Utah paper buried story about Republican congressional hopeful who enjoyed a hot tub with a 15 year old

Even newspapers can lie for the lord.

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn admitted as the Legislature adjourned Thursday night to a nude hot-tubbing incident with a teenage girl 25 years ago.

In a tearful statement in a packed House chambers, Garn said the mistake has "now come back to haunt me" as the woman has gone public with the story. The Layton Republican said he entered into a confidentiality agreement with the woman in 2002 and paid her $150,000.

"I was 28 years old and I foolishly went hot-tubbing with a young woman nearly half my age. Although we did not have any sexual contact, it was still clearly inappropriate — and it was my fault," Garn said in a statement.

The Deseret News learned of the allegations against Garn just before the GOP primary election in 2002. Garn sat down and spoke about the incident with Deseret News reporters and editors.

At the time, Garn and now-U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, were in a tight primary race seeking the Republican nomination for the 1st Congressional District and Garn was the Utah House majority leader, a position he has, again, achieved.

Deseret News editors decided not to run a story about the indiscretion at that time, since the GOP primary was only weeks away and the incident had occurred years before.

The editors decided to wait to see if Garn advanced in the primary before deciding whether to publish a story.

What do you think? Newspaper acting responsibly, or newspaper influencing an election by claiming they're not? Read More......

Rare Siberian tigers die at Chinese zoo

Good grief. As a kid I loved going to the zoo because it was the only way to see exotic animals in real life. Many zoos do a fine job of taking care of the animals and it continues to be a great way for many to be exposed to these magnificent animals but this story doesn't come as a complete surprise to me. When I was in Africa, I heard too many stories about lions and other rare animals that were rescued due to similar poor conditions. Besides eating meat - and a lot of it - they also need to eat bone but that doesn't always happen. Another all too common problem is zoos selling older animals to be used for "big game" hunting. Wealthy "hunters" will pay tens of thousands of dollars to shoot one of the Big 5 in the wild. If they're an especially bad shot and can't hit a relatively tame animal, they'll even drug the big cats to make it easier.

What a horrible loss.

Eleven rare Siberian tigers have died at a wildlife park in a startling case that activists say hints at unsavory practices among some zoos and animal farms in China: They are overbreeding endangered animals in the hopes of making illicit profit on their carcasses.

The deaths of the tigers occurred in the past three months at the zoo in China's frigid northeast, officials and state media said Friday. Reports said the tigers starved to death, having been fed nothing but chicken bones, while a zoo manager said unspecified diseases killed the animals.

Either way, the animals had been ill-kept and ill-fed. The Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo has struggled financially, even withholding pay from staff, said a woman in charge of corporate planning for the zoo who would only give her surname, Wang. The zoo had been up for auction for some time without any bidders, she said.

Read More......

The NYTimes profiles 'The rise and fall of Desirée Rogers.' Does anyone really care?

I'm linking to the story, but only because of its absurdity. The demise of the White House Social Secretary apparently has provided NY Times reporter Peter Baker some really cool insight into the Obama operation. Seriously? We're in two wars. The White House can't pass its top agenda item, health care reform. The economy is still sputtering. And, the big story today from one of the top political reporters for the New York Times is about Desirée Rogers. Wow. Even Rahm Emanuel is interviewed on this important subject. This paragraph reads like a parody:

Mr. Axelrod called her in for a long conversation about her interviews and photo shoots, warning her explicitly that she was flying into dangerous territory and that Washington loves to watch people become too big and ultimately crash and burn, according to people familiar with the conversation.

Yes. That's what "the Villagers" do. In the real world, no one cares.

The Times article does one thing: It puts the Salahis back in the news. Read More......

Obama donates Nobel money to charities

Good for him.

President Barack Obama plans to donate the $1.4 million from his Nobel Peace Prize to helping students, veterans' families and survivors of Haiti's earthquake, among others, drawing attention to organizations he said "do extraordinary work."

Obama is giving a total of $750,000 to six groups that help kids go to college. Fisher's House, which provides housing for families with loved ones at Veterans Administration hospitals, will receive $250,000, the White House said Thursday. And the Bush-Clinton Haiti Fund, for which two former presidents are raising money to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti, will receive $200,000.

The rest of the money will go to an array of other groups.

Read More......

FOX's Glenn Beck attacks Bruce Springsteen as 'anti-American'

He's a media whore, so it's understandable that he's following the Limbaugh/Coulter example, and trying to do things that will get attention. The problem is that a lot of people listen to Glenn Beck, and don't realize that he's a phony, that he's a poseur, that the tears are simply for show. Beck tells people that "it's time for us to wake up." Yes it is. People like Beck are dangerous. Their faux populism - not even faux, it's hate populism - are the definition of un-American and anti-American. And unfortunately, it's also the definition of today's Republican party. And in a few short months, they may be back in power thanks to the leadership of the Democratic party in the White House, the Congress and the DNC.

Read More......

Two more House Dems to vote no on Senate health care bill

I think we're seeing a number of things take place.

The President took so long to get personally involved in the HCR debate that events overtook him.

1. Democrats are worried about their re-election chances this fall in a tough environment (and probably, rightly, blame the President for at least a part of their problem in the polls).

2. Dems worry that health care reform is no longer popular with the public (whether it's true or not), again because the President didn't lead early on.

3. Dems don't feel terribly beholden to the President (in order to do him any favors) because this White House is not known for its interest in wooing friends (at least on the left).

4. Dems don't particularly fear the President either (they think there's little price in telling him "no") because the White House has proven time and again that the only way you get anything with them is by publicly taking them on.

Ultimately, the White House may have done too little too late to get health care reform passed. And in fact, everything they did do got us to where we are today. It's a rather perfect storm of a big mess. And it's the reason that Joe, Chris and I have been complaining for the past year that the White House needed to shape up. Every mistake runs the risk of feeding into something larger, that ultimately will come back to haunt you. Everything misstep that happened before got us to where we are today.

I'm simply not sure how the White House can turn things around at this point. It's going to take some bold leadership. And that's something we've not seen much of since the election. And as a result, things are pretty screwed up right now for the Democrats. Read More......

VIDEO: Senate Dems explain Reconciliation

Read More......

Paris at 26 gigapixels

This is very cool. Read More......

New round of foreclosures threatens housing market

Wash Post:

The housing market is facing swelling ranks of homeowners who are seriously delinquent but have yet to lose their homes, and this is threatening a new wave of foreclosures that could hit just as the real estate market has begun to stabilize.

About 5 million to 7 million properties are potentially eligible for foreclosure but have not yet been repossessed and put up for sale. Some economists project it could take nearly three years before all these homes have been put on the market and purchased by new owners. And the number of pending foreclosures could grow much bigger over the coming year as more distressed borrowers become delinquent and then, if they can't obtain mortgage relief, wade through the foreclosure process, which often takes more than a year to complete.

Read More......

Congressional Black Caucus frustrated that Obama doesn't give them the time of day

Same story as everyone else. There's a consistent move to keep the entire Democratic base - blacks, Latinos, women, gays, enviros, health care reform advocates, and more - at a distance. And there's no one senior in the White House who represents many of these groups.

A year ago, members of the Congressional Black Caucus openly wept at Barack Obama's inauguration. Slowly, that euphoria has given way to frustration that his administration has not done more for black America. Questions about how to elect him have been replaced by questions about how to prod him.

For many, it is the surprise of a political lifetime that they find themselves wrestling with such quandaries. Alternately puzzled and disgruntled, CBC members say key people in the Obama administration have taken them for granted, in the belief that black members of Congress have no stomach for a fight with the country's first black president.

"We concluded they were just kind of listening to us and that then they would go back [to their offices] and conclude that we would do nothing," Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), the vice chairman of the CBC, said of one dispute. "Because they had concluded there's a black president in the White House and that, to some degree, the Black Caucus, you know, was constrained in expressing its desires. After a while, we said, 'Hey, we see what's going on and it's nothing.' "

Members point to the CBC's four committee chairmanships and 18 subcommittee chairmanships as proof of its clout in the House. But several members said they have few African American contacts with substantial sway in the White House.

Read More......

Howell Raines: Why don't honest journalists take on Roger Ailes and Fox News?

From Howell Raines in the Washington Post:

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

Read More......

Lehman insolvent weeks before bust

And of course, once again, questions are being asked about the high priced accounting firm that was responsible for auditing Lehman's books. How do accounting firms balance accuracy (and the truth) with maintaining very lucrative contracts? It's an enormous conflict of interest and it has been that way for years. There's too much room for problems such as this the way the system operates today.

This new revelation also doesn't instill confidence in the system of regulation that existed at the time. The Federal Reserve again failed to properly regulate which is why those powers need to be moved outside of that group. But of course, everyone knows it was bad and everyone outside of the GOP and Wall Street want it changed. What is amazing in this report is that such a large business could crumble yet there was little sign of liability for the collapse. There's something seriously wrong with the system if there that's the case.

Lehman Brothers used accounting gimmicks and had been insolvent for weeks before it filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, but there was not extensive wrongdoing, a court-appointed examiner has found.

In a 2,200-page report made public on Thursday, examiner Anton Valukas, chairman of law firm Jenner & Block, reported the results of his more than year-long investigation into who could be blamed for the firm's collapse, which deepened the global financial crisis.

The examiner said that while some of Lehman's management's decisions "can be questioned in retrospect" and the firm's valuation procedures for its assets "may have been wanting," those responsible for the firm had used their business judgment and were largely not liable for the firm's collapse.

Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Running a little late today. I am on the West Coast for a couple days, but still on East Coast time, kinda.

The President is meeting with his national security team this morning to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's interesting how these meetings aren't just about the operation in Afghanistan. There's an acknowledgement that Pakistan is part of the problem. All the top players will be there: Clinton, Gates, Mullen, Petraeus, Panetta and many others. Timing is ticking on the ability to "save" Afghanistan after the Bush team squandered eight years.

As Chris notes below, Senator Dodd will unveil his financial reform package. Let's hope it's real reform and not reform only in the eyes of U.S. Senators and financial reform lobbyists. The nation wants reform. We're pissed. If the Democrats can't deliver on this one, I don't know what to think. They have to make the Republicans own their ties to the financiers who almost destroyed the economy. This might be a good time for Senate Democrats to actually work with progressive media...but, of course, that will entail having a progressive bill or at least a strategy to get one...

Let's get threading the news... Read More......

Dodd to announce financial reform on Monday

The GOP is of course against any reform. They are an extension of Wall Street and have been living the high life from their lobbyist money. Dodd is promising a lot though the specifics still are light. Democrats need to remember that 82% of Americans support reform. It's time to paint the GOP as part of the 18% who are fighting reform. Let the Republicans explain to the public who very kindly bailed out Wall Street why they are being obstructionists yet again. Few issues gather such broad support so there's no excuse for going wobbly on this. Another soft showing by the Democrats and they will lock down their image as weak and unable to govern with the public. NY Times:

Democrats said on Thursday that they would go it alone in an effort to pass an overhaul of financial regulation, increasing the likelihood of a bitter partisan showdown.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said he would put forward his own bill on Monday, despite the lack of a single Republican endorsement. Democrats concluded that bipartisan talks were not making enough progress and that going their own way was the only realistic hope of getting the legislation adopted in an election year, he said.

Mr. Dodd said the bill would rewrite the rules of Wall Street, end the “too big to fail” phenomenon and protect consumers from risky or abusive financial products. The Congressional calendar meant that further delay could imperil the legislation’s chances, he said.

Read More......

The Olympics did appear to change China

Their human rights record is even worse, if you can believe it. As long as they buy our debt and then send back cheap stuff for everyone to buy, few will complain. AFP:

China's human rights record worsened last year as authorities increased harassment of activists and repression in the Xinjiang region, the US State Department said Thursday.

"The government's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas," the annual report by the State Department said.

It said Beijing "increased the severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities" in Xinjiang, the western region that last year saw deadly clashes between China's Han majority and the local Uighur people.

The State Department said China "continued to repress Uighurs expressing peaceful political dissent and independent Muslim religious leaders," by trying to associate the predominantly Muslim people with terrorism.

Read More......