Democracy for Utah - Government, Bad

Get FISA Right

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:42:02 -0700

An active group of Obama supporters are planning their future strategy to return U.S. policy to its roots in our Constitution. From Joan Mokray:

There’s plenty of work to do on crucially related civil liberties issues and problems resulting from the ‘war on terror’. The Protect America Act and the PATRIOT Act, critical parts of which come up for renewal next year, reduce our privacy and our ability to express dissent, to get due process and equal protection. Consider National Security Letters, the discriminatory Attorney General surveillance guidelines, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act, and on and on. We are people clearly concerned with the state of our civil liberties.

Palin said Thanks before she said No Thanks

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:54:18 -0600

Sarah Palin was in favor of the Bridge to Nowhere while Alaska had senior members in congress in the majority party who could obtain earmarks.

Curious George looks ahead to a comfy future

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:20:36 -0600

From Jim Rutenberg's article in Sunday's NY Times:

...in an interview with a book auther in the Oval Office one day last December, [President Bush] daydreamed about the next phase of his life....First, Mr. Bush said,"I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." With joint assets that have been estimated at as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added,"I don't know what my dad gets - it's more than 50-75" thousand dollars a speech, and "Clinton's making a lot of money."

Just another view of the wall between the Two Americas. After working all my life as an academic scientist -10 years at peak of ~ $100,000/yr and generally earning well over the U.S. median income - my Social Security plus pension from my saved, invested money will be less annually than the cool hundred thousand that Curious Jerk can make in a couple of evenings of drivel and lies. No wonder kids don't see the point of working hard and playing by the rules any more.

MSHA head is a coal industry flack and a recess appointment

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:29:28 -0600

Yet another industry crony installed in our government to pretend to regulate the industry he came from (Huffington Post):

President George W. Bush resorted to a recess appointment in October 2006 to anoint Richard Stickler as the nation's mine safety czar after it became clear he could not receive enough support even in a GOP-controlled Senate. [...]

The wife and daughter of a miner killed at Sago wrote a letter to lawmakers that same month urging them to reject Stickler's nomination.

"Mr. Stickler is a longtime coal executive and because of his connections with the coal industry, we are concerned that his primary objectives may be solely on compliance and production, not on miners' health and safety," Debbie Hamner and Sara Bailey wrote in a letter quoted by the Gazette. [...]

In August and September of the same year, the Senate twice voted to send the Stickler nomination back to the White House.

In October 2006, Bush used a recess appointment to install Stickler — a decision that was quickly denounced by senators from both sides of the aisle.

Can you find Utah on this map?

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:37:41 -0600

Via Richard Warnick at OneUtah. Place your bets — when will Utah finally give up that last 5%?

Romney said one-party government is a bad idea

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:17:43 -0600

AP story in the Salt Lake Tribune:

A new video posted on both YouTube and the Internet by Democrats includes a montage of political moments in which Mitt Romney repeatedly downplays his Republican Party affiliation while running for governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts in 2002. [...]

The montage, posted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party, includes several clips of Romney complaining about the lack of political balance in heavily Republican Utah, where he spent three years while he headed [the] 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Romney often made that point as he argued for equilibrium in Massachusetts, which tilted to the opposite end of the political spectrum.

"I lived in a place that had a one-party state that was primarily Republican. I thought, 'Well, won't that be nice?' The answer is no," Romney told the New Bedford Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 16, 2002.

But now it's 2007, so I'm sure Romney has a different opinion.

Update: The Deseret News finds an even better Romney quote:

I'm not convinced that a state would be better off with all Republicans. As a matter of fact, I've been in a state like that for the past three years. Not a good thing.

FEMA remains incompetent

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 19:26:41 -0600

It's deja vue all over again at FEMA:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency does not have effective procedures to protect information contained on its laptop computers, according to a new report from Richard Skinner, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.
...“As a result, sensitive information stored and processed in FEMA’s laptop computers may not be protected properly,” Skinner wrote in the report.

If the White House has nothing to hide, why is it hiding?

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:15:52 -0600

Sen. Patrick Leahy:

This is a further shift by the Bush Administration into Nixonian stonewalling and more evidence of their disdain for our system of checks and balances. This White House cannot have it both ways. They cannot stonewall congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred. [...]

I will look at the President's broad claim of executive privilege. Since we have heard so much testimony that the President did not personally make these decisions on the firings and was not personally involved, it is difficult to imagine that there is much basis to these claims. They cannot have it both ways.

Now there's hope for Republican memory loss

Thu, 24 May 2007 12:40:58 -0600

An utter disregard for the law

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:48:00 -0600

In addition to violating FISA, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and the Geneva Conventions, the Bush Administration may have cheerfully violated the Hatch Act by asking federal employees to do pro-GOP political work:

In a letter to White House political affairs director Karl Rove, the committee chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), asked about the Jan. 26 videoconference by Rove deputy J. Scott Jennings, which was directed to the chief of the GSA [General Services Administration] and as many as 40 agency officials stationed around the country.

Jennings's 28-page presentation included 2006 election results and listed the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need help. At a hearing Wednesday about the GSA, Waxman said the presentation and follow-up remarks allegedly made by agency chief Lurita Alexis Doan may have violated the Hatch Act, a law that restricts federal agencies and employees from using their positions for political purposes. [...]

Six political appointees at the GSA who participated in the videoconference said Doan asked at the conclusion how the agency could help GOP candidates win in the next elections, according to a letter Waxman sent to Doan.

At some point you start to wonder if anyone in the Bush Administration understands (or cares) what a "law" is. They're completely out of control.

Utah State House still allows school beatings

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:27:03 -0600

According to a Salt Lake Tribune article "Weird Laws Clutter the Utah Code" Utah parents can give written permission to teachers to hit their children even though none of Utah's public school do it. (Dan Harrie and Judy Fahys, January 18, 1998).

The law was passed in 1992 and says:
"A school employee may not inflict or cause the infliction of corporal punishment upon a child who is receiving services from the school, unless written permission has been given by the student's parent or guardian to do so."

Utah State House still allows school beatings

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:20:29 -0600

Impeachment

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:02:05 -0700

What Kos said:

We have one year to make our case for 2008 to the American people. We need to show not just that we deserve to hold on to the Congress, but that we should be given the White House as well. [...]

We can spend 2007 either pushing impeachment (which isn't as popular as Zogby claims, see Bowers' piece), or we can use it to educate the American people about what a Democratic government would look like — passing meaningful legislation that would improve their lives like the minimum wage, health care reform, ethics reform, stem cell research funding, policies that help families and the middle class.

Impeachment does none of that.

"Harold...Call me..."

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:59:55 -0700

While driving around on this rainy Saturday post election, I saw a couple of Sim Gill signs. The huge one caught my eye: Experience Counts. There were only words, no picture.

Then I saw one of Lorrrrrah. A big picture of her blond blue eyed "ask a cop' sign.

I was struck by the thought that maybe Sim lost to a semi unethical person only because she happens to be blond and blue eyed. Am I cynical, or are we still as subject to racism here as they were in Tennessee?

Forget 'values': Corruption is the biggest issue this year

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:52:59 -0700

CNN:

Americans are going to the polls Tuesday in midterm elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress, and early exit polls suggest that corruption is the top issue on voters' minds.

The national exit polls also showed that voters had more than just local issues in mind, with 62 percent saying that national issues made the biggest difference with their votes and 33 percent citing local issues. [...]

The exit polls — by a consortium of broadcast networks and The Associated Press — showed that 42 percent of voters called corruption an extremely important issue in their choices at the polls, followed by terrorism at 40 percent, the economy at 39 percent and the war in Iraq at 37 percent.

Harry Reid started talking about the Republican culture of corruption back in January. He could never have guessed that the Bush Party would be so cooperative.