Published on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 by Media Matters for America

Another Afghanistan Conflict for General McCaffrey to Disclose

by Matt Gertz

Yesterday, Media Matters pointed out that MSNBC has repeatedly hosted NBC News military analyst and retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey in recent days. McCaffrey has used his appearances to criticize possible “deadlines” to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan and highlight the importance of training the Afghan security forces. But at no point have McCaffrey or the MSNBC anchors hosting him disclosed a substantial conflict of interest McCaffrey has with regard to the U.S. government’s presence in Afghanistan and focus on troop training: McCaffrey serves on the board of directors of  DynCorp International — a company under contract to provide support to U.S. bases in Afghanistan for up to five years, as well as to train a portion of those security forces McCaffrey is calling  ”the center of gravity of the entire war.”

NBC and MSNBC should be ashamed, and it also brings into question the integrity of McCaffrey. What frauds! Why is he on these boards? Because he is being paid for his contacts and influence within the Pentagon. And we worry about the drug trade in Afghanistan! How about weeding out our own corruption first? How about firing all the mercenaries like the corrupt (more…)

BY JOHN CONYERS JR.

This week marks an important anniversary that will go unnoticed in many corners. Ten years ago, a little known Depression-era law known as the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed. It passed with large margins in both houses of Congress and was signed by President Bill Clinton. On Wall Street, the titans of capitalism cheered while it went unnoticed by most Americans that an important guard against financial instability and conflict of interest had been wiped away.

The Glass-Steagall Act had a simple premise: America’s banking sectors and investment houses need to remain separate to prevent banks from gambling on the stock market with our savings. President Franklin Roosevelt knew that banks, like other institutions, could not be trusted to police themselves. After witnessing the widespread failure of financial institutions in the Great Depression (more…)

(This letter was written by Will Carlson, who has been Manager of Public Policy of Equality Utah and is leaving for a full time position with Sam Gill in the SLC prosecutor’s office. His well written letter is worthy of a read by everyone.)

Dear Equality Utah Supporter,

One of my friends who majored in gender studies once asked of me “what does it mean to you to be a man?” If you haven’t had the privilege of meeting a gender studies major, you might not recognize the trap that had just been set for me. Whether I talked about biology, psychology, ideology, or sociology, there was no way that I could answer my friend’s question without seeming specious.

So often in my life, especially during my time at Equality Utah, I’ve been asked questions that I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. Whether it was a legislator asking if he could sponsor LGBT friendly legislation and still be re-elected, or a parent asking how the law could justify protecting one of her children but not the other, or a transgender Utahn who called to say she was about to lose her job because of her gender expression and asked what her (more…)

By Carrie A. Moore

Deseret News

Published: Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 9:48 a.m. MST

Many Americans have become so effective at covering themselves from the sun that they don’t get enough Vitamin D, which may be putting them at increased risk not only for cardiovascular disease but for depression.

That’s the finding of a new study of more than 27,000 patients tracked by researchers at Intermountain Medical Center, who found that healthy levels of Vitamin D contribute to a strong and healthy heart.

This advice should be taken to heart. As we generally get the necessary amounts of vitamins in our normal diet it is not suggested that we should just dose up on vitamins, but in the case of Vitamin D it should be added to our diet through a supplement, especially in the winter months.

The sun is the greatest source of Vitamin D and we need to expose our skin to the sun as much as possible without burning. Sunscreen will prevent skin cancers, but they may very well reduce significant benefits from sunshine and thus increase the risk of other cancers, heart disease, and depression. The  sun is critical to all forms of life on earth and we shouldn’t be hiding from it. Lap it up without burning! That’s a tough balancing act for light skinned people and they may need to resort to higher dosages of Vitamin D3 pills.

They also found that inadequate Vitamin D levels may significantly increase the risk of stroke, heart disease and death — even among those who’ve never had heart disease.

The study’s findings were to be presented Monday at the American Heart Association’s annual scientific conference in Orlando, Fla.

Researchers also found a lack of Vitamin D may contribute to depression in both men and women.

(more…)

By Judy Fayhs

Salt Lake Tribune

A group of earth scientists at conservative Brigham Young University has sent a stinging rebuke to state lawmakers on their recent handling of climate-change science.

The 18 scientists wrote the governor and legislators Oct. 26, urging them to “consider separating the science from the policy issues.” They challenged lawmakers for giving the “fringe” position of a climate skeptic equal weight to that of the broad, scientific consensus that climate change is happening, largely because of human activities.

“We have no specific political agenda to support but agree that whatever action is taken, it should be informed by the best available scientific evidence,” the scientists said. “We encourage our legislators not to manipulate the scientific evidence to suit any political agenda.”

The scientists sent the letter five days after the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee heard from Roy Spencer, an Alabama climatologist who doubts human activities are largely responsible for climate change, and Jim Steenburgh, chairman and professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah.

Summer Rupper, a BYU climate scientist, led the (more…)

Washington » Utah Gov. Gary Herbert pulled together various sides in public-lands disputes when he recently created his Balanced Resource Council, and now he is attracting the attention of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Herbert says Salazar has requested to meet with the council, which includes liberals and conservatives who have been on opposite sides over public-lands use.

The council is led by former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, a Democrat, but also includes two former Bureau of Land Management directors and state Rep. Mike Noel, a Republican who has fought for more access to federal lands.

Governor Herbert’s appointment of Ted Wilson, a prominent Utah Democrat, to lead the panel was a noteworthy effort for bipartisanship and will assure an objective and thorough discussion of the issues. It is in the mold being exhibited at the national level by President Obama and Governor Herbert is to be commended for assuring that diversity of opinion will be heard. It gives the panel much greater credibility than it would otherwise have.

Herbert said after a meeting with Salazar (more…)

by Cathy McKitrick

Salt Lake Tribune

Members of the grass-roots group, Utahns for Ethical Government, took their reform message to Capitol Hill Wednesday, unveiling a ballot initiative they hope will accomplish what legislators have not yet done themselves.

Former lawmakers Kim Burningham and David Irvine — both Republicans and vocal opponents of the now-overturned school voucher law — led the charge to tighten existing ethics policies.

“Our system is riddled with laws and the absence of laws, which not only allow but encourage unethical behavior in our Legislature,” said Burningham, a state Board of Education member.

Burningham cited Utah as one of 10 states that lack an independent ethics commission. Instead, lawmakers police their own. He also decried the absence of caps on campaign (more…)

Published on Sunday, October 25, 2009 by The New York Times

In Defense of the ‘Balloon Boy’ Dad

by Frank Rich

FOR a country desperate for good news, the now-deflated “balloon boy” spectacle would seem to be the perfect tonic. As Wolf Blitzer of CNN summed up the nation’s unrestrained joy upon learning that the imperiled boy had never been in any peril whatsoever: “All of us are so excited that little Falcon is fine.”

Then came even better news. After little Falcon revealed to Blitzer that his family “did this for the show,” we could all luxuriate in a warm bath of moral superiority. No matter what our own faults as parents, we could never top Richard Heene, who mercilessly exploited his child for fame and profit. Nor could we ever be as craven as the news media, especially cable television, which dumped a live broadcast of President Obama in New Orleans to track the supersized Jiffy Pop bag floating over Colorado.

Or such are the received lessons of this tale.

Certainly the “balloon boy” incident is a reflection of our time – much as the radio-induced “War of the Worlds” panic dramatized America’s jitters on the eve of World War II, or the national preoccupation with the now-forgotten Congressman Gary Condit signaled America’s pre-9/11 drift into escapism and complacency in the summer of 2001. But to see what “balloon boy” says about 2009, you have to look past the sentimental moral absolutes. You have to muster some sympathy for the devil of the piece, the Bad Dad. And you can’t grant blanket absolution to those in the American audience who smugly blame Heene and television exclusively for the entire embarrassing episode.

It would be lovely, for instance, to believe that cable audiences doubled in size that afternoon because they were rooting for little Falcon’s welfare. But as Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler would say on Weekend Update at “Saturday Night Live,” “Really?!?” Many of those viewers were driven by the same bloodlust that spawns rubberneckers at every highway accident: the hope of witnessing the graphic remains of a crash, not a soft landing.

It would also be nice to think that the “balloon boy” viewers were the innocent victims of a dazzling Houdini-class feat (more…)

From Politco.com
By: John Bresnahan
June 17, 2009 02:41 PM EST

The son of the couple at the center of the sex scandal that has engulfed Sen. John Ensign was being paid by National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 at the same time his mother was having an affair with the Nevada Republican.

Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton were already working in senior positions for Ensign when their son Brandon Hampton was hired to do “research policy consulting” for the NRSC in March 2008.

The younger Hampton, 19, was paid $5,400 before he left the Ensign office in August last year, Federal Election Commission records show.

That means during March and April 2008, three members of the Hampton family were working for Ensign. Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton stopped working for Ensign at the end of April 2008.

According to people familiar with the matter, Ensign’s affair with Hampton took place between December 2007 and August 2008.

A trusted political aide, Cynthia Hampton served as the treasurer (more…)

By Paul McDonnold Dallas

Christian Science Monitor

Published: Sunday, June 14, 2009 12:32 a.m. MDT

Is capitalism fatally flawed?

Recessions, like hurricanes, leave wreckage behind — bankrupt businesses, high unemployment and sometimes even tattered philosophies.

The philosophy of economic conservatism has long been one of unquestioned deregulation. Conservatives have considered it as a way of unhooking government leashes that the economy strains against, setting it free to run (more…)

By Casey Jones
Tribune Columnist

Barack Obama, President and CEO of Government Motors, wearing a Chevy bow tie and singing “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick,” has announced GM’s revamped model lineup for 2010, which follows.

The Filibuster: A high-mileage endurance vehicle — keeps going and going and going.

The Geithner: Economy model. Tax free!

The Kennedy: An alternative fuel vehicle. Runs on ethanol … or Scotch … or bourbon … or …

The Socialist: Features progressive pricing designed to redistribute (more…)