Huntsman’s Path to GOP Nomination: Ignore GOP Voters

-By Warner Todd Huston

One has to wonder if Jon Huntsman’s path to the GOP nomination for the White House will be second only to Newt Gingrich’s for its impossibility? Even Huntsman is admitting in an interview with Politico that the only way he can win is if he aims for non-Republican votes for his primary effort. So, the only way he can win the GOP nomination, even in his own opinion, is if he ignores GOP voters! If this isn’t a joke, what is?

As Kasie Hunt writes for Politico, Huntsman “sketched out a path to the Republican nomination” with the Internet newser that was, “an exercise in needle-threading that hinges on his ability to capture a large swath of independent voters.”…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Obama’s Union-Sold Regulatory Agency Goes Even Further for Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

With one regulatory decision after anther, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has repeatedly abused its position and lent its powers to come to the material aid of Big Labor. This week we see the NLRB coming to the aid of unions yet again by changing rules to fast track union votes in businesses not yet suffering under union control.

The NLRB has ruled that unions trying to strong arm their way into businesses will now be afforded a sort of fast tracked voting process meant to give both businesses and employees far, far less time to learn about and understand the issues surrounding a vote in favor of unionization.

Currently when a union wants to get itself certified in a new company the NLRB takes between five and six weeks to conduct the elections. Under the NLRB’s new rules that time period will be shorted to a scant 10 to 21 days.
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Obama’s Union-Sold Regulatory Agency Goes Even Further for Unions”


A Time for Choosing

“So we have come to a time for choosing,” warned Ronald Reagan in his famous speech nominating Barry Goldwater for President in 1964. It was one of the most important speeches in American history — and remains terrifyingly true today.

Millions without jobs. American values under attack. Bailouts, deficits, and debt that threatens the future for our children and grandchildren. Will the citizens of this great country allow it to continue?

America truly faces a time for choosing in November 2012. Stand with us to retake America and win one for the Gipper.


Kinzinger Reaction to the President’s Remarks Regarding Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan

From the Office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, IL)…

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), a pilot in the Air National Guard, issued the following statement on the President’s announced plans in Afghanistan:

“Last month during my trip to Afghanistan, I spoke with generals on the ground who believe we are winning and have turned the corner. The wrong thing to do at this stage would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which will happen if the number of troops withdrawn exceeds the recommendations of our generals. Decisions regarding troop withdrawals must be determined by conditions on the ground, not political timelines.

“Stability in Afghanistan remains a top priority in the interest of our national security. History will judge us by the decisions we made to ensure the safety of our men and women overseas and of our country during this critical time. Our mission must be about the long-term safety of our nation, not the next election – this is something we cannot lose sight of.”

http://kinzinger.house.gov/


The Strategic Debate We Need To Have

– By Jeff Lukens

The U.S. federal debt is our nation’s greatest strategic weakness. As the debt continues to grow, our military posture around the globe is threatened. Defense cuts are coming, and with that reduction must come a reduced mission. In this environment, what our nation’s strategic mission should be, and what the corresponding defense funding should be to meet that need, are open questions. They are questions that need to be openly explored by politicians and the American people alike.

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things.” Ever the public servant, Gates seeks to kindle a debate the country seems reluctant, but needs, to have. It would be an invitation to disaster if we kept the same mission with reduced funding, or a reduced force. By bringing the issue to the public forum, Gates apparently seeks to avoid that calamity.

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, and accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending, and roughly half of discretionary spending. Defense cuts are coming, that much we know for sure, and the easiest of them have already been made. Gates acknowledged that over the past two years, “more than 30 programs (weapon systems, etc.) were canceled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.”
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The Strategic Debate We Need To Have”


Obama: Who Needs Victory When We Can Negotiate With The TahleeBahn?

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Barack Obama came before the American people tonight to unleash his latest campaign speech disguised as a foreign policy address. It was a presentation that even Politico calls “boring and predictable, balanced to please critics,” and one that “did not change the debate about the war.” But, one thing does seem like news. Obama never used the word victory and he also said we’d negotiate with the Taliban – an enemy he annoyingly insists on calling the Tahleebahn.

One singular theme emerged from this speech. Apparently, to President Obama, “victory” does not mean a win, but it only means a settling with negotiations with our enemies. Very Chamberlainesque, isn’t it?

But there were quite a few odd statements made by the president tonight. One was his claim that Usamma bin Laden was the “only leader al Qaeda has ever known.” This is absurd. There have been dozens of al Qaeda leaders and we killed many of them long before we finally got to bin Laden.
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Obama: Who Needs Victory When We Can Negotiate With The TahleeBahn?”


Are We Worse off Under Obama? More Say YES!

-By Warner Todd Huston

While I thought him a great president, I am not one of those conservatives that constantly invoke the name of Ronald Reagan. But one aspect of his 1979 race for president is looking eerily familiar to today’s upcoming 2012 race for the White House.

One of the phrases that helped Reagan win his bid for president in 1980 was his pointed jab of a question put to the American people: are you better off now than you were four years ago (when Jimmy Carter was elected)?…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


More Proof That Huntsman is Less ‘One of Us’ And More ‘One of Them’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The media and the Democrats have been falling all over themselves to welcome “moderate” Jon Huntsman into the presidential race. There is one reason and one reason only for this. He is more like them (Democrats) then he is us (Republicans and Conservatives) and they feel that a weaker, version of them will tip in a win for Democrats.

With the Announcement of his candidacy on June 21 Huntsman tried to sound the steady, uncontroversial candidate, one who would avoid the mudslinging. He wrongly attributed such a tact to Ronald Reagan, a candidate who definitely took it to his opponent, Jimmy Carter, and in personal terms…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Healthcare Delusion

-By Frank Hyland

The issue everywhere in the media, at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around your supper table is healthcare, whether Medicaid, Medicare or the aptly labeled Obamacare. The burning part of the issue is whether “they” owe us healthcare; that is, are we “entitled” to it.

If I walk into a store expecting that I can have anything and everything on the shelves without paying for it, I’d be called a shoplifter, a thief. Gasoline pumps across the nation, including the ones you patronize, feature a photo of a State Trooper warning against filling up and driving off without paying. When the Plumber fixes your Bathroom leak and you pay him with a check that bounces, you have committed fraud and theft. In all these cases, you received something of value from a person (the Plumber) or a group of people (the gasoline station) and you took their product without paying for it.

Why in the world, then, would anyone think they can go to any other individual — a Doctor — or a group of people — a clinic or hospital — and believe that they can have their product without paying for it? Doctors, Nurses, and their staffs, in case some don’t realize it, have families, mortgages, car payments, tuition payments, and grocery bills just like everyone else, like all of us.
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Healthcare Delusion”


Video Interview: Eric O’Keefe and Getting Rid Of Obamacare With The Health Care Compact

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obamacare will sink this country if it is ever allowed to come into full operation. So says Eric O’Keefe, Chairman of Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based, free market organization, and chief advocate for the Health Care Compact, an effort that can replace Obamacare and give us a truly American way to address our healthcare problems.

I met up with Mr. O’Keefe at the RightOnLine conference in beautiful downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota this year and in the following video we talk about a great new way to get rid of Obamacare and solve our healthcare problems at the same time.

Mr. O’Keefe is a principle advocate of the Health Care Compact (healthcarecompact.org), a great 10th Amendment effort to return the problems and solutions of healthcare to the states.

From the Compact’s website:
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Video Interview: Eric O’Keefe and Getting Rid Of Obamacare With The Health Care Compact”


No Short Term Middle East Solutions

-By Alan Caruba

A problem with which American administrations have grappled since the days of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency has been Arabs and the Middle East. The Marine anthem mentions “the shores of Tripoli” because, in 1801, Jefferson sent them to there to put down the Barbary pirates.

One of the best books on this subject is “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” by Michael B. Oren who, with exquisite irony, is currently serving as the Israeli ambassador to the United States, the nation of his birth.

Regarding the Middle East, if you have had the feeling that the Obama administration has been spectacularly inept as it takes its turn at bat, you’re right. Barely six months into his first year, on June 4, 2009, the newly-minted President gave a speech in Cairo.
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No Short Term Middle East Solutions”


John Bolton, Ambassador… No, Wait, Maybe President?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When John Bolton was the Interim U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush years, the UN hated him, the Democrats wouldn’t confirm him, and Republicans and conservatives loved him. He was one of the toughest talking U.S. Ambassadors since Jean Kirkpatrick though he outdid her sternness, to be sure.

At least since last winter, Bolton has been exploring a run for the White House, still he has yet to make a final decision. Bolton, though, insists that the current filed has seen no “coalescing around a particular candidate.” Apparently he still feels there is plenty of time to make a final decision…

See the rest at RightPundits.com.


VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground

-By Warner Todd Huston

Herman Cain appeared at last weekend’s RightOnLine conference (June 18) to two standing ovations. His rousing campaign speech apparently hit all the right notes with the conservative audience in attendance. But afterward, in the blogger access room, there were a few sour notes, in one case Cain even angrily yelled at a blogger over a question hard pressed.

The RightOnLine conference is a get together held annually by Americans For Prosperity and aimed at helping citizens become more involved in their government both on and off the Internet. This year’s event was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota but Cain has spoken at this conference several times in the past.

This time, though, Cain is running for president and questions were a tad less fawning in the blogger access session. Several questions about his refusal to sign the abortion pledge, how his foreign policy ideas are perceived as weak, and his statements on Muslims in his administration got Cain passion flowing and his eyes flashing.

I was at this meeting and was able to get a full video of the session.
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VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground”


South Carolina Worker Sues Federal Gov’t Over Possible Loss of His Job

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama’s interference in the business operations of Boeing new Dreamliner manufacturing project will likely cause thousands of workers in South Carolina to lose their jobs. Because of this, one Palmetto State worker is suing the federal government for its part in his probable future job loss.

This is a story about Obama’s status as the top bought-and-paid-for union hack in the country and how he is attempting to use his powers to wield regulations as a tool to punish an American business for wanting to open a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina all because the president feels that a union will be hurt in the process of the creation of thousands of new jobs.

As it happens, airplane manufacturer Boeing wants to open a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina for its new Dreamliner plane because the manufacturer had been having so many union-caused troubles in its Washington State plant.
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South Carolina Worker Sues Federal Gov’t Over Possible Loss of His Job”


New Open Government and Spending Transparency Reforms Introduced

-By Warner Todd Huston

While the Obama administration plays its games with “czars,” more “boards,” and “committees” to implement government accountability policies, Representative Darrell Issa (R, Calif.) has introduced some measures that would do a far better job to meet those goals.

President Obama has touted a “Government Accountability and Transparency Board” (GATB) as well as the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) meant to bring more accountability to federal actions. But what real power will these “boards” and “committees” have? What real good will they do? Worse, how can we expect boards appointed by the president to shine the light of transparency on the Executive branch?

So, what will these new presidential projects be doing? The GATB “shall work with the RATB to apply the approaches developed by the RATB across Government spending.” Absurdly, these new boards won’t even be making a report for six more months.
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New Open Government and Spending Transparency Reforms Introduced”


What Economic Turnaround?

Obama and his cohorts want to sell the American people a bill of goods. DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz is telling the country that Democrats “own” the “recovery.” Only one problem. There ain’t one.

Don’t buy the lies, folks. Don’t do it.


McConnell Wants Terror Suspects Held in Kentucky to be Sent to Gitmo

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why are a pair of foreign terrorists sitting in a jail in Kentucky? That’s what Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to know. He wants them sent to the facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they belong.

Why is the Justice Department doing this? Why expose our heartland to these monsters?
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McConnell Wants Terror Suspects Held in Kentucky to be Sent to Gitmo”


Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R) recently spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Neil Cavuto about the dispute between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Boeing and its impact on the United States economy. Cain said what the NLRB is trying to do keeping Boeing out of Charleston is “a direct assault on the free market system” and he hopes Boeing will “fight it all the way to the Supreme Court if that’s what they have to do.” Cain went on to say it is “uncertainty” that is preventing the U.S. economy from adding jobs in the “private sector” which must be “the engine” for economic growth and it is issues like the NLRB/Boeing dispute that are “killing the engine.”

Cain says that the reason business aren’t hiring is because of the uncertainty that Obama’s policies have visited upon the nation. The “uncertainty about the impact of Obamacare” chief among them.

“We don’t know what the tax rates are going to be at the end of 2013. This economy is stalled. This economy is like a train stuck on the tracks. You have a boxcar full of 15 million people who don’t have jobs, you have a boxcar of businesses that are hanging on. You have a caboose and no engine. They keep feeding the caboose. The caboose can’t pull the train. The private sector has to be the engine. Everything that they are doing, including this National Labor Relations Board issue, is killing the engine.”
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Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’”


Against The Odds, Right Leads Online

(Ed’s note – I will be flying to Minneapolis to attend the RightOnline.com conference this year. If you have the time or are in the Minneapolis area, do come on out)

-By Erik Telford

Arianna Huffington’s recent mega-payday from AOL was powerful evidence of the tight connection between the hard-left netroots and the online establishment. And AOL isn’t the only web giant to provide apparently favorable treatment to the left. Google has been accused of blocking certain right-wing websites or lowering their standing in search results, and its YouTube subsidiary seems to remove files uploaded by conservatives far more often than offensive content posted by liberals.

The love affair between the tech giants and the big-government left can be traced not only to Silicon Valley’s geographical proximity to San Francisco but also to the two groups’ shared agenda. President Obama’s stated goal of having the FCC regulate the Internet will ensure that bandwidth-heavy websites will not have to pay for the billions of dollars in investments that private broadband companies made. Of course, money from the technology industry flows freely into Democratic coffers.

Yet somehow the right is more than holding its own in the online activism arena.
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Against The Odds, Right Leads Online”


EPA’s Promise of Economic Growth a Sham

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is headed to The Hill to testify about the Obama Administration’s newest proposed environmental regulations. Obama’s EPA is claiming that the new rules will bring all sorts of economic growth, but a new report by the National Taxpayers Union puts the administration’s claims in question and shows that the EPA’s “benefits” have no basis in reality.

The new report features economist David Montgomery who reveals the very large net regulatory benefits touted by EPA rely on apples to orange comparisons, where the vast majority of the benefits have none of the financial reality that the costs do. (Click here for a .pdf of the report)…

Read the rest at RightPundit.com.


Illinois Congressmen Help Tip in Big Labor Amendment

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday I alerted you all to a jobs-killing, union-favoring amendment being considered in the House of Representatives in Washington, one that needed to be defeated. Unfortunately, the amendment was successful and now, in this dour economy, unions will be able to make matters worse just when we need a shot in the arm. (See previous post for particulars of the bill.)

Sadly, we lost this battle by one stinking vote and this example shows that even though we may have a GOP controlled House of Reps. they still don’t always support conservative measures — and they need to be carefully watched! Those supporting this jobs-killing amendment numbered 204 and those voting in favor of economic success only numbered 203. (25 representatives did not vote at all)

Now, seeing as how I am from Illinois — the most corrupt state in the union — I focused in my previous post on those of the Illinois Republican delegation that had in the past supported Big Labor bills similar to the one in question. So, this is a follow up to that report.
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Illinois Congressmen Help Tip in Big Labor Amendment”


Obama Puts Unions Ahead of a Healthy Economy, Free Trade

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama claims that he wants to “create jobs,” and is happily touting several policies that he claims will create jobs in this jobless, non-recovery. Unfortunately, all his polices really do is shore up the high cost unions that kill job growth. As GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell says, Obama has “relentlessly pursued an agenda that is radically opposed” to job growth.

Speaking on the floor last Tuesday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “For two and a half years, Democrats in Washington have paid lip service to the idea of job creation — even as they’ve relentlessly pursued an agenda that is radically opposed to it… Democrats don’t want to admit that the government-driven policies of the past two and a half years are part of the problem. And until they do, nothing will change. Unless Democrats change their priorities and their policies, the threats of a downgrade won’t go away. The debt won’t get any smaller. Businesses won’t create the kind of jobs we need to build prosperity.
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Obama Puts Unions Ahead of a Healthy Economy, Free Trade”


Thoughts on the CNN Republican Debate

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well the CNN debate of some of the GOP candidates for president is now in the history books and I thought I’d give my impression of those vying there.

Before I do that, I have to comment on John King’s constant guttural vocal tick. It sounded like he had Tourette Syndrome with the grunts and other noises. He was an utter failure as a moderator. His annoying grunts HAVE to go. It was also clear that his goal was not to hear what the candidates wanted to say, but that he wanted them to attack each other. He was constantly trying to pit them against each other. Fortunately, they did not take the bait for the most part. This was a civil debate, for sure. But if anyone failed tonight it was John King.

The debate format was rotten, too. This 30-second limit on answers for complex issues is absurd. I am glad that about halfway through the thing the time limit went by the wayside.

Now Let’s take the candidates as they appeared on the stage.
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Thoughts on the CNN Republican Debate”


Class Of 2011 Faces Highest Unemployment Rate In History

From BankruptingAmerica.org…

Graduates Face 21.1 Applicants Per Job

Arlington, VA – Today, BankruptingAmerica.org (an awareness campaign by Public Notice) released a new Web video titled “Is Washington Creating Our Job Crisis?” As the 1.7 million college students of the class of 2011 graduate, they face one of the highest unemployment rates for college graduates in U.S. history.

This video (runtime 1:01) launches just days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy produced just over 50,000 jobs in May, the lowest number of jobs created in 2011 and the fewest jobs in eight months.

With unemployment rising to 9.1 percent, college graduates aren’t the only ones worrying about their economic future. A recent poll conducted by the Daily Beast/Newsweek found that by almost four to one, Americans say our economy is not delivering the jobs we need. Americans are even losing sleep over the economic crisis: 56 percent are so angry about their personal economic situation that they have lost sleep.
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Class Of 2011 Faces Highest Unemployment Rate In History”


Getting Muddy: Tim Pawlenty Attacks ‘ObamneyCare’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tim Pawlenty is one of only two GOP contenders that have a nation-wide ground game and it looks like he’s starting to go on the attack against Mitt Romney, the other Republican with a nation-wide organization. On Fox News Sunday today he attacked Romney’s disastrous healthcare bill that he signed when Governor of Massachusetts head on calling the legislation “ObamneyCare.”

With one phrase he was able to link Romney’s healthcare law directly to the hated Obamacare legislation. It was clever, but it shows that Pawlenty feels that Romney is not only the guy to beat, he’s vulnerable as well.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Obama’s Plan To Make Your Electric Bills Jump 60 Percent

-By Warner Todd Huston

Only a few days ago I wrote about how Obama’s new EPA rules would force Americans to pay up to 60% more on their electric bills. This weekend, the Chicago Tribune said the same thing.

Leading off saying, “Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years,” the Trib went on to highlight the same destructive EPA rules I wrote about on Friday.

Coal-fired plants historically have been one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity, but operating costs are expected to increase significantly because of upgrades needed on older plants to meet new environmental regulations. The Illinois Power Agency estimates that by 2017 the energy portion of bills could jump 65 percent from today’s rates.

But one thing the Tribune did not mention. Obama campaigned on forcing us to pay that 60% more on our electric bills. Obama wants to bankrupt the electric industry, he wants us to lose jobs, he wants us to be soaked to pay more for our energy. He wants this because he feels America should be taken down a notch or two He wants to hobble this country. It’s what he’s said since day one… (See the following video)
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Obama’s Plan To Make Your Electric Bills Jump 60 Percent”


Weekly Republican Address: Rep. Adam Kinzinger on the GOP’s Plan for America’s Job Creators

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Delivering the Weekly Republican Address, U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) highlights “Pledge to America with measures designed to remove government obstacles to private-sector job growth – the kind of growth the ‘stimulus’ promised but failed to deliver. Republicans have urged President Obama to change course and work together to enact this job creation plan, an invitation Rep. Kinzinger renews here. A member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Kinzinger is in his first term representing Illinois’ 11th Congressional District.

http://kinzinger.house.gov/

Transcript
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Weekly Republican Address: Rep. Adam Kinzinger on the GOP’s Plan for America’s Job Creators”


Destroying the Dollar

-By Alan Caruba

Something I never thought I would ever see in my former hometown, a wealthy New Jersey suburb of New York City, was a Dollar Store, but one opened recently in a former supermarket. Dollar Stores are giving Wal-Mart, Target, and similar outlets a run for their money and it’s not hard to see why. The local one has just about everything you could need and all for astonishing low prices.

In countless ways people are looking to save money these days. The looming problem, however, is the question of what happens when Americans wake up to learn that even a dollar can no longer buy anything?

When Faith in U.S. Dollars and U.S. Debt is Dead the Game is over – And that Day is Closer than You May Think” is the cheery title of an article recently posted on EconomicCollapse.com.
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Destroying the Dollar”


Rick Santorum Radio Ad: Santorum, the Courage to Fight for America

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, Rick Santorum announced that he is definitely in the hunt for the 2012 GOP nomination last week and he’s already released his first radio ad. He’s the first GOP hopeful to dos so.

It has the tag line, “Rick Santorum, the courage to fight for America.”

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.