by Philip Wilcox
Foundation for Middle East Peace President Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. issued the following statement February 18, 2011

The U.S. veto in the United Nations Security Council on February 18 of a draft resolution demanding that “Israel cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” and reaffirming that settlements are “illegal,”  undermines American interests in the Middle East and prospects for a two-state peace.

We heartily agree with Philip Wilcox. Publicly we have condemned Israeli settlements as an impediment to peace, but at the United Nations we veto the very goal we supposedly are trying to achieve.

What it amounts to is that the United States has been playing games with peace for years with no intention of peace (except during the Carter years). We have been deceptive with the Palestinians. We have been pulling off a major ruse in falsely pretending to be ‘fair brokers.’

The Obama Administration, along with Hilary Clinton, are big disappointments. Our blind allegiance to Israel has caused enormous problems throughout the Middle East.

The United States of America has been a disaster for the people of the Middle East. We have propped up dictators for our own selfish purposes while they abused their people with our concurrence.

The Obama Administration has continued this tragedy and it is starting to backfire and we are going to reap what we’ve sowed.

The Obama administration has worked strenuously (more…)

Below is the pathetic offering provided as a supposed news story by The Deseret News regarding the charges and fines of $8 million against Zions Bank for ‘money laundering.’ The story came two days after the public announcement of the fines by two government agencies and a front page major headline and detailed story in the Salt Lake Tribune.

The close ties to Zions Bank by both the LDS Church and The Deseret News are well known, and for the sake of journalistic integrity one would think that the Deseret News would have made a better effort to cover the issue objectively. But NO, it tried to hide it and tried to downplay it, and in the process showed that the new ‘corporatized’ de-journalized Deseret News is apparently going to rely on ‘faith-based’ reporting out of the same mold the church deals with its own history.

(The extensive reporting of the case by the Salt Lake Tribune is posted elsewhere on this blog.)

The Deseret News Headline

Zions Bank fined $8M in lax wire transfers case
By Chi-chi Zhang
Associated Press

Published: Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 3:57 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah-based Zions Bank has agreed to pay $8 million to settle allegations it failed to monitor billions of dollars’ worth of illegal wire transfers.

The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Monday the violations occurred in 2006 and 2007, when the bank opened a new wire transfer business but failed to meet anti-money laundering regulations.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network cooperated in the investigation. It says Zions failed to report 132 cases of suspicious activity worth about $12.3 billion in transactions that it says may have involved drug trafficking accounts.

Zions hasn’t acknowledged or denied the allegations.

The bank has offices in 10 Western U.S. states. It closed its foreign correspondent banking business in 2008 and has agreed to pay an $8 million lump sum penalty fee.

That’s all folks. We got five paragraphs from the Deseret News downplaying the potential laundering of $12.3 billion dollars. Because of rules and regulations regarding banking and because a couple of federal agencies actually performed their public duty we now know that Zions Bank was involved in at least 132 transactions (potential money laundering) in amounts that totalled $12.3 billion dollars.

What the public still doesn’t know, and good journalism should pursue it, is who sent what to whom and for what purpose? These numbers are so big that most of us don’t take the time to do the math. We just know it’s a helluva lot of money. Also, the public may be able to put together the pieces a lot better than a few regulators who don’t understand the connections between names and entities. Names please! Who are these guys?

Let’s do the math—132 transactions totalling $12.3 billion amounts to nearly $100,000,000 each transaction. Now, this isn’t small (more…)

By Paul Beebe

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: February 12, 2011 09:15AM

Two federal agencies have slapped Zions Bank with multimillion-dollar civil penalties for failing to monitor suspicious wire transfers of billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday said it imposed an $8 million penalty against Zions for shortcomings in its anti-money laundering controls — violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA Patriot Act.

Oh these damnable regulations! They are such a nuisance. How can we hide money laundering if we have to be regulated? Well, maybe the regulators will be asleep at the switch. Maybe the regulators will be understaffed and not get around to us. Maybe our political contributions will keep us out of jail! Maybe our white shirts and ties and memberships in all the right clubs and churches will throw them off the track! This is our business and it is none of their business. Why do we have to put up with these intrusions of government? Don’t they know our God is Laissez Faire and (more…)

Column by Walter Williams published in Deseret News

A killer agency: The invisible victims of the FDA’s slow processes

Published: Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 12:00 a.m. MST

Sam Kazman’s “Drug Approvals and Deadly Delays” article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Winter 2010), tells a story about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policies have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Let’s look at how it happens.

During the FDA’s drug approval process, it confronts the possibility of two errors. If the FDA approves a drug that turns out to have unanticipated, dangerous side effects, people will suffer. Similarly, if the FDA denies or delays the marketing of a perfectly safe and beneficial drug, people will also suffer. Both errors cause medical harm.

This column by very conservative columnist Walter Williams provides a good example of the continual tug-of-war between the values of regulation and deregulation. It is always a constant battle between the rigid regulationists and the extremist deregulationists. The ultimate goal should be to arrive at the perfect center, where there is not too much regulation that destroys initiative and yet there is enough regulation to protect the public.

It is a challenge not only within the Food and Drug Administration, but that tug-and-pull exists in every regulatory agency.

There are extremes on both sides of the regulation philosophy and generally speaking we have arrived at the sensible middle in most cases. The agencies go through swings when extremely conservative presidents like George W. Bush stacked all the agencies with ultra-deregulationists and opened the floodgates of laissez faire philosophy in all aspects of government.

Forming an opinion of this column by Williams will give you a hint about where you stand (more…)

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

There’s a modern analogy to the old proverb “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” It’s paying your Visa bill with your Mastercard.

No matter what idiom you use, moving money around is not the same as increasing the amount in the pot. But Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan, convinced the Legislature to do just that. And then to claim they have provided the new money needed to educate an expected influx of more than 14,000 new students in Utah schools next year. That’s pure baloney.

It’s not like the Tribune to call ‘baloney’ on Senator Lyle Hillyard. He is the best the hill has got on state budgeting and financial matters. However, it appears that nothing has been done to fund the increase in students and the status quo isn’t good enough let alone continue to fall farther behind.

The base budget for education passed by the Legislature last week would take $76 million from one education-fund pot, called the flexible allocation WPU (weighted pupil unit) distribution, and use it to fund enrollment growth. The problem with that is that the flexible allocation distribution is money Utah schools are already allotted and are using to help pay for mandatory retirement and Social Security costs.

If the flexible allocation distribution is used to hire teachers or buy supplies for the thousands of new students, then school districts will have to cut their budgets for such programs and services as reading, remedial assistance, busing and school nurses in order to make up the difference.

Sen. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, calls the maneuver “smoke and mirrors,” and we agree with her. To claim (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter

By Brian Slade

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

This past year I kept reading about the report that two-thirds of Utah third-graders don’t read at grade level, and how this benchmark is critical because through third grade, students learn to read. After that, they read to learn. If we fail them by the third grade, we’ve failed them for the rest of their lives.

The noise about this was so loud, tragic and embarrassing that I thought surely the 2011 Legislature would address this pivotal problem upon which turns so much else, from classroom cohesion to dropout rates to crime and a vibrant Utah workforce.

This is a problem that is solvable: by not (more…)

By EDWARD WYATT

The New York Times

Published: February 7, 2011 10:03AM

Washington • If a company’s financial reporting were so bad that its auditor had pointed out significant weaknesses in its accounting for seven years running, the Securities and Exchange Commission would most likely be all over it.

But what if the company were the SEC itself?

Since the commission began producing audited statements in 2004, the Government Accountability Office has faulted its reporting almost every year. In November, the GAO said the commission’s books were in such disarray that it had failed at some of the agency’s most fundamental tasks: accurately tracking income from fines, filing fees and the return of ill-gotten profits.

“A reasonable possibility exists that a material misstatement of SEC’s financial statements would not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis,” the auditor concluded.

The auditor did not accuse the SEC of cooking its books, and the mistakes were corrected before its latest financial statements were completed. But the fact that basic accounting continually bedevils the agency responsible for guaranteeing the soundness of U.S. financial markets could prove especially awkward just as the SEC is saying it desperately needs money to increase its regulatory power.

When we have businesses and especially banks that are too big to fail we need a regulatory agency that is big enough and competent enough to protect us. Let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to strict regulation of Wall Street. They have failed us too many times.

Like the rest of the federal government, the SEC is operating without an increase in its budget, which was $1.1 billion last year. With President Barack Obama talking about extending the freeze (more…)

By Paul Rolly

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Feb 07 2011 04:16PM

Gay-rights activist Eric Ethington met with a group of BYU students at the J. Reuben Clark Law School on the Provo campus Thursday night to discuss efforts to get nondiscrimination ordinances passed in Provo.

When he left the meeting to drive back to Salt Lake City, he discovered the tires on his car had been slashed.

Ethington said his car bore Equal Rights Campaign and Equality Utah bumper stickers, making it obvious he was a gay-rights supporter. Word of his meeting also could have gotten around campus, he said, because the meeting with about 30 students had been planned after they expressed interest in pursuing the ordinance changes.

When he got to his car, he noticed the right front tire was completely flat. He changed the tire with a spare, then drove away. By the time he got on Interstate 15, the left front tire had gone flat. Upon inspection, he noticed both tires had been slashed.

He was towed to a tire shop in Lehi and picked up his car on Friday.

He filed a complaint with the BYU Police Department on Friday.

Maybe Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, can file a bill exempting vandals from prosecution if they are able to show religious conviction motivated their vandalism.

Interestingly, Apostle Dallin Oaks just gave a speech at Chapman University in which he declared that those with religion have a higher sense of morality–that religion is the source of moral understanding.

I guess, since we don’t know for sure, the tire slashing can be blamed on an atheist, or perhaps someone whose toe stuck up out of the water and he was not completely baptized. Without instant replay only God would know.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Published: February 3, 2011 01:01AM

San Diego • Many Americans are keeping a watchful eye on the developments halfway around the world in Egypt. However, they must not forget the crisis next door in Mexico.

The situation in the Middle East commands attention because one spark could ignite the whole region. But Mexico is way beyond sparks. It is on fire. We worry about Egypt because it is too important — strategically, diplomatically — to be consumed by chaos. Yet what about the chaos on our back porch?

That is the question being asked by the family and friends of Nancy Shuman Davis, a 59-year-old American missionary who — along with her husband, a fellow missionary — lived and traveled in Mexico for more than 30 years. Recently, the couple was driving along a Mexican highway in a region fought over by rival gangs that move drugs into Texas. They encountered gunmen who fired into their vehicle, striking Nancy in the head. Her husband sped across the border to a hospital in McAllen, Texas, where she died.

Tragedies like this should be enough to focus the minds of Americans on what is happening south of the border.

At this point, that’s probably the one thing that Mexican President Felipe Calderon wants most from his neighbors: focus. Calderon still needs the aid promised by the United States under the Merida Initiative. And he still needs a full partner, not a silent one. But none of this can happen until Americans learn to focus on Mexico.

Focus seems to be lacking in the Obama administration. The only person in this shop who seems to have a clue what the stakes are (more…)

Global Crisis Strengthens WSF’s Legitimacy

by Julio Godoy

Published on CommonDreams.org

BERLIN – European non-governmental organisations combating neo-liberal globalisation find their position vindicated by the ongoing socio-economic and environmental crisis upsetting the world.

The legitimacy of the demands of the European members of the World Social Forum (WSF) is not only founded in the massive support they enjoy from workers and peasants groups across the globe. Now, it enjoys the endorsement of governments which not long ago were supporters of neo- liberal globalisation. [1]

“The endorsement by European governments of our basic demands, such as the transaction tax, constitutes a great satisfaction,” Hugo Braun, of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC), told IPS.

The financial crisis that has devastated the world has awakened the masses to the failure of capitalism and alternative forms of commerce or at least significant modifications are destined to take seed.

What has happened in Tunisia and Egypt is only the beginning. It will not stop there, and it will spread beyond the Arab world and into Europe, and America will not escape untouched.

The problems in Egypt are not so different than the problems everywhere. The unequal distribution of enormous wealth at the top of the food chain while the masses remain in poverty. The pr0phets of capitalism have always preached that wealth trickles down, but they have proven to be false prophets. The opposite (more…)

In the beginning: Stephen Hawking’s new book dismisses God’s role in our universe

By Michael De Groote

Deseret News

Published: Friday, Feb. 4, 2011 7:10 p.m. MST

When British physicist Stephen Hawking came into the auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., the crowd went wild. The Los Angeles Times reported that one fan, 13-year-old Evan Hetland, even dubbed him “the nerd pope.”

Hawking was somewhat the darling of some religious people for his occasional references to God, such as one time when he said that if a complete theory of physics were discovered, then “we would know the mind of God.”

But Hawking’s latest book, “The Grand Design,” written with physicist Leonard Mlodinow, leaves little room for God — or philosophy for that matter. A Wall Street Journal article they wrote based on their book is titled “Why God Did Not Create the Universe: There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world — no gods required.”

Ouch.

“Ouch,” my eye! There is no ‘ouch’ for believers. Nevertheless, a compliment to the Deseret News for publishing this story. Hawking’s views are significant and obviously puts religious folks in a defensive posture. As expected the article by Michael DeGroote couldn’t be printed in the Deseret News without a significant counter punch that deflects the issue, and it is good and credible journalism to present opposing points of view.

Believers can take a punch better than anyone. Facts seldom hit a believer square on, they are almost always deflected. Believers are resilient beyond, no pun intended, ‘belief.’  There is no penetration. Once they have talked with God (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter by Elaine Ball

First published Jan 29 2011 01:01AM

The front-page article “Without marriage, same-sex parents unable to adopt” (Tribune, Jan. 24) was both heartwarming and heart-wrenching.

I am a lesbian in a committed relationship of two-plus years. Like the family in the article, my partner and I hope to raise our children in Utah because here we have supportive and loving friends and extended family members.

I hope that people recognize that their doctrinal belief that two people of the same sex should not have the right to marry (more…)

Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ Speech Given at Chapman University School of Law

04 February 2011 — Salt Lake City

Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speech given at Chapman University School of Law on 4 February 2011.

Preserving Religious Freedom

I am here to speak of the state of religious freedom in the United States, why it seems to be diminishing, and what can be done about it.

Although I will refer briefly to some implications of the Proposition 8 controversy and its constitutional arguments, I am not here to participate in the debate on the desirability or effects of same-sex marriage. I am here to contend for religious freedom. I am here to describe fundamental principles that I hope will be meaningful for decades to come.

I believe you will find no unique Mormon doctrine in what I say. My sources are law and secular history. I will quote the words of Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Jewish leaders, among others. I am convinced that on this issue what all believers have in common is far more important than their differences. We must unite to strengthen our freedom to teach and exercise what we have in common, as well as our very real differences in religious doctrine.

We haven’t had a chance to carefully and thoughtfully review this speech by Elder Oaks and we will reserve comment until then. This is the transcript as made available by The Deseret News.

I begin with a truth that is increasingly challenged: Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable (more…)

combined news services

Published: February 3, 2011 04:51PM

Rome • A U.N. agency reported Thursday that world food prices have reached a historic peak, but good harvests are — for now — forestalling the kind of food emergency felt in many places in 2008.

Rising food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere.

“What is happening in northern Africa seems to be more political in nature,” said U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) economist and grain expert Abdolreza Abbassian. “Of course, we cannot ignore the food inflation as one of the elements of discontent.”

FAO said its food price index was up 3.4 percent in December from a month earlier — the seventh straight month of world food price increases.

“What will probably be identified as a major difference is the duration of the rise. It has been a long one, accompanied by strong volatility,” Abbassian said.

But he said the situation is “moderately more comfortable” than the crisis of 2008 because of strong harvests, which potentially “can help countries carry on until, hopefully, world markets settle down to normal levels.”

These escalating food prices could have been one of the catalysts that triggered the protests in Tunisia and Egypt. When the price of food is beyond the reach of the poor it is certainly going to cause dissatisfaction.

Still, Oxfam International, a confederation of organizations working to find solutions to poverty and injustice around the globe, said the FAO index “should ring alarm bells in (more…)

By Kirsten Stewart

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: February 4, 2011 08:08AM

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff handed legislative leaders two checks totaling $3.5 million on Thursday — money recouped through a legal settlement with prescription drug makers alleged to have overcharged Medicaid.

Congratulations for this diligent work. It takes time and effort to sort through all the requirements to build a case, which is way so many drug companies get away with it. Utah has collected an average of $9 million per year for the past five years.

However, once again there are no criminal charges for corporate executives. There is a different standard of justice for corporate executives and large companies. Attorney General Shurtleff thinks this ‘will teach them a lesson,’ but he knows and they know that the stockholders will pay the loss on the corporate gamble that they wouldn’t get caught. The corporate executives haven’t learned anything and won’t until their own hands get slapped.

Also, this is another example of the need for government. The corporately owned, anti-regulation legislatures at both the state and federal levels want to gut the staffs of all regulatory bodies and would prefer outright elimination of many.

Courtesy of Mylan Inc., Shering Corp. and Warrick Pharmaceutical Corp., the cash infusion comes as small, but welcome, relief to lawmakers who are looking to trim 7 percent from the state’s $11 billion budget. A good chunk of that spending, about $1.8 billion, is on Medicaid, with $155 million going for drugs.

But Shurtleff hopes it serves as a warning and “bitter pill” to drug (more…)

Justice courts rake in the money; critics say some courts just interested in collecting fines

By Lori Prichard and Kelly Just

KSL 5 News

Published: Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011 10:18 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — It was a shocking experience for Dena Long-Christensen, sitting in a cell in the Salt Lake County Jail for nearly two weeks among people charged with serious crimes.

Her cellmate, for example, was spending time on charges of aggravated assault. Long-Christensen’s crime? Selling flower baskets from her home.

“Instead of being further in shock, it was like, there’s something wrong with our country,” said the West Jordan woman.

Congratulations to the Deseret News on a well researched effort to inform the public about a chronic sore in the system. We usually have to rely on The Tribune for journalistic efforts that take time and talent to research and write, and so a special kudo to the Deseret News. It looks like the effort to combine news reports with KSL-TV has worked in this instance as the credit for the story is by-lined by KSL reporters. Since we seldom watch KSL it was good to get this report in the newspaper. It was also interesting to note the name of one of the reporters, ironically named Just.

Long-Christensen, 44, was sent to jail by a justice of West Jordan’s Municipal Court after a dispute over whether she had the proper permits under zoning law to operate her small nursery business out of her home.

A four-month investigation by KSL-TV discovered Long-Christensen’s case is but one of several examples of questionable activities (more…)

Breaking with her father, Barbara Bush voices support for gay marriage

By Holly Bailey

Tue Feb 1, 9:41 am ET

Barbara Bush, one of former President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, is appearing in a new video voicing her support for same sex marriage.

“I’m Barbara Bush, and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality,” she says in a 22-second video released Monday by the Human Rights Campaign, a group that lobbies for equal treatment for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.

“New York is about fairness and equality,” she says in the video. “And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.”

The video ends with Bush, who is 29, imploring viewers to “join us.”

You can watch the video after the jump, courtesy the Human Rights Campaign.

By Lindsay Whitehurst

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Jan 30 2011 04:23PM

A Canadian judge is now considering a landmark challenge to his country’s ban on polygamy as unconstitutional — a case being closely watched in Utah.

First, welcome to the Tribune Lindsay Whitehurst. This is the first story we’ve posted with her byline, and it is a big story. We will be following with keen interest.

Polygamy has been a legal question that has bothered Mormons since before statehood. For several generations many Mormons have been dismayed that they were forced to abandon polygamy by the government. To them, it was clearly an infringement of religious freedom and the argument isn’t without merit.

Testimony ended last week in the proceeding, sparked by the Canadian branch of a polygamous sect based in Utah. Since late November, British Columbia Chief Justice Robert Bauman has heard from nearly 20 witnesses — some of them Utahns — and taken many more affidavits and video testimonies about plural marriage.

The justice is expected to issue a ruling later this year on whether an anti-polygamy law dating to 1892 violates Canada’s guarantee of freedom of religion. The Utah Attorney General’s Office will be watching that ruling, said spokesman Paul Murphy.

“I think it will inform us,” he said. “Canada is tackling the same issues we have, in that we have this law but for the most part it hasn’t been enforced by any law enforcement agency.”

Utah’s bigamy law makes it a felony to marry or co-habitate with more than one husband or wife, though Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has focused on investigating crimes within polygamous groups rather than the practice itself.

Polygamists have also been observing the “historic” proceedings, said Marlyne Hammon, a member of the action committee for the polygamous community of Centennial Park, located just south of the Utah state line in Arizona.

“If Canada were to drop that law, it would send quite an important (more…)

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/01/28/financial-crisis-the-greatest-hits.aspx

Morgan Housel
January 28, 2011

“We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable,” says the official report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, released yesterday. “The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire.”

The committee’s report, two years in the making, is a 623-page tome of everything you could ever want to know about the financial crisis. Most of it is dry repetition of standard stuff reported ad nauseum over the past three years: Housing prices went up. Banks were idiots. The bubble popped. Hell broke loose.

But a few quotes caught my attention. Hopefully they will catch yours, too.

On regulation: We do not accept the view that regulators lacked the power to protect the financial system. They had ample power in many arenas and they chose not to use it. To give just three examples: the Securities and Exchange Commission could have required more capital and halted risky practices at the big investment banks. It did not. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other regulators could have clamped down on Citigroup’s excesses in the run-up to the crisis. They did not. Policy makers and regulators could have stopped the runaway mortgage securitization train. They did not.

On trustworthy advice: More than 200,000 new mortgage brokers (more…)

A Palestinian state within the 1967 borders: settlements vs. sovereignty

By Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. | President, Foundation for Middle East Peace

Today, few disagree that without massive withdrawals from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where over 500,000 settlers now live, there is no hope for a two-state peace. A majority of Israelis also agree that an end to the conflict, preservation of a democratic, Jewish Israel, and freedom and statehood for Palestinians, are impossible without a radical reversal of Israel’s misbegotten settlement adventure.

Philip Wilcox is one of the most respected Middle East experts and his suggestions and observations are always sought after by both sides of the question. Whenever you see his name you will know that there is serious constructive conversation taking place. So read on….

Most governments today believe that international law, including UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the Fourth Geneva Convention outlawing settlements, should inform an agreement on a two-state border. The roadmap, which was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 1515, Quartet positions, and statements by the Obama administration concur that the starting point for creating a two-state peace should focus on the 1967 border.

Israel’s 43-year national project of settling the territory occupied in 1967 was designed to create “facts on the ground” that would maintain Israeli control and thwart Palestinian self-determination. Today, even Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he accepts the need (more…)