My Personal Response to GOP Chair Dave Hansen's Comments on Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas:



OK, that was bad. But, was it bad enough to generate these comments from Utah Republican Party Chairman Dave Hansen (via today's Political Cornflakes)?

"Helen Thomas has clearly lost any semblence of rational thinking and has let her bigoted views of Israel and Jews take over. Yes Helen, its time for you to retire. You might be more comfortable living out your remaining years in a white supremacist enclave in northern Idaho."

Maybe Ms Thomas can take a few of Mr Hansen's party members with her. Namely Senator Buttars, Representatives Wimmer and Sanstrom, and Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater, too. Their comments have been just as bad, if not worse, than those of Ms Thomas.

I'm sure they'll all love it up there with those folks.

-Bob

(P.S. - I know that Senator Buttars is in the hospital with health issues. I hope he gets better soon.)

Maybe I don't get the joke.....

From Jesse Fruhwirth at City Weekly:

As I reported first via my Twitter feed, the press conference calling for a ballot initiative to remove homosexuals from Utah was fake. At best, the organizers put together improv theater that punked the Utah press corps and maybe got people to think about gay rights for a moment. It's fashionable to make fools of news media folk such as myself, so, touche. But at its worst, it was an offensive attention-grabbing play on Holocaust-like imagery and language that does little to advance the argument for gay rights in Utah.

The phony press conference is a play out of the Yes Men play book. For example, The Yes Men once punked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by announcing a press conference, then posing as representatives of that group while calling for climate change legisation. It was funny, you see, because the Chamber opposes such legislation. Ha. Zinger. Got 'em.

I'm not sure what Ha-Ha we were supposed to get from today's action, but I think the point they must have been trying to make is that it is somewhat believable that Utah could foster such a movement of concerned citizens that would openly and publicly call for Nazi-like solutions to the "homosexual problem?"

And a response from the group who held the "press conference," Patriots for a Moral Utah:

Because of the intense anti-lgbt climate in Utah, and because our voices have been silenced by recent statements and deals made on the hill, we felt a creative solution would be to highlight just how outlandish some of their claims are. It is amazing that Utah has reached a point where even something as crazy as the "Utah Fair Solution" has legitimacy and is believable.

The goal of this political satire was purely a play off of the many groups, legislators, organizations and religions who speak against the LGBT community. As a community we hear constantly from people like Paul Mero of the Sutherland Institute who tell us that our families and love are an illusion, or Senator Chris Buttars who says that we have no morality and are the biggest threat to America.

The point was not to "punk" anybody, but to push people to continue the discussion of LGBT rights, and are thrilled at the conversations and public input that flew when news of the Patriots came out.

We love our community, and hope that our political farce has helped in highlighting what we feel is the ridiculousness and cruelty of some in our legislature and groups like The Eagle Forum, the Patrick Henry Caucus and America Forever. Thank you to all those who caught the big picture of our attempt and who have supported the efforts of all those who made this a reality. Also a very special thank you to each of the protesters who attended at the capitol, who were aware of the satire and helped to make it such a great event. This was another step in our multi-faceted campaign to achieve equality, and we're all in this together.

OK, great. I still don't get it. With Sutherland, Buttars, Ruzika, and America Forever, do we really need parody? After all, the best comedy to come out of Saturday Night Live the last couple of years was Tina Fey repeating Sarah Palin's words.

And, instead of pointing out how ridiculous they are, you made some of us think "hmm, Makes Mero not seem so bad."

Yes, you got people talking. But they are talking about your stunt, not the need for more gay rights.

-Bob

Buttars Defends K-11 Plan on CNN

If a student has the credits to leave high school early, they are allowed to already.

Wo be unto Buttars, for he shall be thrust down to Hell......

From PRIDE In Utah:

Sunday evening, Utah Senator Chris Buttars was interviewed live at his home in West Jordan by KUTV. During the interview, Buttars was asked about the infamous interview he gave to “8: The Mormon Proposition” director Reed Cowan in which he claimed that gay people are the “biggest threat to America going down.” Buttars told KUTV tonight that Mr. Cowan deceived him during the interview by wearing a “BYU T-Shirt” to the interview in order to lull the Senator into security. Um… there are photos proving that’s a lie Buttars. Here they are.

Even if Mr Cowan DID wear a BYU T-shirt, it still doesn't excuse what was said. Furthermore, I'd still like to know how Senator Buttars knows so much about Pig Sex.

-Bob

P.S.- The title of this post comes from 2 Nephi 9:34 in the Book of Mormon

Another Brilliant Move From Buttars

Because this sends a great message to businesses looking to relocate here -- Come to Utah, where our kids have one less year of school than yours do!

SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah senator thinks the way Utah looks at its budget needs to be "rethought." Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, began outlining his plan to reform state spending from the ground up Thursday. Among his proposals is one to eliminate the 12th grade, a move he says would cut $250 million out of the budget every year.

"Almost all of the industrial world uses 11 grades," he said. "Why do we use 12? The kids either got their one foot in AP classes in college, or they're just running around, taking PE."

Buttars hosted what he called a government reform summit at the State Capitol. In attendance Thursday afternoon were several Republican senators and representatives, as well as some conservative leaders like Gayle Ruzicka of the Utah Eagle Forum.

Buttars believes his ideas "have legs."

Yep. That will fly.

And, I take offense. I didn't take one AP nor one PE class my Senior Year.

Sen Buttars doesn't Want Gays Shoving it Down His Throat

This has been floating around for a while. I'm posting it mostly so I have it when I need it later on....

Wayne Holland Statement on Sheldon Killpack

“Senate Republican Leader Sheldon Killpack’s circumstances are tragic – for him and his family, his constituents and colleagues, and for the public who he may have endangered.

We ask all Utahns to honor the principle that he is to be presumed innocent of the charge of driving under the influence until proven guilty. However, his decision to refuse to comply with the investigating police officer’s request for breath test shows that he did not deal with this in a responsible, forthright manner.

As a public figure, he knows that he will be held to a high standard. We expect that there will be consequences for his leadership position and his position as Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee."

However, this is the Utah Senate we're talking abut. Even if he were stripped of his committee chairmanship, it would be returned to him by the end of the year. Just look at Senator Buttars....

Senate Site Posts Bloggers' Answers to Senator Buttars

Back in August, Senator Chris Buttars posted 22 questions about proposed federal health care legislation on The Senate Site.

And, being the hardest working bloggers in Utah, the boys over at The SideTrack got to work dissecting and answering each and every question (see here, here, here, and here.)

And, thanks to Ric Cantrell (the hardest working Government 2.0 guy out there), their work has been condensed into one post posted on The Senate Site.

Way to go, everybody!

-Bob

Buttars blows $1,468.80 to Remind Us The Death Panels Haven't Come For Him Yet

Turns out Senator Chris Buttars is still alive. After he got silenced for teaching Utah's Children about gay people and their pig sex,I kinda forgot he existed.

But, he couldn't just forward a bunch of lies about ObamaCare to his friends. Nor could he email a PDF of the bill to people he wanted to read it (but would probably wouldn't).

No, he had to do the fiscally conservative thing and print out 18 copies of the bill at taxpayer expense.

Which Glen Warchol estimates cost us $1,468.80.

And, what happened to those copies?

Most of the recipients left them behind.

Perfect.

-Bob

Tea Baggers' irony

As I'm sure you've heard, the GOP is going to do what they do best today: solve the mote in Democrats' eye by complaining about it (but not actually DOING something), all the while ignoring the beam in their own eye. They have called today TEA BAG day to protest how much taxes have gone up (really? really. Someone forgot to tell them who's been running the show the past 8 years...), and are having tea bag parties all over the country, including here in Utah.

Nobody informed Jason Chaffetz, Rob Bishop, or Mark Shurtleff (all of whom are attending the SLC tea bagging at the Federal Building) how gay a term that is. Chris Buttars knows it's a form of sexual activity practiced by gay people, and is getting a good laugh at it.

I might add that my Utah tax liability is 462.5% that of my federal tax liability. That's because of a huge tax increase at the hands of the GOP legislature, but that's for another post.

There is some irony about today's events (aside from all the gay talk), from Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog:

I wonder how many tea baggers will be protesting against "socialism" while gathering at publicly financed parks and outside publicly financed buildings -- you know, socialist facilities that wouldn't exist without taxes and wealth redistribution. In Georgia, for example, almost every single tea bag event is taking place at a county courthouse, at a park, at a town square, at a city hall and so forth.

Socialism huzzah!

-Bob

P.S. I wonder if, in Utah, they are going to be tea bagging herbally. I don't even want to know what that means.....

UPDATE: Leno's Utah GOP News came from Utah blogger

Yesterday, I posted video of Jay Leno reading a piece from a Utah Newspaper referring to Senator Buttars as "some guy who had some problem with the way he said something."

I knew I had read it somewhere, but I couldn't remember where.

Lucky for me, Joe over a Sausage Grinder outed himself. His Defense:

IN MY DEFENSE, IN MY BUTTARSISSUEDIEDIEDIE DEFENSE, it was originally posted here on this very blog.

Right here.

It made perfect sense in the context of anyone following the Grinder, but the transition to trees ground up, pulped, bleached and flattened then put into large rolls and run through a large metal contraption covered in ink certainly made for some great Leno.

And that, Joe, is why you should never try to kill off a story about Senator Buttars. Just when you think he's dead, it just comes back to bite you again.....

Jay Leno Reads Utah GOP News

How the Utah Republican Party wants you to remember the Chris Buttars affair:

My Take On Big Love

Back before Comcast robbed me of HBO, I loved watching Big Love. The only time I've missed HBO has been when Big Love was on.

But I haven't really wanted to see it. Until this week.

Because I wanted to see for myself what the uproar was over.

I watched it illegally on YouTube. And, frankly, the uproar was misdirected.

After all, as LDS Scholar Hugh Nibley said (H/T KVNUftp):

“Even though everyone may discover what goes on in the temple, and many have already revealed it, the important thing is that I do not reveal these things; they must remain sacred to me. I must preserve a zone of sanctity which cannot be violated whether or not anyone else in the room has the remotest idea what the situation really is… No matter what happens, it will, then, always remain secret: only I know exactly the weight and force of the covenants I have made - I and the Lord with whom I have made them - unless I choose to reveal them. If I do not, then they are secret and sacred no matter what others may say or do. Anyone who would reveal these things has not understood them, and therefore that person has not given them away. You cannot reveal what you do not know!” (The Temple and the Cosmos, p. 64)

One thing that killed me was how many people made it sound like the full Endowment Ceremony was going to be portrayed. In fact, only a small portion was shown.

And, there were two glaring mistakes. I won't mention what they were, but they were obvious.

And, the Temple wasn't the only secret thing portrayed. In the end of the episode, the head wife gets excommunicated from the LDS Church. I'm not sure how accurate the proceedings were to reality, but I'm sure you can't find that on YouTube like you can the Temple ceremony.

And, it should clear up any rumors that they are trying to paint mainstream Mormons as polygamists.

But what should really trouble us was something the LDS Church pointed out in their press release:

Before the first season of the HBO series Big Love aired more than two years ago, the show’s creators and HBO executives assured the Church that the series wouldn’t be about Mormons. However, Internet references to Big Love indicate that more and more Mormon themes are now being woven into the show and that the characters are often unsympathetic figures who come across as narrow and self-righteous.

And the problem isn't that they are portraying tus that way. It's the Mormons who are portraying themselves as unsympathetic figures who come across as narrow and self-righteous.

I'm talking to you, Gayle Ruzika. Chris Buttars. Paul Mero.

I'm guilty of it, too, on occasion.

However, it's usually what my non-LDS friends mean when they tell me I'm not like other Mormons they know.

As a missionary, I was always nervous when someone informed me they once lived next to/worked with/knew a Mormon. Was the person they knew a "good guy" or narrow and self-righteous?

And, I think City Weekly hit it on the head a few weeks ago with their cover story:

Utah is bisected along religious, cultural and ethnic lines. But Utah doesn’t like to show its two faces. Every effort is made to wear just a good face for our visitors, to smile for the cameras, to promote our wholesomeness and to otherwise let the world know that Utah is normal. Except it isn’t. And it’s getting worse.

The death of former LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley marked a transitory time in Utah’s perception of itself and of its residents’ willingness to cooperate with one another. Beloved on one side and highly regarded on the other, Hinckley may have been the last finger in the dike, holding back what is becoming a bloodbath of ill will toward each side of Utah’s cultural divide. Since Hinckley's death in late January 2008, a slew of angry influentials have grown so powerful and outspoken that, to persons outside the LDS faith, they appear not only to speak for the LDS faith but are tacitly allowed to do so.

Thus, to non-Mormons and outsiders, state Sen. Chris Buttars—who frequently cites LDS scripture—is the face of Mormonism, not current LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson. We can’t imagine this is a good thing. Nor can a growing number of formerly silent Mormons. If people like Buttars—and his hatemates on Capitol Hill—are ever to change or decline in influence, that change will have to come from pressures within the Mormon community itself.

Jean Welch Hill on Senator Buttars

2008 Democratic Attorney General Candidate Jean Welch Hill on Senator Buttars and the Utah Senate Leadership:

After watching the latest shenanigans in the Utah Senate, and the sheer boredom with which the president of that body dealt with comments of extreme hatred by one of its members, I stand appalled.Utah once welcomed the world and now tells a group of people "we hate you and we will applaud anyone in a position of power who will encourage further harassment and hatred against you." I am amazed at the audacity of our state Senate leadership who stand "foursquare" behind a fellow senator who compares people seeking equal rights to terrorists. I am stunned at the hypocrisy of this same group insisting on protecting the First Amendment rights of that senator while regularly seeking to prohibit protesters on the Capitol grounds and running bills to punish others who tried to exercise those same rights. How can people who claim to be the arbiters of what is decent in this state engage in such gross acts of indecency? Yes, everyone has the right to speak there mind, but that doesn't mean the senate can't seek to raise the bar on public discourse by sending its members a clear message that the body will NOT stand behind hate speech.

Quote of the Week: "Senator Buttars does not speak for the Church.”

ABC4:

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a statement on Friday regarding recent comments made by Utah state senator Chris Buttars about homosexuality.

Church spokesperson Scott Trotter released the following statement:

“From the outset, the Church’s position has always been to engage in civil and respectful dialogue on this issue. Senator Buttars does not speak for the Church.”

Go through and read what comes from the Church regarding homosexuality. While still maintaining the homosexual acts are sinful, they still maintain a "love the sinner, not the sin" mentality.

Like the Savior did.

-Bob

Chris Buttars Get Same Punishment As Last Year

Last year, Chris Buttars made a racist remark, then dug the hole deeper by making more racist comments to try to cover his tracks. That, combined with threatening a judge is said judge ruled against his friend, was enough to get Senator Buttars removed from his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

Then, in November, Senator Buttars received a "mandate" (heh, he said "man date") from voters by winning his election with a margin of 1500 votes.

As a reward, Senator Buttars became the chairman of two committees: Judiciary and Rules.

Utah Senate Republicans essentially made him the most powerful person on the hill.

So, after he made some wonderfully unloving comments about gay people and pig sex, we knew his punishment would be harsher, right?

After all, this was strike two.

Well, it's deja vu all over again on Capitol Hill.

To a packed room of reporters, Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, announced he was stripping Buttars of his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because that's where gay-rights bills would be heard. He is also no longer a member of that committee, although he does remain on his other committees, including the powerful Senate Rules Committee.

-Bob

RupublICAN -- Chris Buttars

(stolen from Facebook.)

Senator Buttars is a big fat liar

Liar Liar:

Reed assured me that he would treat both sides of the issue fairly and that I would be treated fairly. He told me the interview would be public in about a year and I would be allowed to see his work and approve my part before he released it.

Pants on fire (h/t: Eric Ethington):

Buttars: Gays "Biggest Threat to America"

ABC4:

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Utah state senator Chris Buttars is now comparing some in the gay community to radical Muslims.

Buttars makes this strong comment in an upcoming documentary about Prop 8.

[...]

And even though Buttars says in the documentary interview,..."the ACLU - bless their black hearts...," it’s his other comments which may get the strongest reaction.

Like this one which the documentary maker confirms is about gays.

"They're mean. They want to talk about being nice. They're the meanest buggers I have ever seen."

And just seconds later, Buttars draws a comparison between some gays and radical Muslims.

“It's just like the Muslims. Muslims are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side.”

Buttars also claims he's "killed" every gay rights bill in the legislature for the last 8 years.

He also talks about gay marriage being the beginning of the end.

Buttars: "What is the morals of a gay person? You can't answer that because anything goes."

And finally, this is how senator Buttars refers to the "radical gay movement."

"They're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of."

Now, in the interview, senator Buttars also talks about a certain type of reported gay sexual activity which he claims is taking place.

But ABC 4 does not consider that appropriate for its news content.

Listen to the audio here. You'll find it interesting.

Oh, and he says that Gays' goal is to recruit the youth.

-Bob

Senator Buttars to take on War on Christmas

Because the Legislature has nothing else to do during the 45-day legislative session:

Sen. Chris Buttars wants Utah's Legislature to declare its opposition to the "war on Christmas."

The West Jordan Republican is sponsoring a resolution encouraging retailers to embrace Christmas in their promotions rather than the generic "holidays."

"It would encourage the use of 'Merry Christmas,'" Buttars said of the non-binding statement that is still being drafted. "I'm sick of the Christmas wars -- we're a Christian nation and ought to use the word."

Several fellow lawmakers he wouldn't yet name support his effort, added Buttars, who has a long history of championing the socially conservative agenda of the Utah Eagle Forum.

In 2005, right-wing pundit Bill O'Reilly took on the same fight, characterizing the so-called war on Christmas as part of a secular progressive agenda that would open the door to legalized drugs, abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriage.

Actually, Senator Buttars, I celebrate about 5 holidays during the Holiday Season. (Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years' Eve, New Years' Day. Yes, those are all separate holidays in my family)

That's not to mention other holidays that m friends and neighbors may celebrate, including some good Christians (St Stephens Day).

Furthermore, There's not a heck of a lot that's "Christian" about modern Chirstmas celebrations, but more on that later.

-Bob