2007 Utah GOP Party Candidates

2007 Utah GOP State Party Candidates

Chair: Aaron Bludworth, Steve Harmsen, Chris Laurence, Ronald Levine, Stan Lockhart, Nancy Lord

Vice-Chair: Drew Chamberlain, Grant Misbach, Jack Powers, Todd Weiler

Secretary: Patty Johnson, Carolyn Jeppsen-Smith

Treasurer: Mike McCaulley

All candidates are invited to attend pre-convention function on Friday June 8th at Jordan Commons and mingle with State Delegates.

Captain Mark

Attorney General Rescues The Black Pearl and Pirates Event

Arrrr... Spyglass crew members. After Paul Rolly of the Salt Lake Tribune sent a broadside into the Black Pearl and sunk our fundraiser on May 25th, Captain Mark announces that Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and The Political Spyglass have come to the rescue and are sponsoring a free private screening of the New Pirates of the Caribbean III ( At The Worlds End) at the Jordan Commons MegaPlex on June 8th the night before the State Convention.

Festivities will begin around 3:30 as Pirates take over the commons, and all candidates for party office have been invited to mingle with the crew. Photo Opportunities with Admiral Black Mark Shurtleff, Captain Mark Towner, and other notable Pirates will begin around 4:00 with the movie to begin around 5:30.

This event will be for State GOP Delegates and families on a first RSVP basis. There be bunk space for only around 500 swabs to see the movie, so you better act quickly and send in your requests for tickets to the Captain. Send an email to Captain Mark at marktowner@comcast.net that includes you name, number of tickets needed, contact phone number, and address.

There will be special prizes for best Adult costumes of the main characters of the movie, and prizes for Kids Costumes. Come join us and make this a memorable event. Captain Mark
marktowner@comcast.net

Why Fred Thomson Should Ignore Michael Moore

Why Fred Thomson Should Ignore Michael Moore
by Abel KeoghMay 17, 2007

It appears Shawn Hannity and Rocky Anderson may have started an unfortunate trend: celebrity vs. politician debates. Earlier this month the radio talk show host and Mayor of Salt Lake City faced off in a debate over the Iraq War. The debate was a culmination of months of highly publicized name calling and posturing by the two men.

If you didn’t watch the showdown in Salt Lake, you didn’t miss much. Though a tad more interesting that the incredibly boring and scripted presidential debates – this debate was really a chance for both Hannity and Anderson to stroke their egos by flaunting the position of the other person.

But the publicity it generated seemed to have gotten into the heads of others who would like nothing more than free publicity. The latest war of words that threatens to boil over into a full fledged debate is between pseudo-documentary film maker Michael Moore and former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

Earlier this month the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was investigating Moore to see if he violated the Cuban trade embargo by taking ailing 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for free medical care. The trip was to film part of Moore’s latest “documentary” Sicko. (No, it’s not a movie about himself. This time Moore’s decided to take on the health care industry.)
Once word of the investigation was made public, Thompson wrote an article in National Review chiding the filmmaker for being part of Fidel Castro’s propaganda machine. Moore shot back and challenged Thompson to a pubic debate about the quality of the U.S healthcare system.
How to handle people like Moore is a sometimes a challenge for people in positions of power and authority. It’s easy to fall prey to the temptation to lash out and squash your opponent. However, if the person who is casting stones is small and insignificant, often the best response is to simply ignore them. Fighting back often gives the adversary more attention and can raise their status to that of a hero. It was President Kennedy’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion that led to the international star status of Castro. The Cuban leader was viewed as the victim of a CIA plot to overthrow him which endeared him to his own people and leftists worldwide.

Moore is a slick propagandist who craves the spotlight. He would like nothing more than free publicity for his latest movie and a chance to take on a potential political giant like Thompson. He has nothing to lose in a debate with the Law & Order star. Even if he lost – which he probably would – the debate would give Moore and his movie validity in addition to potential millions of additional dollars at the box office.

Thompson, however, has indicated he may seek the Republican nomination for president. Presidential candidates need to look and act presidential. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain by strutting around on the same stage as Moore.

So far Thompson seems to be playing his cards right. His brilliant video response to Moore that showed he has nothing but contempt for the “documentary” film maker. In the video Thompson, chewing a Cuban cigar, turns in his chair and looks up from some paperwork like he just noticed Moore. He then tells Moore that he doesn’t have time on his scheduled for Moore and tells him about another documentary filmmaker, Nicolas Guillen, who was sent to a mental institution by Castro and says, “A mental institution, Michael, might be something you ought to think about.” Then Thompson puts the cigar back in his mouth and turns his back to the camera and continues his work.

The message of Thompson’s video was absolutely clear: Michael Moore, you aren’t worth my time. By treating Moore as insignificant, Thompson put himself in the position of superiority – a good move for someone who might become the next president of the United States. He has more pressing challenges to worry about with than a documentary filmmaker and proven liar.
The power contempt is one Hannity learned the hard way. Instead of ignoring the mayor of a mid-sized American city, Hannity let Anderson’s comments and antics goad him into a debate – one that a nationally syndicated talk show was ill suited for. Anderson is a skilled lawyer and politician and more used debate-type format and Hannity’s most ardent supporters admit that Anderson came out on top in the debate. All Hannity managed accomplished by flying to Salt Lake City was to raise Anderson’s profile and credentials and lower his own.
Ignoring weak enemies is a powerful tool. Thompson's ability to recognize Moore as insignificant, indicates he might be well suited for a presidential run after all.
***
Abel Keogh is the editor of FreeCapitalist.com affiliated with Rick Koerber

You can email him here. His book, Room for Two, will be published by Cedar Fort this fall.

A Plea to Foot-Dragging Candidates

A Plea to Foot-Dragging Candidates
Dick Morris & Eileen McGannThursday, May 17, 2007

Two shadows loomed over last night's Republican debate in South Carolina — the missing ex-Sen. Fred Thompson and former Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Both Thompson and Gingrich are reviewing their astrological charts to determine if the time is right for their presidential candidacies. These rites of introspection make it much harder for the conservative wing of the Republican Party to settle on a candidate.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice position and his backing for gun control and gay civil unions disqualify him from support by much of the Christian right.
Sen. John McCain, good on social issues by righty lights, has antagonized them by opposing the Bush tax cuts, sponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, seeking to limit the ability of our forces to interrogate terror suspects and working with Sen. Ted Kennedy to allow illegal immigrants to become citizens.
Conservatives like ex-Govs. Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson and Jim Gilmore, Sen. Sam Brownback and Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo can't get their campaigns untracked because everyone is waiting for Newt and Fred to make up their minds.
Their indecision paralyzes their ideological compatriots — a great disservice to the men and women they'd look to as possible supporters should they decide to run. The conservatives are entitled to an answer — are you running or not?
Thompson, cashing in on his star power from playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on "Law and Order," makes conservative mouths water. Some see him as a reincarnation of actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan. But Thompson's record in the Senate, and his genial manner, suggest a take-it-easy mentality that may be inadequate for the rigors of a campaign against the Clinton machine.

Full Article
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/17/134025.shtml

Party Lines - Was Sharpton out of line? Is it time to let it go?

Party Lines - Was Sharpton out of line? Is it time to let it go?
By Todd Weiler, UtahClipper 15.MAY.07

‘The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception; the one who lies with sincerity.” [French writer Andre Gide] Last week, the Reverend Al Sharpton stated during a debate on religion that, “Those that really believe in God will defeat [Mitt Romney] anyway, so don't worry about that - that’s a temporary situation." Romney’s response was that Sharpton’s statement “shows that bigotry still exists in some corners.”

On his radio show the next day, Sharpton said, “It might be good that the Romney people were dumb enough to make this an issue.” He later stated, “This is a blatant effort by the Romney campaign to fabricate a controversy.” Sharpton ought to know. This is a man who has made a career out of fabricating controversies. He has led numerous publicity-seeking protests following fabricated incidents of racial attacks.

My first memory of Sharpton dates back to 1987, when he spread the hoax that 15-year-old Tawana Brawley was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He later lost a civil suit for defamation and was ordered to pay $345,000 for his slander of an innocent man.Sharpton incited a mob in 1991 after a black child was accidentally run over by a Jewish neighbor. During a protest that he organized, a young rabbinical student was stabbed to death in a crowd chanting “kill the Jews.”In 1995, Sharpton used a landlord-tenant dispute to incite racial hatred. Sharpton set up picket lines in front of a Jewish store. Later, one of Sharpton’s protestors burst into the store shooting and set it on fire. Seven store employees died. Last year, Sharpton publicly criticized the Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused of assaulting a stripper. They have since been exonerated.

Sharpton’s latest foray into the public debate was to call for the firing of Don Imus for his racial slurs. After Imus apologized, Sharpton still lobbied CBS and NBC to terminate him. He said Imus’ intent could not be considered when his actions were “over the line.” He also said that no matter how good or decent Mr. Imus might be at heart, his actions in this case had “set a precedent” that would invite other commentators to make similar comments."Yet when confronted by LDS talk show host Glen Beck, Sharpton refused to follow his own standard. He said “[it] was not my intention to have said anything against Mormons . . . if I, inadvertently, or my words inadvertently hurt any Mormon, I apologize to a Mormon only because that is not my intent, nor my belief.”Despite Sharpton’s blatant hypocrisy, Latter-day Saints should “forgive and forget.” Not only has Sharpton made it politically incorrect to criticize Mormons, he has given the Romney campaign a lot of positive publicity and the upper hand on the issue of religion.

http://www.clippertoday.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=126&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=20984&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1005&hn=clippertoday&he=.com

Rudy Giuliani Squares Off With Rep. Ron Paul Over 9/11 at GOP Debate

Rudy Giuliani Squares Off With Rep. Ron Paul Over 9/11 at GOP Debate
Thursday, May 17, 2007

This is a partial transcript of "The Big Story With John Gibson," May 16, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.

JOHN GIBSON, HOST: The "Big Outrage": Presidential heavyweight Rudy Giuliani vs. Congressman Ron Paul. The duo's 9/11 contest got a little spicy at last night's GOP debate in South Carolina after Paul suggested that the U.S. actually had a hand in the terrorist attacks.

REP. RON PAUL, R-TEXAS, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.
RUDY GIULIANI, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.

Watch the Interview

I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.

GIBSON: And that was Republican vs. Republican. According to a recent Rasmussen Report poll, 35 percent of Democrats think President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The so-called 9/11 Truth Movement has already infected people like Rosie O'Donnell and one in three Democrats, and many other people, Americans evidently, including Congressman Ron Paul. With me now is FOX News contributor and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.
So, Michelle, this stuns me. It wouldn't have stunned me had it come up in the Democratic debate, but it's a jaw-dropper to see it in the Republican debate.

MICHELLE MALKIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It is and it doesn't belong here. And I'm glad that this moment provided great TV for FOX News — it was a very instructive exchange — but Ron Paul really has no business being on stage as a legitimate representative of Republicans, because the 9/11 truth virus is something that infects only a very small proportion of people that would identify themselves as conservative or Republican. And as you say, John, this is far more prevalent, this strain of 9/11 truth virus, on the left, and in much of the mainstream of the Democratic Party as that Rasmussen poll showed.

GIBSON: Why did 35 percent of Democrats believe it, and I think it's another 26 percent haven't quite made up their mind about it?

MALKIN: Well, I think part of it is what Charles Krauthammer has famously called "Bush derangement syndrome." I think that pathology has taken hold among many Democrats who would consider themselves mainstream, so anything that they could do to suspect or blame him for America's problems — and particularly the terrorist attack — they're willing to believe. I think a lot of it is just plain ignorance, and then there's a, you know, paranoid strain on the left. I talked about this in my book, "Unhinged," of tinfoil hat wearers who indulge in this kind of fantasy where America bears the blame for global jihad.

GIBSON: You know, Michelle, Rosie talks about this stuff all the time on "The View" and "The View" has a large audience. Would this notion be as prevalent as it is if there weren't prominent people like Rosie, Charlie Sheen and others constantly talking it up?

MALKIN: Well, they certainly bear the blame for mainstreaming it. Rosie O'Donnell and Alec Baldwin and Charlie Sheen, I believe, but it's there on the Internet and these people are absolutely rabid, and they are impervious to reason or logic. And it's good that we have magazines, publications like Popular Mechanics out there slogging everyday. There are a lot of blogs as well that have been debunking a lot of these 9/11 conspiracy theories. This war is going on on places like YouTube and in social networking places, but I think it's an incumbent on mainstream news outlets to debunk these people and I don't think you see nearly enough of that outside of FOX News.

GIBSON: Part of this 9/11 Truth Movement says that the United States attacked the Pentagon with missiles, that a plane did not hit it. I have never been able to understand how the 9/11 truthers then explain where is American Flight 77 and where are all those people? Have you ever heard them try to explain that?

MALKIN: You know, I try not to spend too much time in these cesspools, but it is worth taking a visit to places like, you know, these WTC7 sites and Students and Scholars for Truth, and I note that Ron Paul has basically allied himself with these people. He appears with Students for Truth on campus and he's appeared on radio shows like 9/11 conspiracy nut Alex Jones. And I would hope that that would disqualify him the next time around for appearing on stage with other Republicans.

GIBSON: We shall see. FOX News contributor and syndicated columnist, Michelle Malkin.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273343,00.html

Mitt Romney, John McCain Ratchet Up Rivalry

Thursday, May 17, 2007 1:23 p.m. EDT

Mitt Romney, John McCain Ratchet Up Rivalry

A long-brewing feud between presidential hopefuls John McCain and Mitt Romney burst into the open during Tuesday’s GOP debate – and continued Wednesday as the candidates returned to the campaign trail.

With Rudy Giuliani holding his position as the Republican leader in national polls, McCain and Romney view each other as the biggest obstacle in their respective paths to the nomination, according to the Washington Post.

On Tuesday night, Romney questioned McCain’s conservative credentials, noting that he had co-sponsored, with Democrats, legislation on campaign finance and immigration reform. McCain countered by referring to Romney’s flip-flopping on important issues.

The bad blood was again in evidence on Wednesday, with McCain’s chief strategist John Weaver telling the Post: "We'd like nothing better than for all the campaigns to run on their positive agendas for the future. Governor Romney and his Boston advisers believe they can't win with that. So be it. But if they think they can misrepresent John McCain's record with impunity, then they'd better buckle up their chinstraps."

Alex Castellanos, Romney's media adviser, "made clear his camp is prepared to wield equally sharp elbows in the months ahead,” the Post reported.
He also said: "The more [voters] look at these top three guys as presidential contenders, the more they will look at the differences between them. The only thing better than a little Mitt Romney is a lot of Mitt Romney."

McCain and Romney have been competing with each other for months over endorsements, campaign talent, positioning and money "while paying less attention to Giuliani,” the Post observes, adding: "McCain's underlying assumption has been that Romney, though he has often struggled to get out of single digits in national polls, poses a potentially serious threat. The Romney camp has long regarded McCain as a formidable rival.”

© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.

Senators strike deal on immigration overhaul

Senators strike deal on immigration overhaul
By Donna Smith 1 hour, 32 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators reached agreement on Thursday on an immigration reform bill that would legalize millions of illegal immigrants and establish a merit-based system for future migrants, lawmakers said.

The agreement sets the stage for what is expected to be a passionate Senate debate over immigration and lead the way for what would be one of the most significant accomplishments of
President George W. Bush' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> President George W. Bush's final term.

Details of the agreement were set to be released at a news conference the group scheduled for 1:30 p.m (1730 GMT). Negotiators, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), a Massachusetts Democrat, and Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), an Arizona Republican, worked out the final details on Thursday morning.

When asked after the meeting whether lawmakers had reached a final agreement, Kennedy replied "yes." Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), an Arizona Republican who attended the morning session, confirmed the group reached agreement.

The legislation would create a temporary worker program that would require laborers to return home after a period of time. Tough border security and workplace enforcement measures would go into place before the temporary worker program, congressional aides said.
The proposal would limit family-based migration to immediate family members and establish a merit-based system by which future migrants could earn points for skills, education, understanding of English and family ties.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan)

Colonel Austin Bay comments on the Rudy – Ron Paul spat,

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Colonel Bay on Ron Paul
Posted by: Dean Barnett at 9:53 AM

Colonel Austin Bay comments on the Rudy – Ron Paul spat,

“Rudy G’s response to Ron Paul was a knock-out. Ron Paul is definitely fringe. No doubt Paul’s an intelligent person. By reputation he does a good job with constituent service in his district — he does get re-elected. However, his statements about the War on Terror and Iraq are a Sheehan-Galloway pastiche.”

That’s some great stuff. One small quibble, though:
I would posit that the Colonel is bending over backwards to be kind to Paul in calling him intelligent. While Paul probably does have a high level of cognitive ability, I don’t consider a guy who looks around the world and concludes that our foreign policy of 1790 makes perfect sense for us today to be particularly intelligent. A rigid orthodoxy that has Robert Taft as its patron saint and has made no allowances for changes on the ground over the past couple of centuries is hardly a sign of an electric intellect.

Remember Stephen Colbert’s one funny joke from the White House Correspondents dinner last year? “I like President Bush because he’s consistent,” began Colbert. “He believes on Wednesday what he believed on Monday. Regardless of what happened Tuesday.”
I don’t think that crack captures Bush, but it certainly nabs Ron Paul. Ron Paul is exactly that.

On stilts.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com

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Free the Crackheads! and Other Political Stories

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Free the Crackheads! and Other Political Stories
Posted by: Mary Katharine Ham at 10:03 AM

Behold the political analysis abilities of the AP: Second GOP Debate ContentiousClinton and Giuliani butting heads in the Buckeye State.
GOP mods work on Surrender Lite bill.GOP debate notable quotables.
Richardson's dirty, dirty oil-stock-holding profiteer hands. What's that? He's a Democrat? Oh, I guess he can't be dirty, then. Nevermind.
Free the crackheads!
Former Romney aide Andrew Bacevich dies in Iraq. Rest in peace.
I'm sure the Nutroots can find a scandal in this story.
And, Al Gore wept.

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McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, The Gang of 14, and The GOP Primary Electorate

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, The Gang of 14, and The GOP Primary Electorate
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 10:06 AM

The post-debate analysis is rumbling through the blogosphere and MSM, and most are missing the key exchaneg from last night. It reminds me of how the MSM overlooked John Kerry's "global test" in the first debate with the president, but the "global test" language proved to be a huge problem for Kerry despite the style points he won from many observors in debate one from the fall of 2004.

There was a similar moment last night when Senator McCain responded to Governor Romney's blast at McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy.

John McCain bristled and struck out at Mitt Romney last night when the former governor of Massachusetts blasted McCain for his sponsorship of the campaign finance "refrom" act that bears his name. There's a message in McCain's reaction --the Arizona senator knows that the GOP has been deeply wounded by the law that unleashed George Soros, but at an even deeper level, Senator McCain realizes that his indifference to constitutional principles embodied in that law is one of the three schisms he cannot repair or paper over or bridge, each one of which divides him from party faithful. Thus his barely concealed anger and his quick rush to go on the offensive by attacking Romney.

Few analysts have focused on Senator McCain's nearly incoherent response which asserted that there was too much money in politics and that money had corrupted the GOP. Both assertions are simply false, and though the MSM nods along, GOP voters absolutely reject both assertions. There isn't too much money in political campaigning, they think, there's too much money from the hard left represented by Soros. Further, the party faithful don't think of themselves as corrupt, or even of the party generally. They believe that the GOP's corrupt Congressmen weren't corrupted by soft money or campaign donations but by cold cash and perks in exchange for favors.

Conflated the two issues and slandering the party as a whole are just the beginning of McCain's problem. The biggest part is that he genuinely doesn't seem to understand that the idea of limiting criticism of incumbents 60 days before an election is repulsive to most small government conservatives who understand the Constitution to protect our right to slam elected officials whenever and wherever we want to. Nor does Senator McCain seem willing to acknowledge the vast flaws in his bills which, among other things, kept the unions all-powerful and unleased the 527s on American politics so that transparency vanished even as the money flowed in and which would have awarded social security benefits to illegal aliens for the years they were in the country illegally. The campaign finance fiasco and the awful McCain-Kennedy law are lines in the GOP creed, but Stubborn John won't hear a word of criticism of either.
Then there is the Gang of 14 and it is important to keep that debacle in mind when Senator McCain brings up his "right to life" record. The Gang of 14 prevented the establishment of a single principle: That every presidential nominee for every court is entitled to an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. That principle was what the fight in the Spring of 2005 was all about, and John McCain didn't care enough for that principle or the party leadership that had embraced it and campaigned on it through two cycles. In fact he preferred the manufactured privileges of the Senate over the Constitution's design and the crucial long term goal of saving the confirmation process from the ravages of the left. Now if we end up with a SCOTUS vacancy even the best qualified nominee may not see the light of the floor because of Democratic indifference. The future protections the unborn might have enjoyed from judges and justices committed to originalism were sacrificed by Senator McCain two years ago. The base hasn't forgotten, and the right-to-life voter will never be persuaded by laundry lists of votes that don't approach anywhere near the importance of the confirmation process which Senator McCain maneuvered to keep broken and susceptible to more deterioration in the future.
And that doesn't even get to Senator McCain's refusal to vote for the Marriage Amendment so that the debate could be waged, properly, in the states.

John McCain said last night that the GOP didn't lose the 2006 elections because of Iraq but because the party had lost its way. He was partially right. As I wrote after the elections, the GOP lost its way alright, but they went off course with the Gang of 14 and doubled down on its leadership confusion with McCain-Kennedy --Senator McCain's signature act sof the last two years. The GOP lost its power because it didn't use its power to accomplish anything approaching reform. The key blocking force in the reform of the Beltway? On the issues of judical nominations and illegal immigration, the key impediment to reform was John McCain. The "reform" he did midwife wasn't reform at all, but a disaster for the GOP and a boon to the Soros forces.

This is McCain's burden: He has a very, very recent record of indifference to core GOP principles and he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge his errors. Every time he does so he sends a new message to the GOP base: "Sit down. Shut up. I'm right and you are wrong." Over and over again he defends what the vast majority of GOP voters emphaticallu reject and he does so with a barely concealed fury at having been challenged.

That isn't going to fly. He wants to be president, yes, but no one is owed that job, and the GOP nomination doesn't go to candidates at war with core Republican principles. Being right about the necessity of victory in Iraq is simply not enough.
Over and over again I have invited Senator McCain on to the program to discuss McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14, and McCain-Kennedy in the same way that I have asked Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney about about their weakest points --abortion and their records in very left-leaning settings. Rudy and Mitt step up and step into the batter's box. John McCain will have none of it.

The next debate is in New Hampshire in early June. Hopefully someone will finally focus the candidates on judges, the confirmation process and other key issues related to the Constitution. These are central issues for the GOP electorate which is now fully briefed on the candidates' abortion positions and their support for the war.

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Grandma Graduates from Law School

Anti-Mormon campaign slams Romney

Anti-Mormon campaign slams Romney
By: Mike Allen May 15, 2007 04:17 PM EST

Polls continue to show skepticism about Romney’s church.

The Monday morning blast e-mail to radio talk show hosts was headed, "Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church vs. the United States of America." It went on for eight pages, with color photos, about "secret names and many other bizarre proceedings" of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A series of sensational "Mormons believe" bullet points concluded: "If Mitt Romney does not follow what the prophet of the Mormon Church dictates, he will be an apostate."The e-mail was offering guest appearances by Tricia Erickson, who was described as heading a modeling agency when she represented Fawn Hall (of Iran-contra fame) and Donna Rice (who derailed Gary Hart's presidential campaign) but who now bills herself as a crisis-management expert.
She also claims to have been raised in the Mormon Church before deprogramming herself and tells bookers she can help their listeners "make an informed judgment about whether Mitt Romney should be the president."

The Full Story.....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/4007.html

Captain Mark

GOP Candidates Go for the Jugular in Feisty Primary Debate

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
By Sharon Kehnemui Liss

WASHINGTON — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani won the strongest applause at Tuesday night's first-in-the-South Republican primary debate when he lashed out at Texas Rep. Ron Paul for suggesting that the United States' non-interventionist policy invited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Full Story....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272594,00.html

Captain Mark

I need help from the Spyglass Crew

Well crew, the Captain has been working with some new software and I need to see if it works like it claims. All you need to do is click on the link below. I will post the results tomorrow.....

http://politicalspyglass.blogspot.com/2007/05/matinee-mitt-does-60-minutes.html

Captain Mark

Signing up America, by Tag Romney

By Taggart RomneyMonday, May 14, 2007
Send an email to Taggart Romney

The GOP presidential primary has so far been a lot of fun, and very fluid. There have been significant fluctuations in the conventional wisdom of how it will play out, and I am sure that trend will continue in the months ahead.

As an obviously biased believer in my Dad, Mitt Romney, I have been delighted by the steady gain in momentum his candidacy has received. The more people get to know him, the more they like him. He is a strong leader and strong communicator, with strong values. He has a clear vision for how to keep America the economic and military superpowers of the world, while at the same time, serve as a beacon of goodness, compassion, family values, and integrity.

Deb Fatland, of Mason City, Iowa, right, listens to Republican presidential hopeful former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney speak during a caucus coffee, Wednesday, May 9, 2007, in Clear Lake, Iowa.
This week, Republican voters across the nation will have another opportunity to see the (count them!) 10 presidential candidates debate the issues and state their cases. Like the last debate, I am confident that most of those who have not yet had a chance to hear from my Dad will become new supporters.

They will hardly be alone. In a 24-hour period starting that evening, we plan on enlisting 24,000 new Romney supporters through an innovative effort called “Sign Up America,” our largest grassroots event yet.

We plan on bringing in these new supporters through online social networks, Debate Watch House parties, financial contributions, visits to MittRomney.com, and through calls to 866–WIN–MITT. Supporters across the country will man call banks and send emails to friends, inviting them to join Team Romney.

I have to admit that when I first heard about the program, I was skeptical. Twenty-four thousand new supporters in 24 hours? But my Dad's message is resonating, and people are responding. And like National Call Day when we raised $6.5 million in one day, my Dad has consistently used innovation, creativity, and hard work to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. He turned around the 2002 Winter Olympics and then became governor of Massachusetts, where he turned deficits into surpluses, and stalemates over health care and education policy into consensus and solutions.

His campaign is run with a similar philosophy. Just as his policies are aimed at bringing innovation and transformation to Washington, we’re striving to bring dynamism to our political outreach efforts. No campaign in either party has matched the Romney online effort, whether in our use of web video (over 1.5 million views to date), new media outreach, rapid response, or creating connections through online social networking platforms (e.g. he was the first candidate to have a Facebook profile).

In our constant effort to reach new voters, my Dad was the first presidential candidate to agree to participate in the upcoming Townhall.com/Salem Communications debate. With this future event, he will be talking about the issues important to Americans in an innovative use of the new media.

My personal favorite online feature is a blog that I and four of my brothers launched called the 5 Brothers Blog, where we are able to share a bit of a behind the scenes look at the family and campaign that you cannot get anywhere else.

But this is not just about staying ahead of the technology curve. It is about reaching new voters in ways that they can appreciate and use. It recognizes that in a compressed news cycle, the only way to reach many voters effectively is through constant engagement, on multiple platforms. I have heard countless stories of people who turned into MittTV and were able to watch my Dad deliver a speech that moved them in such a way to become an active supporter, volunteer, and contributor. We are no longer dependent only on the MSM to deliver our message – we can reach out directly to the individual voters in their homes.

That’s why Sign Up America is such an important project. We have built incredible momentum behind my Dad’s campaign – momentum that means more than campaign dollars and much more than the approving words of a few pundits. It is this kind of spirit which can deliver victory in a political campaign, and bring about a new spirit of leadership for this country. Come and be part of this effort, and join Team Romney on May 15. You will make history.
Tagg Romney serves as a senior advisor and surrogate for his father in the Mitt Romney for President Exploratory Committee.

Be the first to read Tagg Romney's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.

Captain Mark

Romney says voters will accept a Mormon

Romney says voters will accept a Mormon
AP Photo/Charles Krupa
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he also is troubled by the Mormon church's past practice of polygamy, but that he can overcome voter concern about his religion.

"What's at the heart of my faith is a belief that there's a creator, that we're all children of the same God and that fundamentally the relationship you have with your spouse is important and eternal," he said Sunday on CBS' "60 minutes."

But the former Massachusetts governor acknowledged that "there's part of the history of the church's past that I understand is troubling to people."

"Look, the polygamy, which was outlawed in our church in the 1800s, that's troubling to me," he said. "I have a great-great grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert. And so he took additional wives as he was told to do. And I must admit, I can't imagine anything more awful than polygamy."

Romney, who has five sons with his wife of 38 years, says he was worried he might lose her to somebody else when he left his Michigan high school sweetheart behind in college while he did two years of missionary work in France.

She had coverted from Episcopal to Mormon and attended Brigham Young University in Utah

Read the full story .....http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070514/ap_on_el_pr/romney2008_5;_ylt=AsEvPGVa5Q6bLs2UozEeB9EE1vAI

Captain Mark

www.rickkoerber.com

Check out this site...

http://www.rickkoerber.com/

Has anyone had any dealings with Franklin Squires?

The Captain

Who Is C. Rick Koerber?

C. Rick Koerber
Founder and CEO of FranklinSquires Investments, Claud “Rick” Koerber is a highly sought after motivational speaker and business consultant.

He has worked with, represented, and held key positions in companies such as FranklinCovey, Toshiba America Business Solutions, Carleton Sheets Personal Coaching, and IKON Office Solutions. His broad background also includes seminary teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, high school instructor, parliamentary/policy debate coach at Casper College in Wyoming, and founder of six businesses.

Although only in his thirties, Rick has in his own words “had a lifetime of experience in both headaches and wonderful triumphs.” Rick’s establishment of the Equity Milling process—a successful, creative real estate technique—has resulted in his acquisition over $100 million in real estate. Rick currently resides with his wife and two children in Springville, Utah.

Rick Koerber has always been an entrepreneur. As a boy, he constantly came up with ideas about the next great business plan. His first notable venture in the world of entrepreneurialism occurred as President of GlobalCentral.com, a successful Internet company he established with a few partners in the mid 1990’s. In 2000, the dotcom bubble burst and so did GlobalCentral.com. Overnight, Rick and his wife, Michelle, were $800,000 in debt.

Financially, Rick didn’t know what to do. From a deep hole of debt, he questioned the possibility of ever getting out. He even considered giving up and leaving the business world forever. After much thought, he and Michelle decided to proceed forward on two resolutions: first, the need to identify others who were once in their situation and had discovered a way out of debt; and second, to be committed to fundamental economic principles.

Today, six years later, Rick and Michelle’s lives are much different. Their financial position has changed drastically because of finding and living basic economic principles that do not change with time or market conditions. Rick rediscovered these principles by studying America’s Founding Fathers.

Many people have asked Rick how he got out of debt. Finding it very rewarding to teach the principles he rediscovered to others, Rick and Michelle formed FranklinSquires Investments.
The purpose of FranklinSquires is to work with individuals, families, and small businesses to obtain three core values: self-reliance, economic independence, and financial freedom. The name Franklin is the surname from one side of Rick’s family and Squires comes from a side of Michelle’s family. The name FranklinSquires carries significance because Rick and Michelle literally want to build a legacy that utilizes timeless principles and values to help others.
Rick has learned throughout his experiences that there is no substitute for true self-reliance. One cannot be truly self-reliant if he or she depends on others or circumstances for subsistence. FranklinSquires helps people acquire economic independence by teaching them how to generate more passive or portfolio income than living expenses. The ultimate goal is for people to be financially free and use their own monetary resources to do good for their own family and those around them.

Rick has stated, “I’ve learned throughout all my journeys that every one of us has to make a decision at some point whether we’re going to be responsible for where we are in life, especially financially.”Despite Rick’s early economic adversity with GlobalCentral.com, his personal beliefs and individual character motivated him to pay back over $800,000 debt—regardless of having no legal obligation to do so.

Rick and his family enjoy the financial freedom that results from following the principles of prosperity economics taught by the Founding Fathers.

Captain Mark

Ron Paul's Goldwater Moment

Ron Paul's Goldwater Moment

Justin Raimondo has an excellent column discussing the influence Ron Paul's principled ideas will have in the campaign for President. The fact is that no matter who ultimately prevails in the election, the Republican Party must embrace a more modest foreign policy, fiscal restraint, and respect for the Constitution.

The Bush years have transformed the Party into the political party that is dedicated to making government bigger. Libertarians are starting to vote for Democrats more often simply because they are not Republicans and absent Ron Paul, there is very little to appeal to libertarians among the Republicans.

Captain Mark

Matinee Mitt does 60 Minutes

(CBS) Sixty-year-old Mitt Romney is a dark horse in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. Although he is the least known of the frontrunners, he's raised more money – $21 million – than any other Republican candidate.

As correspondent Mike Wallace reports, Romney attracted national attention when, as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2006, he balanced the budget every year, without raising taxes. He ran the state like the hugely successful CEO he's been for over 20 years. And that came after he had rescued the 2002 Olympic winter games from financial disaster. And Romney says that now that he's turned around the Olympics and Massachusetts, he's ready to do the same for all of the U.S.A.

Over six feet tall, trim, fit, his hair graying slightly at the temples, he looks like a president. His movie star presence somehow reminds you of Cary Grant or Ronald Reagan.

Read the full story ....http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/10/60minutes/main2787426.shtml?source=mostpop_story

Captain Mark

Giuliani only muddied the abortion waters

Charles Krauthammer: Giuliani only muddied the abortion waters
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER36 minutes ago

LEGALIZING ABORTION by judicial fiat (Roe v. Wade) instead of by democratic means has its price. One is that the issue remains socially unsettled. People take to the streets when they have been deprived of resort to legislative action.

The other effect is to render the very debate hopelessly muddled.
Instead of discussing what a decent society owes women and what it owes soon-to-be-born infants, and trying to balance the two by politically hammering out regulations that a broad national consensus can support, we debate the constitutional niceties of a 35-year-old appallingly crafted Supreme Court decision.

Just how tangled the issue gets is illustrated by the current brouhaha over Rudy Giuliani's abortion response in the first Republican presidential debate. Spokesmen for the other candidates have gleefully seized upon what they deem to be Giuliani's gaffe -- not only defying Republican orthodoxy but appearing to want to have it every which way.

On repealing Roe v. Wade:
Giuliani: It would be OK to repeal. It would be also (OK) if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent and I think a judge has to make that decision.
Moderator: Would it be OK if they didn't repeal it?
Giuliani: I think the court has to make that decision and then the country can deal with it. ... states can make their own decisions.

Giuliani's response has been almost universally characterized as a blundering two-way pander. I think not. I've actually heard Giuliani elaborate his position on abortion. His debate answer is an overly concise version of it, which makes it so open to ridicule.

Democrats are pro-choice and have an abortion litmus test for judges they would nominate to the Supreme Court. Giuliani is pro-choice but has no such litmus test. The key phrase in his answer is "strict constructionist judge." On judicial issues in general he believes in "strict constructionism," the common conservative view that we don't want judges citing penumbral emanations and other constitutional vapors to justify inventing new rights they fancy the country needs.

However, one strict constructionist might look at Roe v. Wade as the constitutional travesty it is and decide to repeal it. Another strict constructionist judge could, with equal conviction, decide that after 35 years the habits and mores shaped by Roe v. Wade are so engrained in society that it should not be overturned.

And there is precedent for strict constructionists accepting even bad constitutional rulings after the passage of time. The most famous recent example is Chief Justice William Rehnquist for years opposing the original 1966 Miranda ruling as "legislating from the bench," but upholding it in 2000 on the grounds that it had become so engrained in American life that its precedental authority trumped its bastard constitutional origins. (He used different words.) In a country with a rational debate about abortion, Giuliani would simply have been asked how he would regulate (up to and including banning) abortion. That's not a relevant question here because neither presidents nor legislatures nor referendums decide this. Judges do. All presidents do is appoint judges.

Giuliani's answer on how to go about picking such judges is perfectly reasonable. It appears to be a dodge about the abortion issue itself simply because -- thanks to Roe -- every such debate becomes tangled with otherwise irrelevant issues of constitutional doctrine and stare decisis.
To give you an idea of how muddied the abortion debate has become thanks to this gratuitous constitutional overlay, consider the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion. It has been misread by partisans on both sides. Pro-choice advocates denounced it as the beginning of a gradual cutting back on abortion rights. Pro-lifers celebrated it for precisely that reason.

It is nothing of the kind. The only reason the court upheld the ban is because an alternative (far more commonly used, in fact) to this mid-to-late-term procedure is readily available. Hence no "undue burden" on the woman. Hence it respects the confines of existing abortion jurisprudence. Roe (and its successors) lives.

I hope for the day when Roe is overturned, not because I want to see abortion criminalized -- I once voted in a Maryland referendum to keep abortion legal if Roe is ever repealed -- but to sweep away this ridiculous muddle. Perhaps Giuliani should have said something like that rather than leaving the precedent question up to judges. Abortion is already so contaminated with legalisms, why not turn the issue into one of simple democracy? Let the people decide. Let them work it out the way everything else in this country is worked out -- by political argument and legislative accommodation.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for The Washington Post.

Time's Nancy Gibbs on Romney's Faith

Saturday, May 12, 2007
Time's Nancy Gibbs on Romney's Faith
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 9:54 AM
Here's the beginning of our conversation yesterday:
HH: Now I want to start by letting people know, you’ve been writing for Time Magazine how many years?
NG: It’ll be 22 years this fall.
HH: So you’ve seen a lot of presidential candidates come and go.
NG: I have.
HH: Have you ever seen a conversation about a candidate’s religious faith as intense as the one surrounding Mitt Romney?
NG: I have not, and the closest thing, and it wasn’t even, I don’t think it even came anywhere close to this, was when Al Gore nominated Joe Lieberman as his running mate. And yet, I don’t think even that conversation approached this one. You really do, as many people have pointed out, you have to go back to 1960 to have anything like this kind of conversation. That’s really the reference point.
HH: When I was writing A Mormon In The White House?, I reviewed the famous The Making Of The President 1960 book, as well, ’64 and ’68, when Mitt Romney’s dad was involved in national politics. There was nothing like the intensity, either, or…I lack the word for it, brass knuckled, perhaps, Nancy Gibbs. What was your impression of the people eager to attack the Mormon faith? Were they overly aggressive? Or was it just par for the course these days?
NG: Well, you know, what I wonder when you talk about his father’s run, especially in 1968, is whether what happened in 1960, the fact that the country had an intense discussion about the relevance of Kennedy’s Catholicism, and essentially concluded that the substance of private religious faith is really not relevant to the discussion of qualification for public office. I wonder whether the residue of that conversation was still fresh in people’s minds when Mitt Romney’s father was running, and it has somehow faded, and so now we are, all these years later, having the conversation again, and much more intensely.
Read the whole thing. We have to hope that gradually the MSM will get to where Gibbs already is: Aware that the attacks on Romney's faith are unprecedented and unsavory. Gibbs notes that those in 1960 who were opposed to Kennedy were divided by Theodore White into the ignorant and the bigoted, and that Romney faces the same two camps today. I added that today there is a third group, or actually a respectable division among the bigoted, and that some of those have access to MSM. That's what makes Romney's challenge more difficult. When Jacob Weisberg and Al Sharpton are attacking a religion, the bigotry Romney confronts seems at the same time more respectable and more loathsome, more subtle and much more crude, but it is certainly a more powerful presence in the MSM than it was in JFK's day.

Prosperity Quest, Presented by C. Rick Koerber

15 May 2007, Tuesday
Prosperity Quest - Register Now Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 from 07:00 - 10:00 pm.Provo Marriott101 West 100 NorthProvo, UT 84601Admission: Free but must register to attend.
Presented by C. Rick Koerber, the Prosperity Quest event is the lunching of a new program to spread prosperity to as many people as possible. The May 15th seminar is an opportunity to receive updates and new announcements regarding FranklinSquires Real Estate Institute, American Founders University, Garrett Gunderson’s “Freedom FastTrack,” Free Capitalist Radio and the Producer Revolution™. This free event is “the next step” for individuals wanting to learn more about the above organizations and for individuals wanting to become more involved in applying the teachings of C. Rick Koerber and the late Les McGuire. Long-time associate of the Producer Revolution™ are strongly encouraged to attend.
Register Now

Romney's Estimated Wealth In Millions

Romney's Estimated Wealth In Millions
Between $190 -- $250 Million

May 12 - Republican Mitt Romney is expected to report financial assets between $190 million and $250 million, an amount that would likely make him the wealthiest of the 2008 presidential candidates.

Aides to the former Massachusetts governor said his assets have been held in a blind trust that he and his wife set up when he took office in 2002. The adviser who provided the estimate of his assets cautioned that the number is based on 2005 and 2006 financial activity and could amount to a bigger total once the disclosure report is filed later this year.

The adviser spoke on condition of anonymity because the totals have not been officially released. The deadline for filing financial disclosures is Tuesday but Romney on Friday obtained an extension.

Romney lent his campaign $2 million this year and could clearly tap his wealth again if necessary. Romney is not the wealthiest candidate ever to run for president.

Mitt Romney: Brainy Wonk or Brazen Waffler?

Mitt Romney: Brainy Wonk or Brazen Waffler?
This post was written by RB Scott on 12 May, 2007 (09:34) All News
By RB Scott, Boston, Massachusetts
May 12, 2007

Is there anything we don’t know about Willard Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who would be President?

He has confessed that most follicles in his 60-year-old scalp still produce thick black hair, making every tottering windbag in the land all the more envious. It was enough to learn His Hunkiness is a testimony only to clean living and regular exercise not to some gossipy plastic surgeon or bottle-tanned personal trainer.

Although Mitt has been openly campaigning for the Presidency for more than a year now - officially since January - the only thing we may know for certain is that he looks real good up close and personal and that he may have changed his mind on the key issues of the day about as often as his great-great grandfather and mine added new wives.

Ann Davies Romney, Mitt’s only wife for nearly 40 years and his high school sweetheart, may be the best kept secret of all. She was unknown to the rest of the world until she joined her husband for an interview with CNN’s Larry King. Still extraordinarily good looking despite having borne and raised five sons and battling multiple sclerosis for several years, Mrs. Romney’s spontaneous, direct but kind and literate comments instantly belied those persistently pernicious “blonde” jokes, not to mention the overworked caricatures of subservient “Molly Mormon” women.

Read the full story ...http://www.bloggernews.net/16708

Captain Mark Towner

Rick Koerber talks about what is a FreeCapitalist?

What is the FreeCapitalist Project?
At the most basic level, the FreeCapitalist Project is a network of local FreeCapitalist Forums that meet regularly to learn, network, and plan positive social changes in the surrounding community. Members are united by a shared commitment to freedom and liberty through the unique and divinely inspired document: the United States Constitution.

Why did the FreeCapitalist Project start?
The republic of the United States has suffered from consistent efforts to alter, subvert, or disregard the Constitution framework set up by the Founding Fathers. Ironically, the ultimate threat to the order ushered in by the work of the Founding Fathers is almost invisible to the average citizens. The FreeCapitalist Project was started to help learn about the Constitution to advocate change within families and communities.

What is the mission of the FreeCapitalist Project?
The general mission of the FreeCapitalist Project is to help teach the Principles of Prosperity and restore governing standards of public and private activity.

What political party is the FreeCapitalist Project affiliated with?
The FreeCapitalist Project is not affiliated with any political party. However, the FreeCapitalist Project is interested in helping any organization founded and committed to the advancement of these Principles of Prosperity.

Why are members of the FreeCapitalist Project called Free Capitalists?
The FreeCapitalist Project uses the term Free Capitalists to set apart those who are committed to our principle-based approach to living and contributing in a free society.

Captain Mark

The Rick Koerber Show

What is FreeCapitalist Radio™? http://www.freecapitalist.com/

FreeCapitalist Radio offers a unique perspective on politics, business, and investing not found on any other talk show. It educates listeners on what really constitutes prosperity and helps audience members realize the power of the individual to improve one’s life. Listeners are encouraged to make decisions and base actions on principles and actual data rather than jumping on the bandwagon of sensationalism. With subjects ranging from Cicero to Adam Smith, current events to the U.S. Constitution, FreeCapitalist Radio is talk radio at its best. Launched in October of 2005, The Rick Koerber Show has already amassed an audience in 25 states who tune in each weekday via radio or nationwide webcast to hear Rick and renowned guests—including U.S. senators, international professors, and prominent businessmen—talk about the principles of prosperity in a lively and engaging way.

Captain Mark

Catholics and evangelicals leap to Romney's defense

Catholics and evangelicals leap to Romney's defense

By Lisa Riley RocheDeseret Morning News
Catholics and evangelicals came to the LDS Church's and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's defense Wednesday, calling on the Rev. Al Sharpton to answer for suggesting Mormons don't believe in God.

"Extraordinarily bigoted" was how Romney described Sharpton's comment made during a debate on religion held Monday in New York City, where Sharpton said, "as for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that, that's a temporary situation." The former Democratic presidential candidate spent Wednesday defending his remark. He told the Associated Press that he was not questioning Romney's belief in God but was attempting to contrast himself with the atheist author he was debating, Christopher Hitchens. "What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican," Sharpton told the wire service. "A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don't believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God." Sharpton told CNN's Paula Zahn on Wednesday evening he was responding to Hitchens' claim that Mormons are an example of how religion promotes racism because the church had excluded blacks. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not grant the priesthood to males of all races until 1978. Sharpton said if Mormons did not in the past see blacks as equal, they're not "real worshippers of God because I do not believe God distinguishes between people. That is not bigotry. That's responding to their beliefs." It was Hitchens who "attacked the Mormons," not him, Sharpton said. "I'm the one that belongs to a race that couldn't join the Mormons and I'm the one that's the bigot," he said, calling on Romney to explain his views on his church's position on blacks. Romney, who would be the first member of the LDS Church to serve as president if his race for the White House is successful in 2008, responded earlier in the day to Sharpton on the MSNBC cable network news channel's "Morning Joe" program.

"I can only, hearing that statement, wonder whether there's not bigotry that still remains in America," Romney said, adding that most people "have no interest in applying a religious test or suggesting that God wants one faith or another to succeed in becoming the president." Romney, who led Salt Lake's successful 2002 Winter Olympics before serving as governor of Massachusetts, called what Sharpton said an "extraordinarily bigoted kind of statement, and I find it really quite extraordinary." A spokesman for the LDS Church, Scott Trotter, had little to say about Sharpton's comment. "It's just campaign rhetoric and we're referring everyone back to Romney," Trotter said. The Catholic League called for Sharpton to "be held accountable for his bigoted outburst" and suggesting it "should finish his career," just as Don Imus' recent racist statements resulted in the cancellation of his radio show. Sharpton was among Imus' harshest critics. Kiera McCaffrey, the New York City-based league's director of communications, said Mormons are experiencing what Catholics did when John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960. Kennedy, who became the nation's first Catholic president, ultimately had to address the question of whether he would be controlled by his church in a speech made just before the election. Romney's faith has raised similar concerns, especially among evangelical Christians. "Catholics went through it. Now we see members of the LDS Church going through it," McCaffrey told the Deseret Morning News. "We're not hypocrites. If we're going to defend the rights of Catholics to participate in public life, we're going to do the same across the board." The Rev. Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who heads the National Clergy Council, issued a statement calling on Sharpton to "immediately apologize to Mr. Romney and the good people of the LDS Church and repent before God for such sinful hubris." Schenck, who has met privately with Romney to talk about Mormonism, also said that "while many other Christian groups may have differences with LDS doctrine, to question someone else's sincerity of belief in God is the height of pharisaical arrogance." The reaction to Sharpton's comment will help set boundaries for future discussions of Mormonism and other faiths in the campaign, said Kelly Patterson, director of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. "You have evangelical groups and Catholic groups now saying that this is a line that has been crossed," Patterson said. "It helps not just Romney but all other candidates." Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, said the controversy "will have no impact on how people perceive the LDS Church or Mitt Romney. ... This is much more about Sharpton." He described Sharpton as "equal parts of publicity, pews and politics. I think publicity is driving this. It's another way for him to get back in the center of the storm. I think he enjoyed himself with Imus." Jowers, a Romney supporter, said there "certainly is some irony and some hypocrisy in that (Sharpton) led the charge to get rid of Imus for an outrageous comment." Imus referred to members of the Rutgers University womens basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that while Sharpton "is eager to play the political correctness card when it suits his purposes, he apparently sees nothing wrong with an offensive attack against Gov. Mitt Romney using his religion." Sharpton's comment came in first half-hour or so of a two-hour debate on "Is God Great?" as he was explaining the religious roots of the civil rights movement lead by Martin Luther King Jr. Earlier, Hitchens had offered what he said was a contemporary example of using religion to justify racism. A GOP presidential candidate, he said, was a member of the "so-called Mormon Church" that had taught "that the Bible separates the sons of Ham and makes them lesser." Sharpton said there was no question about the civil rights movement being faith-based. "Let's not reinvent Dr. King any more than we try to reduce God to some denomination or convention," he said, before launching into his comment on an unnamed Mormon candidate. According to a tape of the debate, held at the New York Public Library, the audience laughed at what was clearly a reference to Romney before Sharpton continued his defense of religion and God. Hitchens, his debate partner, has written a new book, "God Is Not Great," that labels the LDS Church "a plain racket" that has turned "into a serious religion before our eyes." The debate was moderated by Slate Magazine's Jacob Weisberg, also critical of Mormons. Weisberg wrote in the online magazine last December that rejecting a Mormon presidential candidate is not religious bigotry. "I wouldn't vote for someone who truly believes the founding whoppers of Mormonism," Weisberg said in the article.
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com

Huntsman orders election Nov. 6 on school vouchers

Huntsman orders election Nov. 6 on school vouchers

By Tiffany EricksonDeseret Morning News
Voters will have their say on private school vouchers in November. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. issued an executive order Wednesday calling for a statewide special election on the school voucher referendum for Nov. 6, saying it will allow voters to voice their opinions "as soon as logistically possible." "This will allow for the greatest participation, where voters won't be disenfranchised, and moves to settle the issue sooner rather than later, and that is in everyone's best interest across the board," said Lindsay Zizumbo, spokeswoman for Utahns for Public Schools. But while voucher opponents applaud the move, supporters say it doesn't matter when the vote is because there is already a voucher law on the books. "Whether it is in November or February, it's inconsequential — we still want to see HB174 implemented now," said Leah Barker, spokeswoman for Parents for Choice in Education and Children First Utah.

Read the entire story..http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660219309,00.html

Captain Mark

Grandma gets her Law Degree on Friday

Salt Lake City Grandma to graduate from the U of U Law School on Friday May 11th.
Carrie Lynn Peterson was born in 1957 at Ballard Hospital, in the Norwegian fishing district of Seattle. She attended Lincoln High School, the oldest school building in the Seattle School District where she met and fell in love with her sweetheart Mark Towner.

After 3 years of dating, they were married in the LDS Oakland Temple in 1976. By the age of 28, Carrie had given birth to five daughters. After the delivery of their youngest daughter, Carrie decided it was time to finish her College Degree, and in 1989 she graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Gamma Sigma in business administration from the University of Washington.

For the next 14 years Carrie devoted her life to raising her daughters, and in partnership with her husband built several successful businesses and even ran for the Republican Nomination for Congress in Utah's 2nd district in 2002.

Again after the graduation of her youngest daughter from High School, and having always wanted to continue her education, Carrie applied for and was accepted to the University Of Utah Collage Of Law.

Thirty One Years of Marriage and three years of Law School and here we are.

She is lovingly referred to by her law school professors, the Dean of the Law School and her current employer, noted attorney Peter Stirba as "Grandma", a badge she wears proudly for them and her 3 grandsons and 2 granddaughters.

Carrie L. Towner
1331 Green Street · Salt Lake City, Utah 84105
townerc@law.utah.edu · (801) 897-0151


Education

University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law, Salt Lake City, Utah
Jurist Doctor Candidate, Graduate May 11, 2007
Publications and Awards
Student Note: “Parents Kidnap Their Own Child: The Parker Jensen Story,” Journal of Law and Family Studies, 2006
Executive Editor, Journal of Law and Family Studies
College of Law Outstanding Achievement, Constitutional Law
Reva Beck Bosone Writing Competition Scholarship, 2004-2005, Women in Politics
Women’s Law Caucus, President, 2005-2006
Moot Court Competition Candidate
Academic Support Program Property Teaching Assistant

University of Washington, School of Business, Seattle, Washington
Bachelor of Arts Degree, Business Administration 1989 – GPA 3.7
cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
Beta Gamma Sigma
Legal Experience
Judicial Clerkship, Third District Court, Judge Atherton Summer 2005
Law Clerk, Utah Attorney General’s Office, Tax Division Summer 2005 to 2006
Law Clerk, Stirba and Associates, Civil and Criminal Litigation Summer 2006 to Present
Professional Experience

AWUC, Inc. Draper, Utah 2000-2005
President/Owner
President/Owner of event-planning company offering commercial contract catering to corporations, state agencies, and facility management. Responsible for successful operation of start up business achieving 250K in gross revenues in 2003. Continued business through first year of law school.

Alaska Perinatology Associates Anchorage, Alaska 1996-1999
Administrator
Directed operations and start up for the only Maternal-Fetal Medicine Clinic in the State of Alaska, with medical clinics in both of the major hospitals in Anchorage and a freestanding obstetric clinic. Achieved revenues of 3 million in the second year of operations. Developed policies and procedures for operations and marketing, achieving high quality customer service and recognition throughout Alaska. Supervised corporate build out of additional office and managed corporate relocation. Successfully directed Medicaid audit.

Alaska KIdney Center Anchorage, Alaska 1994-1996
Business Manager
Spearheaded installation of medical billing software, transforming previous paper ledgers, allowing Universal Billing (UB-92) and secondary electronic billing. Increased revenues with electronic billing system and working collections to an additional 300K within eight months of installation.

Health-Net Services of Washington & Alaska Seattle & Anchorage 1980-1994
Director of Business Development/Marketing, Training, Business Management/Co-Owner
Value-added reseller (VAR) of proprietary software (The Medical Manager®) Built team of professionals that led company growth and success to become the northwest’s leading dealer for The Medical Manager®.

Community Service
Rotary, Draper/Riverton Chair of 2004 Summer Steak Fry and Auction raising funds designated for the Draper Riverton Rotary Park for children with all abilities.

SCORE, Business Counselor Offered business counseling and advice including business ideas, developing detailed business plans, space planning, business networking, marketing, and assistance in obtaining financing.