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Tag: Politics

  • Jon Huntsman Jr. nominated as U.S. ambassador to China

    President Obama seems to have pulled off a slick three-fer today in announcing his nomination of Republican Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. as U.S. ambassador to China.

    First, Huntsman, 49, has solid diplomatic credentials, having served as President George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to Singapore and U.S. trade ambassador for President George W. Bush. He learned to speak fluent Mandarin earlier in life as a Mormon missionary to China, and adopted his daughter from China.

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    Second, it was a high-profile display of Obama’s pledge of bipartisanship, albeit a choice that reflects many Democratic values in a moderate Republican who almost routinely rocks the ribs of the GOP’s never-say-die ultra-conservatives.

    Jon M. Huntsman Jr.
    Jon Huntsman Jr.

    Third, and most significant politically, if Huntsman is confirmed it will effectively remove him from contention in an Obama re-election bid in 2012, at the same time pulling the only moderate out of a field of potential GOP candidates who play insistently to the party’s supposed base.

    One significant example of Huntsman succeeding as a moderate among conservatives was the easing of Utah’s restrictive liquor laws to promote tourism, a move resisted by the state’s large Mormon population.

    He also has endorsed civil marriage for gays – although he supported a successful amendment to his state’s constitution banning them in 2004 – and is a strong voice for environmentalism – especially in joint efforts with the Chinese.

    If his appointment is accepted, Huntsman will replace Clark Randt as ambassador.

    He is the son of Jon M. Huntsman Sr., founder and chairman of Huntsman Corp., a global chemical manufacturer and marketer.

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    2 Comments

    • #1.   Max 05.16.2009

      Governor Huntsman learned Mandarin as a Mormon missionary to TAIWAN, not China.

    • #2.   TonyP4 05.17.2009

      Never use our yardstick on human right on a developing country like China.

      American contributes more pollution per capita than China esp. some pollution is caused by manufacturing for global consumers.

      We can build carriers powered by two nuclear generators and China cannot build helicopters. What a joke!

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    • Muck tracker – C. Robert Kidder to become Chrysler chairman

      May 20, 2009 at 5:14pm

      C. Robert Kidder, the former chairman of Duracell International, will lead a newly restructured Chrysler after it begins its alliance with Fiat, the New York Times reports.

    • NY’s top ethics officer accused of ethical breach

      The fallout from Eliot Spitzer’s short but contentious reign as governor of New York state continues.

      This week, Joseph Fisch, the state’s inspector general, charged the state’s top ethics watchdog, Herbert Teitelbaum, with acting unethically.

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      Teitelbaum, the executive director of the Commission on Public Integrity, should be fired, Fisch concluded.

      The charges came in a 174-page report (not counting appendices) that gives a detailed sense of the power of personal, professional and political connections in Albany.

      The report also recalls a scandal that erupted just a few months after Spitzer took office in January 2007.

      At first, the controversy focused on Republican Joseph L. Bruno, the then leader of the state Senate and a Spitzer opponent.

      Allegedly, Bruno had been using state aircraft to fly to political events, a violation of law.

      Rather quickly, the scandal did an about-face when it was reported that members of Spitzer’s staff had used state police to gather the damaging information on Bruno.

      The use of the police for political purposes violated the law and the scandal got a label, Troopergate.

      The Commission on Public Integrity launched an investigation, an investigation that posed a threat, if not to Spitzer, then to members of his inner circle.

      Fisch, the inspector general, claimed in a report issued Wednesday that Teitelbaum compromised the investigation by leaking confidential information to Robert Hermann, then the director of Spitzer’s Officer of Governmental Reform and a member of Spitzer’s cabinet.

      Hermann then passed information to Lloyd Constantine of Spitzer’s staff on several occasions, the report alleges. Hermann had once been Constantine’s supervisor in the state attorney general’s office.

      Hermann also supposedly talked once about the investigation with Peter Pope, Spitzer’s director of policy.

      Fisch also charges that the commission did not act properly when it was told of Teitelbaum’s conversations with Hermann.

      Both Teitelbaum and Hermann have denied that they did anything wrong, and Teitelbaum has resisted the calls for his resignation.

      Gov. David A. Paterson, Spitzer’s successor, has asked his seven appointees to the 13-member commission to resign. They, so far, have refused to step aside, just as they have refused to fire Teitelbaum.

      Teitelbaum and Hermann, both Spitzer appointees and Spitzer supporters, had known early for years before they came to be officials in Albany.

      As Fisch’s report explains, they first met when Hermann was at the law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

      Hermann interviewed Teitelbaum for an associate’s position with the firm, a position that he took.

      However, Hermann had left the firm by the time Teitelbaum began work. (Eliot Spitzer would later be a lawyer with Skadden, Arps.)

      Later in their careers, Teitelbaum and Hermann worked together at Teitelbaum, Hiller, Rodman, Paden & Hibsher, P.C., another law firm.

      They had also served at different times as the legal counsel for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

      Paterson was Spitzer’s lieutenant governor at the time of the Troopergate episode, and he was not swept up in the investigation.

      However, he has a link to the latest news. In naming Fish inspector general last year, Paterson had returned a favor.

      In 1982, Fisch, the chief assistant district attorney in Queens, hired Paterson, who was fresh out of law school.

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      • ‘Hillaryland’ is reborn at the State Department

        May 18, 2009 at 6:58am

        Hillary Rodham Clinton may have reinvented herself (again) as Secretary of State, but she hasn’t exactly started with a blank slate.

      • Dave Bing Has Clearer Path to Full Term As Detroit Mayor

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      • Dave Bing, political neophyte, will be Detroit’s oldest mayor

        When pro basketball hall-of-famer Dave Bing was elected May 5 as Detroit’s third mayor in less than a year, a voter turnout of just 14 percent showed they’d prefer a duke to an emperor, and age to outrage.

        Duke, as Bing was known in his youth, narrowly beat interim Mayor Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. in a special election to choose who would serve the remaining term of the city’s disgraced chief executive, Kwame M. Kilpatrick.

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        Elected Detroit’s youngest mayor at 31, Kilpatrick’s first and abortive second terms were marked by his penchant for high living, big cars, entourages, luxury junkets and marital infidelity. When a police whistleblower lawsuit threatened to disclose thousands of sexually explicit text messages between Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, former high school classmate Christine Beatty, the two lied about their relationship in court and settled the lawsuit for $8.4 million in taxpayer money.

        Dave Bing
        Dave Bing

        Both resigned their positions, admitted their perjury in separate plea deals and spent several months in jail. In addition, Kilpatrick confessed to obstructing justice and assaulting two county investigators who went to his home to serve a subpoena on businessman Bobby Ferguson, another childhood friend and convicted felon who was awarded some $170 million in city contracts during Kilpatrick’s tenure.

        Bing, at 65, will be sworn in as Detroit’s oldest mayor, and the first political neophyte to hold the job in nearly 120 years. While he will hold the office through the end of the year, he faces an August primary and November general election to claim his own full 4-year term.

        A native of Washington, D.C., and high school dropout who dreamed of professional sports greatness while playing basketball with childhood friend – and later Motown musical legend – Marvin Gaye, Bing moved to Detroit as the 1966 NBA draft’s No. 2 pick, and was a Piston for nine seasons.

        After moonlighting as a bank manager trainee and in a steel company PR job, he started his own business in 1980, first as Bing Steel and later expanded as the Bing Group, an auto parts manufacturer with reported annual revenues of as much as $300 million. He also has interests in money management and construction.

        Although long active in Detroit civic affairs, Bing resisted calls for a mayoral candidacy until his successful run this year. Attacked as an outsider – he moved into the city from his suburban home to run for office – and forced to admit that he falsely claimed to hold a master’s in business administration from Syracuse University, Bing edged out Cockrel, who as city council president had assumed the mayor’s office after Kilpatrick’s resignation.

        He’s pledged to take a businessman’s approach to governing one of the country’s most impoverished, crime-ridden, and corrupt cities, and has just three months to prove his effectiveness before having once again to face the voters, however few, in August.

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        • Can Warren Hellman save the San Francisco Chronicle?

          May 12, 2009 at 11:04am

          Billionaire financier F. Warren Hellman is already beloved in his native San Francisco for underwriting an eccentric annual music festival called Hardlly Strictly Bluegrass.
          But if the California mogul can figure out how to save another bit of endangered Americana, the community newspaper, he will surely be regarded as a national, as well as a local […]

        • Jake Siewert Joins His Friend Tim Geithner at Treasury

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        • Inez Tenenbaum, early Obama supporter, to head consumer safety commission

          Returning a political favor, President Barack Obama has nominated Inez Moore Tenenbaum to be the new chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

          Tenenbaum, the former state superintendent of education in South Carolina, was an early backer of Obama’s presidential race and helped him win the crucial South Carolina presidential primary.

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          If confirmed by the Senate, Tenenbaum, a lawyer, will take over an agency that has been faulted for not protecting the public from unsafe toys and other products. She would replace Nancy A. Nord, a George W. Bush nominee.

          Tenenbaum, 58, served two elected terms as South Carolina’s education chief from 1999 to 2007. Test scores rose while she was in office, and she brought full-day kindergarten to the state.

          In 2004, she ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, losing to Republican Jim DeMint.

          In April 2007, Tenenbaum endorsed Obama for president. At the time, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was the favorite to win the Democratic nomination.

          During the Democratic primary, Tenenbaum served as the steering committee co-chair of Obama’s campaign in South Carolina, where the primary proved critical.

          Obama won easily, gaining his second primary victory. He also regained the momentum he established by winning in Iowa but had lost by losing in New Hampshire.

          On primary night in South Carolina, Obama’s gratitude toward Tenenbaum was obvious, wrote columnist Howard Fineman in Newsweek.

          “When he climbed down off the stage … the first person he embraced (after his wife, Michelle) was Tenenbaum,” Fineman wrote in December.

          Fineman went on to predict correctly that, even though Obama had a debt to Tenenbaum, he wouldn’t name her U.S. secretary of education, despite her background in the field.

          That proved to be the case, the post going to Arne Duncan, the CEO of Chicago public schools, as Fineman wrote it might.

          In announcing the nomination of Tenenbaum, the White House stressed that the Consumer Product Safety Commission will have a high priority in the Obama administration.

          “We must do more to protect the American public – especially our nation’s children — from being harmed by unsafe products,” Obama said in a statement.

          The president has increased the number of commissioners from three to five and he hopes to double the commission’s budget.

          Obama has also nominated Robert S. Adler, a lawyer and former adviser to the commission, to serve as a commissioner.

          Adler, who is now a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, served on the Obama’s presidential transition team.

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          • #1.   Tony Smith 05.07.2009

            Quoting…
            “We must do more to protect the American public – especially our nation’s children — from being harmed by unsafe products,” Obama said in a statement.

            It is interesting to see that in a time of economic crisis, we keep focusing on “expansion” of government priorities and focus. Every appointment is stressed as how “critical” it is and how much attention it will garner from the new presidency. As is relevant by the foreclosure crisis, there simply isn’t enough money to go around expanding everything…

            Tony S.

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          • Judge rejects hardship plea from ex-Detroit mayor

            May 8, 2009 at 6:36pm

            Convicted felon and former Detroit mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick today lost a hardship bid to reduce $6,000 in monthly restitution payments to the city for his crimes.

          • Meghan McCain: budding author and budding Republican

            Sen. John McCain never claimed to have invented the Internet or even to have used it that much.

            But his daughter Meghan has blogged her way to a book deal said to be in the “high six figures,” according to The New York Observer.

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            In her book, she’ll “explore what it means to be a progressive Republican in the party today” according to a news release from her publisher, Hyperion Books, a division of the Disney Company.

            McCain will also “delve into what it means to love the Republican Party, while not always fitting in.”

            A 24-year-old Columbia University graduate, McCain blogs for the online The Daily Beast.

            She also has her own blog, McCainBlogette.com, on which she first posted comments and photos during her father’s presidential campaign.

            McCain is the oldest of the four children of John McCain and his second wife, Cindy Hensley McCain. (John McCain also has three children from his first marriage.)

            Meghan McCain has been an enrolled Republican for only a year.

            She voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004, and she’s to the left of her father (and many other Republicans) on a variety of social issues, though she shares his views on the Iraq war.

            She supports same sex-marriage and a woman’s right to choose.

            And she’s taken on conservative commentator Ann Coulter. “I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time,” McCain wrote on The Daily Beast.

            McCain has urged Republicans to follow the Democratic lead and become Internet savvy and Twitter effective.

            She’s also profiled young Republicans such as 27-year-old Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock, a “TMZ hottie” who could represent the future of the party.

            In addition, she has defended herself after conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham made comments about her weight.

            “I am a size 8 and fluctuated up to a size 10 during the campaign,” McCain wrote. “It’s ridiculous even to have this conversation because I am not overweight in the least and have a natural body weight. But even if I were overweight, it would be ridiculous.”

            In negotiating a book contract, McCain was represented by her father’s literary agent, Philippa “Flip” Brophy, the president of Sterling Lord Literistic.

            This will be Meghan McCain’s second book, following My Dad, John McCain, a children’s book published last year by Simon & Schuster.

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            • #1.   myra 04.14.2009

              EVERLASTING

              Selling Planet Earth in Exchange for a Utopia? What’s the Catch?

              Humans sold planet Earth for peace, but little did they know peace would come at such a high cost.

              A long time ago, Humanity sold planet Earth to a group called the Evers in order to gain peace and a virtual utopia for themselves and for future generations. However, the cost of this paradise turns out to be too much for some to deal with and the humans soon find themselves ruled cruelly by the very beings who offered them salvation and at one point given them so much hope.

              Humans that were originally treated with high regards, made to feels special, are now being treated as animals, some humiliated and shipped away to some unknown fate…each being told what they could or could not do, under the guise of it being in humanities best interest.

              With a feeling of dread, a small group declares war on the more advanced Evers in hopes of returning things to the way they should be…to the way they had been. John and his make-shift crew of humans and hybrids (half human/half Ever) must not only find a way to break free of the mistakes of the past and find out the disturbing secrets that the Evers have hidden away, but they must also deal with their own personal issues and learn to live, grow, and deal with each others’ emotional issues of love, regret and fear.

              Will man give up youth and perfect health to live in the past? And will John take the chance of restoring Earth to its former state even though there’s a good chance his life-threatening disease can return?

              Publisher’s Web site: www.eloquentbooks.com/Everlasting.html

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