Thursday, December 6, 2012

More opinions on the defeated CRPD Treaty



Washington Post (blog) - In 1945, in the mountains of northern Italy, a U.S. Army second lieutenant, attempting to reach a downed radio man, fell wounded under a hail of German machine-gun fire. When the lieutenant was brought to the hospital, the doctors at first thought he would ...

Huffington Post - The treaty was negotiated and first signed by President George W. Bush and then again signed by President Obama in 2009. More than 153 other countries have signed it. Ill and sitting in a wheelchair in the chamber, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole ...

Huffington Post - In what appears another "say no to anything from the White House" move, Senate Republicans blocked a United Nations treaty which could have helped disabled children, women and men around the world -- at no cost whatsoever to the American taxpayer.

WBEZ (blog) - In the midst of all the headlines about how the cold-hearted GOP won't pass a middle-class tax cut until the president agrees to a tax cut on the rich, on Tuesday the Senate came up short on the two-thirds vote required to ratify the Convention on the Rights of ...

Kearney Hub -  And that’s why it was so heartbreaking to see the 89-year-old Kansan in his wheelchair return to the Senate floor trying, in vain, to persuade fellow Republicans to vote for an international treaty to ban discrimination against people with disabilities.
 
New York Times - Lately, you've probably been asking: “What ever happened to Rick Santorum? The guy who ran for president in the sweater vest? The one who compared homosexuality to bestiality and did 50 push-ups every morning?” It's certainly been on my mind.

First Things (blog) - MSNBC was positively crackling with outrage yesterday that the U.S. Senate rejected the UN treaty for persons with disabilities. John Kerry, the treaty's Senate shepherd, said it was “the saddest day of his 28 years in the Senate.” He was flabbergasted that the ...

Daily Beast - CRPD—whatever its intentions—has many troubling aspects. There is not a clear definition of “disability” in the treaty, which means some committee at the U.N. will decide after ratification who is covered—an example of what is at the heart of the problem.

Business Insider - The treaty, known as the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) and negotiated by George W. Bush in 2006, would essentially make the Americans With Disabilities Act an international standard, requiring other signatories to implement ...

Boston Globe - Twenty-two years ago, the United States passed landmark legislation forbidding discrimination against people with disabilities. That law put the United States at the forefront of the global struggle for equal treatment for the disabled. It inspired a United Nations ...

Babble - Attention homeschooling parents! Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum says a U.N. treaty designed to protect the disabled will allow foreign countries to come into your homes and make you stop teaching your kids! When I first heard the sweater-vest ...

DesMoinesRegister.com - Votes that nixed global guidelines for protecting people with disabilities were based on "unfounded fears," U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said today. “I just don't understand this vote,” Harkin told Iowa reporters on a conference all this morning. “We just can't be voting ...

Examiner.com - In an unexpected move, the Senate rejected the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) yesterday. Of course, a majority of the Senate (61 senators) approved the international treaty, but the 38 Republicans voting against the ...

NewsBusters (blog) - Employing sanctimonious rhetoric to paint Senate Republicans as cruel and heartless for opposing a U.N. treaty on disabled rights completely redundant to the Americans With Disabilities Act, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams lectured: ...

Huffington Post - WHERE was this kind of activity for the CRPD? It seems that a certain portion of this government is non-functional. The portion of this government that is not functioning is so bent on hate that it is dumping on those who can least afford it, and because of their ...

MSNBC - At issue was the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which allows for the international adaptation of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark legislation championed by President George H.W. Bush, ...

The Hill (blog) - Kerry rejected GOP criticism, saying that fears that ratifying the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would impede on U.S. laws, were unfounded. "The bottom line is not one American law is affected by this treaty.

Albany Times Union - For the first 25 years of my life, I was as an able-bodied American. All of that changed three years ago. After I graduated from West Point, I was serving my country as an Army infantry officer in Afghanistan when I was seriously wounded. I stepped on the ...

CNN (blog) - It would have required us to submit progress reports to the CRPD Committee and contribute money to an international disability fund. We also could be sued if someone claimed we violated this treaty. It sounds like a great document for bureaucrats & lawyers, ...

San Francisco Chronicle - For months, The Arc's Public Policy team and grassroots advocates across the country have been working to promote the CRPD and ensure ratification. And in October 2012, The Arc hosted its annual convention in Washington, DC with Inclusion International, ...

WFPL - CRPD could have changed all that. Paul's argument against the treaty falls along the same lines. “Sen. Paul believes it is always a mistake to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, no matter the cause," Paul communications director Moira Bagley ...

Bennington Banner - The opposition of all but eight Republicans in the U.S. Senate to a United Nations treaty on the rights of the disabled modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enough on Tuesday to deny the necessary two-thirds vote needed for treaty ...

Huffington Post - Who should make the critical health-care decisions for a child with a disability? A well-meaning, but faceless and distant United Nations bureaucrat, or a parent who has known, loved, and cared for the child since before birth? Read the whole story at Daily ...

Beyond Chron - Veterans, disability and civil rights group lobbied, tweeted, and organized. But it wasn't enough. On December 4, at 9:29 a.m., thirty eight Republican Senators voted against the United Nations Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities (#CRPD).

NBCNews.com - Conservative opponents said some countries with poor human rights records, like China, would get a pass. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.

Huffington Post (satire) - For the second day in a row, Jon Stewart hammered at Republicans over irrational partisanship. On Tuesday, he took down Boehner and company's indecent fiscal cliff proposal, and on Wednesday "The Daily Show" host took senate Republicans to task for ...

Pittsburgh Post Gazette - If ever there was a portrait of what is wrong with the Republican Party in its embrace of extremism, the Senate floor provided the dismal picture on Tuesday. There was former Sen. Bob Dole, once the Republican Party's nominee for president, seated in a ...

Sacramento Bee - "Opposition to ratification of the treaty is based on several extreme assertions by the far right, including that ratifying the CRPD would endanger U.S. sovereignty and that parents would lose their ability to make decisions for their children with disabilities.

Oak Ridger (blog) - Of all the bad things the far-right wing of the Republican Party has done in the halls of government in recent years, one of the worst was its rejection in the U.S. Senate this week of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (see HERE).

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