SALT LAKE CITY News:

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Mitt Romney - Political - Corporation - Marketing - History - Gay-Rights - Pro-Choice - Stem Cell - Science - Health - Law - Religious - Salt Lake City - Utah - Massachusetts - New Hampshire - US - Torture - Prison - Guantanamo Bay - Cuba - 2008 Election - "Romney should not be the next president." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt] Romney's main business experience is as a management consultant, a field in which smart, fast-moving specialists often advise corporations on how to reinvent themselves. His memoir is called Turnaround - the story of his successful rescue of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City [Utah] - but the most stunning turnaround he has engineered is his own political career." ... "If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you're left to wonder if there's anything at all at his core." ... "As a candidate for the U.S. [United States] Senate in 1994, he boasted that he would be a stronger advocate of gay rights than his opponent, [Massachusetts Democratic Senator] Ted Kennedy. These days, he makes a point of his opposition to gay marriage and adoption." ... "There was a time that he said he wanted to make contraception more available - and a time that he vetoed a bill to sell it over-the-counter." ... "The old Romney assured voters he was pro-choice on abortion. "You will not see me wavering on that," he said in 1994, and he cited the tragedy of a relative's botched illegal abortion as the reason to keep abortions safe and legal. These days, he describes himself as pro-life." ... "There was a time that he supported stem-cell research and cited his own wife's multiple sclerosis in explaining his thinking; such research, he reasoned, could help families like his. These days, he largely opposes it. As a candidate for governor, Romney dismissed an anti-tax pledge as a gimmick. In this race, he was the first to sign." ... "In the 2008 campaign for president, there are numerous issues on which Romney has no record, and so voters must take him at his word. On these issues, those words are often chilling. While other candidates of both parties speak of restoring America's moral leadership in the world, Romney has said he'd like to "double" the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay [Cuba], where inmates have been held for years without formal charge or access to the courts. He dodges the issue of torture - unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won't do it." ... "When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it." ... "Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no." -ConcordMonitor.com 

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Mitt Romney - Religion - 2008 Election - South Carolina - Salt Lake City - Utah - North Carolina - Virginia - History - "Romney Shouldn't Equate Mormons, Christians, Evangelicals Say." ... "As [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Mitt Romney scours the South for endorsements from evangelical leaders, he is getting some unusual advice on how to explain his Mormon faith: Don't try to be one of us." ... "``I told him, you cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, `I am a Christian just like you,''' said [Republican] Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, which is scheduled to hold the first primary among the Southern states. ``If he does that, every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences.''" ... "This advice, which reflects the views of many Southern Baptists and other evangelicals, makes Romney's co-religionists bristle. ``The fact that we are Christians is non-negotiable,'' said Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City[Utah]-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." ... "Yet for [evangelical] conference-goers such as Noah Crowe, a Southern Baptist pastor from Robbinsville, North Carolina, there's nothing Romney can do to overcome their distrust of Mormonism. ``His faith is not the faith I believe in, teach and preach,'' said Crowe, who added that he studied Mormonism at his Bible college in a course called ``Cults and False Religions.''" ... "Yet for conference-goers such as Noah Crowe, a Southern Baptist pastor from Robbinsville, North Carolina, there's nothing Romney can do to overcome their distrust of Mormonism. ``His faith is not the faith I believe in, teach and preach,'' said Crowe, who added that he studied Mormonism at his Bible college in a course called ``Cults and False Religions.''" ... "For evangelicals, many of whom believe the Bible is the literal word of God, the Mormons' founding text, the ``Book of Mormon,'' makes it impossible for them to be considered Christians, according to Fred Smith, associate professor of Theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. " -By Hans Nichols and Christopher Stern -Bloomberg 

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Lisa Murkowski - Ted Stevens - Money - Politics - Alaska - Salt Lake City - Utah - "Senator's land deal scrutinized." ... "[Alaska Republican Senator] U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is drawing criticism this week over Kenai River property she bought late last year from real estate developer and political supporter Bob Penney." ... "The national political Web log tpmmuckraker.com raised the issue Monday when it quoted government watchdogs questioning whether the senator should do business with Penney, who has also been a business partner with [Alaska Republican Senator] Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska." ... "In 1998, Stevens invested $15,000 with Penney and other partners to develop a subdivision outside Salt Lake City [Utah]. Stevens later sold his interest in the property for $150,000, according to press accounts at the time." -By Brandon Loomis -ADN.com 

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- US - Iraq - Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Politics - Noteworthy - Religion - Human Rights - Law - History - Salt Lake City - Utah - Ross C. Anderson

Ross C. Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah
Challenging the Culture of Obedience.
 

"A patriot is a person who loves his or her country. Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation--and for our world?

And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?

Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his Administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating President.

That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience--a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid--afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it), afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane regime that does not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.

In response to those who believe we should blindly support this disastrous President, his Administration, and the complacent, complicit Congress, listen to the words of Theodore Roosevelt, a great President and a Republican, who said: The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

" -By Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson, mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah speech, Challenging the Culture of Obedience. - Ross C. Anderson

-  - TX - Salt Lake City - Utah -  - "Bush Tells Veterans That Iraq Policy Will Make U.S. Safer." ... "President Bush defended his policy in Iraq today, a crucial moment for that emerging country, telling a gathering of veterans in Utah that the struggle to build a new nation amounts to "the first war of the 21st century."" ... "The president left his ranch in Crawford, Tex. [Texas], to fly to Salt Lake City [Utah], where he told an audience from the Veterans of Foreign Wars that the sacrifices of Americans in Iraq would be remembered just as the heroism shown in World War II and Korea was commemorated." ... "Oddly, Mr. Bush faced war protests in Utah, where he took 71 percent of the vote in his 2004 re-election race, making it the reddest of Republican-red states. But Salt Lake's mayor, Ross C. Anderson, a Democrat, organized a protest in a park near the V.F.W. convention, calling on people who oppose Mr. Bush's Iraq and environmental policies to gather around him." -By David Stout -NYTimes 

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