UTAH VS OBAMACARE

Nineteen states have now joined (with more joining on every day) Utah  in suing the federal government on the grounds the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. (Click here for a .pdf copy of the complaint.)

Never before in the history of our nation has the federal government required every U.S. citizen to buy a product or service or pay a stiff penalty! The federal government only has such power over our lives that is expressly granted in the Constitution. Otherwise all power and authority is left to the states. An individuals decisions as to what health care procedure to undergo, who will perform it and how they will pay for it IS NOT interstate commerce "at its core," and therefore the Obama administration cannot mandate those choices under an expansion of the Commerce Clause Power.

Our nation is based on the Rule of Law and the process of how government effects our lives matters. It matters not how laudable the goal or how bad Congress and the President want to do something. They have to do it lawfully and constitutionally.

Federal District Court Judge Vinson has set our case for a scheduling conference on April 14th in Tallahassee Florida. We urge all citizens to ask their state attorneys general to join with us in protecting the legal rights of their states and citizens against this unprecedented federal power grab and radical usurpation of individual and states rights.

Read a great Wall Street Journal editorial editorial "ObamaCare and the Constitution, If Congress can force you to buy insurance, Article I limits on federal power are a dead letter" at http://bit.ly/c7C1bS.

It concludes, "the AGs should not be deterred, because the truth is that ObamaCare breaks new constitutional ground. Neither the House nor Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings on the law's constitutionality, and we are not aware of any Justice Department opinion on the matter. Judges have an obligation not to be so cavalier in dismissing claims on behalf of political liberty. Under the Constitution, American courts don't give advisory opinions. They rule on specific cases, and the states have a good one to make.

Democrats may have been able to trample the rules of the Senate to pass their unpopular bill on a narrow partisan vote, but they shouldn't be able to trample the Constitution as well."

SALT LAKE CITY WEEKLY TABLOID

Q. “What is the difference between the Salt Lake City Weekly and your run-of-the-mill Supermarket Tabloid?”

A. “You have to pay for the Supermarket Tabloid.”


Writer Ed Grabianowski stated, “In a highly regarded newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post, the facts in a news story are meticulously checked and confirmed with multiple sources (when everything goes as it should). Editors and writers conform to journalistic standards and work hard to maintain an overall sense of objectivity. Tabloids don't seem to follow any of these rules.”

For years, Utah’s “Alternative” weekly, has masqueraded as a “newspaper.” In fact, its stories are nothing more than “yellow journalism” of the common supermarket variety. Pulitzer Prize winner Frank Luther Mott could have been speaking of the City Weekly when he defined “yellow journalism” as using misleading headlines in huge print, lavish use of imaginary drawings and dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.

Tabloids also use their ink to falsely attack those who call them what they are. Ever since I asked the above question on a televised debate on KUED with my former opponent for AG, City Weekly founder and senior editor, John Saltas, and his tabloid have been on a vendetta using every opportunity to defame and slander me with the yellowest of journalism. A few cases in point:

The cover of last week’s edition of the City Weekly, pictured here, is for a story entitled “2010 Legislative Wrap-up” and prominently features me presumably as a Nazi. (Apparently Saltas and editor Jerre Wroble don’t know the difference between Nazism and Communism.) The cover is from a famous Socialist worker poster. But why include me on the cover at all? I am not a lawmaker and nothing in the “wrap-up” criticizes my involvement in the session. What I am is the Weakly’s favorite whipping boy in that I dare call them what they are, enforce the rule of law and stand for everything good and decent about our community to which they proudly proclaim they are the “alternative.”

The City Weekly has run a series of stories alleging ethical concerns about me and the Attorney General’s Office. The weekly tabloid should dust off a copy of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and take a look at its own practices before throwing stones. Two of the main standards in the SPJ Code are “Seek truth and report it” and “Be Accountable.” Their March 16 story “The Company You Keep” by Eric Peterson fails on both counts. In that story Peterson insinuates that I have meddled in the way administrative citations were handled against Mentoring of America. What the story did not include was this information given to Peterson on March 9, 2009: “The decision on how to resolve proceedings against Mentoring of America was made by the Division of Consumer Protection, not the Attorney General’s Office.” This information was provided to Peterson by the Utah Attorney General’s Office and confirmed to him by the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. It was also included in City Weekly’s latest records request. No new evidence is provided that I interfered in any decision regarding Mentoring of America because it simply did not happen. But that fact would leave Peterson without his salacious story.

The story then suggests that attorneys within my office were “questioning” my acceptance of campaign donations. Assistant Attorney General Blaine Ferguson brought the issue up in an e-mail because City Weekly continued to question the donations. Blaine Ferguson knows personally that I have never put any pressure on anyone to give favors to a donor. In fact my record shows that this office has sued and convicted donors, fellow party members, friends and relatives.

The second e-mail in question was from Chief Deputy Attorney General Kirk Torgensen about vetting potential campaign contributors. Torgensen mistakenly assumed that no vetting took place on a potential donor because of Peterson’s reporting. However, the e-mail does not reflect that Torgensen learned later that the vetting was done. This information was shared with Editor Jerre Wroble but was not included in the story.

City Weekly also reported that Tim Lawson worked for my campaign even though the newspaper was told Lawson was not a campaign staff member. Lawson was mistakenly listed as staff on an inauguration guest list because the list was needed in one day. I corrected my mistake. City Weekly did not.

Finally, most of the records obtained by City Weekly were not posted on the newspaper website but they include an e-mail to City Weekly’s publisher containing a long list of errors and outright falsehoods in Eric Peterson’s previous stories. Click here to read a copy of that email. A longer list of blunders could be made based on Peterson’s subsequent story. However, City Weekly has never published any corrections to any of Peterson’s fairy tales.

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists should “Admit mistakes and correct them properly.” Scandalmonger Eric Peterson and The City Weekly tabloid continually show a complete disregard for truth, fairness or accountability.

Salt Lake City Enquirer Weekly stories remind me of a question Abraham Lincoln once asked a fibber like Eric Peterson,

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?

“Five,” replied the ink slinger confidently.

“Four,” explained Lincoln. “Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

The Line in the Sand for States Rights

Utah Meth Cops Project

ParentsEmpowered.org Featured on Good Things Utah

UP TO JERUSALEM

Up to Jerusalem - “L’shana ha’ba-ah b’Yerushalayim”[1]

“Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.” Ezra 1:3

Driving East we passed old olive trees and new cotton fields, climbing 1400 feet into the Judean Hills, from the “new” city of Tel Aviv, backward in time thousands of years to Jerusalem. Ascending the road marched by Maccabees, Romans, Crusaders, Arabs and British, we passed Latrun fortress and the damaged hulks of “armored” vehicles (seen here) destroyed during the ’48 War of Israeli Independence, now sporting a new coat of paint and arranged in a monument to those brave Israeli's who fought and perished trying to save the Jews trapped in the Old City. Inspiration to face overwhelming odds and never give up, when it means preserving life and freedoms.

This road was critical to the survival of the new Jewish nation and the scene of intense fighting as Arab armies fired down from both sides of the high hills flanking the roadway. After the Arabs successfully closed this vital link to the Jews besieged in Jerusalem, the Israeli’s under the command of American Micky Marcus [3] (pictured here) built the famous “Burma Road” at night, around the blockade, bringing relief to Jerusalem on June 9th - just days before the UN negotiated cease-fire. But for the convoys making it through, the Jews remaining in Jerusalem would have starved or surrendered.

“New” Jerusalem

As we reach the zenith of our climb up to Jerusalem, the ancient terraced Judean hills are replaced by bastions of Jewish housing in cream and rose “Jerusalem Stone.” During the miraculous Six Day War, Israel not only held the Lebanese on the Northern Border, but liberated the Old City, pushed the Jordanian armies back to the Eastern bank of the River Jordan, the Syrian Army off the Golan Heights above the Sea of Galilee, the Egyptians over the Suez Canal, and, thereby creating the “Occupied Territories” of the West Bank, Golan Heights and Sinai. So as to firmly establish its historical and future claim to the Holy City of Jerusalem, Israel “reunified” or annexed vast tracts of land surrounding the city, thereby creating a modern or “new” Jerusalem totaling 123,000 dunams (approximately 31,000 acres.) In the nearly forty years since, Jews have made aliya from around the world building fortress-like homes, apartments, condos and office buildings on the crowns of all the surrounding hills, wrapping a security belt, or stitching a “seam,” around the new city. Today, this new, impregnable Jerusalem is the largest city in both geography and population with 730,000 inhabitants (10% of total population.)

The governor doesn't arrive until tomorrow and so we spent our afternoon walking along the parapets of the Old City of Jerusalem and then down to the Western Wall as the sun was setting. Depicted below are some of the photos I took of the Old City of Jerusalem today. In the evening we went to the best falafel shop in all of Jerusalem "Doron's" and enjoyed he wonder flavors of deep-fried mixture of chopped-up chick-peas, salad and dressing stuffed in pita bread. All is well with the world and we look forward to a very busy second day.
____________________________

[1] “Next year in Jerusalem”
[2] Joshua 10: 12-14.
[3] In one of the great stories that cemented the American-Israeli partnership, West Point graduate and WWII veteran Michael Stone moved to Israel to offer his services, changed his name to Mickey Marcus. Recognizing his talent and leadership, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion appointed him to be the first “Israeli General” since Judas Macabee fifteen centuries earlier.

DAY ONE (5/10/09) - “MiToch Bitachon B'Tzur Yisrael”[1]

Homecoming

Ten hours after leaving the United States, we landed at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and, as always, the plane eruped in spontaneous applause. I immediately felt the same spiritual peace that I have felt on previous trips, but this time my heart and mind are troubled by the recent fighting in Gaza and the 2006 War in Lebanon. William Kristol wrote in the New York Times:

“Even though the security of Israel is very much at risk, the good news is that, unlike in the 1930s, the Jews are able to defend themselves, and the United States is willing to fight for freedom. Americans grasp that Israel’s very existence to some degree embodies the defeat and repudiation of the genocidal totalitarianism of the 20th century. They understand that its defense today is the front line of resistance to the jihadist terror, and the suicidal nihilism, that threaten to deform the 21st.”

This is my fifth trip to the Holy Land – the one place outside of the United States I most feel at home. Although I am not Jewish, Israel is nonetheless the birthplace of my Savior, who was. I can relate to my Jewish cousins, past and present, who long for the land of their inheritance. Away from Israel, the words of a Twelfth Century Spanish Jew beckon:

My Heart Is In the East, By Yehuda Halevi (c. 1141)
My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west--
How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me?
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?
A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain --
Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

This return marks thirty years after my original pilgrimage and six-month long Christian “coming of age.” The sanctuary is desolate no longer but has blossomed as the rose (physically, culturally and democratically,) and we are here to learn, and learn we must, for the words of Eric Hoffer forty years ago seem even more true today: “I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.”

[1]The 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence ends with this phrase that has a double meaning: "With faith in the God of Israel," or alternatively "From the strength of Israel."