Politico reports on the back and forth between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl over passage of the START Treaty. Kyl has repeatedly opposed discussion of START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) because he thinks it would be too much work, or something. Today, Biden responded:
In an interview on NBC airing Thursday, Biden called on Senate Republicans to ratify the New START this month and blasted lawmakers who have cited Christmas as a reason to postpone.
Biden noted there are 10 shopping days until Christmas. “I hope I don’t get in the way of your Christmas shopping, but this is the nation’s business,” he said. “This is the national security that’s at stake. Act.”
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that getting START through the Senate would “disrespect” senators, staffers and their families by working up until Christmas.
Keep in mind that Kyl has been whining about this since November, so it’s not like the START issue popped up out of nowhere. Despite Kyl’s concerns that he might have to work next week, the Senate began debate on START today.
Senator Jon Kyl, ladies and gentlemen! Making American more secure…so long as it doesn’t require too much work or anything.
Kyl (and his friend Jim DeMint) wanted the entire treaty (which has been available for 8 months now) read in its entirety on the Senate floor before the vote. So he’s only against work if it’s him doing the work; he’s fine with forcing the Senate clerks into doing extra work.
And vote on it already.
I’m OK with that, as long as it shows Kyl and DeMint to be the assholes that they are.
They eventually backed off of the demand, apparently shamed by a rebuke from Harry Reid, who seemed bound and determined to make them look like the complete assholes they are.
Debate is going on today, amendments will be voted on tomorrow (including one from Republicans that would alter the text of the signed treaty and force Obama to take it back to the negotiating table).
Yes, tomorrow. The Senate will remain in session through the weekend to consider the DREAM and DADT repeal stand-alone bills.
there are men and women in uniform serving our country in Afghanistan right now that would like to spend the holidays (that’s right, I said holidays….if you are troubled by that, your government funded health plan will cover psychological counseling so go see a shrink) with their families too, but they know what it means to “Serve their Country” (for a significantly smaller paycheck than what you and your staff are getting, I might add) so they don’t whine about it.
Furthermore, if you and your buddies wouldn’t insist of filibustering everything you don’t have the votes to block, your work would have been completed quite some time ago. I hope Reid keeps you a$$holes in session straight through to January 5th.
Filibuster all you like, we’ll stay in session until we vote on it.
What do their corporate masters think?
Isn’t it already 12 days? That isn’t enough?
Yum!
And how does this “treaty” improve our national security? Oh that’s right it doesn’t. The dems are just in a hurry to get it through with the lame duck votes.
I am not justifying bad behavior with bad behavior. I am just a firm believer that the best way to get Democrats to stop doing something is to use it against them. Yes like the infant children that they are.
I have no fsking clue what you’re talking about.
Except that the reduction of nuclear armaments in the Russian Federation is certainly a desirable goal from a national security standpoint. Unless you like the idea of the Russian Mafia getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.
That right now, with the old treaty expired and the new one not ratified, nobody is doing inspections.
Wasn’t it some senile ex B-movie actor who once said “trust but verify?”
Oh it’s not? Oh ok let’s give up the whole farm and get nothing in return.
http://www.newsmax.com/m/Artic…
Start reading an actual analysis of the treaty.
Both sides are obligated to reduce to ~1500 the number of nukes in their strategic arsenals. This is down from the ~1700-2200 that each side currently has under the soon-to-expire SORT treaty.
Oh, and BTW – not only should you stop reading Newsmax, you should post to an article that relates to the treaty. Posting to an abortion provision article gives us hints as to your reading comprehension, and those hints aren’t promising…
Could it be they know more about defense and national security than ‘No2Dems’?
Just putting the possibility out there, awaiting your credentials No.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
add Condoleeza Rice and former President George HW Bush to [your list].
In case NO2Dems is too lazy to do his own googling.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2…
If i told them it’s disrespectful of me to make me work up to christmas. But I should get paid anyway.
to himself.
It’s a shitty treaty. Redo it, and don’t try to rush it through, because post Obamacare, nobody trusts anything the Senate does after Dec. 1st anyway.
It’s a good treaty backed by at least 6 former Republican Secretary of States, a former Republican President, and most people that aren’t ignorant fucks and have actually read what it does and why it’s important to pass it instead of putting our national security at risk to score cheap political points.
Being such an informed guy and all, LB, and so deeply concerned about Iran, this treaty would appear tailor made to addressing some of your concerns…you know, the ones that only seem to crop up when you want to make fun of Obama and Democrats.
I used to live in Arizona, so I’m familiar with him. He is so rigidly partisan that he will oppose anything any Democrat proposes.
It’s Kyl and his GOP colleagues that have put the Senate in this position. They spent the last two years blocking every single bill of any significance, and most presidential nominees, just because they can. There is no principle at stake in their abuse of the filibuster, just a dedication to making sure that nothing is done to solve the nation’s problems and no economic improvement in the lives of most people happens.
The man, like pretty much all Republican legislators in Washington, is a marionette for the corporations and the wealthy. The idea that somehow religious beliefs are violated if the Senate works through Christmas eve would come as a shock to most of us, who do exactly that every year no matter what we believe.