Dear Jon Huntsman, We Don’t Deserve You

This past week, citizens of the granite state of New Hampshire did a great job in reinforcing the state’s nickname: in a blockheaded, nose-picking Cro-Magnon fashion, nearly 40% of New Hampshirites traveled en masse to their polling stations and voted for Mitt Romney. In a distant second place was Ron Paul, resident libertarian crank whose absurd vision of the future rivals that of a Dali painting. And in a typically meek manner, Jon Huntsman finally poked his silvery head of hair in the upper echelon of GOP candidates with 17% of the New Hampshire vote.

In Huntsman’s subsequent speech, he vowed that his campaign would “go south” from New Hampshire. While he may have meant South Carolina, the next stop on the conservative candidates’ tour de force, another—and more accurate—interpretation would be that he was referring to the direction of his future support in the polls.

What modest “momentum” Huntsman gained—if it can even be called that—in the already fiercely independent state of New Hampshire was not nearly enough to catapult him into the frontrunner status he will need in order to successfully navigate the waters of the snake handling, reason loathing, and science shunning states of South Carolina and Florida that await next in the GOP primaries.

Continue Reading

The Empty Branding Of The GOP

Among the many problems plaguing contemporary American politics is the proliferation of sound bite politics. The purpose of a sound bite is to capture the essence of a larger issue in the form of a single word or phrase; to simplify otherwise complex issues into quotable, easily-digestible buzzwords. Unfortunately, one need not look any further than the current GOP debates to see examples of this political pollution.

The recent GOP debates have provided fertile ground for the cultivation of various sound bites and buzzwords. Herman Cain branded himself with his “9-9-9” comprehensive tax reform plan and strategically plugged it into many of his speeches and debate responses. Championing the initiative not only for its simplicity and transparency but also for its effectiveness in reducing taxes, Cain and his litany-like recital of its principles actually ignored larger socioeconomic factors that necessitate a more nuanced tax code; in fact, economists have concluded that 9-9-9 would raise taxes for the majority of Americans .

Continue Reading

Three Odd Things They Should Teach With A Homeland Security Degree

A homeland security degree has to prepare you for a lot of things, though coincidentally a big part of the curriculum is “everything not on the curriculum.” You have to expect the unexpected and then – and this is the important bit – deal with it in a sensible way. The whole point of a homeland security degree is to be a useful human being in a security or crisis situation, and that’s a lot more difficult than you might think.

But even a Time Lord with extra training by MI5 and GI Joe couldn’t have expected some of the crazy things that happen in the real world. That’s why we’ve found some extra things you need to watch out for with a homeland security degree.

Karma

Continue Reading

The GOP’s Primal Affection For Waterboarding

As if the cheers that followed Rick Perry’s pro-death penalty stance weren’t alarming enough, the recent GOP debate on foreign policy provided even more reasons to believe that today’s Republican candidates may have a lot in common with the Spanish Inquisition tribunal. When asked their stance on waterboarding, it was only candidates Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman who agreed that it is in fact torture and should not be used under any circumstances. Suffice it to say that the proceeding yee-haws were very few. It wasn’t until Michele Bachmann made the rather specious claim that as President she would implement waterboarding for its “effectiveness” in gaining critical security information that the rather torpid audience burst into uproarious applause.

With Herman Cain’s recent statement that he “isn’t supposed to know about foreign policy” and Bachmann’s absurd claim that the ACLU runs the CIA, it is wholly unsurprising that the majority of GOP candidates, none of whom have much foreign policy experience (save for Jon Huntsman, the apparent candidate non grata) displayed such arrant ignorance throughout the debate.

Regardless, what Cain may not understand about Obama’s intervention in Libya or what Mitt Romney may misinterpret regarding United States relations with China pales in comparison to their unnerving endorsements of waterboarding. The fact that a “serious” presidential candidate would vocalize his or her support for waterboarding in hopes of strutting his or her bellicose conservative swagger is much more indicative of our own immorality and lawlessness than an alleged enemy’s.

Continue Reading

Why Huffington Post Will Never, Ever Get It

Policing a legal non-violent protest, presented to you by the same good folks who gave you the Wall Street Democratic Party and Joseph Lieberman!