Lazy Gopher Pachyderm

Today was to begin a series highlighting Senator Norm Coleman’s recent serious mis-steps. I’ll not fully abandoned that commentary but will put it aside for now after listening to Mr. Coleman discuss the Law Of the Sea Treaty (LOST) on the Hugh Hewitt show. While prior attempts by at least one blog yielded no answer to his position, Coleman told Hewitt that he is against the treaty and voted ‘no’ on referring it out of his committee today. Excellent!

Why is LOST so bad? Because it give the U.N., that highly corrupt organization, tremendous power of regulation over private enterprise and governments on sea/ocean commerce, sovereignty and security and state's rights. You can read much about it at www.rejectlost.org, but to summarize the worst:

- Any disputes, governmental, business, or military, would be subject to mandatory UN dispute resolution, without appeal.

- Requires the transfer sensitive military information.

- It would establish an international organization that could and would impose fees, royalties, and other payments to the U.N., in effect, a taxation on Americans without representation or redress.

- The U.N. would effectively be given the authority to administer and oversee 70% of the earth’s surface.

For those of you in public school civics, since this is a treaty it will take 67 senators to ratify the thing. Prior to today, Fred Thompson, and the GOP leadership were on record against it. With Coleman coming on board in opposition it will make getting 34 ‘No’ votes a bit easier, and defeat looks better.

So for today I can say ‘I come not to bury Coleman but to praise him,’ and send a ‘Thank you’ call to his office.

Tomorrow, however, could be a different story.