Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News

February 28, 2007

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Get an overview: "Global Warming Fast Facts".)

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Solar Cycles

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

Abdussamatov's work, however, has not been well received by other climate scientists.

"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. "And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." (Related: "Global Warming 'Very Likely' Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)

Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."

Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says"[September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

No Greenhouse

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.

He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.

But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.

Most scientists now fear that the massive amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air will lead to a catastrophic rise in Earth's temperatures, dramatically raising sea levels as glaciers melt and leading to extreme weather worldwide.

Abdussamatov remains contrarian, however, suggesting that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

Iraq 'Less Safe' Than Last Year

By Megan Scully
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction concluded in a report Saturday that Iraq is “less safe” than it was 12 months ago and “remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work.”

The findings, delivered to Congress in a 172-page quarterly report titled “A Summer of Uncertainty”, come as Iraq weighs whether it wants the United States to maintain a military presence there after the end of the year. The report will also likely add fuel to the debate in Washington over the situation in Iraq, and whether U.S. military personnel will need to remain in the country after a Status of Forces Agreement expires in December. Roughly 44,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq.

“Whatever the decision, the outcome will significantly affect the ongoing U.S. reconstruction program, which is in the throes of a series of transitions from the Department of Defense to the Department of State,” according to the report.

The report points to the 14 U.S. troops killed in June by hostile fire in Iraq, making last month the deadliest there in more than two years. Iranian-backed Shia militias have grown more active in the last year and are responsible for many of the attacks.

Other security problems in the last several months include frequent rocket attacks against Baghdad’s Green Zone using more destructive and more accurate Iranian-produced munitions, as well as the assassination of many senior Iraqi officials, including judges and generals.

On a trip to Iraq earlier this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed impatience with Iraqi officials for not deciding if they want the United States to stay in the country into 2012. Any decision to keep U.S. military personnel in Iraq requires a formal request from the country.

Aside from the security situation, the IG report already has sparked concerns on Capitol Hill that the State Department has not cooperated with audits and has not provided documentation on whether officials have implemented recommendations for improvement. Oversight at the Defense Department continues to be a problem, with contractors overbilling the government for goods and services.

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, seized on reports of markups of as much as 12,666 percent. One subcontractor charged the Pentagon $900 for a control switch valued at $7.05.

 “It is absolutely unacceptable that the Department of State is undermining oversight efforts by SIGIR and is failing to implement its recommendations to guard against fraud and mismanagement of U.S. funds,” Collins said in a statement early Saturday.

Pointing to the ongoing negotiations over the debt ceiling, Collins said Congress “should not tolerate any resistance to accountability and transparency that ensures the American people’s enormous investment in Iraq is not eroded.”

America's New Civil War

By Kathy Kiely


For the president, the potential catastrophe loomed as "such a far-fetched proposition as to be almost existentially impossible." Voters from across ideological and geographical lines deluged Congress with letters and petitions urging compromise. "People were starting to grasp the potential costs -- the literal costs" of not reaching one

Nope, we're not talking about this weekend in Washington. It just feels a lot like the atmosphere on the eve of the Civil War as vividly described in Adam Goodheart's new book 1861.

The similarities to today's apocalypse-almost-now moment are striking, and underscore that the debt ceiling debate now gridlocking the nation's capital is about far more than economic policy. On the 150th anniversary of the war that pitted American against American, we seem to be spoiling to secede from our "more perfect union" again.

As on the eve of the Civil War, there's the same weirdly passive sense of incredulity among political leaders. They seem to have been politically paralyzed into onlooker status as the nation teeters slowly towards a disaster that all agree will be cataclysmic but no one seems able to avert.

"Everyone says it's going to be worked out,"  Rep. Pete King, a New York Republican who has a history of working across the aisle, said this week. "But I don't see how it's going to be worked out."

In his book about the prelude to the conflict that nearly tore the United States asunder, Goodheart notes that Abraham Lincoln saw it as a question of maintaining a social contract. "It presents the question, whether discontented individuals too few in numbers to control administration," Lincoln wrote in July, 1861, "can break up their government."

Sound familiar? Eerily, as in the earlier conflict, there is even an especially pugilistic nest of belligerents in South Carolina.

The big question is why Americans are on the edge of such a scary precipice today. After all, at the heart of the Civil War was a great conflict over human bondage. By comparison, today's debate between the Democrats and tea party Republicans seems, picayune. We're going to trigger armageddon over matters of financial housekeeping?

But this debate is not just about the budget. Underneath the questions of taxing and spending are deep resentments and fears spawned by the end of the industrial age. In another literary work inspired by the anniversary of the Civil War, Insurgents, playwright Lucy Thurber provocatively compares the plight of displaced blue collar workers (whom she depicts literally clinging to their Bibles and their guns) to that of 19th century slaves.

It may be a bridge too far, but Thurber seems to be onto something that explains the strange intensity of our national debate over fiscal priorities.

As on the eve of the Civil War, there are Americans on both sides who feel that a way of life is at stake -- be they retirees who are counting on generous pensions or young people who don't see the employment opportunities that the generation before them had or homeowners who have seen their American Dream turn into an anchor that has pulled them deep under water. And then there are the figures on widening income disparity that suggest a country increasingly made up of a new plantation class, living large while most Americans are saddled with longer hours, less secure jobs and diminished (if any) health benefits.

In 1861, Lincoln wrote Congress that the Civil War was "a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men . . . to afford all an unfettered start and fair chance in the race of life."

Seems that we're still trying to achieve that goal. But as the Civil War should have taught us, we only have a chance if we work at it together.

Pages from the DNC Handbook

Jim Gammon


It has all gotten so routine that the Democrats might as well put together a playbook, to help the rookies.

Grand strategy for dealing with Republicans:

 Accuse them of:

1.      Being stupid, ignorant and/or crude

2.      Wanting the rich to get a tax break on the backs of the poor

3.      Spoiling Christmas

4.      Celebrating Christmas

5.      Trying to take over the government

6.      Being selfish

7.      Being greedy

8.      Being un-American

9.      Being unRepublician

10.    Being unConservative

11.    Being racist

12.    Being childish

13.    Refusing to accept having things even totally their way

14.    Hating the environment

15.    Being mean and insensitive

16.    Loving waste

17.    Hating fairness

18.    Being ignorant and closed minded, behind the times and against progress

19.    Ignoring the best interests of  "the children" (the NEA)

20.    Being just like terrorists

21.    Hating the poor, sick and handicapped

22.    Wanting the world to come to an end in a polluted mess

23.    Being dishonest

24.    Ignoring the wishes of the voters

25.    Being male sexists (even the women)

26.    Hating the working man

27.    Hating the middle and lower class

28.    Being pawns of the military industrial complex

29.    Loving war and violence

30.    Being against equality for anyone

 In addition, encourage our useful idiots in the media, such as on MSNBC, to accuse Republicans of being:

1.      Nazis

2.      Religious extremists

3.      Supporting violence

4.      Being White Supremacists, even black Republicans

5.      Wanting to reduce freedoms (perhaps a bit of a stretch)

Of course the primary weapon is to say that they are stupid  - especially the women. We cannot allow any Republican women to gain traction. They have to be stupid to be Republican women, as Republicans hate women. If you cannot find a flaw, make them up, or make their qualities look like flaws. For example: "She can't be a good president because she's too good a mother."

On the other hand, all Democrats must all be referred to as highly intelligent, attractive and knowledgeable. Hey, if we succeeded with Joe Biden, we can make anyone look good.

It is important to not accuse them of lying. We must be careful NEVER to do this, as they will point out all the times we lie, and that is a no-win game for us. Accusing them of being dishonest or ignoring the truth is fine, but accusing them of lying is to be avoided. Lets face it, we're more vulernerable than they are.

Never accuse them of being corrupt, for much the same reasons

Never answer a direct question about Republicans. Answer a different question. No matter how pointed the question is, answer a question in which the answer is how horrible the Republicans are.

Always equate children with education. Any criticism of education, teachers or of waste in education is simply meant to deprive children of their right to a good education.

Make sure to take any faults the DNC has and accuse the RNC of them. Not only does this make them defend themselves, but it legitimizes our faults, as "everyone is doing that", such as vacations/gifts paid for by lobbyists, etc.

Never give any actual, specific facts. Never defend yourself, always attack. Never admit to being wrong, except to accuse the Republicans of misleading "us all". In such an event, imply that a conspiracy is responsible (adding the words "vast right wing" is not necessary).

Of course, continue to criticize them for not being perfect. Hold them up to their own standards. Any standard any Republican comes up with is fine to hold all Republicans to. Even simply implying that they are not obeying a standard is good.

Change the rules of political correctness (which we own, after all) to catch them off balance. 

Remember, if you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. If you fine yourself losing a debate, purposefully misunderstand your opponent and accuse him or her of something terrible - racism is always a good standby. There is always a way to twist the facts to make anything look like it will be bad for blacks.

The Most Dangerous War in the Middle East has Already Begun

By Alex Jakubowski


As international efforts to dispose of Moammar Gaddafi escalate, less and less attention is given to the real international threat in the region: Iran.  While the Arab Spring has taken out or severely weakened hostile regimes throughout the Middle East, Iran has continued its dangerous buildup of nuclear material.  At this point the nuclear ambitions of Iran's dictatorial regime have become clear: they want a bomb.  The regime continues to enrich large amounts of uranium to 20%, far beyond the amount needed for nuclear power and about 90% of the way to nuclear-grade fuel.  Just recently Iran began to move nuclear enrichment facilities to deep underground bunkers to avoid the possibility of outside intervention.  Finally, it has been often reported that Iran is conducting research on a neutron initiator using uranium deuteride (UD3), the only purpose of which is to trigger a nuclear reaction in a warhead.  With Iran's president -- and I use that term loosely -- being described by American diplomats as "unbalanced" and "crazy," this threat can no longer be ignored.

And in many ways it hasn't.  Just this past year Congress passed their strictest set of sanctions ever against Iran's regime, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010.  Unfortunately, as Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), John Kyl (R-AZ), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) have noted, the enforcement of these sanctions has been far from effective; "[w]e are deeply concerned with what appear to be sanctionable activities by other entities involving energy investments in Iran, the provision of refined petroleum products to Iran, financial relationships with Iran, as well as the regime's proliferation activities."

The American government isn't the only one concerned about failing international efforts to stop Iran's nuclear expansions.  As leaked diplomatic cables showed last fall, other Middle East governments are equally concerned with the threat a nuclear Iran poses to the region.  Shortly after the WikiLeaks scandal broke, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had "frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program," with Abudllah even going as far as saying, "[C]ut the head off the snake."

Furthermore, Iran is taking the threat of outside intervention seriously, practicing war games and frequently displaying its military might.  In response to a question about their quest for longer-range ballistic missiles, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's aerospace force, stated, "[T]he range of our missiles has been designed on the basis of the distance to the Zionist regime and the US bases in the Persian Gulf region."  While this may seem like a familiar situation -- both sides anxiously preparing for an impending conflict -- what seems to be ignored is the fact that Iran has already started the war.

Iran for years has been the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism -- funding, arming, and training organizations like Hamas, Hezb'allah, and others that senior Revolutionary Guard officials call "liberation armies."  Leaked diplomatic cables even suggest a strong cooperation between Iran and Al Qaeda is far from dormant.  Furthermore, Iran has been accused of financially and militarily supporting rebels fighting American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.  According to a March 2009 report by the Council on Foreign Relations, for years Iranian-made weapons, including the Tehran-designed roadside bomb -- the explosively formed penetrator (EFP) -- have been used by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, prompting former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June 2007 to state, "[G]iven the quantities that we're seeing, it is difficult to believe that it's associated with smuggling or the drug business or that it's taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government."  Recently, reports surfaced of Iranian assistance to rebels fighting American forces in Iraq.  In his first visit to Iraq as defense secretary, Leon Panetta stated, "[W]e're very concerned about Iran and the weapons they're providing to extremists in Iraq.  We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue."

Yet thus far the United States and the rest of the world continue to sit back and wait -- wait for something to draw us into the inevitable.  On October 14, 1962 President John F. Kennedy addressed the world: "It shall be the policy of this nation, to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack, by the Soviet Union, on the United States."  We can only hope that it will not take a nuclear attack for this country to realize that we are already at war.

Coin of the Realm

By Clarice Feldman


Creative accounting can land you in jail if you work in a business, but when it comes to Washington, it can be regarded as genius.   

The debt ceiling game of chicken played out this week, and ground on into the weekend, as the House passed a bill and the Senate responded.  The President (who did nothing but fan partisan feelings) outrageously will claim credit for the compromise legislation that will result, will sign it, and the crisis will have passed.

What the final law will say is anyone's guess. Surely, though it won't look like the White House plan because there wasn't any.  And it is likely to be more representative of the public's demand for decreased federal spending and no tax increases than it would have been had the 2010 revolt not taken root.

Unfortunately for Obama and big spenders everywhere, it won't likely be Jack Belkin's plan either.  I say "unfortunately" because his plan opens up so many creative government accounting possibilities.  You might not have heard of Belkin, a professor of constitutional law at Yale law school, the scene of some of the most risible and original legal thinking these days.  Tom Maguire explains Belkin's  latest offering, certainly a top nominee in any "What's the Dumbest Thing A Constitutional Law Professor Said This Year?" contest.

[The "T" Coin For The Tea Party

Demonstrating yet again that there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time is coming, we are now swept by a wave of posts celebrating the Trillion Dollar coin as a solution to our debt ceiling woes.  There's change we can believe in!

The notion has been smoldering since January but respected Constitutional scholar Jack Balkin broke through to Memeorandum with this CNN column:

We are having a debt-ceiling crisis because Congress has given the president contradictory commands; it has ordered the president to spend money, and it has forbidden him to borrow enough money to obey its orders.

Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?

Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there's a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

Ironically, there's no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

Matt Yglesias scratches his head, gulps, checks the statutes (1, 2), and concludes that this might work.  Brad DeLong keeps his eye on the Big Picture (or anyway,the big screen):

I suggest that[ Treasury Secretary Geithner] immediately mint 50 ten-pound liberty-head coins, each of them denominated at $100 billion, and temporarily store them in the Treasury Secretary's office. Then the Treasury Secretary can take them up one at a time to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a special armored train as required.

Think how much money the federal government could make from the movie rights alone...

[snip]

I was saying last night (before the crowd hooted me down) that if the Treasury Secretary is staring at a dwindling cash balance and has to choose between not paying Medicaid, not paying the military, not paying the Veterans Administration, not paying the Coast Guard, not paying the Border Patrol, not paying food inspectors, not paying the NIH, or issuing a $50 Billion coin, well, none of the choices are appealing, but the special coin might not be the most unappealing. 

As a bonus wrinkle, it would be worth knowing just how quickly this ploy would be reported -- the Mint reports annually, but I presume Treasury and Fed balances are reported on a more timely basis.  That said, if Geithner could slip a few high value coins into the mix in early August and only report it in early September on some Treasury report covering August activity, well, the debt deal would probably have been wrapped up by then.

FWIW, net seignorage profit in 2010 was a mere $388 million as reported bythe Mint, so we are talking a notable change in practice here.

DO REMEMBER:  The idea that the US might simply spin the printing presses to satisfy foreign bondholders is hardly news, as this Eerily Prescient post from a year ago illustrates.  Striking coins updates the metaphor.

LEFT UNADDRESSED:  How might the coins be presented to the Fed?  Should Tim Geithner dress up as a stage magician and pull the magic coin from an unsuspecting taxpayer's ear?  Or maybe the coins can be delivered by Rodeo Clowns.  Tough call, given the seriousness of the enterprise.

Obviously, the idea of just minting high denomination coinage to get us out of our economic trap would have broad public appeal. The entitlement Santa sleigh would not be short weighted and we could keep more of our income.  So much more appealing than yammering at each other in an effort to bring spending and taxing under control on one side and on the other to keep the gravy train rolling while getting "shared sacrifices" from all those billionaire households earning over $250,000 per year.

In any event it is not clear whether Congress and the White House can agree on any bill before the August 2 designated doomsday. In fact, it is increasingly likely that August 2 might not be the very last day they must reach agreement before we face the possibility of defaulting on some obligations.

Iowahawk has sketched out in some detail the horrible prospects we face if  doomsday passes with no resolution. Here are just a few of his predictions:

Beltway policy experts begin living by own wits; after 45 minutes there are no survivors.

Roving bands of outlaws stalk our streets, selling incandescent bulbs to vulnerable children.

Unregulated mohair prices at the whim of unscrupulous mohair speculators.

NPR news segments no longer buffered by soothing zither interludes.

Breadlines teeming with jobless Outreach Coordinators, Diversity Liaisons, and Sustainability Facilitators.

Cowboy poetry utterly lacking in metre.

General Motors unfairly forced to build cars that people want, for a profit.

Chaos reigns at Goldman Sachs, who no longer knows who to bribe with political donations.

So as the sun will set tonight, July 31, the last business day before Maybe Doomsday Maybe Not, we don't know where we are, we don't know where we are going, but as long as there are constitutional law professors  we'll never be short of laughter, the true coin of every realm worth living in.

THE PHONY RIGHTWING PART 6

By Kelleigh Nelson
July 23, 2011

Jon Meade Huntsman, Jr.

"There's no difference between the Crips and the Bloods." -Former Congressional candidate Greg Goodwin, describing Republican and Democrat candidates for President. June, 2011

I actually feel that even writing about Jon Huntsman is a waste of time and effort, and that he's an also-ran. Yet, knowing his father has billions to help elect his son gives me pause. Huntsman is considered a moderate and extolled by the liberal media. Considering the fact that the media also calls both Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger conservatives, one has to wonder what the "moderate" Jon Huntsman is all about. Huntsman supported McCain over fellow Mormon Romney for president in 2008, and none of us really like McCain's liberal politics, nor do we consider him a conservative. Nonetheless, the elite may push Huntsman and thus we need to know what he champions and why.

Jon Huntsman was born in 1960 and raised in Palo Alto, California. His father is Jon Huntsman Sr., a billionaire businessman and philanthropist who owns Huntsman Corporation, a chemical company with thousands of employees and over $9 billion in revenue in 2010. Huntsman is the paternal great-great-great grandson of early LDS Church leaderParley P. Pratt, and a third cousin, once-removed, of former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney. Huntsman dropped out of high school to play in a rock band, but later got his G.E.D. and went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in international politics. He also was aMormon missionary in Taiwan for two years, attaining fluency in Standard Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien.

Jon Huntsman and his family have forged close ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Huntsman Jr. has not directly donated to Harry Reid, but his parents and brothers have sent $25,000 to Reid. While governor, Huntsman appointed Reid’s son, Josh, to Utah’s Board of Regents. Huntsman’s father even spread the goodwill to Democrats in general, sending $5,000 to the Nevada Democratic Party in 2008. Seems like many of the GOP candidates have either been Democrats or were raised in Democrat supporting households.

Huntsman has worked for four presidents. First he was a White House staff assistant for President Reagan. He worked for the first President Bush as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for trade development for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative in the George W. Bush administration. He also served as an executive in his father's company.

In 2004, he was elected to the governorship of Utah and re-elected in 2008 with more than 70% of the vote. President Obama nominated Huntsman for Ambassador to China in May of 2009 because of his Mandarin language proficiency. He began his ambassadorship in August of 2009, but on January 31, 2011, he resigned his post and as most expected, threw his hat in the ring for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain is backing him for the nomination for 2012 and in the 2008 GOP convention, Huntsman introduced Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential running mate.

Huntsman's Liberal Policies

He says he isn't for gay marriage, but supports "gay rights" andsame-sex unions which many consider a big step in the direct of legalizing gay marriage. The Republican party platform amazingly still tries to occasionally stand for traditional families, so Huntsman's stand has irritated the GOP standard bearers.

Fiscal Realities

The libertarian Cato Institute praised Huntsman's conservative tax policies. He was lauded for his tax cut policies. However, the Cato report also noted that he increased per capita spending at about 10 percent annually during his tenure. The state budget rose from $16.7 to $22.8 billion.

The most fiscally irresponsible bill in American history was the $800 billion Porkulus (also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or ARAA). All the House Republicans and all but three GOP Senators (Specter, Snowe, and Collins) opposed it as did many others. Specter has been voted out of Congress since then. Snowe and Collins of Maine either need to change parties, or better yet be voted out of office and run out of town on a rail. But Jon Huntsman thinks that the problem with the Porkulus is that it wasn't large enough!

Cap and Trade

Governor Huntsman is on record supporting cap and trade. For example, Governor Huntsman was one of only two Republican Governors (the other was Arnold Schwarzenegger) to sign onto the Western Climate Initiative, which “is an alliance of states and provinces along the western edge of North America seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lay the groundwork for a regional cap and trade system.” Let me tell you a little about Governor Huntsman's involvement.

Huntsman appeared in an Environmental Defense Action Fundad in late 2007, saying, "Now it's time for Congress to act by capping greenhouse-gas pollution." In January 2009, he said he found it "enormously frustrating" that Republicans had not been working toward a national climate policy. "We would not need the Western Climate Initiative if it were not for the foot-dragging nature of Congress," he said.

Governor Butch Otto of Idaho, a Republican, in conjunction with ICLEI (International Council of Local Environmental Initiative), and Project 60, (which is supposed to create jobs for Idahoans) has given over thousands of acres of land to the Red Chinese. He says he's sold it to them, but if you read between the lines, it's a partial payoff for our China debt. Project 60 is permanent citizenship for Chinese immigrants that come to work here under ICLEI. Project 60 is being sold to the American public as jobs and an economic recovery initiative for Americans, but the US government doesn't have the constitutional right to own land except in forest preserves and national parks. (That is strictly a communist plank). So whose land is it the government gave away to create a ChineseOWNED city in the USA? Patrick Henry Hayes, the Mayor of North Little Rock, Arkansas and friend of NWO guy Bill Clinton, is the Chairman of ICLEI.

ICLEI supporter Huntsman is assisting Gary Herbert, the current Utah Governor in going full speed ahead to implementProject 60 in Utah. Huntsman is a globalist and obviously an anti-Constitutionalist.

ICLEI operates in conjunction with Project 60 which codifies regulations set forward in UN Agenda 21. On June 9, 2011, Obama signed executive order number 13575 at the White House which was established to cover 16 percent of the American population that live in rural counties. [Link] The stated objective of 13575 is to increase federal regulation of food production, land use, and implement cap and trade.

Healthcare

What a guy, right in line with his distant cousin Willard Romney on the Massachusetts healthcare reforms as well as being for portions of Obamacare, albeit Utah's state healthcare is much less egregious than Massachusetts. Huntsman once said “health care is a right,” and he once threatened insurance companies in Utah with adding mandates if they did not reduce the price of health insurance, saying that after a year of asking “If that doesn't work, then I think we're looking very realistically at an individual mandate in getting us to where I think we need to be.” Everyone of these healthcare proponents are wealthy enough never to suffer without the very best care. The American citizen however, is another case altogether.

Governor Huntsman also expressed support for President Obama’s choice of liberal Kathleen Sebelius to be Health and Human Services Secretary more than two months before he was appointed Ambassador to China by President Obama. “Kathleen brings a fundamental wealth of knowledge and experience that will be indispensable in leading the reform efforts that are so critical to our nation going forward,” Governor Huntsman said at the time.

Free Trade

In 2002, then-Trade Representative Huntsman called NAFTA “a success beyond anyone's expectations… It has allowed the average family to save in terms of what they pay for goods, products that would otherwise carry a higher cost.” Indeed, Huntsman seemed to demonstrate an understanding that free markets lead to economic growth (for other countries, not the USA). He said in a stop in New Hampshire in May of 2011 that imposing tariffs on Chinese imports “would throw us into a depression."

Oh yeah? Well, you know the American made goods I grew up with lasted forever. You could buy a freezer and expect it to last 30 to 50 years, and they did, same with other appliances. I actually have several that are Made in America and are over 35 years old. Now if you buy a new appliance or TV, you can expect it to last 8 to 10 years. Why? Because it's not made as well as it was in America. So, we don't "save money" on cheaper items, we pay the same money for the product, if not more, but it lasts a much shorter time, so in reality we have to buy it more often. And Chinese junk can kill you. Doesn't sound too good to me. Obviously Huntsman doesn't know history and that tariffs paid for government many years ago as well as protecting American manufacturing. NAFTA was passed by both parties when the phone calls against it were 10 to 1 and none of the criminals in D.C. would listen.

Education

In 2007, Governor Huntsman signed the Parent Choice in Education Act, “the largest school-voucher bill to date in the United States. This massive school-choice program provides scholarships ranging from $500 to $3000 to help parents send their children to the private school of their choice. The program is open to all current public school children as well as some children already in private school.” Charlotte Iserbyt and others have exposed time and again the problems with choice,charter schools, and vouchers. [Link] What the government pays for, the government controls.

Immigration and Illegal Aliens

Huntsman states, "There’s got to be an alternative rather than sending people back. That’s unrealistic." Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said the concept of a border fence “repulses” him, but he believes that it is a necessity for the United States to get a handle on its illegal immigration problem. At the same time, he calls it unrealistic to believe the millions of undocumented people already here can be deported.

In June of 2007, Huntsman joined with other Western governors urging the passage of comprehensive immigration reform (citizenship for illegal aliens) stating America needed these workers since American workers wouldn't do the same jobs. [Link]

Huntsman has not discussed reducing immigration numbers, ending chain migration or the Visa lottery, and actually has a history of calling for more foreign workers rather than fewer.
Obviously like many other candidates, he is pro-amnesty despite the fact that 25 American citizens die per day at the hands of illegal aliens according to FBI statistics. I would bet that number is actually higher. Of course American citizens dying doesn't seem to bother the elite, it just helps with their "population control."

Conclusion

John Huntsman is not a viable candidate for the presidency. He has fawned over Obama in letters obtained and published by the Daily Caller, Huntsman called Obama "a remarkable leader." The word remarkable, as the Caller's Jonathan Strong notes, is underlined. There's a second letter the site obtained where Huntsman is effusive in his praise for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

I would hope that Americans are so angry at what is transpiring in our country via the NWO gang that they take time to research the backgrounds of the candidates for office. Unfortunately I have yet to find any of them that are true and knowledgeable constitutionalists.

So many of America's electorate have been seduced by candidates' words and promises that hold absolutely no validity. Unless we find and draft a candidate worthy of the founders of our country, we haven't a chance of becoming aNineveh. This is a pivotal election and truly it may be too late. Nevertheless, we must try to help our beloved nation. Far too many generations have thought America would go on as always, land of the free, home of the brave. But we are losing her quickly to communism and to a third world way of life when she has been the greatest nation on earth and the only nation in the world offering the freedoms our founding fathers gave us. We cannot let all the brave soldiers who have died for the cause of freedom to have died in vain.