Day: September 16, 2011

Tom Ridge Endorsement Of Jon Huntsman An Interesting Development In Light Of Poor Poll Performance of Huntsman: Is There Still Hope For Mainstream Republicans?

The endorsement today of Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China, for the Republican Presidential nomination, by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who also was our first head of the Homeland Security Department under President George W. Bush, is an interesting, and possibly revealing, development!

With Huntsman so low in the polls, only one or two percent, and in danger of being eliminated from future Republican debates as a result, it would seem odd that Ridge, a reputable moderate, would bother endorsing him, when it seems like a lost cause.

But, as has been said earlier in other posts, one must remember that John McCain in 2007 and John Kerry in 2003 looked hopeless at this point of those Presidential campaigns, and instead, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark in 2004 and Rudy Guiliani and Fred Thompson in 2008 looked like the favorites as rivals for the Presidential nominations of their parties.

So to assume that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney might be the frontrunners all the way is a major gamble in many ways!

With Huntsman easily the best candidate in the race, and with solid foreign policy credentials that no one else has, it might be said that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s endorsement of Romney, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval endorsements of Perry might be a major blunder!

Again, IF the GOP nominates Huntsman, and fights the Tea Party influence, they have a golden opportunity to defeat Barack Obama! If not, it is a lost cause in an almost certain way!

Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh: Tea Party Favorite A Total Disgrace!

Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, a freshman House member and Tea Party favorite, has made a name for himself by appearing on numerous news shows denouncing President Obama in every way possible, and being very aggressive in his approach to the news interviewers, including the annoying habit of using their first name constantly in every sentence as he answers and talks over them.

This personal quirk is the least of the matter, however, as Joe Walsh is a true example of what is WRONG with America, setting a terrible example for others!

This excuse for a Congressman lacks a decent sense of respect for the President of the United States, to show up when the President gives a speech to a joint session of Congress, as Obama did last week when unveiling his jobs program. Instead, Walsh said he was going back to his Illinois district to meet with businessmen on plans to create new jobs. One has to wonder if he actually did that!

But while he did not meet his responsibilities to be in the House chamber as Obama spoke, Joe Walsh also did NOT return to his Illinois district to go to a court hearing on overdue child support for his three children, now totaling $117,000, over five years of back payments. He claimed he had to be present to vote on some bill, as if every Congressman votes on every bill, particularly when most bills pass by much more than a bare majority, and most votes are not consequential!

It has been revealed that Walsh’s House salary of $174,000 is being garnished for present payments per month of over $2000 child support, but that does not make up for past overdue payments, now over six figures!

One can have a divorce, but that is NO excuse for NOT paying child support, particularly when the provider has a salary as high as $174,000 and can easily afford to pay. It is great that the House is docking him the monthly amount, but it is not enough!

This loser, this bum, this character, this deadbeat dad, who professes family values, but denies his own children what they are entitled to, needs to be ordered to pay the entire back payments at once, and if he does not, be sent to prison and kicked out of the House of Representatives pronto!

This man, who also has gone bankrupt just a few years ago, should not be representing his district and pontificating about the national budget, when he does not take care of his own children and finances properly!

Hopefully, he will be defeated by his constituents next year, having won the seat by a small margin, but first, he should be held accountable, including prison time, if he does not immediately pay his debts!

And, as Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC said last night, Walsh should be banned from any interview show until he meets his responsibilities to his children! Amen to that!

Republican Solution To Jobs Crisis: Promote Importation Of Dangerous Snakes, Including The Burmese Python, Already A Major Threat To Everglades!

In the midst of the jobs crisis in America, members of the House of Representatives Republican majority are holding hearings trying to prevent an end to the transportation and importation of nine varieties of snakes, including the Burmese Python, Boa Constrictors, and Anacondas, that have become to inundate the Florida Everglades, posing a risk to other species, and ultimately, to humans! We have the report of a Burmese Python swallowing a live alligator whole and then exploding from the effect of doing it!

A snake breeder testified that the ban proposed by Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, would interfere with the right of snake owners and snake breeders to purse their hobby and livelihood, and prevent them from moving interstate!

Are we living in an insane society, which already allows the abuse of gun ownership, to the detriment of thousands of innocent victims every year, by saying that there should be allowance for BREEDING of snakes that are dangerous to all of us, and come from tropical climates in Asia, Africa and Latin America? Is it necessary for one to pursue his hobby or livelihood in an “industry” which already is laying havoc in the Everglades, killing various species and threatening Floridians who go into that national park?

It is guaranteed that the snakes, particularly the extremely dangerous Burmese Pythons, which number 100,000 in the Everglades by reckless breeding and escapes from captivity, will start to spread not just through all of Florida, but eventually be a threat all over the United States!

This is a clear and present danger to our security, and yet the Republicans latch onto this insane proposal as an interference to job growth! It makes one wonder about their ethics, their sense of right and wrong, their understanding of human needs!

We do NOT need to engage in such dangerous “commerce” in order to revive our economy, and if such a law passes by some looney reasoning that it is necessary, President Obama needs to veto it and send it into the dustbins of history, making the Republicans who sponsored it look as what they are: CRAZY LUNATICS!