Conservatives Ready For ‘Sneaky Treaties’

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Back in September, 36 Republicans in the Senate signed on to a letter requesting that no treaties be brought up for consideration during the precious few days of the lame duck session.

“The writers of the Constitution clearly believed that all treaties presented to the Senate should undergo the most thorough scrutiny before being agreed upon,” they wrote in a Sept. 20 letter to Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The American people will be electing representatives and senators in November, and new representatives carrying the election mandate should be afforded the opportunity to review and consider any international agreements that are outstanding at the time of their election.”

The signatories promised to oppose efforts to consider any treaty brought for consideration.

Fast-forward two months, and the Senate has begun consideration of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations treaty that faces heavy opposition from conservative groups and received only one committee hearing, back in July.

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The GOP’s Weakest Leg

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photo credit: kazvorpal

The Republican coalition is often described as a three-legged stool made up of foreign policy, social issue and fiscal conservatives. It’s an apt metaphor because it captures the fact that all three legs need to be secure in order for the party to keep from collapsing.

For most of the last two decades, foreign policy (strong defense) and social (traditional values) conservatives have at various times been blamed for Republican defeats. But fiscal conservatism (lower and fewer taxes; less government spending) has always escaped from Republican losses unscathed.

2012 produced a different outcome. Everyone agrees that the 2012 election was about the economy, and that Republicans suffered a drubbing.

I’m a fiscal conservative who believes in lower taxes and entitlement program reform. But politically, these issues appear to be the weakest leg of the Republican coalition. The public is more than willing to raise taxes on the rich, and they don’t want cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

Despite the unpopularity of these ideas, various Republican office holders and pundits continue to blame social issues for election defeats.

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Rand Paul Promotes Bill To ‘End Abortion On Demand Once And For All’

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Republican Senator Rand Paul says he wants to pass a Life at Conception Act to “end abortion on demand once and for all.”

Senator Paul, R-KY, recently recorded a message for the National Pro-Life Alliance (NPLA), talking about the legislation, which would declare unborn babies legal persons from the moment of conception and give them Constitutional protections.

The senator says Congress can legislatively overturn the Supreme Court‘s Roe v. Wade decision by passing a “personhood” law called the Life at Conception Act.

The law would establish that human life begins at conception, and extend 14th Amendment protection to babies in the womb.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the 1973 ruling that if a fetus can be defined as a person, the “right” to abortion “collapses, for the fetus’s right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

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Norquist: Resurgent Tea Party Will ‘Dwarf’ First Wave

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Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, predicted on Friday that an upcoming “Tea Party second wave” will “dwarf” the first wave that propelled Republicans into the majority in the House during the historic 2010 midterm elections.

In an interview with “The Victoria Taft Show,” Norquist said the fiscal cliff negotiations and President Barack Obama’s second term will lead to a movement that will revolt against a government that spends, regulates, and taxes too much.

“We are about to have a Tea Party second wave that will dwarf the first wave and that is because while ‘spend too much’ brought the Tea Party into existence, we’re about to walk into ‘spend too much, regulate too much, and tax too much, all together,'” he speculated.

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Firefighter Fired for Installing Barack Obama Toilet Paper in Firehouse Bathroom

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A Florida firefighter is out of a job after putting toilet paper with President Barack Obama’s face in his fire department’s bathroom.

Clint Pierce, who admitted placing the Obama toilet paper in the restroom as a “gag,” had until 5:00 p.m. Friday to turn in his badge after the city of Pompano Beach, Fla. determined his joke was a disrespectful repeat offense, according to a report from the Sun Sentinel.

The Oct. 19 incident marked the third time Pierce brought political props onto city property, after he was told to stop.

“It was clearly a case of insubordination,” city spokeswoman Sandra King said Friday, according to the paper. “He had a similar situation of posting political messages on city property and he was given a free pass at that time and told to cease and desist and he did it again and really exacerbated the situation.”

Fire Chief Harry L. Small determined that Pierce’s actions showed “tasteless and disrespectful treatment” of President Obama and “caused significant divisiveness within the department and community.”

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Senate Expected To Take Up United Nations Treaty As Early As Tuesday

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photo credit: cliff1066

The Senate is expected to vote on the pro-abortion CRPD treaty on Wednesday and pro-life groups are asking pro-life advocates to contact members of the Senate urging them to vote against it.

The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, after members voted 61-36 to move the treaty to the floor for debate.

The International Right to Life Federation says pro-life groups oppose this legislation because it leaves open the potential for the international community to permit sterilization or abortion for the disabled. The terminology, found in Article 25, requires, “free or affordable health care including the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programs.”

Bradley Mattes, president of the International Right to Life Federation, stated, “This is a misleading measure in that it does nothing to protect life. It is disguised as a way to ‘help’ the disabled. Instead it intentionally sacrifices the most vulnerable – the disabled and the unborn – all in the name of population control.”

He continued, “Many don’t realize that this international treaty could potentially supersede future attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

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Defense Intelligence Agency Setting Itself Up As Rival To The CIA?

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The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.

The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.

When the expansion is complete, the DIA is expected to have as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.

The total includes military attachés and others who do not work undercover. But U.S. officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.

Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China.

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Video: Hillary Clinton Says Israel Lacks Empathy, Generosity, and Must Do More To Prove They Understand . . . Oppression

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photo credit: veni markovski

In the eyes of Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Israelis don’t have proper empathy, and they must do more to prove that they understand the pain of oppressed peoples (apparently the holocaust doesn’t qualify).

The Secretary also said there was a lack of generosity, and the presence of suspicion, which together caused the Israelis to miss opportunities for diplomatic solutions.

Watch this extraordinary video below:

Couple Faces $97K in Fines for Using Their Own Driveway

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CLEARCREEK TWP., Warren County — The six-year dispute between Clearcreek Twp. and Howard and Lisa Gray shows just how complicated, combative and costly local land use issues can become.

The Grays obtained permission from a Clearcreek Twp. official to use their residential driveway in Warren County to get to buildings on the Montgomery County portion of their land. The buildings house the Grays’ storage and landscaping businesses.

But following complaints from neighbors, Clearkcreek Twp. ordered the couple to stop using the driveway to access their commercial area. A judge subsequently issued an order to that effect.

The Grays say they have no other feasible way to get to that land, and they now face contempt of court charges and nearly $100,000 in potential fines for resisting court orders.

“We are just confounded,” Lisa Gray said. “I am just very saddened.”

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Suicide Bombers Attack U.S. Base in Afghanistan

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(Reuters) – Suicide attackers detonated bombs and fired rockets outside a major U.S. base in Afghanistan on Sunday, killing five people in a brazen operation that highlighted the country’s security challenges ahead of the 2014 NATO combat troop pullout.

Local police officials said bodies in Afghan police and military uniforms were scattered around the entrance of the airfield in the eastern city of Jalalabad after a two-hour battle. A Taliban spokesman said the militant group had launched the 6 a.m. assault.

The Taliban, who have been fighting U.S.-led NATO and Afghan forces for more than a decade, sometimes dress in uniforms for attacks.

Two suicide bombers died after blowing themselves up in cars, said Nasir Ahmad Safi, a spokesman for the provincial government.

Seven other bombers were killed in the a gunbattle with Afghan and coalition forces. Three Afghan soldiers and two civilians also died, said Safi.

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