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• There was no GOP “collapse” on New START – Just a Sell Out
  As the treaty speeds toward ratification, the biggest question that remains is: If the treaty ratification had been delayed until next year, would Kyl then have supported it? Was he ultimately trying to delay forever or was there really some amount of consultation and concessions that would have gotten him to vote yes?

  Whether or not Kyl's vote was ultimately winnable will simply never be known for sure. But in the end, Kyl's efforts resulted in the administration promising over $84 billion for modernization of the nuclear stockpile and nuclear labs. "At least Jon Kyl was able to get more money for modernization and that letter from President Obama making assurances on missile defense," Lowry wrote.

  And why did the argument to delay — made by McConnell, Kyl, Inhofe, McCain, Graham, and others — fail to convince the almost dozen Senate Republicans who will vote for New START?
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  GOP Senators who voted for START will pay the price in a primary election especially Lugar

  (tags: START GOP)
• How many Poles does it take to pass New START? -
  As the White House scrambles to secure enough GOP Senate votes to ratify the New START treaty with Russia, there's a lot of overt political grandstanding — and a lot of horse trading going on behind the scenes.

  In a long floor speech on Wednesday Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) declared, "I am deeply concerned the New START treaty may once again undermine the confidence of our friends and allies in Central and Eastern Europe." Then, quietly, he offered his support to the Obama administration in exchange for waiving visa requirements for Polish citizens.

  Various GOP senators have submitted demands in exchange for their support of the treaty, but they are usually related to concerns over the treaty itself. For example, the administration has offered Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) over $84 billion for nuclear modernization, under the premise that shoring up the safety of the stockpile is needed to ensure national security.

  Too Many

  (tags: START George_Voinovich jon_kyl)
• Defunding ObamaCare in Continuing Resolution Wasn't Exactly a Secret
  If conservatives are feeling bad about START, they should be really happy about this. With the new Congress in January, the GOP will be in a strong position on fighting ObamaCare."

  In other words, the loss of funding is directly attributable to the slothful behavior of House and Senate leaders who passed no budget or appropriations bills before the lame-duck session. They assumed, I guess, that Republicans would roll over and pass an omnibus spending bill after an election, one that everyone had assumed was going to go badly for the Democrats. Well, that was poor planning. The failure was then compounded by Reid, who dramatically overreached on the omnibus, making it impossible to round up votes for cloture.

  +++++++

  ObamaCare will die a slow funding death – if not outright repeal in 2013 when Obama leaves office

  (tags: Obamacare)
• Just a reminder – Mike Huckabee Is NO Conservative & wants to use federal regulations to change your eating habits
  Mike Huckabee recently publicly expressed his disagreement with Sarah Palin's attacks on Michelle Obama's heavy-handed approach to childhood obesity:

  “With all due respect to my colleague and friend Sarah Palin, I think she's misunderstood what Michelle Obama is trying to do,” the former Arkansas governor said Tuesday on the “Curtis Sliwa Show.” …

  “Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or not trying to force the government's desires on people,” Huckabee said. “She’s stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country.”

  He added: “The first lady's campaign is on target.”

  Just as a reminder, Mike Huckabee is no conservative when it comes to using the federal government to regulate what we eat.

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  And, why Sarah Palin will have him for lunch if he dares to run against her

  (tags: mike_huckabee sarah_palin)
• Some In GOP Cave On New START
  Strategy: The heirs of Ronald Reagan abandon his legacy and dream of defending America from nuclear attack. Our security will rest on ambiguous language and vague assurances, not on the genius of U.S. technology.

  Peace in our time, or should we say appeasement in our time, as a sufficient number of GOP senators signed on the New START treaty to give the Democrats and President Obama the 67 votes needed for ratification.

  The Hill reported that Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., became the 10th Republican to support the treaty on Monday. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was No. 9, saying on Monday afternoon, "I believe it's something important for our country and I believe it's a good move forward."
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  Those GOP Senators who have caved into Obama on New START will regret their vote

  (tags: START)

US Senator John Kerry (D-MA) (R) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) (C) smile as they depart together after a news conference after the Senate ratified the START nuclear arms reduction treaty at the US Capitol in Washington, December 22, 2010

Too many and they will be held accountable by the Tea Party and conservative activists in their next GOP Primary elections.

With the new Republican power in Washington, it is doubly important to keep a close eye on the doings of GOP Senators and Congressmen to spot those who are straying from orthodoxy, seduced by power and the insider clubiness that characterizes Washington.

In the Lame Duck session, we want to draw attention to six Republican U.S. Senators who voted with the Democrats on a key issue. We should all bear their apostasy in mind and, in particular, make them mindful of the possibility of primary challenges to their re-nomination.

Two Senators, in particular, deserve to have primary challengers take them on in 2012 — Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Mississippi’s Thad Cochran. Both men voted for the START treaty which conceded a permanent edge in nuclear weaponry to Russia. While the Treaty provided for equal and reduced stockpiles of strategic warheads, it did nothing to address the vast piles of tactical nuclear warheads held by the Russians. The Russians have 10,000 of these battlefield nuclear weapons piled up in the stockpile while we have only a few hundred.

In addition, START’s preamble blocks the U.S. from developing missile defenses, now especially important in light of North Korea’s and Iran’s expanding capacities.

Both Corker and Cochran face re-election in 2012. They should both be challenged for the nomination by men who put our need for national security above appeasing the Russians. Having suppressed democracy, wiped out free speech, taken over all the media, nationalized their oil and energy industry, invaded Georgia, enabled the Iranian nuclear program, and tried to establish a natural gas monopoly in Europe, what else does Putin need to do before Corker and Cochran realize that appeasement won’t work?

Bob Corker’s vote for START probably stems from the insider-old boy network on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on which he sits. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who also voted for START, sits alongside him on the Republican minority on the committee. Led by Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the panel, all three voted for START. Unfortunately, Isakson is not up for re-election until 2016. When he does come up for re-election, we hope that the citizens of Georgia’s Republican Party hold him to account.

Lamar Alexander, also of Tennessee, backed START and faces re-election in 2014.

In a previous column, we called attention to the defections of Republican Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Mike Crapo of Idaho from the ranks of fiscal conservatives. Both Coburn and Crapo voted for the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Commission which recommended cutting the deductions for home mortgages and charitable contributions by two-thirds for most taxpayers and urged the enactment of almost $1 trillion in new taxes.

Coburn and Crapo only announced their intention to endorse the Commission report after they had been re-elected on November 2, 2010.

Here is the vote on New START.

So, who are they:

• Richard Lugar of Indiana – 2012
• Thad Cochran of Mississippi – 2012
• Bob Corker of Tennesses – 2012
• Johnny Isakson of Georgia – 2016
• Lamar Alexander of Tennessee – 2014
• Tom Coburn of Oklahoma – 2016
• Mike Crapo of Idaho – 2016
• Mike Johanns of Nebraska – 2014

Time for conservatives to re-evaluate support of these incumbent Senators and replace them.

Here is their contact information. Give them a call after Christmas and let them know what you think of their sell-out.

Thad Cocheran, Mississippi

Washington Office
United States Senate
113 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2402
202-224-5054 / 202-224-5054

Jackson Office
190 East Capitol St.
Suite 550
Jackson, Mississippi 39201
601-965-4459 / 601-965-4459

Bob Corker, Tennessee

Washington, D.C.
United States Senate
Dirksen Senate Office Building
SD-185
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-3344 / 202-224-3344
Fax: 202-228-0566

Memphis
100 Peabody Place, Suite 1125
Memphis, TN 38103
Main: 901-683-1910 / 901-683-1910
Fax: 901-575-3528

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Washington, DC
239 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6142
Fax: (202) 228-1375

Idaho State Office
251 East Front Street
Suite 205
Boise, ID 83702
Phone: (208) 334-1776
Fax: (208) 334-9044

Tom Coburn, Oklahoma

Washington D.C.:
172 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008

Tulsa:
1800 South Baltimore
Suite 800
Tulsa, OK 74119
Main: 918-581-7651
Fax: 918-581-7195

Oklahoma City:
100 North Broadway
Suite 1820
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Main: 405-231-4941
Fax: 405-231-5051

Lamar Alexander, Tennessee

Washington Office
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944 / (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398
TTY: (202) 224-1546

Memphis Office
Clifford Davis-Odell Horton Federal Building
167 North Main Street, #1068
Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: (901) 544-4224 / (901) 544-4224
Fax: (901) 544-4227

Johnny Isakson, Georgia

United States Senate
120 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-3643 / (202) 224-3643
Fax: (202) 228-0724

One Overton Park, Suite 970
3625 Cumberland Blvd
Atlanta, GA 30339
Tel: (770) 661-0999 / (770) 661-0999
Fax: (770) 661-0768

Richard Lugar, Indiana

306 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1401
(202) 224-4814 p
(202) 228-0360 f

Southern Indiana

101 NW Martin Luther King Boulevard
Room 122
Evansville, Indiana 47708
(812) 465-6313 p
(812) 421-1883 f

Northeast Indiana

6384 A  West Jefferson Boulevard
Covington Plaza
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46804
(260) 422-1505 p
(260) 424-1342 f

Central Indiana

1180 Market Tower
10 West Market Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
(317) 226-5555 p
(317) 226-5508 f

Northwest Indiana

175 West Lincolnway
Suite G-1
Valparaiso, Indiana 46383
(219) 548-8035 p
(219) 548-7506 f

Political cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had an opportunity and a mandate from the November elections but he has failed to keep his party united. Even Senator Lyndsey Graham (Maverick 2 with John McCain) is bitchin’ and moaning.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lashed out at fellow Republicans Tuesday for a “capitulation … of dramatic proportions” to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress.

Graham said Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for allowing ratification of the New START Treaty and other legislation in the period before new lawmakers are sworn in in January.

“When it’s all going to be said and done, Harry Reid has eaten our lunch,” Graham said on Fox News radio. “This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn’t have passed in the new Congress.”

Republican senators have broken with the party’s leaders on several key votes in order to advance some of President Obama’s top policies during the lame-duck. GOP members defected to pass a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and have done likewise to secure likely ratification for the START Treaty. Some Republicans might allow a health bill for 9/11 first responders to move forward, while three Republicans voted to end debate on the DREAM Act, an ultimately unsuccessful immigration bill.

Time for Senate Republicans to consider electing a NEW leader in January.