2012 State of the State Address

A Strong Economy Fosters Healthy Communities and Prosperous Families

Lt. Governor and Mrs. Bell; President Waddoups; Speaker Lockhart; members of the Utah Legislature; members of my Cabinet; Justices of the Utah Supreme Court; Utah’s First Lady, my beautiful wife, Jeanette; and my fellow Utahns:

It is an honor and a privilege to address you this evening. As we assemble in this beautiful and historic chamber, let us take time to acknowledge those who protect our freedoms and keep our homeland safe. This past August, I traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to meet with some of our deployed Utah servicemen and women. It was a humbling experience. Our liberty – the free exercise of our God-given rights – is preserved by the men and women of our Armed Forces who willingly put themselves in harm’s way for God, family and country. This past year, in the span of just over a month, we lost six Utah soldiers, sailors and marines in Afghanistan. These brave servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this nation and the ideals which make it great. We also acknowledge the loss of Agent Jared Francom, tragically killed in the Ogden shooting incident just a few short weeks ago.

Tonight, we have as honored guests in the gallery, family members of those we have lost at home and abroad. As they stand, please join with me to acknowledge them, and thank them for their loved one’s service and sacrifice.

As Governor of the great State of Utah, I am pleased to report that the state of our State is strong – and growing stronger. I want you to know I am very optimistic about Utah’s future. While our national economy continues to struggle, the economy in Utah surges ahead. Our unemployment rate continues to steadily fall. We currently have the second-fastest rate of job creation Continue reading…

As Prepared for Delivery –

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought — and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home Continue reading…

Rocky Anderson, two term mayor of Salt Lake City, recently announced his candidacy for President of the United States under the label of the newly formed Justice Party.

This was his acceptance speech at the nominating convention:

Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson Accepting Justice Party Nomination for Candidacy for President of the United States (website)

I am proud to accept the nomination of the Justice Party to run as its candidate for President of the United States.

This is not my campaign.  This is a campaign of, for, and by the people.  We join together in this endeavor for the sake of justice – social justice, environmental justice, and economic justice.   We pledge to organize and act, tenaciously and over the long haul, for the sake of the public interest, to enhance and protect freedom for all, and to vindicate the sacred promise of justice for all.

Those who understand that our great nation and its people have been harmed severely, and are at tremendous risk for even greater damage in the future, can be powerful agents of positive change.  We need not settle for governance by the Republican and Democratic parties, which thrive on the corrupt money machine, nor do we have to confine ourselves to voting for the lesser of two evils, if indeed there is a lesser evil among the common choices.

If we have the vision, the courage, and the will, we can, together, forge a very different way – a way that will lead to a future of fiscal responsibility and respectful regard for the economic burdens we leave for later generations; secure jobs and fair compensation; decency and rationality in our cruel, self-destructive criminal justice system that is largely based on an irrational rage to punish; an investment in our nation’s infrastructure, education, and innovation that is as substantial as our need to re-gain our global competitive edge; compassionate and rational immigration reform; respect for fundamental human and civil rights; victory over the stranglehold of the military-industrial-congressional complex; protection of our air, water, and wild lands; essential health care for all, as in every other nation Continue reading…

(This review of Ron Suskind’s latest book was written by Dan Froomkin for The Huffington Post.)

by Dan Froomkin

Barack Obama is heading back onto the campaign trail, running as a champion of the middle class and even hoping to harness the Occupy movement’s public anger at Wall Street.

But the higher he soars with his populist rhetoric, the more he calls attention to the enormous gap between the promise of hope and change that he campaigned on in 2008 and the actions he has taken as president — especially regarding the economy, which is still stagnating, and Wall Street, which remains unpunished and unbowed even after causing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

As a result, voters will inevitably be asking themselves: Who is this guy, really? Does he mean what he says? Will he do what he says? And would a second-term Obama be different?

One answer to why Obama underperformed is laid out in searing detail in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind’s latest book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.

In the book, Suskind describes how Obama made the conscious choice to staff his economic team with former Clinton appointees whose sympathies were with Wall Street — and that those men were unable to see how drastically out of whack the country’s financial system had gotten both because they helped create it and because it had served them so well.

This is an in depth review of Suskind’s hard hitting and penetrating observations of the dilemma that Obama faced when he took office. It shows that the tentacles of Wall Street are everywhere.

Obama’s populist viewpoints were compromised by the timing Continue reading…

By Stephen Zunes, June 30, 2011

The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. At a press conference on June 24, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Campaign by saying it would “provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”

Clinton did not explain why a country had “the right to defend themselves” against ships which are clearly no threat. Not only have organizers of the flotilla gone to great steps to ensure are there no weapons on board, the only cargo bound for Gaza on the U.S. ship are letters of solidarity to the Palestinians in that besieged enclave who have suffered under devastating Israeli bombardments, a crippling blockade, and a right-wing Islamist government. Nor did Clinton explain why the State Department suddenly considers the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the port of Gaza to be “Israeli waters,” when the entire international community recognizes Israeli territorial waters as being well to the northeast of the ships’ intended route.

The risk of an Israeli attack on the flotilla is real. Israeli commandoes illegally assaulted a similar flotilla in international waters on May 31 of last year, killing nine people on board one of the vessels, including Furkan Dogan, a 19-year old U.S. citizen. Scores of others, including a number of Americans, were brutally beaten Continue reading…

To Sir, With Love

Huntsman’s gushing letters to leaders simply follow the super-sweet Utah style.

(This satire by our modern day Mark Twain appeared in The City Weekly, April 28, 2011. The mind from which it came is brilliant, irreverent, and should be embalmed and admired alongside the world’s greatest works of art, and when that should be done depends on whether you are continually amazed, amused, or angered.)

By D.P. Sorensen

The Huntsman campaign is moving swiftly to counter the barrage of bad publicity in the wake of the leaked “love letters” to President Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton. Political observers across the nation were cringing at the gushing ick of the aforesaid missives, in which the ambassador to China and former Republican governor of Utah ladled vast quantities of worshipful syrup upon those two Democratic worthies (with slobbery verbal kisses smacked in the direction of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton).

A few morsels from the Huntsman Jr. letters convey the calorie-laden epistolary meals delivered to messieurs Obama and Clinton. To Mr. Obama from Ambassador Huntsman: “You are a remarkable leader, and it has been a great honor getting to know you … I’m anticipating an extraordinary experience in Beijing.” To Mr. Clinton from Ambassador Huntsman: “I have enormous regard for your experience, sense of history and brilliant analysis of world events.”

Not content to perform a deep-tissue massage on Mr. Clinton’s well-upholstered ego, the ambassador proceeds to give a flirtatious squeeze to Mrs. Clinton’s delectable knee: Mrs. Clinton is “well-read, hard-working, personable, and has even more charisma than her husband! It’s an honor to work with her.”

Now, we Utahns are used to this style of over-the-top approbation. In fact, linguists have done detailed longitudinal studies cataloguing what they term Utah’s “hyperappreciative locutionary style.” The supreme maestro Continue reading…