC)
Snowe (ME)
Collins (ME)
Corker (TN)
McCain (AZ)
Murkowski (AK)
Cochran (MS)
Brown (MA)
Kirk (IL)
Hutchinson (TX)

Lugar co-sponsored the bill...forget him.....good riddance.

DNC
All Democratic supporters are believed to be supporting the treaty.

Even if he loses, Kerry will not quit. He and his globalist buddies will go back to the drawing board to make a few cosmetic changes and try to resell LOST as something new and improved (back home we call that “polishing a turd”).

[philman_36]

God rest his soul
A great loss and his death was hardly even recognized here, though I thank you belatedly for the notice, TEXOKIE. (“Agenda 21” is real, and is NOT a tin-foil hat conspiracy.)

RIP, Mr. Lamb
Your efforts didn't go without notice and the ripples from the rock you cast into the water are still going out and are growing stronger. Smile, my FRiend, your family will know that your efforts were not in vain.

THE LAMBS WHO TRACK THE WOLVES

The old-timers, the warhorses of the fights to keep the factors of production in private hands, the heroes of Henry's, like Henry himself, will keep applauding the fresh efforts and nodding encouragement. Henry remains optimistic and inspired. No sacrificial lamb, Henry firmly believes that: "In another century or two, when the inherent flaws of socialism once again bring oppression to the people enslaved by it, another John Locke or Thomas Jefferson may arise, and dust off the history books and rediscover what Americans forgot during the last half of the 20th century. Although never easy, human freedom will ultimately prevail."

[DoughtyOne]

Didn’t have to go far to read the obvious response did I.

Only 34? Why only 34? What about the other 12 or so Republicans?

[Roccus]

I remember a wholebunchalotta headlines a few years ago here at FR that proclaimed, "Obamacare, Dead On Arrival!" or some such.

[wolfman23601]

No need to ever sign a treaty unless it is a condition of surrender... and other countries are signing their sovereignty away to US.

[P.O.E.]

The Senate voted 95-0 against the Kyoto Treaty, and you still heard it bandied about for years afterwards.

They never give up, they’ll just shelve it for the time being until the time is ripe.

[TornadoAlley3]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2153290/The-Sea-Treaty-U-S-lose-sovereignty-unless-UN-dictators-club-defeated.html

Notice Condi Rice is FOR the treaty.

[littleharbour]

Whenever a vote is this close, the fear is one or two Republicans will sell their vote for a few goodies for their own state. Any GOP Senator willing to support this madness should be targeted for defeat in their next primary.

[George Varnum]

No time to rest on our laurels - the tyrants NEVER give up!

The boogers (primaraly VietNam “War hero” Juan KERRY) are trying to tuck another one to us while we’re not looking, and they’re not wasting any time.

From recent e mail alert (I’m too stupid for FR HTML magic):

“We just won against LOST. Now Democrat Senator John Kerry is trying to ram another UN treaty through the Senate this coming Thursday. This is not a drill or some kind of publicity stunt. It will happen if we don’t stop it. Senators need our blistering calls right now.”

“Like most of what the UN does, it is deceptive and disingenuous:”

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2012/201207130.asp

[opentalk]

Make sure the LOST Treaty stays dead

...The fight over LOST goes back three decades, when it was first rejected by President Ronald Reagan. He warned that “no national interest of the United States could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the Earth’s surface over to the Third World.”

According to top Reagan officials William Clark and Ed Meese, their boss believed the “central, and abiding, defect” was “its effort to promote global government at the expense of sovereign nation states —and most especially the United States ”

The persistent transnationalists who drafted LOST favor creation of a massive United Nations bureaucracy that would draw ocean boundaries, impose environmental regulations and restrict business on the high seas. They’ve tinkered with the document obsessively since the late ’60s, enlisted Presidents Clinton and Bush, and recruited soon-to-depart GOP Sen. Dick Lugar to their crusade.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

The Realists support the treaty.

Like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton?

OTOH, the NeoCons oppose the treaty.

Reagan was a "Neocon?" John Cornyn? I called Cornyn's office to say that he was absolutely right to oppose UN encroachment on US sovereignty. You could call and say he is a "NeoCon."

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Only 34? Why only 34? What about the other 12 or so Republicans?

I called Kay Bailey Hutchison's office today to explain what is wrong with LOST. But Hutchison is a lame duck -- who knows what she would do?

LOST is like Obamacare -- it allows an unelected bureaucracy to do whatever it wants to the USA.