BY SARAH ROSS
PORTLAND- Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney has continued his political action committee’s investment in Oregon politics with a $5,000 donation to accompany the endorsement of Republican senatorial candidate Jim Huffman.
The Free and Strong America PAC endorsed four other Oregon candidates early last week. These endorsements included a $10,000 donation to Chris Dudley’s campaign and $2,500 donations for Rob Cornilles, Scott Bruun, and current Congressman Greg Walden.
These combined donations bring Romney’s total contribution to Oregon candidates to $22,500. This is the second biggest collection of investments for a single state in the past month. The only state which drew more from the PAC was Michigan, receiving $28,400 in additional contributions for eleven of its Republican Congressional candidates.
Huffman once served as a constitutional advisor to Romney during his 2008 presidential bid.
Romney’s PAC has not yet mentioned the endorsement on its website, but Huffman’s campaign released a statement on Wednesday afternoon about the endorsement.
“Jim Huffman will be a leader fighting for lower taxes, controls on spending and the pro-growth policies that are necessary to create jobs and get our economy moving again,” Romney said in Wednesday’s statement.
“As a constitutional scholar, he understands that big government and liberal spending programs threaten the personal freedom and individual liberty that are at the core of our democracy,” he said.
Huffman said in the statement that he is grateful for the endorsement and that he shares the same goals as Romney, “standing up against the reckless spending, higher taxes and runaway national debt.”
It was 9:30 in the morning, and I was just waking up from my nights stay at March Air Force base billeting. Still kind of wiped out from the prior evening’s C-141C aircraft low level airdrop training mission, I made some billeting coffee and turned on the tube. Cable was a real treat for me when I went to perform my Air Force Reserve obligation, since my wife and I never had cable. I flicked through the channels. An image of a jet plane crashing into a tower flashed on the screen . I just thought it was a movie at first. It finally dawned on me that this was an insane attack on the Twin Towers using jet airplanes full of innocent men, women and children.
I immediately called my unit, put on my flight suit, and went to the squadron. The squadron was busy as the phones began to ring and airlift tasking came down. I was put on alert and shuffled to the flight line at 11AM on September 11th ,2001. We sat there from 11Am until 11Pm . FEMA showed along with 6 rescue dogs of every breed ,and dozens of rescue personnel.
When the C-141C finally broke ground, it was 11:45 PM, or there about ,on September 11th 2001.
Given that we were one of only a handful of aircraft in the sky that night, we were cleared direct New Jersey as soon as we left “Tower Frequency”! It was simply weird and Orwellian to hear, “Reach 60151 climb to flight level 350, cleared direct McGuire AFB!” From that moment on, all we heard was the pop and whizzle of the VHF radio and the occasional hand off from Air Traffic control. “Reach 60151 contact Albuquerque 121.6 good day!” “Reach 60151 contact Denver Center 122.1!” “Contact Kansas City!”
For 5 hours at 420 knots ,and .74 mach, from Southern California to New Jersey , we heard no other aircraft.
No Alaska 448. No United call signs. No Delta, Southwest or American call signs. No other call signs whatsoever.
The pitch dark of night gave way to the crack of dawn on the eastern seaboard. The morning found clear blue skies as we passed the battlefields of Paoli, Philadelphia, and Valley Forge. During our descend, We crossed the Delaware river just south of Trenton, New Jersey.Then off in the distance, from 35000 feet and 100 miles away,
we saw the massive smoke from the collapsed Twin Towers with the sun casting golden rays in the background. This scene is burned into my memory.
A few years later I found out that our family association with this particular location on lower Manhattan was not limited to 2001. In 1665, only a few blocks from the Twin Tower location , my Great plus Grand Father Captain Daniel Brodhead along with 500 British troops disembarked from British Man-O-Wars and took New Amsterdam under English Control, and renamed it New York. At this very same location 110 years later, In August of 1776, Col. Daniel Brodhead III would fight at the “Battle of Long Island” , and cover George Washington’s retreat across the East River . I believe the Brooklyn bridge now sits there. Strange symbolism an coincidence?
The tragedy of 9/11 was a catalyst for two wars. Now, given that a mosque is being built a few blocks away from “Ground zero,” it is a catalyst for religious intolerance and media exploitation. It is true that a new mosque this close to “Ground zero” is in extreme bad taste, but, our country is based on “Freedom of religion!” The symbol of 9/11 is also being exploited for perpetual war and nation building on deficit spending. So-called pseudo conservatives insist that perpetual war on deficit spending is a conservative position! This could not be farther from the truth.
Here is a little from George Washington’s “Farewell Address” on perpetual war on deficit spending:
“As a very important source of strength ,and security, cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding
occasions of expence by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely
disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater
disbursements to repel it-avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only
by shunning occasions of expence, but by vigorous exertions in time of Peace to
discharge the Debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.”
Analysing George Washington’s farewell address, we can easily infer that he would condemn perpetual war, especially on deficit spending. The current pseudo conservatives are not only “not shunning occasions of expense”, but cultivating and manufacturing every reason possible to support hundreds of billions in war expense. All of it on massive unsustainable deficit spending. If we then consider the dismantling of the U.S. Constitution, massive federal spending, violating our 4th amendment rights, and every manner of tax and spend scheming, we can see that the folks on capitol Hill are also shunning the “Founding fathers”! Moreover they are pushing an all-out Socialist tax structure as a solution to fiscal stupidity.
I was proud to have served in Iraq. It was a just war. The first Afghanistan war was a just war. Now, I feel the military Industrial Complex is simply exploiting 9/11 for special interest, and massive spending. They tell us it is in our national interest, especially pseudo conservative republicans.
Of late, all republicans have done is vote yes on perpetual war and no on everything else. We are bleeding $165 billion a month in deficit spending, and all our leaders can do is gridlock. The Democratic Socialists not only “Double downed” on perpetual war on deficit spending, they have went completely out of their fiscal minds. They are trying to stuff Socialism down our throats.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if going forward, 9/11 symbolized the ending of racial tension, the ending of religious intolerance, and the ending of a grid locked congress? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if 9/11 symbolized a new era of prosperity ,and a government that lived within its means? I think most Oregonians would agree!
Oregonians can start the process of a building a new American dream for their children by first replacing Oregon’s current Democratic Socialist regime with new leadership. We can start the process by voting for Chris Dudley for governor of Oregon. Democratic Socialist have proven beyond any doubt that they cannot balance a budget and are part of the problem. We really owe this to our children!