Recently in General Category

The first breakout session I went to, after lunch, was the grassroots session.

Bill Barton

The first speaker was Mr. Bill Barton — my father — on Utah Grass Roots.

The Utah Grass Roots organization rates state legislators and the governor each legislative session based on their votes on various bills.

Lowell Nelson

Lowell Nelson, from the Campaign For Liberty was the second speaker in the breakout session and, following up on Bill Barton’s presentation, said, “A recorded vote on a controversial issue is the most sincere political expression.”

Nelson pointed out some of the differences between a Statesman and a Politician and then discussed ways activist organizations can make a difference: by dealing “political pleasure” and “political pain.”

For an elected official, political pain is defined as the following:

• Acute pain - Losing an election
• Sub-acute - Being challenged in an election
• Chronic pain - Angry voters, angry delegate

During the legislative season, activists can inflict political pain by making personal visits, sending postcards or e-mail. etc. One important point is to be specific and direct. Politics is a number game. 100 postcards is more impact than one hand-written letter.

Nelson discussed the value of getting involved at the party level as a delegate, precinct officer, or party officer, and having a hand in state party constitution.

Nelson recommended reading and learning Robert’s Rules of Order and state bylaws.

Finally, Nelson left us with this gem: “Silence is consent.”

Independent Caucus

The final presentation of this breakout was by the Independence Caucus. This organization’s claim to fame was ousting former Utah congressman Chris Cannon in the 2008 primary and ushering in wildly-popular Jason Chaffetz to represent Utah.

The presentation given at this meeting discussed how the Independence Caucus has gone national, helping candidates in both major parties strategically win races. It hasn’t all been successes, but most have been.

This last Saturday was 28 August, 8/28, the day of Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor event in Washington D.C.

I didn’t attend the event in person, but I did donate some money to the Special Operations Warriors Foundation which was the beneficiary of the event. It’s not the same as actually sacrificing to be there, but I hope it’s something.

The rally was carried live on C-SPAN Saturday morning, so I recorded it on my DVR and watched it later. The actual rally was about three and a half hours long.

True to Glenn’s word, the rally was not political. Sure, there were a couple comments made during the rally that could have been perceived as political, but by and large, it was not political. Instead, it was religious, spiritual, and pious. It was also patriotic and reverent. There was lots of tribute during the first hour or so to those who serve, and who have served, in the branches of the U.S. military. That portion of the program could have been held in late May as part of a Memorial Day program.

If you’ve listened or watched Glenn Beck much over the last, say, three or four years, you may have caught him talking to, or about, Jon Huntsman Sr., a prominent businessman from Salt Lake City, Utah. I remember hearing about the Huntsmans when I was growing up and my dad was in the state legislature. I also remember the Christmas cards we’d get from the Huntsman family. There was always a picture of a HUGE family that always seemed so much bigger than it was the year before.

To say Glenn Beck admires Jon Huntsman would be a terrible understatement. I would say Glenn is in awe of Jon’s philanthropic work, his integrity, and his character. So, it was no surprise that Huntsman received the first Badge of Merit for Charity at the Restoring Honor rally. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend to receive the award (He was attending the marriage of one of his grandchildren- something he probably does a couple times a week these days… Remember the family photo? Yeah.)

The last half of the rally was about turning to God.

It’s been quite a journey for those of us who have followed Glenn Beck over the years. Since 2007 and especially since the 2008 election, Glenn has been spending most of his time presenting to his listeners, viewers, and readers the threats of Progressive, Marxist, and socialist movements to the republic our Founding Fathers designed.

He has demonstrated. over and over, how we have allowed our country to be taken over by progressives, from both major parties, He also introduced a long lost revolutionary idea to the masses, that voting for a candidate because they have an “R” or a “D” next to their name was stupid; We should be voting the candidates that share our values and principles, that have character and integrity.

Is it any surprise we have seen candidates like Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd congressional district come out of nowhere and make a spectacular showing in a race. People are waking up and looking at elected officials in a way they haven’t in a long, long time.

Glenn’s also reminded us and taught us how religion played such an important role in the early days of this country. Our founders never meant for our government to be free of all religious influence.

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the federal government and the states shall not ESTABLISH any official state religion or interfere with the free practice of religious worship. Somehow, over the years, the Progressives and other well-meaning interpreters of the Constitution, have misconstrued the intent of this law to mean that religious observance has no place in the public sphere. But, in fact, our founders insisted, on several occasions, that our public officials, and the people at large, should be a “moral and religious people” in order for the American experiment to survive.

The first sessions of congress after the new federal government was instituted under the U.S. Constitution included hours of prayer and bible study. These men elected to represent their constituents believed the best way they could possibly serve was to be sure they were in prayer with God.

Benjamin Franklin believed it was only through God and through the various representatives to the Constitutional Congress humbling themselves and turning their hearts to God that agreements could be made to bring about the U.S. Constitution.

So, in the end, Glenn was surrounded by 240 religious leaders, each pledging that their organizations would be teaching their congregations it is time to turn to God, to rally behind God, and to recognize the importance of equal justice and individual liberty.

By doing this, Glenn has reinstituted the “black-robed regiment” to fight for the soul of the country. Pretty heavy stuff.

Now, I understand many people these days are bound to feel uncomfortable about what Glenn Beck is doing. Even if you do not believe in God or are not that religious, this is a good thing. Glenn made it very clear on his radio show today that when he approached these religious leaders about including them in his rally that he wasn’t creating a political force like the Christian Coalition or the Moral Majority. He told them, if this is political, it won’t last. It seems like most of them agreed with him.

I listened to Glenn’s radio program today. I don’t usually have time to do that, but today I had some driving to do and had time to listen. I wasn’t sure what to expect the first day back on the air after the rally. There was some time spent talking about the number of people that came and re-iterating some of the messages that were delivered, but what really struck me… What really stood out were the callers that called into Glenn’s show today. Did they call and say, “Oh man, Glenn, you were the most awesome guy on Saturday!?” Did they call and tell him he was right, that they felt in their heart he did the right thing? No, not exactly.

Most of the callers that had been to the rally called to tell stories of exceptional, extraordinary experiences they had while attending the rally. One caller, a disabled black woman from the northeast, spoke about how she and her daughter decided to rent an electric scooter so she could be mobile enough to attend the rally. When they had difficulty using the subway and navigating through the crowds going to and from the rally, a man and his family befriended them and treated them as one of his own family and helped them for the entire event.

Another caller spoke of her husband losing his wallet containing the money they had to live on while they were visiting Washington D.C. A man nearby heard their distress and handed over four $100 bills.

Another woman spoke of pushing a stroller and pulling a cooler through the National Mall to meet up with her husband who was saving them a spot to listen to/watch the rally. She said the crowd was more than helpful in helping her and her children move through the sea of people to her husband, even cheering when they finally made it.

These stories of people helping people are incredibly uplifting and, in a way, demonstrate exactly what the rally was about.

If you want to read a political message into it all, it’s probably this: Looking to government for guidance out of darkness is hopeless. The best path out of the mess our country is in right now is for us to serve each other; Find ways to help one another. The best place to start is in supporting our churches.

I caught the tail-end of Glenn Beck’s radio program today and was impressed to write about it. Here is my transcript:

May I read this to you?

“What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap… between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with… And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to have a civilian defense force, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with [a leader], their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”

That is from a chapter “Then It Was Too Late” from the book “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45” ( See here ).

That could have been written today!

That doesn’t mean we are headed for that… Let me rephrase that. Let me be more clear.

It doesn’t mean that this president or this congress will take us there, but it does mean that the more power we give this government, the more we allow them to become more and more remote to us, indifferent to us; The more power we give them to decide our fate and decide who should be listened to and who shouldn’t be, who should live and who should die, who is politically correct and who is not, who should succeed and who should fail; The more we let them decide those things… It may not be this president. It may not be this congress. But will be in our future because all we have to do is elect the wrong person… once… and they have all the structure they need. Let’s not finish the job Germany started in 1898.

We’re headed down the same pathways and both parties have been involved.

I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who think Glenn is a “nutjob,” a “kook,” and a “loon.” Or… perhaps the most amusing characterization is that he’s a shill for the Republican party and an apologist for George W. Bush.

It’s obvious to me that these people have never really listened to the man.

“… with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens—a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits or industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

— Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, 1801

If you ran a business and the walls figuratively came crashing down around you like they have in the United States economy the last few months, what would you do?

You could just call it quits and walk away.

You could make calls into every person you know and beg them for help and support.

There are many directions you could go, but there is one thing I can't imagine anyone would do: try to go on living like nothing has happened.

The problems in our financial markets and talk within the ranks of legislative and executive leadership of propping up failed institutions have brought to light another very glaring miscalculation: The U.S. government is already in a terrible amount of debt. These are all signs of the seriousness of the situation we are in. These signs suggest a calculated, careful, well thought-out response.

More importantly, these signs demand that we, as a people, forget political loyalties, forget the frivolity of our lifestyles, forget luxury and conveniences, and forget about the thoughts of others.

We must concentrate on one thing: Getting through this together in one piece. That means making serious sacrifices and planning for the future.

Why, during all that is going on, do I see that the U.S. Mint has announced a forthcoming set of commemorative pennies to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200^th birthday?

It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but this is a perfect example of how government is just going on doing what it has always done when it should be doing much, much less.

The U.S. Mint operations should probably scale back to one standard set of coin and paper currency. The U.S. Postal Service could probably minimize postal options. The U.S. Department of Transportation could make a quick decision of which construction projects currently underway can be suspended immediately, which projects can be brought to a point at which they can be suspended, and how costs can be minimized on other projects.

Everything our government does needs to be assessed and evaluated for fat that can be trimmed so that only essential services are provided. programs will need to be scrapped, shut down, or scaled back. To help those in need who have traditionally relied on government services or assistance, groups outside the government will need to step forward and help.

The failed businesses have failed. Propping them up will cost more money. Figuring out why they failed will cost more money. Reorganizing them, placing them in a conservatorship will all cost more money. Money... money we don't have and can't afford to keep borrowing.

Can we set an example, as a country, for what should be done?

I hope so.

I’ve got to run up to the state capitol building in a few minutes to do a followup visit with a Guru Labs client there. I thought I’d jot a few things before I take off.

Election elation

I am very happy with how things have turned out in the national presidential race. I’m happy with this result for several reasons. First of all, George W. Bush is a better leader than John Kerry. To be honest, I’m not sure what Kerry is good for. Maybe he and John Edwards can become professional scam artists or something.

Secondly, the country didn’t cave under pressure from Usama Bin Laden. The latest videotape from UBL on Friday made threats against people living in states that voted for Bush — “red states.” Not only did Bush take all the states he took in 2000, but a handful of others as well.

So, is Al Qaida going to come nuke my hometown? I doubt it. They’ve taken quite a beating. If they do manage to get through and do something on our soil, it will be a shortlived venture.

So... bring it on. We can take it.

Voter turnout was amazing.

How about ole Michael Moore? In his last online pre-election blathering, he stood virtually side-by-side with Usama Bin Laden and called Bush a failure. He proclaimed Kerry the winner by a landslide. To republicans and conservatives he wrote:

Yesterday’s election would show a different kind of knowledge on the part of conservatives and republicans — the knowledge that Michael Moore is full of SH*T!

Come on, stupid-ass. You can’t win by going around the country giving people underwear and ramen noodles. You do it by reminding people why this country is the greatest country on Earth and what they can do to contribute to its greatness. You do it by inspiring people to be their best, not to encourage them to participate in low-spirited, malicious, possibly illegal attacks on people they don’t agree with or understand.

What now?

More people need to understand why Bush’s economic policies are working and why they will work in the long-term. People need to understand and believe in the direction we are going in the middle east. We need to propogate the release of stories of the good stuff we’re doing there. We need the people of Iraq to be our heroes because they are reliving the early days of our democracy.

Okay. Carry on.

I am so tired.

I will be so happy when this election is over. My only hope is that when it’s over, we’re not getting ready to get used to saying “President Kerry.”

I’ve recently had many a good conversation with some friends with whom I hadn’t talked politics with. I was surprised to find out they’re not Bush fans. I feel I haven’t done enough to get the message out!

Look, if you’re reading this (and it’s not too late) and you’re thinking of voting for John Kerry, spare me a moment.

John Kerry is for bigger government. He’s a socialist. He’s the single most liberal senator in the United States Senate. He’s anti-defense having voted against numerous defense bills. He’s sponsored very few bills during his time in the senate, but one bill he did sponsor was a huge cut in intelligence spending right after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

Kerry yearns for a day when terrorists are just a nuisance - and not an enemy. He’d rather prosecute them in court of law than a battlefield.

The democratic party is saying Bush’s tax cuts only favored the rich. That’s not true. They were flat across the board! The rich people got bigger tax cuts because they pay more taxes. It’s like this... if you have a big watermelon and someone comes along and chops of 15% of your watermelon, they get more watermelon than if they cut off someone’s watermelon that is one tenth the size of yours.

John Kerry says he wants to raise taxes on the rich. Why? What have the rich people done? Why should they be punished. Rich people are THE REASON this country is strong economically. Rich people invested their money and got richer.

If it’s the government’s policy to tax the rich unfairly, then rich people won’t have money to invest. They won’t have money to pay employees at the companies they own. They won’t have money to spend on cars, houses, etc. that less-rich people build, repair, and sell. If rich people have less disposable and investible income, EVERYONE SUFFERS!

John Kerry and John Edwards are both against tort reform. John Edwards made himself rich suing doctors, insurance companies, and governments in malpractice and injury lawsuits that paid millions in damages. Kerry is not going to support legislation to impose limits on these kinds of lawsuits. Under Kerry, the health care costs keep going up and health care gets worse as malpractice insurance rates continue to climb.

John Kerry wants the government to ease restrictions on embryonic stem cell research funded by federal dollars. If John Kerry is elected, he won’t pay careful consideration to the ethical issues around the harvesting of human embryos in the name of pop-science. He says he’s a Catholic, but he can’t let his political conscience be affected by his faith.

In other words, he’s a fraud!

Say what you want about George Bush, but he’s an honest man who is only looking out for what is best for you and me.

As I was watching and listening to the vice presidential debate this week, I thought about something that I don’t feel the media, talk radio, or the bloggers have discussed. I don’t know if my thought is original... it’s probably just a reiteration of something others have said in a different way.

The liberals and anti-Bush people have been using the reports that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq as proof of their claims that the Bush administration misled the American public. The Bush defense has been, “Well, we know we haven’t found any WMD, but it was still a good thing to go into Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a bad person.”

Anyway, my epiphany was this: After 9/11, the immediate priority of the government was securing the country against another 9/11. A lot of speculation was done about what methods and tools the next terrorist attack would employ. It didn’t help we had the anthrax scare along the east coast soon after 9/11.

I can imagine a number of security analysts, intelligence workers, and government representatives meeting several times to talk about the possibilities of future terror. I can imagine someone in these meetings saying, “Al Qaida really needs only two things to execute another attack on our country: materials and money.

Materials and money. Intelligence indicated Iraq had both and had the will to give both to terrorists willing to damage America or American interests. After using this intelligence to warrant invading Iraq, the oil for food scandal uncovered billions of dollars Hussein was stockpiling for future military (i.e. terror) purposes. No WMD, but plenty of plans and funds to make it happen.

I don’t care how you look at it, Iraq was a threat and neutralizing that threat was a good thing. We are doing great things in that country and should continue to foster development of a stable democracy there.

I sent this message to a couple of my friends this morning and thought it might be enjoyed by the couple of people who might read the Fozzolog.

Chadd wrote back:

Okay... this is a Fozzolog entry I wrote three days ago, but I’ve been polishing it up for a while now.

Most of the time, I can understand why The Drudge Report features news stories on their news site. Occasionally, however, they include something that really puzzles me. Why, I ask, do they think this merits the attention of the information-addicted public craving for pointers to the next controversy?

This afternoon, after running around the Salt Lake valley visiting clients, I sat down to get my much-delayed dose of Drudge and in the middle of stories about hurricanes, presidential races, earthquakes was this headline: Scaife paper touts anal sex tips....

Curious, I tried to follow the link and I got a username and password prompt. None of the other stories written by Pittsburgh Live “Sex In The Afternoon” columnist Melissa Meinzer are password-protected—q ust this one. Just this one article that is linked from The Drudge Report. Something smells a bit funny here.

“So, what’s the controversy?” I asked myself.

I found the story linked by Google News and discover the headline is The back-door sport and the lead paragraph is the question portion of a typical ask-a-columnist story: “I'd like to try anal sex with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid if I bring it up, she'll think I'm (gay). Plus, I don't want to hurt her.”

Ms. Meinzer addresses this question that undoubtably every sex columnist in the country gets at least once a month. In fact, a quick search of such stuff on Google News shows that many sex columnists address this topic.

Why does someone at The Drudge Report find this so controversial?

Maybe it’s this Scaife issue, I wondered. Who is Scaife?

CNN has one answer. According to CNN, Richard Scaife is an evil rich republican who owns magazines and newspapers. Okay, they didn’t call him “evil” but they didn’t have anything nice to say about him.

Alright, so this makes a little more sense. A paper owned by a well-to-do conservative has a sex column (Some might think this by itself is a controversy) in which the columnist addresses a question from a man who wants sex tips on... unconventional practices.

I still don’t understand why this is “news” to The Drudge Report.

The underlying message I’m getting here is that a newspaper that is owned, managed, or controlled by someone claiming to be a conservative shoudln’t run stories that conservative people would find offensive, explicit, or racy.

That just seems hypocritical to me. Just about every political pundit on the right (Drudge included) complains about how liberal-biased the media elite are; They only cover the liberal perspective of stories; They spin the news in self-serving ways to promote liberalism.

A column in New York’s Village Voice on unconventional sexual activity would be considered the norm — I know because I’ve read some of Tristan Taormino’s columns in the Voice. I doubt, however, a story in the Village Voice about Christian-based community-outreach programs would attract such controversy or Drudge Report coverage as Meinzer’s sex column.

My point is that despite the fact the Pittsburgh newspaper Michelle Meinzer works for is owned by a outspoken conservative, the newspaper might still be beholden to the basic fundamental tenets of journalism: non-bias.

I don’t know anything about the management or policies of the publication Meinzer works for. I’m just pointing out that this “controversy” suggests the whiners on the hard right may be as much at fault as any liberal editorial journalist for propogating the belief that liberal-owned media can only serve liberal masters and conservative-owned media can only serve conservative masters.

I don’t like it. Drudge’s link to this story seems almost to be saying to Pittsburgh Live, “Hey! You’re a conservative publication. You can’t be doing that. Get back in line!”

Regardless of who owns or manages operations of a media outlet, the highest emphasis should always be on vetting everything and making sure there is an overall non-bias in reporting, in content, etc. IMO, anyway.