A Mother’s Pain
Cindy Sheehan
The only thing I ever wanted to be my entire life was a Mom. I never even
thought of having a career because I always wanted to have babies. My own
family was pretty dysfunctional when I was growing up and I just wanted to
have a family of my own to love and nurture.
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The Utah news has been filled with a variety of stories the past few days on how American citizens who are speaking out against the Iraq War are hurting the morale of our soldiers and making them more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
This is unbelievable to me. Here is what hurts morale:
I heard a story from an Iraq vet last weekend who shared that in slow times there he and his buddies would do target shooting of small animals and objects. One day they were sitting around talking about their target shooting practice. One buddy of his became quite serious and said: You know what’s even more fun? Killing kids. A short time later, that person was witnessed purposefully turning his weapon on a group of children and killing them all.
I cried when I heard that story. Outside the tent where I heard that story is a garden of children’s shoes to symbolize the lives of children lost to war.
I HAVE to speak out on this. We are teaching our children to kill children and delight in this. This is not acceptable. By speaking out and demanding that we get out of Iraq, I feel I am helping our country to get out of a horrible, horrible situation – NOT hurting the morale of our troops.
Here are links to those stories:
Deseret News:
Rocky, vet exchange views: Mayor and Legion chief find little in common
‘America isn’t bad guy’: Legion chief fears Salt Lake protest will hurt morale
Salt Lake Tribune:
Family urges war support
Mother’s e-mail to The Trib
Both of today’s major Utah papers have articles on their front pages about Cindy Sheehan coming to Salt Lake during George Bush’s visit later this month.
Salt Lake Tribune: Anti-war activist Sheehan to badger Bush in Salt Lake
Deseret News: Sheehan to join Rocky in anti-Bush rally
In today’s SL Tribune: Buttars’ crusade stirs the pot again Pending bills: Church and state, judges’ terms are the focus this time
The conservative West Jordan Republican has asked state attorneys to draft a bill defining the separation of church and state outlined by America’s and the state’s founding documents. At the same time, he is proposing legislation to require state judges to face legislators in a second confirmation hearing after their first term in office. Critics say such a law would undermine the sacrosanct division between the branches of government.
“It’s gotten ridiculous. We have Christmas wars and White Cross wars,” said the chairman of the Judicial Confirmation Committee, referring to battles between atheists and the state. “The state has become hostile to religion.”
Buttars won’t release the details of this bill.
The other bill on which Buttars is working is obviously a personal one to get rid of what he calls “activist judges”.
Buttars’ other bill to change judicial retention rules is much more public. Buttars believes the vast majority of Utah judges – “about 98 percent,” he says – are doing their jobs just fine. It’s the others, the ones who have overstepped their bounds, he wants to hold accountable. He has a growing list of a dozen cases where he says judges have ignored or redefined state law – including a divorce battle over insurance.
But has Buttars overstepped his boundaries?
Buttars acknowledges he has not reviewed whether such a law would be constitutional. Legal scholars and judges alike say Buttars is creating a problem where none exists. They say Buttars’ legislation would upset the time-honored, delicately-balanced separation between the branches of government. The U.S. and Utah Constitutions already provide frustrated lawmakers a simple remedy for errant judges – they can simply change a law if they do not like a judge’s interpretation. Disgruntled voters can dump a judge they don’t like.
Quite a few folks are interviewed in this article about Buttars’ proposed legislation, most of whom recognize the absurdity of it.
Former University of Utah Law School professor John Flynn, who specialized in the Utah Constitution, agrees. He says Buttars’ legislation would be constitutionally “suspect.” Beyond that, “it’s asinine and absurd.”
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged education, evolution, gay issues, marriage, politics, Utah
http://www.kcpw.org/article/1460
No Nutcakes Allowed
Aug 14, 2006 by Julie Rose
Organizer Hopes for Bush Protest With Different Feel
(KCPW News) When Utahns gathered last year to protest President Bush’s visit,
a prominent U.S. Senator referred to many of the demonstrators as “nutcakes.”
The comment fueled outrage from protesters – and inspired one local
businessman to envision a new kind of rally. Greg Felice hopes to give the
traditional anti-Bush protest a makeover when the President comes to Utah
later this month. He tells KCPW’s Julie Rose that he’s shooting for a
“no-nutcake” rally:
(Go to the link above to listen)
Greg Felice is helping to stage a protest during Bush’s visit on August 30th.
Details are online at http://www.utahvoices.org — remember to wear your tie.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged anti-war, immigration issues, iraq, peace, politics, Utah
Read the background information on this at: Report
Today the California GP put forth a proposal to the GPUS NC to conduct an investigation into the Utah Green Party scenario of 2004.
The proposal is filled with all sorts of erroneous facts. Example:
California states in its proposal background:
“In court the state of UTah found in favor of the GPUT group being the
continuing green party of Utah with the right to use the name.”
This is highly misleading. Anyone who has actually read the court petition knows this is false.
The court case was to have the court accept the change of officers that the GPUT had made so that they would honor the certification of
Cobb as candidate.
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It never fails. Wishy-washy politicians. Some time ago the SLCo Council and SLCo Mayor Peter Corroon nixed the building of a REAL Soccer Stadium in Sandy.
But pressure does amazing things. After a meeting with the governor, SL City Mayor Rocky Anderson, and others, Corroon caved and now the stadium is being built and the ground has even been broken with a plan for how it will be funded.
Today’s Deseret News reports that the proposed funding for Real would cut into transportation budget.
A proposed deal to fund the Real Salt Lake soccer stadium in Sandy has complicated plans to pay for commuter rail through Salt Lake County, according to House Speaker Greg Curtis.
Instead of using hotel-room tax dollars to fund the line, county leaders may have to forgo building one of four new TRAX lines in favor of building commuter rail, said Curtis, a Sandy Republican.
This is crazy. Citizens have been crying out for more TRAX lines and now a new project will supercede projects on which voters already approved?
I am not happy about this and will certainly make it known that our proposed TRAX lines need to stay in the list of projects to be implemented.
Here is a radio ad for the campaign of Desert Greens Green Party’s Kathy Dopp for Summit County Clerk.
Today’s Salt Lake Tribune has published the article $350 million: The advocates for worthy causes compete for the excess state cash: How to divvy up big surplus?
In the face of the latest record-breaking revenue surplus – the Utah Tax Commission reported a $350 million excess in collections through June – education and health care advocates hope to make up for lost ground.
But just how is this surplus going to be used?
Despite public surveys that have shown taxpayers would rather see the surplus go to education, transportation and health needs rather than get a tax cut, many lawmakers still hope to give $70 million to $115 million back. For many it’s a philosophical issue, but it doesn’t hurt that this is an election year for all House members and half the senators.
I don’t get it. The public is dictating how we want our tax dollars spend and the lawmakers aren’t listening? And who do they work for again?
“We can invest in education or we can invest in transportation, or – more importantly – we can return it to the taxpayer,” says Hughes, chairman of the Republican Conservative Caucus. Hughes and his colleagues warn that gleeful spending in times of surplus means inevitable painful cuts in times of deficit.
More importantly?
“As a legislative body, we show less discipline than our kids do at Toys R Us,” Hughes said, referring to the blessing and threat intrinsic in a large surplus. “I’m 100 percent convinced that we will be cutting those very programs to which we gave increases.”
Though Valentine does not see spending on education and transportation as growth in government, because both are meeting the needs of an expanding population, he warns, “If we grow education too fast, we’ll just have to cut in the future.”
This is absurd. While our lawmakers promote population growth and development, all which cause strains on our services and infrastructure, they are not willing to fund those things which are needed to support the growth and development?
Campbell fears lawmakers will squander the opportunity. “I find it appalling that with all the talk about tax cuts, there hasn’t been a lot of talk about investing more in public education.”
Bramble warns: “I don’t think the needs are mutually exclusive – if you don’t demand that everything goes your way. It is going to take people to step up and realize there are other priorities.”
Other priorities – like making sure the most wealthy of citizens and businesses receive tax breaks, right?
I do agree that people need to “step up” – but to demand that our money is spent on the people which is the highest priority there is. Medicaid, Education, and Transportation are all areas that need the benefit from this surplus.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 