The great thing about our country is that anyone has the opportunity to be president, at least that's what teachers tell their students to motivate them. The only problem with that is that not everyone is actually qualified IQ and ethically wise, although one slipped in from 2000 to 2008, which resulted in two unwarranted wars and a collapsed economy as a result of deregulation in the banking and investment industries.
This election year's Republican crop for the nomination has it's share of unqualified, unethical, not dealing with a full deck candidates . Starting with Herman Cain who wasn't even able to see the flaws in his 999 plan. Michele Bachmann complained about federal spending while at the same time receiving $260,000 in federal farm subsidies on the family plot in Wisconsin and also receiving $30,000 from the state of Minnesota for her husband's counseling clinic, where he was working on turning gay people straight. While complaining about President Obama's stimulus programs she requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district, arguing that transportation projects should not be considered pork.
It's a waste of space to comment on Texas Governor Rick Perry who self destructed during the debates.
John Huntsman, former ambassador to China,who speaks Mandarin was more then acceptable but he was the extra Mormon in the crowded field and his primary contributor was his multimillionaire father.
Congressman Ron Paul had some strong points but he was not taken seriously by the Republican mainstream primarily because he was his own man and could not be controlled.
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house was forced out of office and fined $300,000 for ethics violations and then went to work for Freddie Mac, the federally backed mortgage guarantor, a GOP villain in the housing meltdown as a historian (while Mitt refers to him as a lobbyist) earning $1.6 million dollars during the housing crisis. The Thrice married, former speaker has been married for almost 50 years, just not to the same person, with his three marriages overlapping, having a history of starting a new relationship while still in his old relationship. He started young, he said when he was 18, dating his high school geometry teacher who was 26 at the time. His second wife in an Esquire Magazine article, said that he was actually 16 when he started the relationship. The second wife, who he divorced, after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, went public with new details about his request for an open marriage while in his 6 year affair with a former congressional staffer who is now his third wife. This explains a great deal about Newt. He was actually a victim and his first wife can be classified as a predator and this may be why he had no qualms about divorcing her when she was battling cancer. This is common news but the media has not raised this issue. Gail Sheehy stated in a 1995 Vanity Fair article that his first marriage was an" independent act to escape the totalitarian regime of his stepfather's home. "He chose a path that women have used for generations: he made a jailbreak marriage attaching himself at the tender age of 19 to his high school geometry teacher,a buxom blond, seven years his senior."
Newt Gingrich who was carpet bombed by Governor Romney in Iowa and Florida, in a series of blistering and unrelenting attacks after winning the South Carolina primary has been painted as an erratic, unreliable Washington insider.
Gingrich's Super PAC, "Winning Our Future" is funded by Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino billionaire, (The Venetian and Sanda Expo and Convention Center) with a personal fortune estimated at more than 20 billion, who along along with his wife, Miriam has already given $16.1 million dollars, based on Gingrich's support for Israel. Adelson is the eighth richest man in the world. In 2001 he went into the casino business with the Chinese Government, building the Macao at a cost of 4.4 billion dollars, whose revenue generates more than all the casinos in Las Vegas. His interest is that Israel retains all the land west of the Jordan River and is adamant that there be no compromise with the Palestinians and is a big proponent of going to war with Iran.
Adelson stated that as of April 1, 20012, after the Wisconsin primary that he will no longer contribute to the Gingrich Campaign and will be supporting Romney.
Gingrich describes Romney's venture capital occupation as a flawed system where a hand full of rich people can manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money by looting a company and leaving behind broken families and fallen neighborhoods
Gingrich has based his campaign on fear mongering, stating the President Obama is one of the most dangerous men ever. Grandiosity and being flamboyant are part of Newt' s persona. He has promised to reduce the price of gas to $2.50 a gallon. One of his future plans for the country if he was elected president, is to colonize the moon. he called himself the "Regan conservative"and proposed an immigration plan which included an allowance for legal residency for illegal residents who have been in the nation for a long time and have ties to their communities. It also included securing the boarder, an enhanced guest worker and visa program , and steeper penalties for employers who hire those in the country illegally. He was not being altruistic and was primarily seeking the Latino votes. He took heat from conservatives for refusing to support proposals to kick out all illegal immigrants out of the country.
Rick Santorum
Santorum
Santorum, however has always been middle class, his parents went to college and he was raised on a federal payroll. His father was a psychologist and his mother was an RN, both worked for the Veteran's Administration living on hospital grounds in federal housing. He owes his initial upbringing, housing and education to the federal government, but to hear him say it government should stay out of everyone life..
Santorum believes that he can make any statement he wants when he is speaking in the hinterlands such as in Fargo, North Dakota when he said that Federal and for that matter state money should not be used to support public education . It should be left up to small villages and townships to do so. Parents should be responsible to home school their children. He also said that President Obama has a
phony theology and not one found in any bible. When questioned by Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, he back down and explained that he was talking about global warming and whether it was caused by man and questioned man's responsibility to protect the earth and it's environment.
He recently criticized President John F. Kennedy for his 1960 Separation of Church and State Speech saying it made him want to throw up, because the government has pushed the separation of church and state too far. Kennedy had given the speech in Houston to a group of Baptist ministers to reassure them that his Catholic faith would not mean that he would be influenced by the Vatican. Kennedy stated "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute" and goes on to state that he believes in an America where no religious body seeks to impose it's will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of it's officials.
This is basic First Amendment law. It's what the founding fathers considered as necessary to prevent a state religion being forced on a new country to the exclusion of other religions. Santorum back tracked about his statement regarding J.F. Kennedy and his statement could be considered an off the cuff slip of the tongue, but for the fact that he first made these statements in 2002. Santorum believes that a man of faith should not leave his religion if he is elected president, which certainly not a prerequisite in assuming office..
This is what the Taliban does in Afghanistan forcing their laws, customs, traditions on all others, regardless of their personal beliefs.
So women are not allowed to get an education, they can not go out into the streets without a male relative as a chaperon, they cannot drive a vehicle,they must wear a burka and must cover their arms and legs at all times.
Although Santorum may not realize what he is saying this in fact is what he is advocating. He is against birth control and considers the health care bills insistence that health insurance cover birth control as an attack on religion.
The founding fathers were not hostile towards religion, many of them were deeply religious and many of the colonies were founded to escape religious persecution in their prior countries. The goal of the founding fathers was to protect individual religious liberty, especially the liberty of those in the religious minority
Santorum is so engrossed in his own importance and his own religious concepts that he is unable to see this. He complains of government interference and the need for freedom, and yet he feels that it is his right to interfere in a woman's health care decisions. If he does not have the cognitive reasoning ability to analyze this, he certainly is not fit to hold any elective office much less the Presidency. His political philosophy is infused with his own brand of uber-Catholicism which lacks humanity.
The Los Angeles Times Nation Edition, Sunday March 25, 2012, reported that Santorum, last fall, before he became a front runner, told a Conservative Christian blogger in Iowa, that he would use the White House bully pulpit to promote his concerns about something most people considered settled, birth control. "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about is, I think the dangers of contraceptives in this country". The whole sexual libertine idea".
"Many of the Christian faith have said , contraception is OK, It is not OK., it's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be".
Isn't that what the separation of church and state is about? One should not force his religious beliefs on others .
This country has gone through social experiments in the past, where the beliefs of the so called righteous were forced on others, such as involuntary sterilization to combat crime and poverty in the 1920's and of course the well meaning Volstead Act, the 18th amendment, commonly known as Prohibition enacted on January 16, 1920 and not repealed for 13 years until December 5,1933, which denied citizens the right to buy or sell alcoholic beverages, in the belief that this would curtail alcoholism, and crime.
Santorum has become infamous for his gaffes and his back tracking. His foot in the mouth incidents have come so frequently that they are almost a daily occurrence. Beginning with his statement while in Puerto Rico that it would never become a state unless English was it's first language. Talk about attacking someones culture. His next gaffe was in Illinois on the eve of their primary, saying I don't care how high unemployment gets, it doesn't matter to me. Mitt of course immediately answered eloquently, "I do care about unemployment, it does matter to me!" That Mitt is really quick on the repartee. You can't put anything over on him.
Santorum followed that gaffe with, the statement that there was no difference between Romney and Obama and if Romney was the nominee, we might as well stay with what we have. Of course when questioned he at first denied saying that and when the video was played for him as proof of his statement he once again back tracked saying, I said "we" as in the people," I didn't mean that we should vote for Obama". "I will support the Republican nominee". Someone should point out to him that "We" includes the person using the term.
His latest gaff if you want to call it a gaffe is a yelling rant on March 25, repeating over and over that Romney is the worst Republican candidate ever, and of course when questioned by a New York Times reporter, he turned it around, angrily stating that the reporter was distorting what he had said, what speech are you listening to, he questioned. He said "that's bullshit" much to the chagrin of one of his daughters who was standing nearby.He said he was talking about health care reform and Romney being unable to raise this issue in the campaign.
If elected, Rick Santorum would not be able to back track on statements made about foreign policy and definitely would be a very dangerous and unpredictable person to have in charge.
Rick Santorum has carried this flawed thinking into other aspects of his personal prejudices. In 2003 when questioned about gay marriage he equated it with bestiality and pedophilia and during the New Hampshire primary he also equated it with polygamy for good measure. When questioned as to how he could believe that all men are created equal and still object to two men in love marrying, he began to ramble "so if everyone has the right to be happy, so if you're not happy unless your married to five other people is that O.K.? Well what about three men?" He was asked if he would protect gay rights since gays are also children of God and he responded. " Serving in the military is not an unalienable right, it's a privilege, you're selected", said Santorum, who wants to restore "don't ask, don't tell" He also called marriage a "privilege not a right", for the purpose of procreation.
Dan Savage, a sex columnist and gay rights activist as a response to Rick Santorum's anti gay remarks held a contest among his readers to create a new definition for Santorum. The results of the contest can be found when you google Santorum's name. Rick Santorum has tried to get google to remove this from the web site but has not been successful.
Rick Santorum's super PAC, Red, White and Blue, is supported by conservative Christian Millionaire, Foster Friess who made the statement that the only birth control pill that women should need is an aspirin that they would keep between their knees.
Santorum started his political career with an upset win unseating a 7 term Democrat, Doug Walgren by a 2 point margin, criticizing him for living in the wealthiest area of Virginia. He made absolute promises that he would never live in Virginia, that his residence has always been in Pittsburgh. However 4 years later when he was elected to the senate Santorum and his family settled into a home in Herndon Virginia, and later moved to a larger home purchased for $643,000 in affluent Leesburg Virginia. He explained to a reporter that his pledge never to live in Virginia only applied while he served in the house. He enrolled his 5 children in an online Pennsylvania charter school at an estimated cost of $100,000, to the Pennsylvania tax payers, but they were not living in Pennsylvania. He defended his actions saying that although they were not living in Pennsylvania that he was still a tax payer there, paying property taxes etc.
He is criticized by Romney as being a Washington insider. He was part of the pay as you play group, meeting with top lobbyists every two weeks. When he left office in 2007 his net worth was estimated at between $550,000 and $1.9 million and as a result of his K Street connections in 2011 his net worth was estimated at $1.2 million to $4 million. He was a contributor for Fox News earning $239,153 for his 2012 cable appearances. He calls President Obama a socialist and preaches fiscal conservatism and yet he did not hesitate, while in the senate to make sure that money from the Medicare program went to Puerto Rico on behalf of a home town firm, Universal Health Care Services,serving as a board member, receiving $400,000, in director's fees and stock options. This hospital was accused by the Justice Department in 2010 of submitting fraudulent claims for medicaid reimbursements.
Rick Santorum on the issue of abortion has said that there is only one place to be from the stand point of science and faith. He calls his wife Karen, a neonatal nurse and an attorney, "the rock which I stand upon" Before their marriage they made a re commitment to their Catholic faith, which was a reversal for his wife who had lived with a well know abortion provider 40 years her senior and had openly supported abortion. The New York Times reported in an article on March 4, 2012, that Karen Santorum nee Garver in 1982, became a couple with Dr. Tom Allen an obstetrician- gynecologist who founded Pittsburgh's first abortion clinic. The two became romantically involved after Karen, a nursing student in her 20's rented the basement apartment in the building where Dr. Allen, in his 60's, lived and worked. Dr. Allen knew Karen's father, also a doctor and had delivered her when she was born.
The two hosted fundraisers for liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union as well as his clinic, expressing strong support for abortion rights. The couple spent 6 years together. Karen left the relationship when she met Santorum, making a 180 degree change in her political orientation.
In a recent television interview Karen Santorum indicated that she was just going through a phase at that time.
The relationship was originally reported in the Philadelphia City Newspaper in 2005.
This aspect of Senator Santorum life is not meant to denigrate him in any way since he did not know his future wife at that time. However if Santorum was able to accept and forgive Karen for what he would consider, her past digressions, then he should have a more realistic view of society, a knowledge that people have their own judgement, can live their own lives and contribute to society in their own way. He should be able to accept that not everyone is made in the same mold and it should be clear to him, that individuals can still be upstanding individuals..
Instead he is living a very rigid, almost monastic philosophy, eschewing birth control, home schooling his children,and believing that women should leave their careers behind to raise their children. I'll leave it to the reader to determine if Rick Santorum has the right philosophy or cognitive reasoning to become a leader of the free world.
On Tuesday, April 9th, Rick Santorum without giving a complete explanation held a press conference in which he declared that he would be suspending his campaign . Rick announced that he was pulling out and that was unusual in that he was always steadfast about birth control!
Santorum was successful in defeating Romney and winning 11 states . There was a question as to whether he would be able to win the primary in his home state of Pennsylvania on April 24th, and a defeat there would be a death knell for his ongoing campaign. Santorum raised a total of $15,621,893 for his campaign as of February 29, 2012, according to the Los Angeles Times. He has spent $13,033,588 and has $2,598,305 cash on hand. The campaign's present debt is $922,448 and it is expected that this debt will be repaid from any available super pack as part of Santorum's eventual endorsement of Romney.
His 3 year old daughter Bella suffers from a genetic disorder, known as trisomy 18, the majority of those with this illness die before their first birthday. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia this past weekend and this may have contributed to Santorum decision to suspend his campaign. There is no doubt that Santorum will play a prominent role in the Republican Party's future and possibly another presidential run in 2016.
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