Posted on 01/02/2008 9:41:32 AM PST by pissant
All right, after all this time I finally endorsed Fred Thompson as president on my Monday show. And now I'm going to flip flop.
I kept hearing....."I like Duncan Hunter, but he doesn't stand a chance."
But then if that's who I REALLY want and so many others all say the same damn thing, and we all vote for him, then dammit, HE DOES STAND A CHANCE!
So, now, in writing, I OFFICIALLY ENDORSE DUNCAN HUNTER!
Why do I endorse Duncan? Let me count the ways:
1)He believes judges "have a responsibility to strictly interpret our nation’s laws and not legislate from the bench with their own political or social agenda."
2)Wants to do away with stupid "hate crime" laws."I have always voted against this type of legislation because I firmly believe that the use of violence against any innocent person is wrong, regardless of that individuals race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation."
3)Duncan wants YOU to keep your guns, so you can protect Jenn from bad boys! " We must vigorously defend against all attempts to chip away at the Second Amendment. You know as well as I do that there is one thing criminals prefer over any other: unarmed victims."
4)No pandering on tax cuts,"I do not support efforts to identify segments of our society that are more deserving of a tax cut over another and I believe political stereotyping in this area hinders the goal of providing efficient tax relief. It is important to create a federal tax policy that is both fair to American taxpayers while, at the same time, ensuring that our nation meets its financial obligations."
5)On Education,"I believe we can educate students more effectively by returning school curriculum prerogatives to the states, local communities and, most importantly, to the family."
6)DUMPING THE ANCHOR BABY DEBACLE:"I oppose summarily bestowing citizenship on people who have crossed our borders illegally. Therefore, I cosponsored H.R. 1940, the Birthright Citizenship Act, which grants automatic citizenship only to those who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen." Amen!
7) Bite me China: "Further, America’s one-way-street trade relationship with China and other nations has reduced manufacturing jobs severely in the U.S. I would change the one-way-street into a two-way-street by putting the same charges on foreign goods that they put on ours."
There are many more reasons, he's Presidential, he's served, he's a good man.....
VOTE DUNCAN HUNTER 2008!
Excerpt:
Duncan Hunter: You know Hugh, I would like them to ask about the long term prospects for opportunities for this next generation. Good job prospects. That is a question that begs for analysis of what we are doing with our trade policies where we are pushing American industry off shore. We are sending lots of manufacturing and high paying jobs to China. You have a lot of people on Wall Street selling those jobs out. They mark up the difference between $25 - $30 per hour to an American vs. a $1.00 per hour to somebody in China. And they move the company.
We are going to need to level that playing field, so that Americans, the next generation of Americans, those great kids coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, have the same good job opportunities that we had.
Hugh Hewitt: Now Congressman, do you remember John Conley running in 1980 talking about Toyota stacking up on the docks of Japan? It was sort of a good bit of protectionist rhetoric. Is that protectionist what you are talking about?
Duncan Hunter: No, you know what we are talking about actually is reversing what China has got which is protectionism. Right now, if we send a good to China, they hit us with a 17% tax at the water’s edge. When they send their products to the United States their government subsidizes every product they send over by cheating on trade. The devalue their currency 40% below where it should be. That undercuts on every American product. They know they are doing it. The head of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, knows they are doing it. He said as much. Yet we have allowed them to continue to do it.
One thing that a President does, is enforce trade rules. I am going to enforce trade rules. I am going to stop China from cheating on trade. If we have to use counter veiling duties we are going to do that. But we are going to keep them from enmassing these 100s of billions of dollars, some of which they are using to buy weapon systems. And the difference between China and Japan is this, Japan is a military ally. Not a robust ally, not one that comes to Iraq or Afghanistan with lots of help. But China is a potential adversary and certainly one that has conflicting interest. The idea that American dollars that are being used to buy missile destroyers from the Russians which were designed to kill American aircraft carriers and buy and build ballistic missiles some of which are aimed at our cities does not make good policy.
Hugh Hewitt: Before 9/11 China had downed our plane in Yunnan Island I believe it was. And we had a confrontation with China. After 9/11 no one pays much attention to them. Are they friend or foe in the Global War on Terror?
Duncan Hunter: Well, you know, China has many conflicting interests. They have interests to continue to market their products in the U.S. and stack our billions of dollars in their treasury, they like that. On the other hand, they like an America that is off balance. And that is why they have transferred technology to countries around the world that are not friends of the United States. That is why we can see China as always, like when we put stiff sanctions on Iran which is walking down the path to build nuclear weapons, China is there to blunt American sanctions. So they like to see America off balanced, a little bit weakened. They also see America as a competitor in the industrial Global Trade that is taking place. They are moving aggressively to lock up oil supplies around the world. People say you can’t be tough on China because they are so big. I say you can’t ignore China because they are so big. And because of what they are doing.
I watched their military build up. They are building up at double digit pace right now. They are building lots of submarines, buying lots of high end fighter aircraft from the Russians, building about 100 short range ballistic missiles a year. China is stepping into the super power shoes that the Soviet Union left. Now we can have a good relationship with China; but it will have to be a relationship based on American Strength. I think Ronald Reagan proved that to us in our era of conflict and competition with the Soviet Union.
Hugh Hewitt: How many years have you chaired the Armed Services Committee?
Duncan Hunter: I have chaired it for four years. I’ve been on that committee for 26 years.
Hugh Hewitt: And does the Pentagon understand China? Do they come forward and do they talk on the record with the Hill about what China represents for the next generation?
Duncan Hunter: You know this last report on China actually received lots of criticism from the State Department because it was very candid about assessing this enormous growing military strength of China. The assessment of the Pentagon was they are doing so much more then they have to do for self defense. They are building an offensive capability. When they shot that satellite out of space on January 11th, because America’s military eyes are largely in space, that really hurdled a new era of military competition between the U.S. and China in space. Like it or not, if you have to rely on satellites for movement of special forces or army brigades or marine corps divisions, you have to rely on satellites for that, and your satellites are in danger, you are in trouble. So we have our eyes, our military eyes [on China]. Plus a lot of our economic capabilities are reflected through our space apparatus. You have to protect that. We are going to have to spend a lot of money now and take a lot of effort to neutralize what is an aggressive Chinese policy in regard to space.
Hugh Hewitt: Let’s talk about the media and China. I asked you about this on the radio yesterday, how many questions have you had about China in the course of the Campaign. You have been on the trail for how long?
Duncan Hunter: We have had 4 congressional debates now and we have been out campaigning hard this entire year. We had one great question, I think it came from either Brit Hume or one of his team, during the Fox debate in the South Carolina, last question of the debate to me on China. I was able to give, you only have one minute answer, I try to be a master on the compact answers, I laid out that we have this cheating on trade which is stacking up billions to China and they are using this money to arm. This presents a long term challenge to the United States. Maybe not a direct threat; but a military threat is comprised of two things, capability and intent. They certainly are building a capability to cause us a lot of harm. And the intent of China is always difficult to understand.
Those tough old communists that ran the politboro are still running things. We see these generals make wild statements like, “We hope you value L.A. more than you do Taiwan”. That is a thinly veiled threat to nuke L.A. Then there will be a flurry of newspaper statements by people saying well, ‘general so and so didn’t mean it’. Well I hope general so and so is pretty far away from that nuclear trigger. Because that is a wild statement. You see those wild statements that came out of Yunnan Island where the American plane was shot down or was forced down, and the wild statements that came out of there diplomacy core after that were tempered by their trade people. But it shows us there is a element of leadership that is embedded in the Chinese hierarchy that is very aggressive, very anti American and very war like. It is difficult to know which element of the Chinese leadership is going to dominate the government in 5 years.
You mean the people that China sold Tiger Song to?
Chinese are far too smart to kill the golden goose before it lays all of its eggs. That said, who do you think the AQ Khan network in Pakistan got it’s nuke technology from? How are brand spanking new chinese made firearms ending up in the hands of Iraqi terrorists? Who has the most robust industrial and military espionage system in the US? Who is out making alliances with Iran and Venezuela? Who reguarly thwarts us on the UN security council?
And FWIW, Hunter is not planning to soley punish china for its misdeeds and stop the flow of our critical technologies to them. Hunter also wants to eliminate all taxes on US manufacturers and exporters, something China already does, but because we signed onto the WTO, we are not ‘allowed’ to do. Hunter is for shitcanning the WTO altogether, and reclaim our sovereignty. He is all for ‘free trade’, just against one sided policies that give built in advantages to our trade partners, especially ones such as China, that are quite dangerous.
On the other hand, they like an America that is off balance. And that is why they have transferred technology to countries around the world that are not friends of the United States. That is why we can see China as always, like when we put stiff sanctions on Iran which is walking down the path to build nuclear weapons, China is there to blunt American sanctions. So they like to see America off balanced, a little bit weakened. They also see America as a competitor in the industrial Global Trade that is taking place. They are moving aggressively to lock up oil supplies around the world. People say you can’t be tough on China because they are so big. I say you can’t ignore China because they are so big.
—Duncan Hunter
Though I'm not really sure what involvement the Chinese military had in Vietnam, both India and Vietnam share a border with China and I have to say I wish we defended our our own borders as vigorously as the Chinese defend theirs.
This also has nothing to do with increasing taxes and/or using tax policy to affect behavior, which is what my original comment on this thread was about. I say again: I am opposed to increasing taxes and to using tax policy to affect behavior.
ML/NJ
>I also want Fred to succeed in this election cycle, more out of disgust with the other “major” contenders than out of respect for Thompson.<
It’s sad when Americans have to vote for a national leader using those guidelines!
Finally, some one showing some good sense! I hope it’s catching.
>>>Though I’m not really sure what involvement the Chinese military had in Vietnam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1639090/posts
Kissinger told China communist takeover in Vietnam was acceptable: documents
Get real. Hunter has had a year to get some kind of traction, but he’s been unable to get it going.
Now you want to take votes away from the only conservative to make it into the top tier.
What’s your REAL agenda?
Hunter made it clear that he wants to be president, but less than 1% of Republicans seem to care.
So far he’s not even making much of an impression on conservatives. One half of one percent? Dang, that’s clear off the radar screen...
In a way we are using tax policy to encourage consumption of foreign goods. We know that China does not tax exports (they back out the taxes) but we allow them to come into our country and be sold with no taxes levied against the producer at all. We do tax the domestic producer. To make tax policy even-handed and not a factor in the end price, we would tax the incoming good.
Well... duh... The MSM template is "no real conservatives shall ever be shown in a good light or given airtime".
Instead, we get John, Willard, Rudy, and the Huckster jammed down our throats. Anyone doing real research on the issues easily comes to the conclusion that Hunter and Thompson are the only real choices.
Amen! Thank God that people are finally starting to catch on. IF people don't vote for Duncan and we get another RINO, I don't want to hear any complaining about us "having to choose between the lesser of two evils."
ML/NJ
Make that three. He's the one for me.
ML/NJ
It’s one of those viewed from one angle but viewed from another angle type of arguments. Which is more important to you, cost of goods to the American consumer OR tax revenue to U.S. state and federal governments and revenue to the American producer? For me the answer is free trade WITH OUR ALLIES regardless of their tax policies. But not with our enemies and potential rivals. That way, so long as we are top of the heap in terms of size of economy, our allies always have a leg up on our enemies in terms of their economic prospects. Right now . . . we help everybody at the expense of our own tax revenue and producers. AND it’s the exact reverse of our old pre-income tax system . . . where we got the bulk of our revenues from taxes on imports . . . which gave us the greatest economy on earth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.