In his most recent op-ed, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, asks why there is a rush to pass New START, a strategic offensive arms control treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation signed this April in Prague. Romney rightly observes that the treaty “deserves a careful, deliberative look by the men and women America has just elected.” If the Administration and Senate leadership push for a vote on New START during the lame duck session, the Senate would not have time to adequately evaluate it, especially …
State officials around the country are getting a lesson from the California legislature in how not to respond to Obamacare. While the new federally supervised, state-based health insurance exchanges are to be up and running by January 1, 2014, the California legislature is poised to create the California Health Benefit Exchange through enactment of two bills (AB 1602 and SB 900). If Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—who ran for office as a champion of conservative economic policy—signs these bills, California would be the first state to enact an ideologically compliant set of …
If the Senate doesn’t ratify New START, proponents of the arms-control agreement fear, then … well, the world will come to end. The latest warning came from Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that advocates a nuclear weapons-free world. “A delayed ratification with a close vote would be a blow to U.S. leadership around the world,” he told the Associated Press, “People would doubt the president’s ability to negotiate other agreements.” More pressure to just “sign the treaty so we can purge the world of nuclear weapons” …
In a week dominated by new START op-eds, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) penned another piece supporting treaty ratification while rejecting the arguments of former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) from earlier this week. This follows the article by Senator Kerry (D-MA) also in support of new START. For Sen. Kerry opposing the treaty is “political,” for Sen. Lugar the arguments of Romney were “hyperbolic. Getting down to the sheer facts of the matter, however, make it clear that opposing the treaty is simply in the best interest of United States security. …
Mitt Romney, the once and future presidential candidate, is the biggest gun so far to come out against the New START arms control agreement. In a no-so-subtlety titled opinion piece “Obama’s worst foreign-policy mistake” in The Washington Post, he flatly states, “[t]he treaty as submitted to the Senate should not be ratified.” Sure, other conservative stalwarts had already jumped on New START. According to John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., “there is no compelling reason for the Obama-Medvedev treaty, and there are many reasons to fear its …
The weaknesses of President Obama’s New START treaty with Russia are finally starting to surface in Washington. On Monday, Mitt Romney weighed in against the treaty in a Washington Post column. The former Massachusetts governor raised concerns previously aired by Amb. John Bolton (in National Review), by the Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Kim Holmes, and — in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — by former undersecretaries of state and defense Bob Joseph and Eric Edelman. Yesterday, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), reacted with a column that, after attacking Romney personally, …
In the wake of the Massachusetts election on Tuesday night, liberals in Congress have once again embarked on a course to change the rules to fit their needs. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) intends to introduce a bill that would eliminate the 60 vote threshold to end debate in the U.S. Senate. Ironically, the timing of their newest rule-changing efforts is a direct result of a previous rule-change merry-go-round that they themselves are to blame for. In 2004, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) was running for President, and the Governor of Massachusetts was Republican …
