Boehner faces historic decision on 2010 tax-cut Christmas tree

A very interesting post from www.hughhewitt.com about the Tax Cut Compromise. This follows this post about the Republican House Assignments and this article about  the recent news about ending the ban on offshore drilling which would encourage American energy independence This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE!


Hugh Hewitt: Boehner faces historic decision on 2010 tax-cut Christmas tree


It has been 50 years since a speaker of the House left a huge mark on American history and not just on the institution.

There have been eight speakers since Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn died in the office he held for 17 years, and while some of them have been very memorable, such as Tip O'Neill and Newt Gingrich, and others extraordinarily consequential, such as Nancy Pelosi, none has truly driven American history.



In January, Republican John Boehner will be two heartbeats from the presidency, and should disaster befall the country, the nation would be in capable hands if tragedy thrust him forward.



The question is, such unprecedented and unhappy circumstances aside, does Boehner aspire to mark American history as more than an answer to a trivia question, more than did Carl Albert and John McCormick, Dennis Hastert, Jim Wright or Tom Foley? If Boehner does, this will be the week that he starts out on that path.



Boehner is a tough, wily and underestimated son of Ohio, one of 12 children, a product of Catholic schools, a Bishop Moeller Crusader through and through.



He is said to be loyal to his friends and to the traditions of the House, and last week he promoted three long-serving Republicans to the leadership of three committees where various sets of reformers had hoped to see new faces for a new era.



Tea Party activists are outraged and, worse by far, the Pledge to America that Boehner and his colleagues promulgated on a House Web site as binding on the Republicans of the current House seems to be in shreds because of the "tax deal" that turned into a Christmas tree with ethanol and windmills under its branches.



Now Boehner faces a choice. He can in good conscience declare that the deal he agreed to has been buried under a mountain of pork and that, upon further reflection, he ought not to have gone along with it in the first place because of the explicit, specific provisions in the Pledge to America he captained and is now in a position to advance.



Boehner can make a stand as memorable as the one he took on Feb. 13, 2009, when he dropped 1,100 pages of an unread stimulus bill on the floor of the House and denounced the process that produced in near-secrecy such a deficit-driving monster.



There are enormous risks to that course. Markets could be unsettled and even sell off for a few days. The president will denounce Boehner as untrustworthy, and the Washington Post, the New York Times and Politico will repeat the charge without examination of the White House's capitulation to the spending frenzy demanded by Democrats as an additional bit of blackmail necessary to prevent the biggest tax increase in history.



The replacement legislation in the new Congress might take weeks to forge though the 23 Democratic senators facing re-election in 22 months will not block for long the tax relief that the president and his senior advisers have all admitted is crucial to the nation's economic growth.



Boehner can choose this week to reaffirm what he and the GOP leadership have said over and over again for the past two years: We cannot stay on this path. The new speaker can, with the country's attention fixed on him, use that moment to warn the country that the fiscal cliff is real and that we are at its edge, perilously close to taking a turn marked Greece and Ireland.



If John Boehner does the right thing this week, a speakership not yet begun will already have made a profound mark on American history.



Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.







Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/hugh-hewitt-boehner-faces-historic-decision-2010-tax-cut-christmas-tree#ixzz18C9zsqv6

Did You Vote Republican For Nothing?

A very interesting post from www.redstate.com about the Republican House Assignments. This follows this post  about the Lame Duck Congress and this article about  the recent news about ending the ban on offshore drilling which would encourage American energy independence This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE!


Did You Vote Republican For Nothing?



Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

Did you show up at the polls on November 2nd for nothing? It seems that way. The House Republican Leadership has decided to put Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on the Appropriations Committee and that’s pretty much it. They are sending a signal to the tea party movement that this is all they’ll get.



John Boehner and Eric Cantor want Hal Rogers of Kentucky to serve as Appropriations Chairman. Hal Rogers is a big spending porker who has been a champion of earmarks. So brazen in his lust for your money, Rogers wants to put a Lockheed Martin lobbyist in as staff director for the Appropriations Committee — a lobbyist in charge of doling out the dollars.



But the fight is not over. Today the House GOP must ratify the leadership’s decisions and we can still get Jack Kingston into the Chairman’s chair. Go to our action center and fight to stop this. Call your Republican Congressman this morning. Tell him to support Jack Kingston as Appropriations Chairman.



Stand up to John Boehner and Eric Cantor. Fight for your principles.



CALL YOUR REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN THIS MORNING.



THE VOTE WILL BE TODAY.



If you believe the GOP must change their ways, you must then fight against Hal Rogers’s appointment and support Jack Kingston instead. This fight is too important. We must rebuke House Republican Leaders and compel them to do the right thing.



I’m going to make it easy for you.



Go to our action center here. Call your Republican Representative and tell him to support Jack Kingston for Appropriations Chairman. Kingston, like Rogers, was an Appropriations Sub-Committee Chairman. Only Kingston turned in a budget on time and under budget.



Between Rogers and Kingston, Kingston is a stronger fiscal conservative who will work to cut spending.



Tell your Congressman that putting a huge porker in charge of Appropriations with a lobbyist as staff director is an insult to all the work you did to get the GOP back into the majority.



Call this morning. Stand up to John Boehner and Eric Cantor. Fight for your principles

Stop START: Whip List

A very interesting post from www.redstate.com about the START Treaty. This follows this post about North Korea and Iran and this article  about the recent news about the former ban on offshore drilling which would encourage American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE

Stop START: Whip List


Posted by Russ Vought (Profile)




Friday, December 3rd at 1:36PM EST



Throughout the last year, it has been very difficult to nail down how many Senators are opposed to ratification of New START. Too many Senate Republicans have kept their powder dry as they deferred to Senator Jon Kyl to negotiate on their behalf. This has been a fundamental mistake, because it has precluded the opponents of the treaty from winning the public debate based on its flaws.



Thankfully, we now have some semblance of a whip list to work off over the next week or so. Senators John Ensign, Kit Bond, and Jim DeMint have circulated a letter with 22 signatures (including their own) that basically amounts to a public hold letter, objecting to any unanimous consent agreement in the Senate to expedite ratification. The letter can be found here.


There are 42 Republican Senators in the lame duck. New START needs 67 votes to be ratified. If all 58 Democrat votes stick together, the Obama Administration needs 9 Republican votes. Below the fold is the universe of Senate Republicans who have not signed the Ensign-Bond-DeMint hold letter and need to be nailed down between now and next week. Here is the main number for the Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121. Call away!

Lamar Alexander (TN), Republican Conference Chairman

Robert Bennett (UT)

Scott Brown (MA)

Saxby Chambliss (GA)

Thad Cochran (MS)

Susan Collins (ME)

Bob Corker (TN), voted for the treaty out of committee

Lindsey Graham (SC)

Judd Gregg (NH)

Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)

Johnny Isakson (GA), voted for the treaty out of committee

Mark Kirk (IL)

Jon Kyl (AZ), Republican Whip

George LeMieux (FL)

Richard Lugar (IN), voted for treaty out of committee and a main proponent

John McCain (AZ)

Mitch McConnell (KY), Republican Leader

Lisa Murkowski (AK)

Olympia Snowe (ME)

George Voinovich (OH)



It is also worth calling some of the Democrats. Ben Nelson (NE) supports ratification, but has said that START can wait until next year. Kent Conrad (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO), and Jon Tester (MT), must all face the voters within two years and should hear from their constituents.



Crossposted at Heritage Action for America

Lame duck Congress should wrap up and go home

A very interesting post from http://www.hughhewitt.com/  about the Lame Duck Congress. This follows this post about California and this article about  the recent news about ending the ban on offshore drilling which would encourage American energy independence This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE


Hugh Hewitt: Lame duck Congress should wrap up and go home

TAGS: hugh hewitt
Examiner Columnist

.By the end of this week, the House and Senate GOP will have branded themselves in the eyes of many millions of activists, especially with the Tea Partiers hot-wired into the lame-duck doings and worried that all of their work and all of their money will have produced just another group of Beltway Republicans. Speaker-designate John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have been fighting to establish the new GOP's credibility on a range of issues, but House seniority imperils the Boehner effort, while the Senate's legendary ability to deafen an individual senator to public opinion is at work even on GOP senators facing perilous roads to re-election in 2012.



On the House side, the selection of three chairmen for three key committees this week will telegraph the depth of the GOP's resolve to tackle the nation's problems. If Alabama's Rep. Spencer Bachus is named chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, every Sarah Palin supporter will instantly conclude Boehner is against them. When Bachus slammed Palin last month, he made this chairmanship contest a test of Boehner's commitment to the new activists.



If Georgia's Rep. Jack Kingston isn't leading the House Appropriations Committee by Friday, the message will be that, while spending may be curbed for a moment, the old bulls are simply biding their time.



The likely election of Michigan's Rep. Fred Upton to head the House Energy and Commerce Committee will not damage the leadership's credibility with the grass roots if California's Ed Royce takes over Financial Services instead of Bachus and Kingston gets the gavel at Appropriations.



But if Upton rises with Bachus and California's Jerry Lewis atop of Appropriations, the message will be loud and clear: The Beltway Republicans have returned.



Boehner has a huge choice before him, and throwing himself into the fight for reform will mean a tough conversation with some old friends, but the new speaker will never get a second chance to make his first impression.



On the Senate side, the letter from all 42 members of the GOP caucus on the need to extend all the tax rates was a great start, but individual senators immediately began to announce their own positions on various issues, and thus returned that familiar feeling of a caucus held hostage by its most liberal members. A two-year extension coupled with massive spending will be seen as a major collapse of the GOP.



Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is pushing to railroad ratification of a crucial international arms accord, START, a terrible idea for a lame-duck Congress under any circumstances and for any major treaty as such accords must have the credibility of the United States behind them, not the smell of a rushed and fragile deal.



Lugar is a fine public servant, but this crusade at this time will almost certainly draw for him a destructive primary challenge that will be fueled by the genuine shock that he worked to allow lame ducks like Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut a vote on such a matter, while denying all the new Republican senators-elect a say on such a matter.



Then there is "don't-ask-don't-tell," which must now be amended to add "don't debate." If, as reported in some places, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., vote to rush a repeal in the lame duck, the insult will be immense to the activists of their states who worked and spent to support successful candidates across the country who should have a vote on this major issue.



Collins would imperil re-election of her seat mate, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Brown his own with such an empowerment of a lame-duck Congress.



The lame-duck Congress ought not to be deciding anything of consequence. That is the deep-felt position of the GOP base, and the Beltway GOP should honor it.



Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at http://www.hughhewitt.com/


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/hugh-hewitt-lame-duck-congress-should-wrap-and-go-home#ixzz17LVarSTx

An Independent Assessment of New START Treaty

A very interesting post from http://33-minutes.com about the new nuclear weapons treaty. This follows this post about Louisiana's new law against Sharia (like Arizona's immigration law?) and this article about the recent news about offshore drilling to encourage American energy independence This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran and Venezuela. For more posts like this click here.

An Independent Assessment of New START Treaty
An excerpt of a backgrounder on the New START at Heritage.org:
Proponents of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) suggest that the new Treaty not be judged against the standards of Cold War strategic arms treaties because contemporary conditions no longer require the treaty characteristics that Cold War conditions demanded of those earlier treaties. Even accepting that point, New START may be evaluated against other sets of standards. Those used in this brief assessment include the specific claims made on its behalf by the Obama Administration, in addition to comparisons to the post–Cold War 2002 Moscow Treaty and the 1994 START I Treaty (both treaties ran concurrently through December 2009).
The Claimed 30 Percent Reduction of Strategic Warheads
The Obama Administration has made claims on behalf of New START that are based on comparisons to the Bush Administration’s Moscow Treaty or to START I. For example, the Obama Administration claims that New START will reduce by 30 percent the number of deployed strategic warheads now permitted by the Moscow Treaty. If ratified by the U.S. Senate, New START would limit deployed strategic warheads to 1,550, while the Moscow Treaty limits the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons to the range of 1,700–2,200. Despite the superficial comparison (1,550 to 2,200 warheads) suggesting that New START reduces the number of deployed strategic warheads by 30 percent, such a comparison is deceiving, as will be discussed below. In general, the Moscow Treaty limitations running concurrently with the original START I Treaty required deeper reductions and were more restrictive than those contained in the New START treaty. (New START, if ratified, will supersede the Moscow Treaty.)[1]
In fact, despite Obama Administration claims to the contrary, New START’s counting rules and apparent lapses will permit increases in Russian strategic force levels above the 1,700–2,200 deployed warhead limit of the Moscow Treaty. RIA Novosti, an official news agency of the Russian Federation, already has reported that given New START’s counting rules, Russia will be able to retain 2,100 strategic nuclear warheads under New START, not 1,550.[2] Russia will be able to deploy even higher numbers under New START if it follows through on announced modernization programs, particularly the new heavy bomber. In addition Russia could deploy strategic nuclear systems that were limited or prohibited under START I, but appear not to be limited whatsoever under New START.
If Russia exploits the legal lapses in New START, there is no actual limit in the new Treaty on the number of strategic nuclear warheads that can be deployed. The number of Russia’s strategic nuclear warheads would be limited only by the financial resources it is able to devote to strategic forces, not by New START warhead ceilings—which would be the case without this new Treaty.
One of the biggest of these lapses is the bomber weapon counting rule. It is much more permissive than under the Moscow Treaty. Unlike the Moscow Treaty, which counts all nuclear warheads present at heavy bomber bases,[3] New START has a counting or attribution rule of one warhead per bomber.[4] That is, regardless of the actual number of weapons carried by a bomber or deployed at each base, each bomber will be counted as having a single weapon under New START’s 1,550 ceiling. This allows the deployment of a large number of uncounted bomber warheads. Even with existing bombers, as RIA Novosti reported, “Under the Treaty, one nuclear warhead will be counted for each deployed heavy bomber which can carry 12-24 missiles or bombs, depending on its type.”[5] There is no limit to the number of bomber weapons that may be carried by a bomber under New START because it omits the START I limit of 16–20 long-range nuclear air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) per bomber.[6] It also omits the START prohibition on arsenal aircraft that can carry very large numbers of nuclear long-range cruise missiles.[7] This New START counting rule alone would permit Russia legally to deploy hundreds of nuclear warheads over New START’s supposed ceiling of 1,550 deployed warheads, and the number could be much higher if a new bomber is deployed. The repeated claims of a 30 percent reduction in the number of permitted warheads under New START are false.
New START’s Launcher Limits
In addition, several dozen prohibitions and limits in START I’s Article V are completely gone (replaced by two limits on ballistic missile defense).[8] For example, unlike START I, there are no prohibitions on placing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on bombers, a delivery mode tested by the United States decades ago, and the START I limits on the maximum number of warheads that a ballistic missile can carry do not appear in New START.[9] Consequently, for the count of one warhead and one delivery vehicle, Russia could deploy aircraft loaded with MIRVed ICBMs (i.e., missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles).[10] This should not be considered far-fetched. During the negotiation of New START a Moscow publication suggested Russia should procure air-launched nuclear missiles based on Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).[11] This action was prohibited under START I; it would be legal under New START.
The Administration’s rationale for New START’s undercounting of bomber weapons as presented in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is the traditional point that bombers are recallable and slow to target and thus they are not “first strike” weapons.[12] However, if aircraft are armed with MIRVed ICBMs, they immediately lose these stabilizing characteristics. Under New START, aircraft could simply become another ICBM basing mode with greatly discounted warhead limits. This is one reason why New START’s permissive counting rule for bomber weapons combined with the absence of limitations on air-launched ICBM launchers may be regarded as a serious lapse.
New START also appears not to limit rail-mobile ICBMs whatsoever. While the Administration might be tempted to argue that at least deployed rail-mobile ICBMs, as distinct from launchers, are limited by the ceiling of 700 deployed delivery vehicles in Article II, that would require New START to include a definition of a deployed rail-mobile ICBM in the Treaty’s Protocol. In fact, New START contains not a single word about rail-mobile launchers or rail-mobile ICBMs.
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Read the full memo here.