Monday Morning Weber County Forum News Roundup

Time to clear out the post-holiday cobwebs, wethinks

Now that we've gotten Memorial Day out of the way, we'll try to kick start some discussion with a series of thought provocative items uncovered this morning whilst feverishly Googling:

1) Ultra right-wing Utah conservatives are griping that too many political moderates showed up at the March Utah GOP caucuses, resulting in a situation where the state’s most conservative politicians this year "have been outright defeated in convention or forced into primaries."  Oh, the horror of this revolting development:

• ‘Hatch effect’ hurting Utah’s most conservative lawmakers

So what about it, WCF readers?  Is the Utah GOP pendulum finally swinging back to some degree of  normalcy, as Brigham Young University professor Kelly Patterson suggests; or is Rep. Craig Frank  correct in arguing that this is this "merely a temporary setback" for the Utah GOP "wingnut faction"?

2) Interesting Salt Lake Trib story this morning, reporting that a national sportsman's advocacy group, Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development (SFED), is squaring off (more or less) against energy development advocates in an effort to tout the value of preserving fish and wildlife populations and natural/scenic areas to help drive long-term economic growth in the Rocky Mountains:

• Report touts dollars from outdoors recreation vs. energy

"This is not meant to be a one-versus-the-other scenario," said Rob Southwick, of Southwick Associates, which compiled the report which provoked this morning's Trib story. That doesn't necessarily seem to be however what SFED's website actually says, however:

• Hunting and Fishing Imperiled

Here's the full SFED document in PDF format:

• Hunting and Fishing Imperiled Full Report

3) And here's a real eye popper. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is listed here, right along with the likes of George Clooney, Antonio Banderas, Denzel Washington, Jon Bon Jovi, Samuel L. Jackson, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Liam Neeson, and George Strait:

• Huntsman named one of ‘Sexiest Men on the Planet’

First time we've ever seen the word "sexy" and the name of a politician (with the exception of Ben Franklin) connected in the same sentence, we do believe.

4) Last but not least,  Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne observes that  conservative GOP values have recently suffered some serious mission creep:

• Conservatives used to care about community. What happened?

Yeah.  We know that Dionne is a known liberal.  Weirdly enough however, this go-round, this life-long warhorse conservative (your blogmeister) agrees with dang near every word Dionne says, (in today's column, at least).

That's it for now, O Gentle Ones.

Chime in on any of the above suggested topics, or fire up a conversation all your own.

Time to clear out the post-holiday cobwebs, wethinks.