Sandy

This letter of praise to the Tribune is spot-on. We also love the Tribune editorial page. It is always full of interesting observations from all sides of the spectrum. Our Watts Cookin’ Blog is full of articles from the Salt Lake Tribune because they are timely, informative, and crucial.

Everyone in Utah should subscribe to and read the Tribune, otherwise they are simply uninformed about what is going on around them.

The Tribune ‘s Oct. 4 op-ed page was exceptional. First, Nicholas Kristof explained rationally why more troops are not the answer in Afghanistan, helping me change my position (“Sending more troops to Afghanistan a bad bet”).

Next, Ed Firmage Jr. takes on Sen. Orrin Hatch about global warming, explaining how the science the senator uses is fundamentally flawed and how Hatch is wrong (“Professor Hatch’s ‘Climate 101′ lacks science”). I hope Hatch sees this article; every Utah fifth-grader ought to read it. It’s simple and understandable.

Lastly, Karrie Galloway explains how some in the Legislature simply have no idea what Planned Parenthood does to help thousands of Utahns every year get the help and education they need (“Planned Parenthood given bad rap by legislators”). This is not some evil organization, as many of them believe; it plays a necessary and practical role in the lives of many Utah families. As a result, I’m joining PP and donating $100. I hope others do, too.

These are the types of articles that inform, educate and entertain. They are at the heart of the reason I subscribe to The Tribune . Please keep it coming.

Tom Love

Salt Lake City

Last year, Tim DeChristopher placed bids on oil leases in southern Utah that he didn’t intend to honor, and this year Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, illegally rode roughshod along with other disgruntled all-terrain-vehicle owners over public lands not open to those vehicles. DeChristopher acted to protect the environment (“Bogus bidder argues he had to act,” Tribune , Oct. 27), while Noel acted to destroy it. Yet the U.S. district attorney has chosen to prosecute DeChristopher while Rep. Noel continues to enjoy exemption from this consequence, including the retention of his seat in the Utah Legislature.

Clearly the case against DeChristopher is not about seeking justice; it’s about seeking revenge. Since Noel has known interests in the development of energy sources in Utah, including oil drilling, it is unconscionable that Noel might have escaped the consequence of his illegal act due to his political influence in our state. Unless he is likewise prosecuted, in the name of equal justice, the case against DeChristopher should be dropped.

Susan L. Loffler

So many people are arguing over political issues, but we are not getting the real facts. Information is skewed by special interest groups who have been buying off our Congress members.

You can write to Sen. Orrin Hatch all you want about how he should vote on health care reform. You will get a nice form letter, but no matter what you say he will vote against President Barack Obama’s plan. Why? Blue Cross and Blue Shield is one of his largest campaign donors. (check it out on www.opensecrets.org.) If you have the same goal as Blue Cross and Blue Shield you have nothing to fear, right? Except that his top campaign donors are almost all health companies, and those companies do not have your best interest at heart.

Then there is Sen. Bob Bennett. He voted for the bailout, despite overwhelming calls begging him not to. Why? He received $23,200 from Citigroup, $20,000 from JPMorgan Chase, and $15,500 from the American Bankers Association.

Let’s get big money out of lawmaking, and then we can discuss the issues on their true merits and vices — not who will get the most money out of it.

Michelle L. King

Logan

Salt Lake Tribune Public Forum Letter

Updated: 10/26/2009 03:12:57 PM MDT

It was with much disgust that I read that Gov. Gary Herbert has decided not to limit donations to his upcoming fundraising gala (“Herbert won’t limit big donors,” Tribune , Oct. 19). What this will eventually mean is that the poor citizens of Utah can look forward to paying more for the privilege of living here.

Looking over the donations from utilities, $120,000 should ensure that future appointees to the Public Service Commission will favor the public utilities when applications are made for a rate increase in our gas and power bills. Also, the $125,000 given by the Realtors and contractors should take care of any resistance to the spread of building in the northern valleys. Last but not least, I see the oil companies have kicked in another $35,000. This should help to make sure nobody looks too closely at the price of gasoline in the state.

I hope these kinds of disclosures will wake up the voters in the 2010 off-year elections. It is time to throw out all of the incumbent bums and start over.

Lyvian Richter

Sandy

by Paul Rolly

Salt Lake Tribune

When Rep. Mike Noel became incensed that a Utah State University physics professor criticized a scientist that Noel had brought to the Legislature to speak against the prevailing theory of climate change, he went directly to the professor’s boss. That incited speculation that Noel was using his legislative position to intimidate someone who had the audacity to disagree with him.

Noel readily acknowledged he had told USU President Stan Albrecht he was disappointed that USU had a professor who would make such statements while working at a “state-supported institution.” But he said he didn’t threaten anyone.

Maybe not. But Noel’s umbrage fits the pattern of implied or perceived threats that lawmakers have made over the years to cut budgets or livelihoods when someone vulnerable to legislative scrutiny says or does something they don’t like.

Noel, who publicly has referred to those who disagree with him as “liars” and “scumbags” and “lowlifes” and “radicals,” said he was concerned about “personal attacks” (more…)

Utah seventh-graders are required to learn about their state’s history. Marshall Harris would rather make Utah history than read about it.

Marshall and his father, Ryan, completed a four-year quest to reach the highest point in each of Utah’s 29 counties by standing on top of 12,087-foot Ibapah Peak in August. They believe 12-year-old Marshall is the youngest person to do so.

“It has been a great experience with my dad,” said Marshall. “Together we have been all over the state and seen some cool things. It has taught me about goals and making something out of them and about hard work.”

Marshall has been tagging along with his dad on hiking trips even (more…)

By Rebecca Walsh

Tribune columnist

Updated: 05/14/2009 08:17:11 AM MDT

What a tight spot.

U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman is caught between the political aspirations he doesn’t acknowledge and the rule of law he talks so much about.

And he has Mark Habbeshaw and Mike Noel to thank for it.

Last weekend, the Kane County commissioner, his friend the state lawmaker and hundreds of ATV potatoes plowed up the Paria River to protest government oppression. They opened with a prayer and then waited for the order. “Let’s ride.”

Not one to mess with an oldie but a goodie, Commissioner Habbeshaw explained what had them so riled: “We’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore.”

“It” being the rule of law, I suppose. More specifically, a transportation plan for the Grand Staircase National Monument (more…)

By Thomas L. Friedman

The New York Times

There has been a lot of worthless chatter about what President Barack Obama should say about Iran’s incipient “Green Revolution.” Sorry, but Iranian reformers don’t need our praise. They need the one thing we could do, without firing a shot, that would truly weaken the Iranian theocrats and force them to unshackle their people. What’s that? End our addiction to the oil that funds Iran’s Islamic dictatorship. Launching a real Green Revolution in America would be the best way to support the “Green Revolution” in Iran.

Oil is the magic potion that enables Iran’s turbaned shahs — “Shah Khamenei” and “Shah Ahmadinejad” — to snub their noses at the world and at many of their own people as well. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaves like someone who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. By coincidence, he’s been president of Iran during a period of record high oil prices. So, although he presides over an economy that makes nothing the world wants, he can lecture us about how the West is in decline and the Holocaust was a “myth.” Trust me, at $25 a barrel, he won’t be declaring that the Holocaust was a myth anymore.

The Obama team wants to pursue talks with Iran over its nuclear program, no matter who wins there. Fine. But the issue is not talk or no talk. The issue is leverage (more…)

(Story Taken from Iran Daily, June 20, 2009)

The Guardian Council said it is ready to recount a random 10 percent of the ballot boxes in last week’s presidential elections.
“Although the Guardian Council is not legally obliged… we are ready to recount 10 percent of the (ballot) boxes randomly in the presence of representatives of the candidates,“ the electoral watchdog’s spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei said on Saturday, Press TV reported.
The body, tasked with overseeing the electoral process, has said it received more than 600 complaints of irregularities from the three candidates who lost the highly contested race to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rezaie in GC Meeting
Kadkhodaei was scheduled to hold a meeting with the three defeated candidates — Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi. However, only Rezaei attended.
The defeated conservative aspirant came alone to the highly publicized meeting with the powerful Council to discuss issues and irregularities related to the vote.
Mousavi, the second top vote getter and Karoubi who came in last did not take part in the meeting despite repeated invitations (more…)

Looks like an interesting documentary. Although it deals only with gay hypocrisy, the timing with Sen. Ensign’s ‘straight’ hypocrisy is interesting.

Movie review: Crying ‘Outrage’ against hypocrisy in D.C.Documentary puts heat on gay pols who vote against gay issues.

By Sean P. Means

The Salt Lake Tribune

Hypocrisy is as easy to find in politics as American-flag lapel pins. Just think of the average member of Congress, railing against pork-barrel politics — but making sure his or her district gets its cut of the federal pie.

But the special sort of hypocrisy filmmaker Kirby Dick exposes in his powerful documentary “Outrage” is especially insidious: politicians who are gay and closeted, but — in part to keep people from uncovering their secret — support laws that deny gays and lesbians the right to marry, adopt children, serve in the military and otherwise be treated like full-fledged citizens.

Dick (best known for his exposés of abuse by Catholic priests in “Twist of Faith” and the movie-ratings system in “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”) starts with the curious case of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, nabbed for allegedly soliciting gay sex (more…)

Farmingdale, N.Y. » The U.S. Open might have one tough act to follow.

Tiger Woods was pure theater at Torrey Pines last year, playing on a left leg so badly injured that the U.S. Open turned out to be his last event of the year. He made two eagles on the final six holes in prime time Saturday to take the lead, forced a playoff with a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole Sunday, then battled Rocco Mediate over 19 holes to capture his 14th career major.

“I’m not sure we can duplicate that drama,” USGA president Jim Vernon said Wednesday.

Try telling that to thousands of fans who trudged through the soggy turf of Bethpage Black for five hours on the final day of practice, all because it was their first glimpse of Phil Mickelson.

The New York gallery has always loved Lefty, even as he broke their hearts with runner-up finishes in the U.S. Open at Bethpage in 2002, Shinnecock Hills in 2004 and Winged Foot in 2006 with that double bogey on the final hole.

The support now is louder and more tangible than ever.

Mickelson wasn’t even sure he could return to Bethpage Black upon learning last month that his wife, Amy, a native of Sandy and a Hillcrest High School graduate, had been diagnosed with (more…)

by Judy Norsigian & Jennifer Potter

The Boston Globe

A single-payer healthcare system would more effectively control costs than any other plan that Congress is considering as it moves toward a reform bill. And by controlling costs, existing resources could be allocated more equitably, especially for the benefit of women.

First, single-payer plans eliminate the $300 billion to $400 billion that insurance companies spend annually in administrative overhead and waste. Second, single-payer plans are best positioned to take on the enormous challenge of reducing or eliminating the financial incentives that have led to so much overtreatment and undertreatment.

Maternity care illustrates this phenomenon: We spend far more per capita than any other industrialized country and yet do worse on most birth outcome measures than most of these other countries. So-called best practices – medical practices already demonstrated to improve outcomes – are well described in the medical (more…)

By Josef Federman

Associated Press

Published: Sunday, June 14, 2009 10:49 p.m. MDT

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself under U.S. pressure but attaching conditions such as having no army that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would also have to recognize Israel as the Jewish state – essentially saying Palestinian refugees must give up the goal of returning to Israel.

With those conditions, he said, he could accept “a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.”

The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal.

“Netanyahu’s speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations,” senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. “We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain.”

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

The White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an “important step forward.”

Netanyahu’s address was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.

“I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. “Let’s make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place – in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem.”

Since assuming office in March, Netanyahu has been caught between American demands to begin peace talks with the Palestinians and the constraints of a hardline coalition. On Sunday, he appeared to favor Israel’s all-important relationship with the U.S. at the risk of destabilizing his government.

But his call for establishing a Palestinian state was greeted with lukewarm applause among the audience at Bar-Ilan University, known as a bastion of the Israeli right-wing establishment.

As Netanyahu spoke, two small groups of protesters demonstrated at the university’s entrance.

Several dozen hard-liners held up posters showing Obama wearing an Arab headdress and shouted slogans against giving up West Bank territory. Across from them, a few dozen dovish Israelis and foreign backers chanted slogans including “two states for two peoples” and “stop the occupation.”

Police kept the two groups apart.

The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.

Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, has always resisted withdrawing from these lands, for both security and ideological reasons. In his speech, he repeatedly made references to Judaism’s connection to the biblical Land of Israel.

“Our right to form our sovereign state here in the land of Israel stems from one simple fact. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people,” he said.

But Netanyahu also said that Israel must recognize that millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, and continued control over these people is undesirable. “In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem,” he said.

Netanyahu has said he fears the West Bank could follow the path of the Gaza Strip – which the Palestinians also claim for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas militants now control the area, often firing rockets into southern Israel.

“In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel,” he said.

“If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state,” he said.

Netanyahu became the latest in a series of Israeli hard-liners to soften their positions after assuming office. Earlier this decade, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza before suffering a debilitating stroke. His successor, Ehud Olmert, spoke eloquently of the need to withdraw from the West Bank, though a corruption scandal a disastrous war in Lebanon prevented him from carrying out that vision.

Netanyahu gave no indication as to how much captured land he would be willing to relinquish. However, he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, saying, “Israel’s capital will remain united.”

Netanyahu also made no mention of uprooting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. He also said that existing settlements should be allowed to grow – a position opposed by the U.S.

“We have no intention to build new settlements or expropriate land for expanding existing settlements. But there is a need to allow residents to lead a normal life. Settlers are not the enemy of the nation and are not the enemy of peace – they are our brothers and sisters,” he said.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians have refused to do so, fearing it would amount to giving up the rights of millions of refugees and their descendants and discriminate against Israel’s own Arab minority.

Although the Palestinians have agreed to demilitarization under past peace proposals, Erekat rejected it, saying it would cement Israeli rule over them.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, another Palestinian official, called on the U.S. to challenge Netanyahu “to prevent more deterioration in the region.”

“What he has said today is not enough to start a serious peace process,” he added.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the speech “racist” and called on Arab nations “form stronger opposition” toward Israel. Hamas ideology does not recognize a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and the group has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.

Netanyahu also came under criticism from within his own government – a coalition of religious and nationalistic parties that oppose Palestinian independence.

Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Jewish Home Party, which represents Jewish settlers and other hard-liners, said Netanyahu’s speech violated agreements struck when the government was formed. “I think the coalition needs to hold a serious discussion to see where this is headed,” he told Israel Radio.

© 2009 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Tribune Editorial

Updated: 06/04/2009 06:01:47 PM MDT

President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo is likely to be the best primer on the principles that should underlie U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East you are likely to read. If you have not taken the opportunity, the text is available at whitehouse.gov.

The president’s address to the peoples of the Muslim world was remarkably lucid and candid. It did not mince words. In sum and substance, it was a search for the values and aspirations that bind the people of the United States and the West to the people of the Muslim world and the East. Rather than a clash of civilizations, the president sought to emphasize a commonality, suggesting that too much has been made of the issues that divide us.

That may sound like an exercise in wishful thinking or smarmy idealism. It was neither.

Take, for example, his comments on the Iraq war, which he characterized as a war of choice for America.

Or consider his treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He stated that America has an “unbreakable” bond to Israel. He attacked, by strong implication, Holocaust deniers in the Arab world as “ignorant and hateful” and said that threatening Israel with destruction is “deeply wrong.” But he also said that the dislocation and occupation suffered by the Palestinians is “intolerable” and that America will not turn its back on Palestinian aspirations for a state.

The Palestinians, he said, must abandon violence. Hamas, he said, must recognize Israel‘s right to exist.

But he also said that “the United States (more…)

Published on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by The Nation

by William Greider

The governing party faced an awkward dilemma. People were hurting and furious at the government’s generous bailouts for banks. But how could the Democrats do something for the folks without upsetting their friends and patrons in the banking industry? Democrats think they found a way. They are enacting a series of measures described as “breakthrough” reform and “unprecedented” defeat for the bankers. Only these achievements are more accurately understood as “reform lite.” The house is on fire and Democrats brought a garden hose.

The Democratic Party is changing in some promising ways, but what’s impressive is how much it has not changed. Does that sound harsh? I am relying on private judgments from Washington players regarded as the “white hats” on this subject–consumer lobbyists and other public-interest reformers, who for years have labored in frustration to enact laws that would restore equity and honest relationships to the out-of-control financial system. These organizations mostly endorse the Democrats’ efforts and celebrate their “victories.” But a few minutes of private conversation reveals their doubt and disappointment. “It’s a (more…)

(Why would there not be a discussion about single-payer health care? Follow the money. The Democrats have been bought off by the insurance-health care lobby. Whatever we eventually arrive at in health care legislation will be pre-approved by the lobbyists who have bought off a majority of our senators.  Our senators will advertise the new legislation as change, but it will be mush. Once again Obama and the Democrats will let America down and change will just be window dressing.)

Published on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by Huffington Post Max Baucus Regrets Killing Single-Payer, Sanders Says by Huffington Post

WASHINGTON – Sen. Max Baucus met with advocates for single-payer health care in a closed meeting on Wednesday and expressed regret that he had not included them in the earlier negotiations for reform.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, talk with reporters after a closed-door committee meeting on financing an overhaul of the health care system, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 20, 2009. Baucus is under pressure from the White House to get a health care bill to the Senate floor quickly, say single-payer advocates who met with the Senator today, and that it is too late to include them and further hearings. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)Health-care point man Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, took a statewide beating [1] last week for dismissing the possibility of a single-payer system early in the debate — leading to the meeting with health care professionals and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is the sponsor of the Senate’s only single-payer bill.

(more…)