Rep John Duncan of TN

[Baptist]

What's the deal with this guy? I never heard of him until he ranted against the TSA last week. Today he was on Alex Jones and he seems pretty down the line on a lot of things.

YouTube - Rep. Duncan Blasts TSA "Pat Downs," Scanners on House Floor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH-dpkJZiOM)


YouTube - (Tenn Rep) John J. Duncan Jr: Duncan Blasts TSA Pat-Downs, Body Scanners - Alex Jones Tv 1/2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAnx07p-S2Q)
YouTube - (Tenn Rep) John J. Duncan Jr: Duncan Blasts TSA Pat-Downs, Body Scanners - Alex Jones Tv 2/2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5DKJMrjzZE)
YouTube - (Tenn Rep) John J. Duncan Jr Gives His Take on The New Congress - Alex Jones Tv (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JyZJyQxJUc)

[MozoVote]

He's one of the better ones - has been very skeptical of the Iraq occupation.

[BamaAla]

Via Wikipedia:


Duncan voted against authorizing the War in Iraq based on opposition to what he believed to be an unnecessary foreign involvement. He also opposed and voted against a June 2006 House declaration in support of the war.[1] He was one of the most conservative Republicans to do so.[2] The Family Research Council rated him as a 92% or above since 2002[2] and the NRA has rated him in equally positive terms.[2] He is a frequent contributor to Chronicles, a magazine associated with the paleoconservative movement. Duncan and Ron Paul were the only two Republicans to vote against funding for the Iraq War on May 24, 2007.[3] Duncan voted, along with three other Republicans, to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by April 2008 on July 12, 2007.[4]

On March 10, 2010, Duncan again joined three other Republicans in voting for the removal of troops from Afghanistan.[5] Duncan and Paul were the only members of Congress to vote for the removal of troops for Afghanistan and against all recent bailout and stimulus bills.[6]

Duncan is a member of the Liberty Caucus (sometimes called the Liberty Committee), a group of libertarian-minded congressional Republicans.[7] Congressman Ron Paul hosts a luncheon for the Liberty Caucus every Thursday. Other members include Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Zach Wamp of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona.[8] Despite the moderate Republican, he voted against the Wall Street bailout. Duncan, in a column explaining his vote, stated he "thought it would be better in the long run not to adopt the socialist approach."[9] According to National Journal’s 2009 Vote Ratings, he was ranked as the 133rd conservative member in the House.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Duncan_%28U.S._politician%29

[Baptist]

It looks like he woke up to the PATRIOT Act because he voted no to reauthorizing it after initially voting YES. However, I don't get this guy because after voting NO on reauthorization he voted YES to the Military Commissions Act and YES to wiretaps.

Maybe his heart is in the right place but his head is not.

[TNforPaul45]

Tennesseans are waking up in very large numbers and it makes me very proud!

But there are still many more minds to educate. . .

[Matt Collins]

YouTube - Rep. John Duncan on Iraq (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrLp03JIQhs)
YouTube - Iraq Troop Surge Debate : John Duncan - Anti Surge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHPuWTuRETo)

[BamaAla]

Tennesseans are waking up in very large numbers and it makes me very proud!

But there are still many more minds to educate. . .

What do you Tennesseans think of the guy?

What part of Tennessee are you from if you don't mind me asking? I'm in north Alabama (near Decatur) and make it up to the state line to buy lottery tickets often.

[KCIndy]

It looks like he woke up to the PATRIOT Act because he voted no to reauthorizing it after initially voting YES. However, I don't get this guy because after voting NO on reauthorization he voted YES to the Military Commissions Act and YES to wiretaps.

Maybe his heart is in the right place but his head is not.


Looks like he's one of the two reps currently co-sponsoring Ron Paul's HR6416 the "American Traveler Dignity Act."

http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bdy7Kk:@@@P|/home/LegislativeData.php|

Maybe he's a good guy who just needs a little genuine education on the issues? I can hope. This is the first I've heard of him. Anyone here live in this guy's district?

[jmdrake]

John Duncan and Ron Paul are the only Republicans left in congress who voted against the Iraq war. J.D. rocks! We tried to get a straight up endorsement from him for Ron in 2008, but he declined to endorse anybody in the primary. Before anybody starts hating on him, remember that former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson was in the race. I don't think Duncan wanted to burn any bridges he didn't absolutely have to. Fred Thompson isn't going to run this time. The federal reserve is front page news. And now nationally prominent republicans are speaking out against the patriot act and these wars. It might be worth approaching congressman Duncan again.

[johnrocks]

Not saying "he's perfect" but I have always liked him, he has been on my short list of favorite Congressmen for a few years now. I love this speech he gave against the Iraq War.

Iraq War Contrary to Conservatism

by Rep. John J. Duncan Jr.

Editor's note: The following speech was delivered in the House of Representatives on June 16, 2006.

Mr. Speaker, I requested this Special Order to read a statement that I earlier placed in the Record during the debate on the Iraq war resolution.

I did not request time during the debate because it was obvious that the chairmen controlling the time, all good friends of mine, wanted only speakers who support the war, and I did not want to place them in an uncomfortable position.

I did not request time from the Democrats because many of my colleagues in the minority were using this debate in a bitterly partisan way. Surely, war should be the last thing that should become partisan.

Yet 80 percent of the House Republicans, including me, voted against the bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo when President Clinton was in the White House. I believe 80 percent of Republicans would have opposed the war in Iraq if it had been started by President Clinton or Gore, and probably almost all the Democrats would have then been supporting it, as they did the bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Much of the resolution that was just passed by this House contains language that everyone supports, especially the praise for our troops. Our troops do a great job everywhere they are sent. And it is certainly no criticism of them to criticize this war.

In August of 2002, two months before Congress voted for the war in Iraq, Dick Armey, then our Republican majority leader, in a speech in Iowa said, "I don't believe America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation. It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation."

Jack Kemp wrote before the war, "What is the evidence that should cause us to fear Iraq more than Pakistan or Iran? Do we reserve the right to launch a preemptive war exclusively for ourselves, or might other nations such as India, Pakistan, or China be justified in taking similar action on the basis of fears of other nations?"

Mr. Kemp said, based on the evidence he had seen, there was not "a compelling case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq."

William F. Buckley wrote that if he had known in 2002 what he knew then in 2004, he would have been against the war. Last year, he wrote another column against the war, saying, "A point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but misapplication of pride."

The very popular conservative columnist Charley Reese wrote that this war was "against a country that was not attacking us, did not have the means to attack us, and had never expressed any intention of attacking us. … [A]nd for whatever real reason we attacked Iraq, it was not to save America from any danger, imminent or otherwise."

Many years ago, Sen. Robert Taft expressed a traditional conservative position: "No foreign policy can be justified except a policy devoted to the protection of the American people, with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty."

Millions of conservatives across this nation believe this war was unconstitutional, unaffordable, and worst of all, unnecessary. It was waged against an evil man, but one who had a total military budget only two-tenths of 1 percent of ours.

We are not going to be able to pay all our military pensions, civil service pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and all the other things we have promised if we are going to turn the Department of Defense into the Department of Foreign Aid and attempt to be the policeman of the world.

This is contrary to every traditional conservative position on defense and on huge deficit spending. The conservative columnist Georgie Ann Geyer wrote, "Critics of the war against Iraq have said since the beginning of the conflict that Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home, or one that seeks empire across the globe."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/duncan.php?articleid=9165