Yes! It is high time! This treaty should have been ratified long ago. If the White House continues on its miserable record of pushing for treaty ratification during this lame duck session, this will never be ratified. Secretary Clinton, Minister Lavrov and their teams worked very hard to arrive at this treaty. It is time!
Mme. Secretary may be on the other side of the globe at the moment, but if you thought she was “removed” from the political tsunami we all knew was coming, guess again! Her beautiful hands with the perfect nail beds have a far reach. Do not misread what follows. It is an order!
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and ComplianceFact SheetNovember 3, 2010
Treaty Makes America More Secure, Has Broad Support, and Is Urgently Needed
The New START Treaty Makes America More Secure. Significantly reducing – by nearly
700 – the limit on the number of strategic nuclear weapons that Russia can deploy;
allowing us to keep a close eye on the remaining ones; building stability, predictability,
and transparency for the two countries with 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons;
and strengthening America’s fight against nuclear weapons falling into the hands of
terrorists and rogue states.Urgently Needed. Secretary of Defense Gates has said, “Since the expiration of the old
START Treaty in December 2009, the U.S. has had none of these [verification]
safeguards,” including no U.S. inspectors on the ground in Russia keeping a watchful
eye on Russia’s weapons. General Chilton, Commander of STRATCOM, stressed to
Congress, “Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into Russian strategic
nuclear force developments and activities.”Key Questions Have Been Answered.
.. Preserves America’s Triad of land-based and sea-based missiles and bombers
and the military’s flexibility to take on any future new threats.. No constraints on deploying the most effective missile defenses possible nor on
developing and deploying conventional prompt global strike capabilities.. Effective verification and inspection systems leaving Russia unable to achieve
militarily significant cheating or breakout.. More than $80 billion over the next ten years – including $10 billion in new money
– to modernize our nuclear weapons complexWide Bipartisan Support. America’s most respected national security leaders, including
secretaries of defense and state, and national security advisers for Presidents Reagan,
George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, support ratification – including George
Shultz, James Baker, Sam Nunn, James Schlesinger, Bill Perry, Chuck Hagel, Henry
Kissinger, Colin Powell, Thomas Kean, Lee Hamilton, Harold Brown, Madeleine Albright,
Howard Baker, Frank Carlucci, Kenneth Duberstein, Brent Scowcroft, and Stephen
Hadley.Unanimous Support by Military Leadership. All senior Defense Department officials
testified that they support ratification of New START. Secretary Gates stressed: “The
New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership – to
include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the service chiefs, and the
commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, the organization responsible for our
strategic nuclear deterrent”. Seven former commanders of Strategic Command
support the Treaty, assessing it “will enhance American national security in several
important ways.”Prepared and Ready. The Senate has been provided extensive information – 18
hearings, dozens of briefings and meetings, answers to over 900 questions for the
record, and hundreds of pages of reports, analysis and testimony.
So ratify it already!
Love,
Hillary
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It’s up to the White House to muscle this through the Senate. They are asleep at the wheel of Obama’s metaphorical car.
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The metaphorical car has been parked in the White House driveway for a while now.
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Actually, it has piled up gazillions of miles doing nothing but campaigning since 2009.
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Commencing LOL…
now.
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LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Isn’t Obama leaving for India tomorrow? By the time he gets back, his main priority will be pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey. Such a busy, busy man…
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Yes, Jen, that pretty much sums it up!
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There are “Is Hillary running?”articles all over the place now!
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No surprise to me.
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Well, yeah, but this time they aren’t all from crazy right wing nutbars.
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Also not a surprise.
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Classic “buyer’s remorse” do you think, or is there is something about Madame Secretary that’s driving this stuff.
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I notice Evan Bayh is back on the scene after being over the hills and far away for the past X months. I wonder what that’s all about?
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I don’t know. I am not his biggest fan. Don’t want him as Hillary’s running mate.
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Me, too! Bayh is the ultimate DLC-er with insurance lobby ties. Although during the primaries there were talks among some supposedly in-the-know Hillary bloggers that, had she won the nomination, potential VPs were Wesley Clark and Bayh. Although, assuming for the sake of speculation, that Hillary is contemplating another run, from the prism of the mid-terms choosing Bayh would make sense from the outwardly political standpoint (i.e. it’s a centrist ticket, you know, not this “socialistic” president) and he represents the Midwest. But two years is a long time in politics (as Obama and the ‘bots now know), and we don’t know yet if Hillary would want to wade back in the dirty game of domestic politics after acquiring a global stateswoman status now that she’s SOS.
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Carville sidestepped the Hillary 2012 question last night like the masterful cajun dancer he is quoting himself saying it’s like sex, you always want more.
She still wants this. Bayh looks like a loser to me. If she goes, I would rather see her go for broke with Sheila Jackson Lee. Then if they lose, I will know we ran a really strong ticket.
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Geraldine Ferraro dodged it too, but I don’t know how close she is to the Clintons.
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Close enough to know she has to do a tarantella around that question! I love it!
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Why doesn’t someone just come out and say no? She isn’t foolish enough to make a challenge.
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That’s a rhetorical question, right?
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She can’t be thinking of running. What about that departmental review thing?
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Consider the principals doing the dancing. The QDDR is due out this month. After that, her own self-assigned tasks will be finished. Hillary does not know the word “can’t.”
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Here’s the quote.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/sarah-palin-licks-her-lip_n_778017.html
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Very graceful. I am sure Gerri, like Hillary, studied ballet as a child.
*Sitting in front row waiting for the grand jeté*
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That photo is hilarious. Must steal.
The lame duckers are so frightened right now that they aren’t going to vote on a single thing without ten polls first. They might do a few spite things but nothing more than that. The Democrats in the house are quaking. Many of them just made it over the re-election line. Others have been dumped because of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid forced agenda, even if they voted against the most unpopular bills.
Lots of teeth rattling right now. I don’t think they will do ANYTHING significant before Jan. 1. I could be wrong though. What the heck do I know.
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Hmmmmmm… if you are right, and you well may be, she has pretty much laid the dance floor for her jeté from DOS. No matter how one is built, a childhood background in ballet always comes in handy! 😀
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This is especially so when one is dealing with a bunch of Clydesdales.
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Oh! Yet ANOTHER mental image of Hillary standing on a bareback horse!
This time, instead of wearing her green caftan and beheading the Al Quaida chief while letting out a war whoop, she is wearing her cherry red dress from Chelsea’s wedding and leaping from the back of one clydesdale to another performing pirouettes upon each landing! Nice!
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What a civilized discourse. I am very impressed.
I am a 58 yr old, African-American Republican. I changed parties after 30 years when I could not just hold my nose and vote for John Kerry.
I was planning on voting for Hillary in 08; but alas, politics prevailed. I like Evan Bayh (a pragmatic approach instead of hard-nosed in your face stuff). I would give serious thought to voting for a Hillary/Evan ticket; a Hillary/Wesley ticket – not so much; a Hillary/Sheila Jackson Lee ticket – when hell freezes over.
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We can get a little silly here sometimes too, but we welcome commentary warmly! Thanks for your comment! All voices must count!
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I like Evan too. I somehow fantacized that he abruptly decided to leave the Senate for a reason that has to do with future races. And generally, I don’t fantacize. I DO know he and Hillary are friends though. I think he saw some handwriting on the wall from Congress and got out before everything hit the fan.
The thing with Sheila is her opponent was a complete Yahoo. She didn’t even have to leave the house to beat him. I do remember how badly she got booed during the Texas caucuses, for supporting Hillary, so I always give her a pass in some small way.
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[…] overseas on November 3, Secretary Clinton’s State Department issued a fact sheet enumerating reasons why it is high time for the Senate to vote on the new START treaty. A day or […]
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[…] The New START Treaty: It’s Time for the Senate to Vote […]
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