The gathering tea party movement has been a boon to the Republican Party. It is also the bane. Clearly tea party sentiment — the anti-establishment movement that generally favors hard-right Republicans — helped elected Scott Brown (R) in the Massach…

Very disappointing news today. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, one of the sons of Vice President Joseph Biden, declared he would not run for Senate from the state of Delaware. Most observers had expected him to run. He was a statewide elected …

It was a disaster. Pure and simple. No point in sugar-coating it.

Republican conservative Scott Brown handily defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat of the late Edward Kennedy. The vote was 52% – 47%.

President Obama’s agenda is in serious trouble. The universal health care bill, a life-long dream of Senator Kennedy, faces new obstacles.

GOP election prospects for November look brighter.

The only kernel of good news: the President and his team have more than nine months to turn things around before the November 2010 elections.

As for the President’s arms control agenda, the change means less than on other issues. In the Senate, with 67 votes needed to approve a new nuclear reductions treaty or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, we now will need at least eight Republican votes instead of seven. This is one issue where bipartisanship would have been required, regardless of the outcome in Massachusetts.

Council for a Livable World supporters once again demonstrated outstanding support for a progressive candidate in a tight race. You were generous with your donations and your time. You contributed over $20,000 to the Coakley campaign, and volunteered many hours to call and e-mail voters in Massachusetts.

Today is a dark day, but we have overcome high hurdles in the past.

Thank you for helping out a good cause. Now we have to redouble our election efforts for November to elect good Senators and Representatives.

Editor’s note: Click here to read John’s comments on this topic in Global Security Newswire. Click here to listen to his interview on Wisconsin Public Radio from Thursday, January 14, 2010.

Who says that nuclear scientists can’t tell time?

Yesterday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the doomsday clock one minute further from midnight.

That movement signals that the world is in slightly better shape than a year ago, a little less likely to meet the doomsday of a nuclear holocaust or destruction of the planet by global warming.

The Bulletin issued a statement yesterday saying:

We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable.

In fact, the movement of the Doomsday clock away from zero is appropriate in light of developments in 2009, and could have been moved even further if the decision were based solely on nuclear weapons issues.

Maybe two minutes more away from midnight.

The Copenhagen summit on global warming was widely seen as a baby step forward with governments unable to agree on mandatory limits for greenhouse gasses.

On the other hand, there has been significant progress on nuclear weapons issues in the past year, starting with President Obama’s seminal speech on nuclear issues at Prague last April.  

After little official focus on Cold War-aftermath issues by the previous two Presidents, the U.S. government has now renewed a focus on the 23,000 nuclear weapons remaining around the globe and the danger that some of these weapons could get in the hands of terrorists.  

The President followed the rhetoric with specific actions, including securing approval for his long-term goal of a world free of nuclear weapons by the U.N. Security Council, launching new negotiations with Russia on a nuclear reductions treaty, pledging vigorous action for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and planning a Global Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010.

Where to next?  

We will know a lot more in six months if the steps produce successful conclusions and there is a productive Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May.

Thank you for your overwhelming response to help Martha Coakley, running for Senate in Massachusetts.  In just days, Council for a Livable World supporters have contributed thousands of dollars to help her campaign.

Recent polls show the race is still too close to call and Republican Scott Brown could still win next week’s special election for the Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for more than forty years.

A survey conducted by Public Policy Polling shows Republican Scott Brown actually leading Democrat Martha Coakley by one point. A second poll by the Boston Globe finds Brown and Coakley neck and neck among respondents who were “extremely interested” in the race.

Contributions for the last few days of the campaign are crucial. Right wing groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, American Future Fund and National Republican Trust PAC are pouring money into the state in these final days to elect one of their own.

Brown should not hold the seat of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. It is critical that all registered voters in Massachusetts vote. Here are just four of the many reasons why:

1. A Brown victory could mean the death of the health care bill.
2. The rest of President Obama’s 2010 agenda, including votes on nuclear arms treaties, could be jeopardized by a Republican win in Massachusetts.
3. According to political pollster Andrew Smith, “If there ever was a time for a Republican to win here, now is the time.’’
4. Republicans voters, angry because of the struggling economy and the Obama Administration, are more motivated to turn out than Democrats.

Progressive Martha Coakley is taking decisive action in these final days of the campaign to regain control of the race and win the election.

Special election outcomes are notoriously difficult to predict, so any polls are of uncertain reliability.  But it is no longer the proverbial “slam dunk” that a progressive will win Sen. Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts.

A Republican victory in Massachusetts will have far-reaching consequences across the country. Coakley’s campaign can turn out the progressive vote in these final days.

With your help, we can keep this Senate seat where it belongs – in the hands of a dedicated champion of progressive change.