I did NOT know that about Jon Huntsman Jr. To be honest, I admire his father (i.e. pauper to billionaire / massive charitable contributions), and I allowed that to transfer to the son. That's my mistake (a lesson well learned when observing Ron Reagan Jr., I might add).
Oy, I'm glad you immediately put some of his rather left of center advocacy's up. And that leads me to further think that George Will and the traditional blue-blood, checked pants, golf course Republicans are out of touch (to their own demise) when it comes to the direction the GOP needs to head in, in order to survive. If they don't embrace the Tea Party / serious fundamental fiscal reform agenda, then they are going to lose all credibility with their base (& the public in general) and go the way of the Whig. Or at the very least see a serious challenge from their Right, thus electing Democrats in perpetuity.
At any rate, forget whether I would support Huntsman, which I clearly would not, there's no way he makes it out of the primaries in the era of the Tea Party. They hold all the cards, and possess all the energy. And I for one see that as a good thing.
Thanks for the info...
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
On Huntsman...
I've heard the name bantered about, but know almost nothing about the man OTHER THAN that he fully embraced the Obama stimulus effort from start to finish (if it is over, that is), he supports gay marriage, and is a firm and out-spoken advocate against "man-made global warming" (his words, not mine... source HERE)... and he is already participating in a regional 'cap-and-trade' system called the WRCAI (don't know what that means... must be liberal-speak). He kept taxes in Utah low (ranked fifth lowest by the Cato Institute)... but spending went up by more than 10% per year he was in office.
Mormon or not (and you are right, he's the grandson of an LDS Apostle named David Haight, which I guess means he was an important and influential man in the faith)... are you sure this is who you are going to throw in with?
He doesn't really sound all that conservative to me...
Mormon or not (and you are right, he's the grandson of an LDS Apostle named David Haight, which I guess means he was an important and influential man in the faith)... are you sure this is who you are going to throw in with?
He doesn't really sound all that conservative to me...
Darkhorse 2012
Here's my (dark horse) nomination: Jon Huntsman.
He's the departing ambassador to China. That's right, an Obama administration ambassador. He is a Republican though. And former governor of Utah (wanna guess his religion?).
Now, what interests me about this guy is who is father is - Jon Huntsman Sr. He is a billionaire. He pioneered the Styrofoam egg cartons and McDonald containers via Huntsman Chemical. He (the father) also founded the Huntsman Cancer Institute. And before you laugh my little known dark horse off the stage, consider the company I'm in:
"There are at most 5 plausible GOP candidates for 2012: Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former Utah Governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney."
-George Will 3/7/11 (source)
Personally, despite Will's stellar, long time reputation, I think he's been in DC a bit too long. The governors battling the budget deficits such as Walker, Kasich, Christie and a senator or 2 like a Demint, Rubio or Rand don't get anywhere near his list, and I think they have a real opening here (& he wrote Gingrich and Huckabee off completely). But just bare in mind one name when the "experts" start rattling off the "plausible" top 5's - Bill Clinton. Where was he 20 months before the 91' primaries? I'd imagine being escorted through the McDonald's drive through by an Arkansas state trooper at 1am, on the arm of some babe with more breasts than brains.
****
Oh, and on a side note - we are still in Afghanistan and Iraq; GITMO just got new life and will resume at full capacity, never having fully shut down the detention center; unemployment is still at 9%+; gas prices are on the rise; the GOP owns the House; the Middle East is on fire; and we haven't moved an inch with Iran. And ALL OF THIS has resulted in one very tangible result... for me... the Libs at work won't even make eye contact as we pass in the hall!!! They all suddenly have to "hurry and eat", get to their game, check the schedule, glance at the road map, and go clock in. I couldn't shut these guys up during the campaign and now they don't want to give me a second of face time, not a sliver of an opening. It's FANTASTIC!
But fear not Obama acolytes! Don't fret that the economy continues to limp along while your man Barry maintains a foreign policy that's about as coherent as Otus from Andy Griffith. For he'll soon be on the case, working hard to remedy all of these broken campaign promises, personal blunders and national problems... right after the Motown/NBA pregame party he's hosting at the White House concludes tonight (yes, that's really happening). And that's one thing the Barak-meister and I will always have in common, cheering for the Bulls.
He's the departing ambassador to China. That's right, an Obama administration ambassador. He is a Republican though. And former governor of Utah (wanna guess his religion?).
Now, what interests me about this guy is who is father is - Jon Huntsman Sr. He is a billionaire. He pioneered the Styrofoam egg cartons and McDonald containers via Huntsman Chemical. He (the father) also founded the Huntsman Cancer Institute. And before you laugh my little known dark horse off the stage, consider the company I'm in:
"There are at most 5 plausible GOP candidates for 2012: Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former Utah Governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney."
-George Will 3/7/11 (source)
Personally, despite Will's stellar, long time reputation, I think he's been in DC a bit too long. The governors battling the budget deficits such as Walker, Kasich, Christie and a senator or 2 like a Demint, Rubio or Rand don't get anywhere near his list, and I think they have a real opening here (& he wrote Gingrich and Huckabee off completely). But just bare in mind one name when the "experts" start rattling off the "plausible" top 5's - Bill Clinton. Where was he 20 months before the 91' primaries? I'd imagine being escorted through the McDonald's drive through by an Arkansas state trooper at 1am, on the arm of some babe with more breasts than brains.
****
Oh, and on a side note - we are still in Afghanistan and Iraq; GITMO just got new life and will resume at full capacity, never having fully shut down the detention center; unemployment is still at 9%+; gas prices are on the rise; the GOP owns the House; the Middle East is on fire; and we haven't moved an inch with Iran. And ALL OF THIS has resulted in one very tangible result... for me... the Libs at work won't even make eye contact as we pass in the hall!!! They all suddenly have to "hurry and eat", get to their game, check the schedule, glance at the road map, and go clock in. I couldn't shut these guys up during the campaign and now they don't want to give me a second of face time, not a sliver of an opening. It's FANTASTIC!
But fear not Obama acolytes! Don't fret that the economy continues to limp along while your man Barry maintains a foreign policy that's about as coherent as Otus from Andy Griffith. For he'll soon be on the case, working hard to remedy all of these broken campaign promises, personal blunders and national problems... right after the Motown/NBA pregame party he's hosting at the White House concludes tonight (yes, that's really happening). And that's one thing the Barak-meister and I will always have in common, cheering for the Bulls.
Well done, Gov. Corbett!
Our new Governor here in PA has submitted his first budget since his election, and it is a 3% reduction overall from last year's... with no increase in State taxes proposed at all.
That's a big accomplishment, knowing that the state is going to lose more than $300 million per year in Federal revenues that are under the axe in the new GOP-controlled House. The biggest cuts are to the education budget... 10% of State primary and secondary education spending has been eliminated, and 50% of State higher education spending is gone. All public (state-level, anyway) employees will have their salaries "locked" at current levels for two years, including teachers.
Local Dems argue that "thousands of students" will be denied the opportunity to attend Pitt, Temple, PSU, or Lincoln universities... but I ask if those universities actually offer THAT much of a better education than the smaller schools like Mansfield, Bloomsburg, University of Scranton, Marywood, or King's College? Our Katey is looking at attending Mansfield University for about $8k per year... while PSU is asking for $60K per year. Is the vellum that the degree is printed on that much better at State College? Temple wants $35k per year (without housing, I should add), but is there a guaranty that graduates will make that much more than those coming from East Stroudsburg University or Lock Haven, which only charge $10K? Won't the revenue of these smaller colleges and universities go UP if the big houses charge beyond the means of the average student to attend? Won't the material and means of education rise accordingly if student body numbers grow? I think they will.
I guess the alumni associations for places like Temple, Pitt and Penn State will have to give more to the schools than they do to liberal political campaigns and THEN students will be able to go to these schools again, with the assistance and aid they so desperately seem to need.
Tom Corbett is doing very well, so far, I think...
That's a big accomplishment, knowing that the state is going to lose more than $300 million per year in Federal revenues that are under the axe in the new GOP-controlled House. The biggest cuts are to the education budget... 10% of State primary and secondary education spending has been eliminated, and 50% of State higher education spending is gone. All public (state-level, anyway) employees will have their salaries "locked" at current levels for two years, including teachers.
Local Dems argue that "thousands of students" will be denied the opportunity to attend Pitt, Temple, PSU, or Lincoln universities... but I ask if those universities actually offer THAT much of a better education than the smaller schools like Mansfield, Bloomsburg, University of Scranton, Marywood, or King's College? Our Katey is looking at attending Mansfield University for about $8k per year... while PSU is asking for $60K per year. Is the vellum that the degree is printed on that much better at State College? Temple wants $35k per year (without housing, I should add), but is there a guaranty that graduates will make that much more than those coming from East Stroudsburg University or Lock Haven, which only charge $10K? Won't the revenue of these smaller colleges and universities go UP if the big houses charge beyond the means of the average student to attend? Won't the material and means of education rise accordingly if student body numbers grow? I think they will.
I guess the alumni associations for places like Temple, Pitt and Penn State will have to give more to the schools than they do to liberal political campaigns and THEN students will be able to go to these schools again, with the assistance and aid they so desperately seem to need.
Tom Corbett is doing very well, so far, I think...
Read an interesting article...
... but now I can't find it again!
It seems that today is the anniversary of the first of the Tokyo firebombing raids. 279 B-29s dropped 1500 tons of incendiary munitions on Tokyo today in 1945, and destroyed 25% of the city and its infrastructure, and killed as many as 100,000 people along the way (estimates vary, and no consensus on what that number really is exists even today).
The article was British, and I think it was in the Guardian Online, but I just can't find it again (although I'll keep looking). It was very good, and made a real, rational attempt to weigh the justification of that huge an impact on civilian casualties against the benefits to the overall war effort... and the justification was there.
The bombing killed more people than the atomic bombs did (initially, anyway), but more importantly, they crippled the ability of the Japanese to effectively govern and communicate from the capital for the remainder of the war. It was an effective counter-point to the argument that the US had only a very limited number of atomic weapons in its arsenal (which was very true) and that the failure of even one of these bombs to detonate would have given the Imperial Army the means to continue the war even after an invasion of the home islands was mounted. In other words, Japan could have been (and would have been) destroyed... with or without the atomic bomb.
I simply do not see that anyone can argue with the fact that it was THIS certainty that prompted the remnants of the civilian government of Japan (i.e. the Emperor) to surrender to Allied forces in August of 1945. The facts were demonstrated... conventionally and through nuclear means... and the leaders of the country recognized the inevitable. I do not deny that the cost of this effort was high... soul-crushingly high... but it had to be paid to see the sacrifices already made bear fruit. Even as late as the spring of 1945, the Japanese needed to see that we had both the "means and the metal" to win the war on the home islands... and it wasn't only the Japanese High Command that needed to see that, it was the people on the street, too.
I sometimes think that modern liberals try to make the association that justifying the Tokyo raids means it would justify the same measures today... but that truly is an "apples to oranges" comparison. The entire Japanese nation was focused on fighting (if not winning) the war with America... there was no tribal divisions that could have been exploited by the West, there was no sectarian fighting, no religious debates that kept the Japanese from forming a unified effort. There ARE those things in our current struggle (any one of them, actually), including Afghanistan. Nothing about our current global crisis with radical Islam compares with WWII... either good or bad... and no equivocation on the topic can be allowed if real understanding is to be had.
It seems that today is the anniversary of the first of the Tokyo firebombing raids. 279 B-29s dropped 1500 tons of incendiary munitions on Tokyo today in 1945, and destroyed 25% of the city and its infrastructure, and killed as many as 100,000 people along the way (estimates vary, and no consensus on what that number really is exists even today).
The article was British, and I think it was in the Guardian Online, but I just can't find it again (although I'll keep looking). It was very good, and made a real, rational attempt to weigh the justification of that huge an impact on civilian casualties against the benefits to the overall war effort... and the justification was there.
The bombing killed more people than the atomic bombs did (initially, anyway), but more importantly, they crippled the ability of the Japanese to effectively govern and communicate from the capital for the remainder of the war. It was an effective counter-point to the argument that the US had only a very limited number of atomic weapons in its arsenal (which was very true) and that the failure of even one of these bombs to detonate would have given the Imperial Army the means to continue the war even after an invasion of the home islands was mounted. In other words, Japan could have been (and would have been) destroyed... with or without the atomic bomb.
I simply do not see that anyone can argue with the fact that it was THIS certainty that prompted the remnants of the civilian government of Japan (i.e. the Emperor) to surrender to Allied forces in August of 1945. The facts were demonstrated... conventionally and through nuclear means... and the leaders of the country recognized the inevitable. I do not deny that the cost of this effort was high... soul-crushingly high... but it had to be paid to see the sacrifices already made bear fruit. Even as late as the spring of 1945, the Japanese needed to see that we had both the "means and the metal" to win the war on the home islands... and it wasn't only the Japanese High Command that needed to see that, it was the people on the street, too.
I sometimes think that modern liberals try to make the association that justifying the Tokyo raids means it would justify the same measures today... but that truly is an "apples to oranges" comparison. The entire Japanese nation was focused on fighting (if not winning) the war with America... there was no tribal divisions that could have been exploited by the West, there was no sectarian fighting, no religious debates that kept the Japanese from forming a unified effort. There ARE those things in our current struggle (any one of them, actually), including Afghanistan. Nothing about our current global crisis with radical Islam compares with WWII... either good or bad... and no equivocation on the topic can be allowed if real understanding is to be had.
This is "experience"...
I found this article online, and thought it graphically demonstrated just what I mean by "executive experience" in a political candidate.
Our current President didn't have this when he ran, while the two previous Presidents did (which is also graphically demonstrated in the manner in which they ran their administrations), and I am convinced that the NEXT Presidential candidate must have it too.
Walker is doing this right... but many already seem to think he is "selling out" by agreeing to keep some aspects of collective bargaining rights in place. However, nothing he is leaving is going to compromise the $330 million budget cuts he's vowed to find... he is only leaving the door open for future bargaining agreements. That's good "compromise", in my book. Get the cuts now, and leave the opportunity to deal again later on the table. Win-win, right?
Where has the Obama Administration shown that sort of ability? Just today, on the same page that had the Walker story, I find a short blurb that said that Obama wants to re-open the tribunals at GITMO for terrorists and detainees. Really? Wasn't the fact that GITMO existed a stain on "America" only two years ago? Didn't he vow to shut it down? Is he now doing a complete "about face" on an issue that so many of his "base" demanded he follow to the end? If it is, then it is ONLY because he must now admit that any alternative venue for these trials and tribunals puts the US at greater (and utterly unnecessary) risk... which is what the GOP has been saying for four years.
Of all the things you can point to and say about the Obama White House, one thing you CAN'T say is that it is providing any sort of leadership at all. None. Even Clinton did more "leading"... hell, I might even give Carter the nod if we were comparing them!
Our current President didn't have this when he ran, while the two previous Presidents did (which is also graphically demonstrated in the manner in which they ran their administrations), and I am convinced that the NEXT Presidential candidate must have it too.
Walker is doing this right... but many already seem to think he is "selling out" by agreeing to keep some aspects of collective bargaining rights in place. However, nothing he is leaving is going to compromise the $330 million budget cuts he's vowed to find... he is only leaving the door open for future bargaining agreements. That's good "compromise", in my book. Get the cuts now, and leave the opportunity to deal again later on the table. Win-win, right?
Where has the Obama Administration shown that sort of ability? Just today, on the same page that had the Walker story, I find a short blurb that said that Obama wants to re-open the tribunals at GITMO for terrorists and detainees. Really? Wasn't the fact that GITMO existed a stain on "America" only two years ago? Didn't he vow to shut it down? Is he now doing a complete "about face" on an issue that so many of his "base" demanded he follow to the end? If it is, then it is ONLY because he must now admit that any alternative venue for these trials and tribunals puts the US at greater (and utterly unnecessary) risk... which is what the GOP has been saying for four years.
Of all the things you can point to and say about the Obama White House, one thing you CAN'T say is that it is providing any sort of leadership at all. None. Even Clinton did more "leading"... hell, I might even give Carter the nod if we were comparing them!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Maybe O'Keefe should run in 2012...
Have you seen what this kid James O'Keefe has done now?
He's gotten the (now former) chief executive of National Public Radio (the vaunted NPR itself) to admit ON CAMERA that NPR and PBS would be better off without federal funding.
Are you kidding me? That's like getting Clinton to admit he DID have sexual relations with that woman... or getting Nixon to admit that he was, indeed, a crook. A full confession from OJ wouldn't have come as more of a shocker to me than this did...
The kid single-handedly brought down ACORN, his videos have gotten the New Jersey teachers union to completely change the manner in which they meet with the press under any circumstances, he has brought more headaches to Planned Parenthood than another virgin birth would have, and now he brings to the front line the very head of NPR itself, berating conservatives as "xenophobes and fascists" while stating catagorically that NPR doesn't need Federal funding to thrive. Okay, so he got arrested and convicted of attempting to interfer with a US Senator's phone system... he did his community service, paid his fine and has settled his debt to society. Big deal...
Maybe this kid should run for President. Has anyone else on the list accomplished even one tenth as much as he has in the realm of fighting liberalism in America?
He's gotten the (now former) chief executive of National Public Radio (the vaunted NPR itself) to admit ON CAMERA that NPR and PBS would be better off without federal funding.
Are you kidding me? That's like getting Clinton to admit he DID have sexual relations with that woman... or getting Nixon to admit that he was, indeed, a crook. A full confession from OJ wouldn't have come as more of a shocker to me than this did...
The kid single-handedly brought down ACORN, his videos have gotten the New Jersey teachers union to completely change the manner in which they meet with the press under any circumstances, he has brought more headaches to Planned Parenthood than another virgin birth would have, and now he brings to the front line the very head of NPR itself, berating conservatives as "xenophobes and fascists" while stating catagorically that NPR doesn't need Federal funding to thrive. Okay, so he got arrested and convicted of attempting to interfer with a US Senator's phone system... he did his community service, paid his fine and has settled his debt to society. Big deal...
Maybe this kid should run for President. Has anyone else on the list accomplished even one tenth as much as he has in the realm of fighting liberalism in America?
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