Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption

Tea Party Has Sen. Dick Lugar In Their Sights
It's a scary time, when the Republican Party moves further to the right each day. While this may be good for Democrats at least some of the time, it's really not good for our country. It makes the possibility of an actual right-wing takeover that much more plausible: In an age when far-right Tea Party Activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranki...

Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption
Source: Think Progresss Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May ‘Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption’ In an age when far-right Tea Party Activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blasted his own party for relentlessly blocking ratification of the New START nuclear a..

Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption
Source: Think Progresss Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May ‘Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption’ In an age when far-right Tea Party Activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blasted his own party for relentlessly blocking ratification of the New START nuclear a..

Former Senator John Danforth Says GOP May Be Beyond Redemption
Ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar of Indiana has been the one Republican who understands the importance of ratifying the START Treaty with Russia, but he’s come under fire for his position by his fellow right-wingers. To former Missouri Senator John Danforth, this signals that the part may have gone “far overboard” and may be “beyond redemption.” (h/t Think Progress) “If Dick Lugar,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republic...

Former Bush official: GOP beyond redemption
Stumble This! John C. Danforth made the comment while discussing a possible Tea Party challenge to Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a long-serving moderate whose stances against some major GOP positions have reportedly made him the target of Republican ideologues. “If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the US Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on Foreign Policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we hav...

Are We Too Cynical? Or Not Cynical Enough?
Frank Rich is wrong: The previous transient scapegoat was the Democrats. They were punished in yet another “wave” election — our third in a row — where voters threw Washington’s bums out. But most of the public remains bummed out nonetheless. In late October, the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 31 percent of respondents believed that America was on the right track. When the survey asked the same question after the shellacking, the percent of optimists jumped

Sen. Lugar and the Tea Party
Republican Senator Richard Lugar will probably be one of the last relatively sane GOP politicians thrown Under the Bus by the Tea Party wackos — they’ve already purged most of the non-crazies: Senator Lugar Charts His Course Against the Winds. Mr. Lugar’s willingness to buck his party is leading to talk that he will face a primary challenge from a Tea Party Candidate when he runs for re-election in 2012. It is a possibility that Mr. Lugar, who said the current environment in Wa...

Beyond redemption
Here is what former Republican Senator John Danforth says about Republican criticism of Richard Lugar (Lugar is being criticized by teatards for supporting ratification of the START Treaty): “If Dick Lugar,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, “having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on Foreign Policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we hav...

New York Times Manages to Praise Obama Administration In Its Report on the Historic Leak of Sensitive Information
Wikileaks announced today that leading international Newspapers, including The New York Times, were going to release the classified American security information today even if the website was shut down. They misspelled Spiegel. Despite the fact that we have the most radical far left president in American history sitting in the White House these leftist papers couldn’t resist the temptation to embarrass and damage US Foreign Policy. But, at least they praised the Obama Administration for th...

Richard Klass: The GOP Strategy to Defeat Obama
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the Senate Minority Leader has set the goal publicly: The top priority of the GOP in the 112th Congress is to deny President Obama a Second Term. The first phase of the strategy is to inflict political defeats on the president during the "Lame Duck" session on issues such as New START, Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), taxes and Job Creation. New START: Consider this scenario. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ), McConnell's henchman on the issue, has refused to allow a vote on t...

Kyl reaffirms block on nuclear arms pact
Published: Nov. 28, 2010 at 2:54 PM Sen. John Kyl (R-AR) answers questions from the press regarding the status of the Immigration Bill on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2007. (UPI Photo/Dominic Bracco II) WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John Kyl said Sunday he will keep blocking the nuclear arms treaty and blamed Sen. Harry Reid for overloading the Senate's lame-duck session. On NBC's "Meet the Press," Kyl, R-Ariz., said the START Treaty with Russia cannot be ratified this year, "and that's more...

Playing games with foreign policy.
Posted by JM Ashby The Republicans just can't stop themselves from playing political games over this nation's standing in the world. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is attempting to deflect blame away from himself and onto Harry Reid for his own gross obstructionism. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona denied there was any Partisanship behind his calls for a delay. He said the Senate has more urgent business to attend to in the weeks before it breaks for Christmas, including dealing with potential Tax Increases a...

Senators show that politics, not policy, is holding up START treaty
Washington (CNN) - The Republican senator who opposes ratification this year of a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia made clear Sunday that politics, not policy, is the main issue. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl told NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the Senate won't have enough time in December's "lame-duck" session to properly consider the so-called START Treaty with Russia. What will the Senate do now? Of course its politics. This has been a Bipartisan issue for the last 25 years. Its in the country...

Top Republican denies blocking START treaty
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Republican in the Senate denied on Sunday he was obstructing ratification of a new nuclear arms deal with Russia, saying Congress had bigger issues to work on before its Christmas recess. Jon Kyl, the lead Republican negotiator on the New START Treaty in the Senate, has exasperated the Obama White House by raising a series of challenges to the deal despite widespread support for it, including from the Pentagon, former Republican National Security officials, European ...

Sen. Jon Kyl: Arms treaty less urgent than other issues
WASHINGTON — A leading Republican lawmaker on Sunday rejected the Obama Administration’s assertion that ratification of a new Arms Control treaty with Russia is so pressing that it must be dealt with by the lame-duck Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona denied there was any Partisanship behind his calls for a delay. He said the Senate has more urgent business to attend to in the weeks before it breaks for Christmas, including dealing with potential Tax Increases and funding the government...

Top Republican denies blocking START treaty
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Republican in the Senate denied on Sunday he was obstructing ratification of a new nuclear arms deal with Russia, saying Congress had bigger issues to work on before its Christmas recess. Jon Kyl, the lead Republican negotiator on the New START Treaty in the Senate, has exasperated the Obama White House by raising a series of challenges to the deal despite widespread support for it, including from the Pentagon, former Republican National Security officials, European...

Key US senator may block Russia nuclear pact (AFP)
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A key US senator suggested Sunday he would block a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia without weeks of debate, rejecting warnings from President Barack Obama that failure to act would hurt National Security. "It is more a view of reality rather than policy," senator John Kyl told NBC's "Meet the Press," calling for lengthy debate on the details of the new START arms reduction treaty despite a tight calendar for legislative action before the end...

Kyl Sticks to His Guns on START
By Stephen Power Sen. John Kyl , a key Republican holdout on President Barack Obama ’s nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, said Sunday that he continues to think the Senate doesn’t have time to debate the treaty before the end of the year. Mr. Kyl’s stance threatens a top White House foreign-policy priority. Mr. Obama has said that ratification of the START Treaty this year is a national-security imperative. But Mr. Kyl, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” expressed s

Charting His Own Course Against Prevailing Winds
WASHINGTON — Mavericks are not in vogue these days on Capitol Hill, a place where hyper-partisanship and obduracy seem to be their own rewards. The latest on President Obama, the new Congress and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion. But Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican who played that role long before it had a brand name, is standing against his party on a number of significant issues at a politically dangerous time to do so. A reliable co...

START puts Lugar on the spot
One was the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the other, new to Washington, was a Democrat who had spent his Political Career in the Illinois state senate and had no experience in Arms Control or Foreign Policy. But despite their differences, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar served as mentor and friend to Barack Obama, inviting him along on a trip to Russia and Eastern Europe to inspect nuclear sites only a few months after Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator. Continu...

Lugar Champions Controversial 'Dream Act'
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Immigration debate is expected to heat up next week if the U.S. Senate takes up a proposal being championed by Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar. The Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, also known as the Dream Act, would allow people who are not legal to enter the Military, have access to college and ultimately provide a path to gaining legal status. The Latino Youth Collective of Indianapolis, a group made up of local Immigration advocates, wants the bill to beco...

Holding Down the Economy for Political Gain?
I have been hesitant to embrace the idea that the GOP is intentionally trying to keep The Economy from recovering in order to make political gains. Instead, I have taken the more charitable route of assuming the policies they are pushing arise from honestly held ideological differences. But if members of the GOP are willing to take positions that undermine national defense just to make political gains, why shouldn't I assume they'd be willing to do something similar to the economy?: .....

Dick Lugar hasn't changed, the GOP has
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) Both the New York Times and Politico front pages lead with stories about how isolated Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) is over his support for the ratification of the START Treaty. "Charting His Own Course Against Prevailing Winds," reads the New York Times headline. "START puts Lugar on the spot," wrote Politico. "Lugar has unapologetically backed Obama in support of START," the article continues. But Lugar has stayed the same while many GOP Senators -- especially Jon Kyl (R-...

Dems Election Explanation Doesnt Add Up
James Taranto’s op-ed is wonderful mockery of the Democrats’ explanation for their election defeat. Here’s one of the explanations cited in Taranto’s column: Graydon Carter , editor of Vanity Fair, attributes the election outcome to “general anti-Obama rage…this being America, there’s an attendant hatred for Obama that has more to do with race than anything else…angry right-wing Extremists tend to carry guns…the wiggy mood of the nation [is ...

The TSA, the Right, and My Busted Watch
So. Do I like the idea of getting blown sideways out of an airliner at 38,000 feet by some brain-damaged zealot with a knot of C-4 nestled beneath his scrotum? As I plummet screaming from the blot of smoke that used to be a 727, will I find serenity in my final moments because I know the guy who killed me didn't have his rights violated by the gendarmes of the TSA? No and no. Do I think there are enough credible dangers out there to justify heightened security measures, especially during the h...