Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Pejman Yousefzadeh to discus Haley Barbour’s recent comments, the START Treaty and more.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

The Boy from Yazoo City
The watermelon thing
The Note: Haley’s Comet: Could Remarks On Civil Rights Damage A Campaign Before It Starts?
Arms treaty with Russia nears Senate approval
Rush: START Treaty is Part of Obama’s Effort to Disarm the United States
Harrison Ford wants Indiana Jones to die in the next movie

(more…)

He used to be known as “Richard Nixon’s favorite Mayor” when he was Mayor of Indianapolis and while the New York Times says he’s a “conservative” there is little in his record to indicate this. Indiana Senator Richard Lugar has always been a “moderate” Republican and has drifted further left as time goes by.

The Times also speaks of Lugar’s “affection” for Ronald Reagan which wasn’t reflected in his Chairmanship of Senator Howard Baker’s campaign for President in 1980. While there is no doubt that Lugar is a decent man and dedicated public servant, thirty years in the Senate is enough. The election of Dan Coats to the Senate from Indiana is proof the state can sustain the election of a real conservative.

Lugar is defying his party on an earmark ban, a bill that would create a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, a military spending authorization bill and an arms control treaty with Russia, the Times noted on Sunday. He even declined to sign a brief supporting state lawsuits against President health care law.

Talk of a challenge from Governor Mitch Daniels are false.

(more…)

The Obama administration’s determined effort to reduce America’s missile defense capabilities initially seemed to be just standard Leftist fare — of a piece with the Democratic base’s visceral hostility to the idea of protecting us against ballistic missile threats. A just-unveiled symbolic action suggests, however, that something even more nefarious is afoot.

The former would be bad enough, starting with Candidate Obama’s pledge to block “unproven missile defenses.” Once in office, he cut over a billion dollars from the Missile Defense Agency’s budget.  He cancelled the deployment of interceptors and radars in Eastern Europe designed to defend this country, as well as our allies over there.

Among other reprehensible actions, Team Obama terminated the nation’s only program capable of providing a near-term ability to intercept ballistic missiles early in their flight (i.e., the boost-phase).  This Airborne Laser Program nonetheless was successfully tested earlier this month — destroying not one but two missiles similar to those arrayed against us and our friends today and making the case that such systems should be operationalized and deployed as a matter of the utmost urgency.

(more…)