Posted on 10/30/2007 4:32:36 PM PDT by pissant
Duncan Hunter, noted Bush cheerleader and smug bastard, is running for president. Unlike other candidates such as Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, it isn’t flaunted that Hunter is lingering in the polls every time his name is brought up, because the neocons drool over such a mindless slave as Hunter. This man is the perfect example of everything that is wrong in the Republican party post-9/11, and I find it generally disturbing that a man like this is even elected into office in the first place.
Recently in response to the Columbia University incident with the Iranian president, Hunter sought to earn some quick points with his neocon masters and followers by introducing a bill that runs along the lines of something one would expect in the book 1984. Hunter introdued bill H.R. 3675 which would cut off federal funding and contracts to the university. Just because he lacks critical thought and common sense, does not mean he should try denying it to everyone else.
The short title of the bill states:
“This Act may be cited as the `Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act.”
Only in the new neocon dominated America can patriotism be defined by some shallow sense of the ‘war on terror’ rather than the principles that actually make up our nation, such as free thought and free speech. No one is defending anything the Iranian president has done or said by allowing him to speak somewhere. This is the kind of behavior one would expect if an American went to Iran and tried to speak. Is that what Duncan Hunter wants? An America that is dominated by the state, where everyone nods their head obediently.
Universities aren’t patriotic enough for Mr. Hunter, so he needs to introduce legislation to try and MAKE them fit the warped shape or patriotism that he sees.
Hunter is also a supporter of torture and keeping the infamous Guantanamo Bay open. During a debate he said, if elected, he would keep suspects there indefinitely if the United States could not convict them.
“They’ve got health care that’s better than most HMOs. And they got something else that no Democrat politician in America has. They live in a place called Guantanamo, where not one person has ever been murdered,” proclaimed the presidential hopeful. “And there’s not one politician, one Democrat politician in America, that can say that about one of the prisons in his home district. We’ve got to keep Guantanamo open.”
There hasn’t been any murders at Guantanamo because all the inmates either kill themselves, or try to. A year ago there was a triple suicide, the first successful ones ever. But there were numerous attempts before it in the four years the camp was open before then. With all these suicide attempts, of course there isn’t any torture going on there.
Hunter’s unpopular positions on the War in Iraq, a strike against Iran, and other issues makes him nearly unelectable, and he struggles for support, bringing in under $2 million for his entire campaign. Not only does Hunter support a preemptive strike against Iran, he would also support the use of nuclear weapons … against a country that is supposedly trying to develop them.
Him and his supporters say things such as “peace through strength.” If ‘peace’ means going through a military strike with Iran, and the retaliation into Iraq and perhaps elsewhere, $200 a barrel oil and beyond, a possible collapse of the dollar currency, and a reinstatement of the draft just to deal with the rapidly spreading hostility … then I guess, yes. But they usually leave most of that out, and expect you to believe we need to stop a nuclear program we aren’t even sure will produce weapons anytime soon, or at all. They simplify it, and make you think it’ll be quick, just some air strikes perhaps.
During a “Night to Honor Israel” at a Virginia community college, Duncan Hunter spat out the usual neocon position of “never abandoning Israel.” Most neocons across the board put Israel’s security at the same level of their own countries, and perhaps consider it even more important. Israel has more nuclear weapons than anyone else in the region, and an air force that can take out just about anything needed. Yet they constantly say the United States needs to come in and police the area and not abandon Israel.
Hunter has been wrong on numerous occasions, even saying during a debate about party ethics:
“That’s one things about our party: when our guys have problems like this, they leave — they leave the Senate or they leave the House, when the Democrats have problems like this, they often make them chairman of — of their respective committees.”
That was on a question about Senator Craig who … by the way, later decided to stay on as Idaho GOP Senator.
All of this is just about Hunter on the issues, without even going to some of the more direct reasons on why he is a smug scumbag. He is listed as being one of the most corrupt members of congress due to his connections and friendships to other proven crooked politicians, most specifically Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham:
Rep. Hunter’s ethics issues stem from his connection to now former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and now indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes. In addition, Rep. Hunter purchased his home in a questionable land deal, escaped paying full property taxes for many years, and gave conflicting reports of the property’s true value. Rep. Hunter also used the power of his office to financially benefit his brother and his presidential campaign has violated federal election law.
Relationship With Randy “Duke” Cunningham
After the conviction of close friend and political ally, Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in 2005, Rep. Hunter agreed to launch an internal investigation into earmarks sponsored by the convicted lawmaker, but nearly five months after the U.S. Attorney pursuing the bribery case requested documents, Rep. Hunter’s committee had still not released the records. The FBI is investigating Rep. Hunter’s connections to Rep. Cunningham as well as other actors in the scandal.
Trading Earmarks for Campaign Contributions
Rep. Hunter has been connected to Brent Wilkes, a co-conspirator in the Cunningham scandal. As of July 18, 2007, Mr. Wilkes faced 30 counts in two separate indictments, including charges that he bribed Rep. Cunningham with $600,000 in gifts and cash in exchange for more than $80 million in defense contracts. Central to the criminal investigation were earmarks for companies associated with Brent Wilkes: Audre, Inc. and ADCS. Rep. Hunter, a “prominent backer” of these systems, teamed with Rep. Cunningham and other lawmakers to allocate $190 million for automated data conversion projects from 1993 to 2001– programs the Defense Department neither wanted nor requested. Rep. Hunter also sought out tens of millions of dollars in earmarks for Audre and ADCS, and pushed the Pentagon to purchase their products. In return, Mr. Wilkes steered at least $39,200 in campaign contributions to Rep. Hunter.
Similarly, Rep. Hunter has backed legislation for clients of lobbyist Letitia White (who formerly worked for Rep. Jerry Lewis on the Appropriations Committee), for L-3 Titan, Boeing and DuPont Aerospace, all in apparent exchange for campaign contributions.
If, as it appears, Rep. Hunter accepted donations to his campaign and political action committees in direct exchange for earmarking federal funds, he may have violated the bribery statute and committed honest services fraud.
Hunter also ran into problems with his home, which was possibly retained illegally, and to which he probably was not paying the correct taxes on. A full summary of the issue is:
In 1994 Rep. Hunter and his wife bought a foreclosed property for $175,000 from a government entity the Resolution Trust Company (RTC)–despite federal regulations preventing what was described as “key federal employees” from purchasing properties from the RTC to avoid conflicts of interest. According to Rep. Hunter, a county official reassessed his home after the purchase, but property records had incorrectly listed the number of rooms in the home, artificially lowering the value of the property to $249,000. As a result, Rep. Hunter paid less in taxes than other owners of similar-sized properties. When the house was destroyed in a fire, Rep. Hunter asked for a permit to rebuild. At that time, county officials discovered the discrepancy between the property’s appraised value and its actual value. They reassessed the property’s value at $315,000 and demanded almost $5,000 in back taxes. Initially, Rep. Hunter agreed to pay only $667 in back taxes plus $85 late fee and appealed the revaluation of his home, claiming he had never noticed the discrepancy, but just this month he dropped the appeal.
Notwithstanding his challenge to the reappraisal of his pre-fire home based on its actual size, Rep. Hunter Rep. Hunter listed the property’s value as being between $500,000 and $1,000,000 on his most recent financial disclosure form filed with the House of Representatives. He did not, however, report the amount of the sale on the disclosure report he is required to file as a presidential candidate. The discrepancy between the value Rep. Hunter assigned to his home for purposes of his financial disclosure forms and the value he claimed the property was worth in response to an increased assessment by San Diego County suggests, at the very least, that Rep. Hunter may have misrepresented the true value of his home on his financial disclosure forms, which would be a violation of the Ethics in Government Act. Moreover, the financial disclosure report that Rep. Hunter filed as a presidential candidate on May 11, 2007, does not include the value of his home. His failure to attribute a value to this property at a time when he was contesting its value with the County of San Diego suggests another violation of the Ethics in Government Act.
It also seems that Hunter went over some of the limits placed on possible candidates that are testing the water for a presidential bid in late 2006:
Rep. Hunter announced his intention to explore a presidential bid in October 2006. Beginning in December 2006, he promoted his candidacy by running advertisements with money he both raised and spent illegally. In December 2006, PTS PAC aired thinly-veiled campaign advertisements in early primary states promoting Rep. Hunter’s support for constructing a fence along the US-Mexico border.
Although federal election law allows a candidate to “test the waters” — meaning spend funds for travel and polling — a candidate who is testing the waters cannot spend more than $5,000 on general public political advertising such as the ads run by Rep. Hunter. Once a person spends over $5,000 in support of a presidential campaign, he automatically becomes a candidate under federal election law.
In addition, once a person becomes a candidate, he or she may only accept individual contributions of up to $2,300 per election. While supporting Rep. Hunter’s efforts to test the waters, PTS PAC received 11 individual contributions over that limit, with the result that the PAC received $27,350 in excess contributions.
Finally, by purchasing ads for Rep. Hunter, PTS PAC made excessive “in-kind” contributions to Hunter’s presidential campaign. A presidential campaign can only accept up to a $5,000 contribution from a PAC per election, but PTS PAC spent $17,575 to run its border fence advertisement in New Hampshire.
The FEC is considering a complaint filed against PTS PAC by CREW.
It seems Hunter has a following of fellow neocons at certain locations on the internet too. Free Republic seems to be one of the top spots for him, they even had a virtual press conference about him, the starting paragraph starts out:
To members of Free Republic and friends, I would like to introduce a candidate for President of the United States and the current congressman from the 52nd district of California, Duncan Hunter!! To Americans who value the patriotism and missions of our Armed Forces, to those who want to put fear into the hearts of our adversaries from Beijing to Tehran, to those who value the rule of law when it comes to illegal immigration, to those who realize that the unborn deserve full legal protection beginning at conception, to those who believe Peace through Strength is far more than a motto, to those who do not like giving communist China unfettered access to our markets while they cheat at every turn, to those who want to halt and reverse losses of US sovereignty to global entities, and to those who want the GOP to return to Reaganism, Mr. Hunter is the Best choice.
Yes, there is the peace through strength thing again. And trying to put fear in our enemies. We’ve all seen how well that has been working lately, right? In Free Republic’s poll starting on October 23rd about the Republican choices, Duncan Hunter is winning with 31.1% of the votes, which is about 30% more than what he polls in regular national polls. Fred Thompson follows behind in the low 20%’s. Member opinion is even worse, with Hunter receiving 37.1% of the votes, while only 26.4% from non members.
Hunter is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran (perhaps to set a good example), while neither he nor his followers think about the real world consequences of such actions. He is also a supporter of staying the course in Iraq, and is often a mouth piece for the Bush administration. He has been implicated in scandals, and is overall trash. He has no chance of winning an election with such positions, and thank goodness for that.
Hey, we got ourselves a live one here. He has managed to put all of the anti-Hunter folks’ arguments in one retarded package.
Neocon? Hmmmm who could it be......
rudith clinton?
Just a wild guess, but maybe has initials RP.
A Rudy supporter, probably.
Whoever it is he’s only going to help drum up support for Hunter with that rant.
Could be a clintonoid, but unlikely, since it has nothing about the “children”
Whoever he supports, I’m sure he’s winning lots of friends with that “neocon” line.
I found it quite amusing myself.
Sounds good.
How can we encourage more of that?
Could also be from the “uh” camp. ;)
Actually, I think it could be from anyone’s camp, but disguised as an RP supporter.
And they’re not worried about Duncan Hunter? They why lie and spin like they do. Mercy!
True, one of the earliest complaints about campaign funding was filed by a former Bush campaign attorney.
Hey, he’s got the talking points down. Hunter-Cunningham, CREW’s lawsuit, the phony property tax ‘scandal’. All good fun.
A lawsuit brought by CREW? That explains where this off the wall idiot hales from!
I do not know that story. Can you flesh it out a bit?
Looking at the name calling and humiliation tactics, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not Ron Pauls groupees. That's all they've got. They've been hit pretty hard lately with some facts they refuse to admit to.
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