Richard Lugar

Former Senator John Danforth, Senator Richard Lugar, And The Collapse Of The GOP As A Respectable Party! :(

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Former Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri, a well respected moderate conservative, has denounced the turn of the GOP toward the extreme right Tea Party Movement, and has declared that the Republican Party of history may be lost forever!

Danforth is particularly scathing of the refusal of the Republicans in the Senate to cooperate on the ratification of the START Treaty with the Russian government, an action denounced also by the very respectable and acknowledged expert on foreign policy, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar!

Lugar’s opposition to his own party on the START treaty, and to the Tea Party Movement, has led to a move to try to defeat him in 2012, a move that Danforth bitterly opposes as the end of rational policy and principle by the party that he sees rapidly deteriorating! 🙁

Danforth and Lugar are a few of the rare remnants of the Republican Party which once was a respectable mainstream party, but is rapidly descending into darkness as an extreme right wing, regressive party that is trying to return America to the era of the 1920s or the Gilded Age! 🙁

If Richard Lugar is in trouble, the country is the loser! 🙁

Barack Obama, The START Treaty, And The Senate Republicans: Politics In The Offing? :(

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The Russians and the United States have negotiated a new START Treaty to lessen the danger of nuclear weapons spread, and to verify that each side is keeping the agreement to cut down nuclear stockpiles.

This is a good agreement to cut nuclear weapons stockpiles by thirty percent over seven years, and six former Secretaries of State–three Republicans and three Democrats–have supported ratification of the treaty, which requires a two thirds vote of the Senate!

Leaders of NATO, the national security community and the Joint Chiefs of Staff also support the treaty, but it seems as if the Republicans in the Senate are determined to delay a vote to next year, when there will be six more Republicans in the Senate! 🙁

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona seems to be the key figure involved in negotiations with the Obama Administration on the treaty, and it seems doubtful that, in the crowded congressional agenda in the lame duck session, that the treaty will get a full hearing and a positive vote, which could endanger US-Russian relations in the long run!

This potential stalling and possible defeat of the treaty next year, if not this year, would come despite support of some GOP senators, including particularly Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, an acknowledged foreign policy expert who is highly respected in the Senate by all of his colleagues!

Should politics get in the way of an important treaty such as this? No, but what else is new? 🙁

Profile In Courage Needed By Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, And Lindsey Graham Against Tea Party Movement Threat To Honored Traditions Of GOP!

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In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his anti Communist rampage, promoting fear and hysteria in millions of Americans; destroying the reputation of many public figures in government, media, Hollywood, and the professoriate; and silencing most members of the Senate who feared to speak up against him and his witch hunt! 🙁

But early on, a courageous woman Republican senator, Margaret Chase Smith, spoke up against McCarthy when no one else was willing to do so!

Smith was the first long serving woman in the US Senate, ultimately serving four terms from 1949-1973 for the state of Maine! She was truly a “profile in courage”, the title of a Pulitzer Prize winning book by Senator John F. Kennedy a few years later, although Kennedy was unwilling to speak out against McCarthy, particularly because his own father was supporting and financing the Wisconsin Senator!

The kind of courage Smith displayed, showing she had principles and was willing to risk her career to speak out against McCarthy’s tirades, needs desperately now to be copied by several Republican Senators, who are decent, mainstream Republicans, and who in their heart and mind, cannot be imagined to be supportive of the Tea Party Movement trying to usurp power and take over the Republican Party! 🙁

I am referring to Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Graham has, actually, been courageous to express doubts and criticism about the Tea Party Movement, but the others have remained silent. It could be because Snowe and Lugar face reelection contests in 2012, while Collins and Graham face it in 2014.

Graham has set the standard and needs to convince Collins, Snowe and Lugar to condemn what is going on, even if the result is a challenge to their seats when reelection time comes!

Sixty years later, we need some reputable GOP Senators to uphold the honored tradition of the party at a time when the party is in deep trouble and about to commit potential suicide!

The Righteousness Of The Passage Of The DREAM Act!

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A major problem area on the subject of “illegal immigration” are the children of “illegal” immigrants who are brought to this country, grow up in this country, and wish to receive a college education and begin a career in this country, but are dogged by their “illegal” status through no fault of their own!

A present case on this involves Eric Balderas, a Harvard student, with plans to become a cancer researcher, who was detained at the San Antonio airport this week, and given a date for a hearing at which he is faced with immediate deportation to Mexico, a country he has never lived in, and where he knows no one!

The proposed DREAM Act is cosponsored by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in April, calling for a moratorium on deportation of young people who could be saved from such action once this legislation were to pass. The DREAM Act would allow a path to citizenship for undocumented young people who serve in the military or attend college.

The DREAM Act is the acronym for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

The fact is that young Balderas was brought into the United States at the age of 4 to escape a domestic violence situation in Mexico, and this is the problem with the hardline “illegal immigration” crowd that just calls for the deportation of millions of undocumented people , most of whom have never committed a crime, have been law abiding citizens since they entered illegally, and are now living in fear and trepidation as to what their futures might be!

So it is good time to grant Balderas a waiver and to pass, as soon as possible, the humane DREAM Act, and have the President sign it in a public ceremony!

A Different View Of Barack Obama: A Pragmatic Moderate!

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In the midst of so much progaganda that terms Barack Obama a “socialist”, the very intelligent and perceptive Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, published an article last week in the Washington Post, in which he declares that, based on the 15 months so far of the Obama Presidency, it is clear to him that the President is a “pragmatic moderate”!

Hooray to Norman Ornstein, who is absolutely correct in his assessment! He dismisses the attacks of Newt Gingrich, Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and numerous others who regularly assault the President as not only “socialist”, but also “radical”, “totalitarian”, and willing to promote “retreat” and “surrender” in foreign policy.

Ornstein points out that the new Health Care reform is not radical at all, and that most of it was backed by moderate Republicans in the time of the failed Bill Clinton health care plans, and that Mitt Romney had made that moderate Republican plan the basis of the Massachusetts health care system in 2006. Now the former Massachusetts governor is trying to separate himself from what Obama has done, even though it is very similar to what was enacted in the Bay State!

The economic stimulus was not radical, according to Ornstein, and could have done much more on public works programs, but has thankfully started to have an effect on the economy in a positive way as shown by recent economic statistics. And most of the funds loaned to banks, insurance companies and auto companies are being paid back already!

The nuclear treaty with Russia was supported by Senator Richard Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and pushed also by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served also in that capacity under George W. Bush.

On the subject of terrorism, Obama has had successes, and is following the similar strategy of Bush. His energy policies, while opposed by many, includes some off shore oil drilling and nuclear power development. He is also trying, with some criticism, to promote accountability in education reform.

Ornstein’s conclusion is that Obama is mainstream, pragmatic and moderate, operating in the center of American politics, with a tip to the left. Ornstein calls it “center-left”, but not left of center!

What Ornstein states is precisely the view of the author, and the extremist language from Talk Radio, Fox News Channel, and many Republican and conservative spokesmen, is really starting to wear thin!

Barack Obama is in the tradition of earlier Democratic Presidents–Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson–and in some respects Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Republican President Richard Nixon in his better moments–moderate, pragmatic centrist!