Tag: Salt Lake Tribune
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Public Office and Private Morality
photo credit: aurélien. Just to be clear from the beginning, this topic is inspired by the Kevin Garn story and while I will refer to that story specifically everything I say is meant to apply to any matters of the private morality of a public official. First, I would like to say that Rep. Garn…
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Evolving News
It’s interesting to watch as nothing turns into a news story. Here’s the roundup of one such process from this week. Holly Richardson writes about Tim Bridgewater’s momentum. When she talks about his fund raising she doesn’t mention that over 80% of it was a loan to himself. Tim likes the coverage (naturally) and the…
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Fundraising Tells Us a Story
The third quarter just ended which means its time that the public can start learning how candidates have done on fundraising for the last quarter. The fundraising reports are pretty dry and generally boring. They always result in reports about which opponents in any given race are getting the most cash such as Bennett outpaces…
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Under-Informed Health Care Debate
Considering how widely discussed the health care issue is and how long running that discussion has been it is easy for people to think they have all the available and relevant information on the subject. The fact is that despite the appearance of coverage you can only scratch the surface of available information unless you…
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The Trick to Choosing Elected Officials
In a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune Jeff Hammond offered this profound bit of insight: As some politicians age, they grow into statesmen, like Barry Goldwater; others shrivel into petty party hacks. Sens. Hatch and Bob Bennett aren’t growing. He’s right about Hatch and Bennett which is why it’s time to replace them. He’s…
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Inside Politics
When I read about the results of the Utah Democratic party chairman’s race I had an interesting thought pop into my head. (Although this article originally ran in the Salt Lake Tribune I am linking to a copy at UtahAmicus because tribune articles eventually expire and disappear.) First, some background. The race for chairman was…
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Newspaper Survival Tactics
Some people who read what I have written about news media might think that I would like to see the demise of newspapers – they would be wrong. I do think that news organizations generally need to make some adjustments to better serve their purpose (am am assuming a purpose of informing their audience). As…
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Score One for Buttars
I was surprised this morning to see an article that showed Senator Buttars in a positive light. Eric Ethington and Elaine Ball, founders of the grass-roots, service-oriented Pride in Your Community, stopped Republican Sen. Chris Buttars in his driveway on Saturday morning to share some home-baked bread and conversation. Buttars invited Ball, Ethington and two…
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Who Should Adopt?
The debate over who should be allowed to adopt a child is a sensitive one. We have a system which tries to provide the best situation to children in need of good families, but there are more children than available families under the current definition. I think it is natural to be skeptical of the…
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All Hail President Hatch
Presidential Pardons are the responsibility of the President (which is apparently Orrin Hatch in his own mind). Nowhere could I find anything even remotely related to pardons in the official job description of the Senate. I enjoyed a lengthy and well written summary of the situation from Lizzen and so my list of grievances with…