Out of Context

The Washington Times finally gets around to a story we gave you last October about how several Republicans, including Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, voted against -- and strongly bashed -- the stimulus act but privately asked departments and agencies for cash for their own states.

The Times chimes in today:

On Feb. 13, 2009, Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, issued a statement criticizing the stimulus — but two days earlier, he privately forwarded to Mr. Vilsack a list of projects seeking stimulus money.

"I believe the addition of federal funds to these projects would maximize the stimulative effect of these projects on the local economy," he wrote.

Mr. Bennett is up for re-election and facing several Republican challengers. Last month, the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth announced that it was opposing his nomination for a fourth term.

"It is absurd to require Utah taxpayers to foot their portion of the bill associated with stimulus spending and then ask them to forgo competing for those funds without the input of their congressional representatives," said Bennett spokeswoman Tara Hendershott DiJulio.

Our story, from Oct. 3, showed that Bennett forwarded dozens of letters asking for cash while also arguing, “Unfortunately, the only thing this bill will stimulate is the national debt."

None of the projects Bennett highlighted appeared at the time to be getting any recovery act funding.

DC still shut down. Bennett starring in de-motivational posters. And monkeys. Yes monkeys.

Morning everyone. Pending snowstorm keeps D.C. shut down today and likely the rest of the week. State Rep. John Dougall likes this.

Mike Lee/Tim Bridgewater/Cherilyn Eagar’s new wallpaper: Apparently anti-Sen. Bob Bennett folks have way too much time on their hands.

Cheers to The Trib’s Gehrke for this amazing sentence: Utah Administrative Rule R657-3-24(1)(p) prohibits the importation and possession of lemurs, aye ayes, bush babies, Capuchin-like monkeys, marmosets, tamarins, baboons, macaques, gorillas, orangutans, chimps and other primates.

Tele-hand? Sarah Palin pokes fun at Obama’s Teleprompterwhile while apparently using middle-school-style crib notes.

A Washington Times’ columnist takes it to Sen. Orrin Hatch over busting the BCS:

More news: The Tribune fronts a story on legislation that would relax the requirements for child safety seats and a piece on the  back and forth over EnergySolutions’ ability to take depleted uranium.

And Sen. Chris Buttars now says he doesn’t want to get rid of the 12th grade, just make it optional so students can graduate early.

Bill exempting in-state weapons from any federal regulations continues to speed through the Legislature. (Paper edition headline: “Gun bill going great guns.”)

Senate panel advances three ethics measures while a citizen files an election complaint against Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

Over at the Deseret News, Bernick digs up Sen. Howard Stephenson’s idea of allowing the Legislature to rate the job performance of the state’s U.S. senators. Here’s guessing neither Bennett nor Hatch would see an A+.

Shot: Rep. Jason Chaffetz visits the state Legislature, rails against uncontrolled federal spending.

Chaser: Utah House tweaks law to accept $20 million in federal money for unemployment benefits.

-- Thomas Burr

He may well be the next Dr. Ruth or Dr. Drew. It’s Dr. Decker, Rod Decker, dispensing Bibles full of wisdom on, of all topics, Utah teenage sex.

In a column in The Deseret News on Sunday, Decker says Utah doesn’t need to change its sex education policies, because fewer Utah teens are getting pregnant. Read it here.

But wait, you might ask: Isn’t Rod Decker a veteran journalist, respected among the public and peers? Is he really qualified to be spouting off on sex education? And is it really appropriate for a journalist who covers the Legislature to shed his objectivity like this?

To which I might respond: Stop asking so many questions.

First, reporters offering opinion on the Deseret News opinion page is old hat.

Second, think how awesome it would be to work Rod into the state’s sex education curriculum. What could be better than having a kid sitting in class, a teacher pops in a video and POW, there’s Rod hollering his way through a clinical lesson on the birds n’ bees?

“ … and THAT! is how you have SEXUAL INTERCOURSE! Rod Decker, KUTV news.” 

They’d never do it again.

Glad to see that Hughes and Hickman have patched things up.

(Photo from Utah House Majority)

You might have caught that the amorphous conservative think tank, The Sutherland Institute, is pushing the Legislature to revise state law to make it easier for people who have signed an initiative petition to pull their signatures off the petition. Read their news release here.

It didn't take long for Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, to scoop up the banner and run with it.  You can read The Trib story about it here.

There's a little history to this one. In 2002, a group of residents circulated an initiative petition that sought to stick it to Envirocare by raising the tax levied on the radioactive waste disposal site. Stephenson didn't like that proposal either, and complained -- through his daytime employer, the business-backed Utah Taxpayer Association -- that people could be duped into signing the petition.

The initiative eventually made it onto the ballot, but not before the Utah Supreme Court weighed in on the state's initiative law.

And, not before the company sent representatives to people's homes with the forms needed to remove the names from the petition and made the case to pull their names off the list. They targeted the small counties where a handful of signatures makes a difference, and got thousands of people to agree to have their names removed.

Flash forward about a hundred months, and the Legislature, and specifically Stephenson, is again riled up about another initiative, this time imposing rigorous ethics rules on the Legislature. And Sutherland and Stephenson are proposing legislation that would make it easier to pull a signature off a petition.

Maybe the backers of the ethics drive have wised up and aren't going to turn in their signatures early this time. Or maybe it's going to be deja vu all over again.

-- Robert Gehrke

** Edited to correct my revisionist history. The initiative DID make it onto the ballot and was voted down **