Utah Politics

By John Valentine

Utah State Senator, District 14



The Senate Majority position on alcohol policy is not hard to understand.



Bottom Line: Proposals that put more drunk drivers on the street will have a remarkably short run in the Senate. The same goes for proposals that would tend to entice our kids towards alcohol abuse. However, proposals that will make Utah less awkward but preserve the beneficial effect of current law will likely have my support and, I believe, the support of the Utah State Senate.



Here is the key:

1. We're concerned by violence done by impaired drivers on Utah streets.



2. We're concerned by the harmful impact of underage drinking.



3. At some level we're concerned by the harmful effects of overconsumption.

Do we love "antiquated laws" that make Utah look quirky? No. And yet that unique package of law is an integral part of our low DUI rates and underage drinking. They have a substantial beneficial effect.



Utah has the lowest alcohol-related fatality rate in the nation. Compare the stats on page 6. Seventeen percent of highway deaths in Utah are alcohol-related compared to 31 percent in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. The rate in Idaho is 28 percent. Texas is 38 percent.



Underage drinking in Utah is about half the national average.



It's likely someone in your current circle of family and friends is still alive today because of those unique laws. If we mimic other states' law we may soon mimic their fatality rates.



The current chant ("Utah is quirky, why oh why can't we be less so?") lacks juice. Would you put your family at risk on the basis of that argument? Of course not. Less quirky if fine - desirable, even - as long as we don't sacrifice the safety associated with our unique laws.



Proponents of change need to be conversant with the full impact of their proposals before their arguments can stand the light of simple, responsible scrutiny.



Utah is innovative and we have no shortage of bright minds. I'm sure we can work out responsible solutions.

by The Senate Site (noreply@blogger.com) on January 07, 2009 06:13 AM

Newspapers are on a downhill slide. The reasons for that are many, but I think poor reporting must be one. Witness this article from today’s Tribune.



To set up a vague description of transparency efforts that Salt Lake City is contemplating, the article superficially contrasts Salt Lake’s (good) plans to the Legislature’s (bad) conduct. The article suggests that the Legislature, in contrast to Salt Lake’s possible actions, is not open, inclusive, responsive or accountable.



Okay. So, what are Mayor Becker’s plans? Well, basically, to be as open, inclusive, responsive and accountable as the Legislature is currently. (Compare Mayor Becker’s plan, as it is somewhat described in the article, to the actual contents of the Legislature’s website. Pick a topic on the Legislature’s site and drill down a few layers into the information that is available – committee and floor debates, history, briefing papers, votes, etc.).



The Tribune’s repeated portrayal of the Legislature, regarding openness, inclusiveness, responsiveness and accountability, doesn’t wholly mesh with fact – at least when the Utah Legislature is actually compared to other governmental entities. By no means do I think the Legislature is perfect. But, I believe the reality is that it is better than most other governmental entities, including Salt Lake City, when it comes to openness, inclusiveness, responsiveness or accountability. If not, I’d like to gather examples of stars by which we should navigate.



Rather than stake out a position of scholarly detachment, newspapers made a move to match the “approachability” (a.k.a., shallowness) of other media, such as television and radio. Those other media forms are more immediate and more transient. Things are said, to be quickly rebutted and/or forgotten. If a radio personality or blogger botches something, he can easily elaborate or describe and correct the error. Newsprint, by contrast, is static. It is intended to be contemplated. To have value, it has to be accurate from the outset. And, it needs to have depth that the other media forms aren’t as well suited to provide.



Read a well-reported story from a great reporter, and imagine television or radio trying to convey the same detailed analysis. Newsprint is a unique communication venue. The story comes unchallenged from one writer – without other talking heads, without callers, without links (unfortunately), and without “active” feedback (unlike bloggers, newspaper writers don’t engage commenters to their on-line stories (unfortunately)). Where newspapers sacrifice accuracy and depth, they give up their reason for existing.



Apologists for Old Media believe it offers something new media doesn’t. It can and it should. But, does it? Look at the Tribune story again. What substance does it convey that a blogger couldn’t convey or, more to the point, wouldn’t convey with more depth and accuracy?



In any event, I’ll give you one reform I would like to see at the Legislature. Documents handed out to committees or on the floor should be made available on-line. Those “last-minute” documents are intended to sway outcomes, and often do sway outcomes. Thus, they should be open to the public’s examination.



Many of those documents are embarrassingly simplistic and deceptive – intended to stir passions at the time of voting, when it is too late to fact-check the documents’ assertions. If they became part of an open and permanent record, the documents might become more honest and substantive. Or, even if they remain trite and deceptive, they could be used as “smoking guns” for future reform. Someone could later argue, “At the time of the vote, advocates of the law argued X, as you can see here. I now submit clear evidence to show that the argument was false and that advocates had to know it was false at that time the document was circulated.”



I am always interested in improving the Legislature and doing a better job of opening state government to public examination – and, with that, public participation. I think I’ve walked the walk on that score, and I think the Legislature has too. And I again want to express my understanding that the Legislature can do better. But, meaningful improvement requires meaningful dialogue. Items have to be thoughtfully presented and thoroughly contemplated. I am very grateful that many Utahns take the time to discuss politics on-line. I think it helps the process.



UPDATE (9 p.m.): the on-line article has changed significantly, since I wrote the post above. Perhaps the print article was more detailed than the online version originally posted and that content was added. Or maybe the Trib just fleshed it out a bit. In any event, the new version is much better, and it even contains a link to SLC's webpage on the project. Hooray!



By the way, I'm a Becker fan. I support this initiative, and I am proud of the way he's mayoring our Capital City. I disagree with some of his decisions, but I think he's solidly in line with his constituency. And, as he did while in the Legislature, I think he handles himself with class.

by steve u. (noreply@blogger.com) on January 07, 2009 03:53 AM

Twas two days before Christmas, when finally the House (and Senate) Handed out a report card, timed to not be noticed so we wouldn’t grouse.

The Tax records were hung by the ……  errr, the umm…..  Hell I hate poetry.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report card just before Christmas, and they may as well have used James Earl Jones’ voice and worn a mask while quoting “his failure is now complete!”  Reagan, and his neo-con buddies, have failed pretty much everything now.  As if you couldn’t tell.

The report card basically looks at taxes and income distribution for America, from 1979 to 2005.  And if we look at it as medical chart for a failing country, you could excuse us for not feeling like the prognosis is good.

The report is meant to fill in the gaps and explain just how it is that the really rich have done under the time period of Reaganomics (thats voodoo economics, in a Ben Stein voice, to you whipper snappers) that has pretty much been the operational policy for the nearly three decades studied.  For those who need a crash course in voodoo econ 101, that means three things: 1. cut taxes, 2. deregulate, and 3. privatize.  You didn’t have to pay attention during the last 28 years, to have watched the privatization of warfare or the dual hurricanes of Katrina and FEMA hit the big easy, or sit in the dark while shady (sorry, i couldn’t help that one) power company officials shut off the west coast, or any of the other signs of lack of infrastructure care and good policy hit us between the eyes.  No, you can just check the report card.

So how did we do?

Well, that depends on who “we” are.  As Don Henley said in the The Garden of Allah, the land of opportunity spawned a whole new breed of men without souls.

If you are in the top 1% of the nation, “we” did pretty well.  Even after figuring inflation into the picture, the top 1% (or as Bush referred to them, “my base”) saw a 201% jump in their total wealth!  Not bad at all.  When your salary triples after inflation, you can likely afford to put that new addition on your house.  And maybe buy a private island to move the house to.

That is, if you will forgive the pun, pretty gross income.

But it turns out that the top 1% is nothing.  The higher up the income ladder you go, the bigger the pay off.

The “bottom” half of that top 1% only saw a doubling in their incomes.  Almost enough to put you off your caviar.  The top .1 percent of the population, well, that is were the really money is.  They saw a 294 percent increase in income, again, after inflation, over the same time period.  But it is the top .01%, or 11,000 households that really did well.  Those 11,000 households made 35.5 million dollars average in the last year of the report card.  A 384% increase.  That my friends is real money.

So what?  Do we punish people for doing well?  This is America not some godless socialist Scandinavian country!

How about some perspective?  The middle class, and I mean statistically here, the exact middle 20% of the nation on the income scale, grew their income slightly less than 15%.  Less than 1% a year.

But that 1% has a few caveats.  A few quid pro quos if you will.  A bit of give and take.

You see, it turns out that the way the report defines “income” includes damn near everything.  Food stamps, Social Security, employer paid health care, interest wages, etc etc.  In fact if you are making less now after inflation that you were in 1979, but your employer has a cheap insurance plan and you now qualify for food stamps, you got a raise.  Take it and be happy with it.

And that is the trouble.  Many a conservative has claimed that wealth distribution isn’t all that uneven in America, “after all look at the government programs that benefit the less wealthy” they say to us.  “The poor are living off of the sweat of the middle class and wealthy” they cry.  And as I said before, we aren’t some godless socialist country!

Except that is just what the report exposes.  We are becoming vastly unequal in growth and opportunity.  And we haven’t even gotten to the good news yet.

That .01 percent?  The super rich?  They pay even less taxes than the merely obscenely wealthy rest of the top 1% pay.  That .01 percent pays about 17% of their income in taxes.  The top 1% 19.4 percent in taxes.

The “paycheck” tax rate is 35%.  Feel like you are getting screwed yet?  And remember, that is based on the “everything is income” assumptions that the report makes.  Your 35% if you are in the middle or lower brackets includes things like food stamps.  Oh there isn’t a section that says “add the value of your food stamps” on your 1040, but that is included in the income math in the report.  The majority pay 35% on their income, including on “income” that no reasonable person would consider as such.

The Reaganomics years have done only one thing.  Make the rich even richer, based on the work of the poor.

When we add all this to the abject failure that is the foreign policy of the conservatives, and combine it with the “Terry Schiavo” pro-life social policies that say that torture and bombing innocent children and arming terrorists (Iran Contra anyone?) is good and moral but allowing two guys to be married will destroy civilization, you have to stand back in awe.  Nothing that has been done by the conservative camp in America in the last thirty years has been a net gain.  Nothing they have done has worked.  Nothing.  They haven’t protected us, improved the world, improved the nation, made people better, made lives better (well, except for that top 1%!) brought us a working infrastructure, or improved culture.  They have been a complete and total failure of epic proportions.

From the space defense initiative to homelessness to AIDS to terrorism to… and on and on and on.  The mind falters and stumbles and wears out.  The immensity and totality of their utter and abject failure is staggering.

The good news is that after a failure so catastrophic, surely we as Americans can now admit that the emperor is indeed naked, and we can finally move on.  Right?

News Flash!  WSJ!  “President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.”

Son of a Bitch!  Are you f%$#!*ing kidding me!

Here is a fun little graph for you…

 

Go ahead, look at it again.  We will wait.

Tax cuts run anywhere from even to negative in the results they give as economic stimulus!  That means we might as well burn the money!

Behold what actually makes a difference!  Food Stamps!  Unemployment Benefits!  And yes, rounding out the big three, Infrastructure!

I know this is going to sound crazy, but I have a radical idea.  Lets try the stuff that actually works.  Lets build our nation, help our people, and actually put our money into what we claim to care about.  Wild idea, huh?

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 46

“When the world is right with Tao,” Lao Tzu said, ”horses haul fertilizer to the fields.  When the world loses touch with Tao, horses are trained for cavalry.”

Nothing is more insidious than possession.  Nothing is more dangerous than desire.  Nothing is more disastrous than greed.

If you know when enough is enough, you will always have enough.

Is America so haunted by the ghosts of stupid conservatives past that we can’t escape them?  If so, hold tight.  Things are going to get worse.

We have bred war horses and pampered greedy wealthy CEOs for long enough for the life of any two nations.  Enough is Enough.

by Shane Smith on January 06, 2009 11:56 PM

Huntsman 2012? You betcha.



Well, that's the word from North Carolina anyway. Based on reports from here and here (scroll down) or really just about everywhere else, a county in the Tar Heel state invited Huntsman to swing on by for a visit. I guess they figure to get on the Utah governor's bandwagon early.



Really early.



Huntsman has a speech lined up in February with the Cleveland County Republican Party in NC while on a trip out East for the National Governors Association. County chairman Wayne Keith said the invitation was made after seeing Huntsman's name thrown about after this year's presidential massacre.



"It's certainly never too early if you're thinking about national office," Wayne told me.



Certainly.

by Joe (noreply@blogger.com) on January 06, 2009 11:36 PM

The Governor and other state officials were sworn into office today during a chilly outdoor ceremony. We enjoyed the view from the cheap seats (indoors).







AG Shurtleff blogged about it.

by The Senate Site (noreply@blogger.com) on January 06, 2009 09:02 PM

You can thank me later, Mr. Chaffetz.



Frosh 101

by Joe (noreply@blogger.com) on January 06, 2009 04:43 PM

by The Senate Site (noreply@blogger.com) on January 06, 2009 03:42 PM

The change from the 57th to the 58th Legislature officially occurred in the early seconds of January 1st, 2009. The actual physical transition, however, requires a little more work. Here is former-Senate President John Valentine packing up.







Chris Vanocur was there to capture a few memories on film.

by The Senate Site (noreply@blogger.com) on January 05, 2009 11:22 PM

As 155 mm white phosphorus shells air burst over Gaza City, looking like fireworks in the night sky but far more deadly, what is there to say? This is nuts. In ten days, air strikes, artillery and naval gunfire have reportedly hit a thousand targets in one of the world’s most densely populated areas. There’s a report Israel is also dropping cluster bombs.

Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar:

“They [Israeli forces] shelled everyone in Gaza. … They shelled children and hospitals and mosques,” he said. “And in doing so, they gave us legitimacy to strike them in the same way.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni:

“Before the military operation, the equation was that Hamas targets Israelis whenever it likes, and Israel shows restraint,” Livni told foreign ministers from the European Union on Monday.

“This is not going to be [any] longer the equation in this region. When Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate.”

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

I’d like to think Americans don’t have a dog in this fight. The unfortunate reality is that Israel couldn’t do this without U.S. support. Just before the air strikes on Gaza, we sent them a special shipment of GBU-39 bunker-buster bombs. It’s obvious, given the close contact between Washington and Jerusalem, that some in our government had prior knowledge.

UPDATE: David Young on HuffPo explains how and why Israel broke their truce with Hamas, and points out that the VERY few rockets fired during the truce were the work of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Hamas.



UPDATE: Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor working in Gaza estimates 2,000 - 2,500 civilian casualties so far. “This is an all out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza and we can prove that with the numbers…”

UPDATE: The Israelis say they are hitting only Hamas military targets. I was wondering, after more than a thousand strikes, how come they haven’t run out of targets? This blog has the answer: everybody and everything in Gaza has become a potential target.

by Richard Warnick on January 05, 2009 11:13 PM

For a couple of minutes on Monday, Utah County Commissioner Larry Ellertson was occupying a seat that wasn't his. At noon, Ellertson's term as a commissioner came up. And though he won election in November against Mr. Nobody Else Ran For A $110,000 Job, he first has to be sworn in before action could be taken.



So there the commission sat, frozen. (Which was also the case for the audience, as the chambers were just this side of snot-freezing cold.) While they sat, waiting for a judge to show up, commissioners took turns being funny:



• "For the record, Commissioner Ellertson is out of office." -- Gary Anderson as the contemplated taking a stab at the agenda with just two sworn commissioners.

• "He's been out of office for five whole minutes." -- Steve White with a glance at his watch. (I had it at 6 minutes, but who's counting?)



The judge finally arrived and let loose with his own Little Funny:

"I am just amazed at the positive campaign he ran this time." -- Judge Scott Cullimore

by Joe (noreply@blogger.com) on January 05, 2009 10:10 PM

This is the hottest story on DailyKos today.  Its about the West Ridge Academy (a.k.a. Boys Ranch) in West Jordan, Utah.

Go there and read it, especially the comments.  The average person cannot believe this nightmare is happening today.  Is it?  Knowing Chris Buttars…

Trapped in a Mormon Gulag

by Chino Blanco Mon Jan 05, 2009 at 05:07:42 AM PST

By Eric Norwood

Republished with author’s permission

Further info at Mormon Gulag

This story is about Eric Norwood’s personal experiences at a place called The Utah Boys Ranch, which models itself as a “tough-love” prep-school, but while Eric was there, he witnessed some unbelievable atrocities. It is a Mormon-funded and staffed facility, and religious indoctrination is a fundamental aspect of the school. There was sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, suicide, staff corruption, and escape. A major Utah political figure, Senator Chris Buttars, was the executive director while Eric was there.

This is Eric’s story:

by Cliff Lyon on January 05, 2009 09:32 PM

Over the weekend, I read Paul Krugman’s updated version of The Return of Depression Economics.

Krugman lays out the argument that there have been warning signs for years that something was not right in the global economy - from Japan’s long “Growth Depression” to the economic dislocations in Latin America and Asia of the last decade. The collapse of the mortgage industry in the US was the final link in the chain that led to a full scale global economic meltdown. The sequence of events is alarmingly similar to the 1930s - including the collapse of the global banking systems. In the face of decades of free market fundamentalism, governments, most notably in the US, were unwilling to take action against the collapse.

Krugman argues the problem is a return of an economy in which demand is simply not sufficient to employ supply. His op-ed today lays out the case with worrying bluntness:

The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.

[Snip]

Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: “You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.

What we’re seeing right is alarmingly familiar - deflation, frozen credit, collapsing demand, rising unemployment and governments unable to do a damn thing to stem the tide. Keynes was right and the various objections we’re already hearing from Republicans are old hat - tax cuts sound nice but they won’t work. American consumers, by and large, can’t spend because we’ve maxed out our credit. If you send us government checks, most of us will pay down existing debt or save, actions which make sense at the individual level but that are ultimately unhelpful in larger scope of things.

This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.

Republicans in Congress are going to do everything they can to block anything that looks like a helpful stimulus plan. They’ll advocate for tax cuts because that’s all they know. We tried cutting taxes and it doesn’t work. It sounds nice and it’s easy and it doesn’t deliver gas to the economic engine. For now, the problem is simple: The economy needs a jolt and it will get it from well designed stimulus spending.

David Sirota sums up the problem:

The Wall Street Journal’s subheadline suggests what’s really going on with Obama’s tax cut move: It’s not pragmatic policy, it’s political pandering “aimed at winning GOP support,” and such pandering isn’t even politically “pragmatic” because lots of Republican votes aren’t even needed. After all, Democrats’ vast congressional majorities, Obama’s election mandate and the economic crisis should guarantee passage of whatever economic rescue package Democrats push. I mean, c’mon - are we really expected to believe that under these circumstances, a new president can’t use pressure to get 3 or 4 Republican senators to back a robustly progressive spending package and that instead, he has to substantially weaken that package? Puh-leeeze.

So, then, why weaken good policy (ie. infrastructure spending) with bad policy in order to attract votes the new president shouldn’t need? That’s the enduring power of the right-wing’s tax frame.

For 30+ years, the conservative movement has insisted that tax cuts are always better economic policy than public spending. And despite the fact that such rigid ideology has proven bankrupt over and over and over again, it still confines American politics, as evidenced by a new Democratic president already appearing to embrace the right’s basic tax fallacies.

We actually don’t need a single Republican vote in the House and we actually only need two in the Senate. I’m not a member of Congress and so I must not understand it, but the idea that we need to placate Republicans is absurd. I’d send them a simple message: The DSCC is raising $10 million to fund your opponent in your next election. Vote against this package and we’ll spend it in your race and you’ll be out of a job. The actual numbers, however, should be enough to convince the last few sane Republicans in the Senate:

by Glenden Brown on January 05, 2009 07:22 PM

Its been my great honor getting to know Tim DeChristopher since his brilliant act of civil disobedience. But it is especially sobering to consider that he could easily end up in prison. I understand, the willingness to suffer years of incarceration is part of the romanticism of civil disobedience. But it this case, it would send a devastating signal to this generation.

One of Tim’s most ardent and more senior supporters chaffed at the decision to raise money to cover the $45,000 bond on the leases exclaiming, “What’s the point of civil disobedience if you’re not willing to go to jail?”

Just the day before, after meeting with the lawyers, Tim quietly corrected me when I used the word ‘jail’. “It’s federal prison” he reminded me.  That hit me like a ton of bricks. Tim is your average exceptionally bright, humble and brave guy trying to do the right thing and suddenly faced with years in a federal prison.

Tim is at the mercy of a politically motivated federal prosecutor in a state that - lets get serious - HATES environmentalists and loves Oil & Gas jobs. If you need to be reminded, take a moment to review a few Utahn’s sentiments toward Robert Redford.

“Please know that by stopping the gas and oil development many families and communities will be hurt tremendously.”

“Interesting that all these rich people are so ‘for the environment’ and so out of touch of the rest of the people, their neighbor, brother, sister, other human beings. At what point are they going to get it (probably never) that PEOPLE and their livelihoods are more important.”

“Can you say elitist snobs or environmental hippocrites [sic]?”

Unfortunately, we are not dealing with a simple matter of right and wrong or of justice and law. Tim is facing a complex combination of forces uninterested in the future and welfare of a college student who acted out of frustration by the failure of an entire movement to stop eight years of a devastating and illegal assault on the environment by the Bush administration.

Tim’s generation is looking at a worldwide scientific community telling us its probably too late; that the environment is past the tipping point. Tim’s generation has two choices: become hysterical, or do nothing. We wonder why today’s youth are so apathetic.

Lets send a message to Tim’s generation by doing everything we can to keep him out of ‘prison.’  The alternative will not only destroy Tim’s life, and justify the apathy, but it will also signal an entire generation to just give up.

Help us raise $45,000.00 by Jan 9th.  You can check our progress at www.Bidder70.org.*

Read Tim’s letter. PLEASE! Steal these buttons for your website/email.

Mail checks to: Center for Water Advocacy, P.O. Box 331, Moab, UT 84532

* We are over $18,000 as of this writing.

by Cliff Lyon on January 04, 2009 08:21 PM

Look who sits at the head of the table.  It’s Tyler Riggs from kvnu’s for the people.

And who is that sitting up front?  It’s Bridge from See Hear Speak No Evil.

I was also taken back to discover that Jess from the same blog as Jess is an Illuminati operative too.

And do any of you remember Ryan Yonk from KVNU?  He supposedly left the show to go to school out of state, but there he is, sitting to the left of Tyler Riggs.  Everyone thought that Ryan was just Tom Grover’s colorman on the show, but we are now discovering that there is more going on with this Yonk guy than we could have ever imagained, and it is also obvious by his placement at the table that he is  undoubtingly pulling some strings.

Just like those who meet in secret at Bohemian Grove to worship a giant owl, the Illuminati in Cache County meets in a secret room at The White Owl in Logan, Utah.  Coincidence?  I think not!

When you walk into The White Owl it seems like a pleasant “Good Ole’ Boy” hangout, but once you pass the secret door in the back you begin to realize that there is much more than what meets the eye going on here.

BTW, did anyone notice that the word Illuminati ends with the word, “NAUGHTY!”

by Rob on January 04, 2009 04:51 PM

for the last sunset of 2008, and the first sunset of 2009.

New Year’s resolution - Enjoy more sunrises and sunsets.

Photo taken January 1, 2009 - Bountiful, Utah

by Rob on January 04, 2009 07:45 AM

Huffington Post (thanks to Instapundit)



Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

by Jim Tynen (jim.tynen@gmail.com) on January 04, 2009 04:41 AM

Another wealthy producer. Another drug sentence. This one involving the smuggling of cocaine.

John Forte, fourteen years on federal cocaine charges.

More than 1 in 100 American adults are in prison.

I can understand why Senator Hatch may not want to push this issue beyond cashing in favors for a privileged wealthy few.

He probably gets the same calls from Utahns that I get on the air:

“Drug dealers should be immediately shot”

“Sex offenders should be castrated… or shot”

“Gang members should be sent out to the desert… and shot”

John Forte was sentenced to 14 years in prison on a federal cocaine conviction and most Utahns would call that ‘justice’.

Close your eyes and punch the ticket.

You part your hair and wear a suit…

We trust you…

Seniority…

Seniority…

Hatch…

Deep breath…

Stop thinking…

Punch it…

Walk away.

See you in six, suckers.

by Ethan on January 03, 2009 06:44 PM

When wealthy record producer Dallas Austin was caught smuggling drugs into Dubai,

Senator Orrin Hatch was the ‘go to guy’.

When Hatch won Austin’s release, the Senator defended his actions by declaring his opposition to mandatory minimum drug sentencing. (in Dubai?… whatever)

I personally placed a call to Senator Orrin Hatch’s office, and encouraged the Senator to intervene in the numerous other cases of Americans in Dubai.

One I remember was the case of an American student who was caught with a small amount of weed. The remnants of a joint.

The student had drawn an extremely harsh sentence for possessing an amount of drugs that he could not even use let alone sell.

Senator Orrin Hatch’s office pretended there was nothing they could do for the other Americans.

by Ethan on January 03, 2009 06:13 PM

From the Jan 2 09 Trib:

The week before Starks died, Sigma Nu members selected him and another student, 22-year-old Mackenzie Perry, as their top choices among the 16 young men who pledged last fall. At the time, Starks was staying at the fraternity, although he had a dorm room. At about 10 p.m. on Nov. 20, Sigma Nu member Christopher Ammon brought Starks and Perry to the Chi Omega sorority next door under the pretext of helping move furniture. The women took custody of the young men and sorority sister Whitney Miller, who had a liter bottle of vodka, drove Starks to the Logan home of fraternity brother Grant Barney at 181 W. 200 North.

Miller, who faces the most serious charges, told police fraternity members asked her to run the “capture.”

“The only direction given by the fraternity was ‘to not let Mack [Perry] drink too much’ because he is small in stature,” the charges state. “Otherwise, she was not prohibited to use alcohol in the activity.”

The women asked the pledges to strip to their boxers, then painted the naked men Aggie blue and white. The men were given two bottles, Miller’s liter bottle of vodka and a smaller one, which the women held to the pledges’ mouths because their hands were covered in paint, charges allege.

“Eventually, however, Michael took the taller bottle — the vodka — and began to drink it himself,” charging documents state. Perry told Starks to quit drinking, but he was so drunk he could not follow through, Perry told investigators. No charges were filed in connection with Perry’s hazing because he is of legal drinking age.

After an hour, the other Sigma Nu pledges appeared and “rescued” Perry and Starks from Barney’s house and took them back to Sigma Nu, at 765 N. 800 East. Fraternity members put the two drunk pledges in the shower, then to bed. Starks needed help washing, but he was talking and lucid before falling asleep, the charges say.[Snip]

USU officials have already suspended the Sigma Nu and Chi Omega chapters as campus organizations, and the chapters’ national offices have likewise suspended them, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Both organizations publicly maintain zero-tolerance toward hazing and alcohol abuse, and Sigma Nu has co-sponsored research into the cultural phenomenon of hazing and ways to eliminate it. The 250-chapter fraternity was founded in 1868 at Virginia Military Institute in opposition to the physical harassment that young officers endured at the hands of their older colleagues, according to Sigma Nu Executive Director Brad Beacham. Contacted late Friday, both he and Chi Omega’s national executive director Anne Emmerth reserved comment on the Starks case until they read the charges.

“We certainly respect law enforcement’s choice to pursue the criminal charges they feel are warranted and appropriate,” Beacham said. “We will take into account any and all new information as it becomes available.”

It’s important to note that the tone of the Trib’s article is dismissive - describing the hazing as “playful” and as “hijinks gone awry.” Brian Maffly - the article’s author - needs to hear from the public about his apparent inability to discern the obvious in his own writing.

The hazing to which the victim - Michael Stark - was subjected was not some playful incident. He was kidnapped by women his own age, sexually humiliated by being forced to strip and then having those women paint his body. Stark’s death is being justifiably defined as a felony but I for one would like to see tougher charges brought. And before anyone suggests that these are “good kids” let’s just be clear - good kids don’t kill people and this event is not one that went awry.

The sexual shaming aspect of the hazing is doubly concerning. The perpetrators - both the fraternity brothers and the sorority sisters - were using nudity - which is largely taboo in our culture - and an unfair power balance to coerce and mistreat the pledges in question. Given the circumstances, and the fact that the pledges had been physically separated from their peers and had been driven away from campus (if I’m reading the account correctly) makes it highly unlikely that they were fully willing participants. The women and men involved in this incident are guilty of sexual assault in my not so humble opinion.

If the prosecutors have any self respect, they’ll make darn sure the people responsible serve jail time. Sounds to me like they’re guilty of some form of manslaughter or even murder - they committed a series of acts whose foreseeable outcome was someone’s death and someone died.

And not for nothing, but USU needs to kick these two organizations off campus once and for all.

Before anyone asks, yes, hazing pisses me the hell off. It’s not just fun and games and inevitably it leaves carnage in its wake. Hazing isn’t initiation, it isn’t about forming healthy bonds or building a strong community. It’s about the naked exercise of power over another person (or other persons) and the young people in this frat and sorority enjoyed that exercise of power and they pushed it as far as it would go; hazing is abuse, it is violation, it is violence and that it is socially acceptable in many circles doesn’t make it right. A few years ago, I heard an account of a high school coach who prided himself on designing a workout so tough that many of the adolescent males on his team were physically ill afterwards - he worked them out until they were vomiting in trash cans. That coach and these young men and women are cut from the same sadistic cloth and they do not deserve our sympathy or our pity or our leniency.

These frat boys and sorority girls “fun and games” now have a body count. How do you put that on your resume?

by Glenden Brown on January 03, 2009 06:59 AM

From Nephi to Scipio.



You're welcome.

by The Senate Site (noreply@blogger.com) on January 03, 2009 05:12 AM

If we can't predict the economy -- then what?



As the estimable Robert Samuelson writes in the Washington Post, "The great lesson of the past year is how little we understand and can control the economy." The equally estimable Matthew D'Ancona puts it this way in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, "The Sibylline Books remain closed. The crystal ball yields no secrets....Almost nothing is certain about the next twelve months."

by Jim Tynen (jim.tynen@gmail.com) on January 02, 2009 05:56 PM

These are not all predictions, but they are comments I find…

Facebook:

“preparing mentally. Trying not to get my hopes too high, but confident the Utes can play with anybody”

“is already planning how to spend the $100 he will win on Utah’s humiliation”

Twitter:

“Utah over ‘Bama tomorrow! Go Utah!”- Jason Chaffetz

“Boarding a flight to the BIG Easy for the Sugar Bowl. GO UTES - BEAT BAMA! (Researching my anti-trust lawsuit vs. the BCS.)”- Attorney General Mark Shurtleff

by Ethan on January 02, 2009 05:36 PM

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Some qualifications apply.

by Rob on January 02, 2009 04:42 PM

twitter.com/ethanmillard

by Ethan on January 02, 2009 07:22 AM

Fun to see a local topic on Politico

Second time in as many weeks… roughly.

by Ethan on January 02, 2009 06:46 AM

As a citizen of Utah, I ask an investigation be opened into Senator Orrin Hatch’s involvement in the pardon of John Forte.

John Forte is a well known successful musician and producer who recently publicly said of Senator Hatch:

“I am looking forward to putting our creative minds together in the studio, sooner rather than later”

This disturbing statement obviously raises questions of quid pro quo.

I believe the people of Utah deserve to know that the authority we grant to Senator Orrin Hatch is not being peddled for personal gain.

I call on Senator Orrin Hatch to disclose all communication he has had with John Forte, Forte advocates, and Forte attorneys.

This would include any contact with Carley Simon, an aggressive Forte advocate and someone from whom Senator Orrin Hatch has already obtained direct personal benefit in the form of a song recording.

by Ethan on January 01, 2009 10:29 PM

A few forgettable moments.

more



more

by Cliff Lyon on January 01, 2009 03:29 PM

For the benefit of our brothers and sisters of ’saintliness’, I herewith shatter a false myth; that progressive liberals are all drunks.

This snapped at 10:05pm Mountain Time.  Click to see the final.

Even on New Years, without the aid of strict liquor laws, it would seem quite a few progressive liberals are very much in control. :)

by Cliff Lyon on January 01, 2009 03:20 PM

Call this number:  (801) 524-4380

Tell him you’re rich and famous.  And that you promise to never do it again.

Or use this form.

by Ethan on January 01, 2009 01:47 AM

by Voice of Utah (noreply@blogger.com) on January 01, 2009 01:39 AM