This week, while thumbing through the Sunday political talk shows I caught a small segment of one of my favorite shows, Meet The Press. Mr. Grover Glenn Norquist was a guess on the show, and what I didn't know until this morning was,Grover!, is from Massachusetts. Weston Massachusetts to be exact.
Weston Ma is just as it's name suggests, west of Boston. Next to Watertown, pretty close to Cambridge, North Cambridge to be exact. I use to live in North Cambridge,when I was in my thirties, and as I remember, those years were some of the most tranquil and happiest years of my life.
Why am I bringing up where Grover! was brought up?, well if your from the Boston area, a lot can be said about who you are with regards to where you come from.
Weston, Ma. was always one of the wealthiest suburbs in Massachusetts. After you made your money in the city, if you were in business, folks from the Boston area would migrate south of the Boston area, Braintree, Cohasset etc...north of the city, Marble head, Saugus etc.., or west of the city, North Cambridge or Weston, the Atlantic Ocean is to the east.
Grover!, comes from the corporate world, his father, Elliott Norquist was vice president of the Polaroid Corporation in it's best years, [money has always been available] for Grover! he's never had to truly work a day in his life, daddy made sure of that.
There is one thing I want to bring up about the areas far west of the city of Boston, it's always been said, the further west you travel, the stranger the people seem to get, until you reach the Springfield area, then things seem to get back to normal.
Grover! became involved with politics at an early age and in his early teenage years he volunteered for the 1968 Nixon campaign, assisting with get out the vote efforts.[9] He graduated from Weston High School
He worked with a support network for Col. Oliver North's efforts with the Nicaraguan Contras and other insurgencies, but he evaded the scandals.
Grover! is best known for founding Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in 1985, which he says was done at the request of then-President Ronald Reagan
In November 2011, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blamed Grover's influence for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction's lack of progress, claiming that Congressional Republicans "are being led like puppets by Grover!. They’re giving speeches that we should compromise on our deficit, but never do they compromise on Grover!. He is their leader."[25] Since Grover's pledge binds signatories to opposing deficit reduction agreements that include any element of increased tax revenue, some Republican deficit hawks now retired from office have stated that Grover! has become an obstacle to deficit reduction.[26][27] Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has been particularly critical, describing Norquist's position as "[n]o taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell."[
According to a 2010 book by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Grover! was one of Abramoff's first major Republican party contacts.[35] Grover! and Americans for Tax Reform were also mentioned in Senate testimony relating to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal which resulted in a 2006 guilty plea by Abramoff to three criminal felony counts of defrauding of American Indian tribes and corrupting public officials. Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns.[36] Grover! has denied that he did anything wrong.
Grover! has described himself as a "boring white bread Methodist".[3] In 2004, at age 48, he married Samah Alrayyes,[48][49] a Kuwaiti PR specialist who was formerly a director of the Islamic Free Market Institute and specialist at the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs at United States Agency for International Development (USAID).[50][51] The couple has two children adopted from abroad.[52] Norquist is said to live a modest lifestyle. According to friend and former roommate John Fund, Norquist's devotion to his political causes is "monk-like" and comparable to that of Ralph Nader.[10
Weston Ma is just as it's name suggests, west of Boston. Next to Watertown, pretty close to Cambridge, North Cambridge to be exact. I use to live in North Cambridge,when I was in my thirties, and as I remember, those years were some of the most tranquil and happiest years of my life.
Why am I bringing up where Grover! was brought up?, well if your from the Boston area, a lot can be said about who you are with regards to where you come from.
Weston, Ma. was always one of the wealthiest suburbs in Massachusetts. After you made your money in the city, if you were in business, folks from the Boston area would migrate south of the Boston area, Braintree, Cohasset etc...north of the city, Marble head, Saugus etc.., or west of the city, North Cambridge or Weston, the Atlantic Ocean is to the east.
Grover!, comes from the corporate world, his father, Elliott Norquist was vice president of the Polaroid Corporation in it's best years, [money has always been available] for Grover! he's never had to truly work a day in his life, daddy made sure of that.
There is one thing I want to bring up about the areas far west of the city of Boston, it's always been said, the further west you travel, the stranger the people seem to get, until you reach the Springfield area, then things seem to get back to normal.
Grover! became involved with politics at an early age and in his early teenage years he volunteered for the 1968 Nixon campaign, assisting with get out the vote efforts.[9] He graduated from Weston High School
He worked with a support network for Col. Oliver North's efforts with the Nicaraguan Contras and other insurgencies, but he evaded the scandals.
Grover! is best known for founding Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in 1985, which he says was done at the request of then-President Ronald Reagan
In November 2011, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blamed Grover's influence for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction's lack of progress, claiming that Congressional Republicans "are being led like puppets by Grover!. They’re giving speeches that we should compromise on our deficit, but never do they compromise on Grover!. He is their leader."[25] Since Grover's pledge binds signatories to opposing deficit reduction agreements that include any element of increased tax revenue, some Republican deficit hawks now retired from office have stated that Grover! has become an obstacle to deficit reduction.[26][27] Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has been particularly critical, describing Norquist's position as "[n]o taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell."[
According to a 2010 book by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Grover! was one of Abramoff's first major Republican party contacts.[35] Grover! and Americans for Tax Reform were also mentioned in Senate testimony relating to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal which resulted in a 2006 guilty plea by Abramoff to three criminal felony counts of defrauding of American Indian tribes and corrupting public officials. Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns.[36] Grover! has denied that he did anything wrong.
Grover! has described himself as a "boring white bread Methodist".[3] In 2004, at age 48, he married Samah Alrayyes,[48][49] a Kuwaiti PR specialist who was formerly a director of the Islamic Free Market Institute and specialist at the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs at United States Agency for International Development (USAID).[50][51] The couple has two children adopted from abroad.[52] Norquist is said to live a modest lifestyle. According to friend and former roommate John Fund, Norquist's devotion to his political causes is "monk-like" and comparable to that of Ralph Nader.[10
Grover!?
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