Originally published by the The Huffington Post on December 31, 2008

Even as the new president and administration struggle to restructure and transform the American economy in 2009, consider this possibility: 2009 could be the year when the two former Cold warriors, America and Russia, decide to make dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons and convene an international conference of all nuclear nations to agree to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

By December 2009, the START I treaty will terminate unless renewed.  The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty must be reviewed by 2010.  And a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been in abeyance for years.  These are all relics of the Cold War which, thank God, ended 18 years ago, but there are the framework for more dramatic action.

A year ago four prominent Americans proposed elimination of all nuclear weapons.  An international organization has been formed to support this ideal.  Both involve conservative figures who, during the Cold War, were not known as leading arms reduction advocates.  Clearly, a serious groundswell is forming to collectively embrace a goal few of us ever thought possible--elimination of the most dangerous instruments of war ever devised by man.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a seven day waiting period will follow before the election is complete. This process can be further delayed by any lawsuits, and Coleman has not yet ruled them out. Additionally, the Coleman campaign already has a petition before the Minnesota Supreme Court to count 650 rejected ballots.

We'll continue to keep you updated with these race results, but you can also find the latest information on the website for the Star Tribune.

Each campaign's lawyers met today at the office of Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie in an effort to come to an agreement over whether or not the ballots should be counted. Franken's camp wants to count all 1,346, but Coleman so far has only agreed to 136 and made a promise to accept more.

The ballots are yet unopened, but numerous reports indicate that the list "includes ballots from precincts leaning Democratic."

Without these ballots, Franken has a razor-thin lead – just 46 votes – over Coleman.

Today, there are, in combat readiness, enough bombs to kill the world population many times over….. And there is no defense. Nuclear war could happen any day - by accident, by design, by miscalculation, by terrorism, by madness. The weapons are still on hair-trigger alert, in this country and abroad.

The current review conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty proved that two groups of nations are in collision. The possessors of nuclear weapons want to stop the proliferators and proliferators demand that the nuclear powers reduce and eventually get rid of their own nuclear arsenals in accordance with their treaty commitments.

The United States needs to re-examine its policies that envision an active role for nuclear weapons in future wars and building a new generation of nuclear weapons. The American case against the nuclear weapons plans of Iran and North Korea would be greatly strengthened if the United States were to cut drastically its own stockpiles of nuclear weapons, abandon plans to build new nuclear weapons and approve the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

It is the next level of appointments that will tell us more about the direction of Obama's nuclear policies.

While you were away (or still are) celebrating the holidays, the first key appointments below the cabinet-level have been made and the news is good.

Take the announcement of Dr. John Holdren as the President's Science Adviser.  Holdren is a leading expert on nuclear arms issues.

We’re not talking chicken or fish, we’re talking more like nuclear terrorism and the war in Iraq.

When Obama gets sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009, he’ll have more than a full plate of items to deal with, addressing issues like the war in Iraq,  the U.S. and now global economic crisis, global climate change, energy, terrorism, health care, the list – unfortunately – goes on and on, and on.

The Council for a Livable World’s research center has prepared – along with 60 leading national security experts – a transition report on how the Obama administration can effectively address the gravest threat to U.S. security: the spread of nuclear weapons and materials.

The executive summary and full report is available here.

The Council believes that given the rise of terrorist networks and the amount of unsecure nuclear weapons material worldwide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism is one of the gravest threats to U.S. and international security.

“Every presidential candidate since 2000 has said that loose nuclear weapons are the most serious threat to international security. Yet for the past eight years we’ve done very little to address loose nukes seriously,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council and our research Center in a press release today. “What we need now is strong leadership as promised by President-elect Obama during the campaign.”

Besides unsecure nuclear weapons materials, we also have actual weapons to deal with. Almost twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States continue to maintain about 16,000 nuclear weapons. The arms control process has been stalled since the late 1990s when the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was rejected by the Senate.

The experts in the report recommend that Obama Announce intent to seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and begin working to build the bipartisan support in the Senate needed for approval.

Basically, the Bush administration was not only was sleeping (though we wish it was only that) on arms control issues, it actually reversed arms control gains made in the past 40 years. When Obama and the 111th Congress gets in office, they’ll have an historic opportunity to provide some real leadership on the most serious component of our national security.

Now you know our priorities, what are yours?