I just got back from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting on the Law of the Sea. The final vote was 17-4 in favor of consideration by the full Senate.
(Senator Chuck Hagel, Steve Clemons, and International Peace Academy Chair Rita Hauser) Yesterday evening, I helped organize a private salon dinner with Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). I’ll be posting more on the event later today — along with some other interesting news.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes tomorrow on the Law of the Sea. The Committee is likely to approve the treaty, as it should. Frank Gaffney publishes a weekly column in the Washington Times. For the last three months or so, his column has targeted the Law of the Sea week in, week out.
We will have this program recorded digitally and posted as an update on this blog post, but for those of you in Washington, this will be an interesting meeting. It takes place from 1 pm – 2:30 pm today.
A loyal TWN reader informed me this morning that Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner now comes up as the “2nd image” when image googling the word “Weimaraner.” It’s just a proud family moment we wanted to share. — Steve Clemons Ed. Note: Thanks to David B.
(But for how much longer?) I have to give credit to Senator John Sununu. He showed up at the Arab American Institute’s National Leadership Conference in Dearborn, Michigan this weekend and openly talked about his search for his Palestinian grandfather’s home in old Jerusalem.
(Huene Island, pictured above, part of the Carteret Island chain, has literally been cut in two by rising sea levels) Papua New Guinea’s Mission to the United Nations recently announced that it would evacuate the Carteret Islands, a horseshoe-shaped group of islands in the South Pacific.
Frankly there’s not a whole lot new here to comment on — they’re feuding over the recent bombings, IAEA inspectors, terrorism, and democracy. Expect plenty more through January. But I did want to highlight some fantastic acrylic paintings created by my friend over at Chapati Mystery.
An underreported story that is finally getting some ink in the US mainstream press is the redirection of Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth to new, dare I say progressive, ventures.
Sens. John Sununu, Norm Coleman, and George Voinovich all voted for the Law of the Sea in 2004. According to sources in the Senate, all are now reconsidering their votes under heavy pressure from the likes of John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, and their most vocal black helicopter-fearing constituents.
