This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Texas grand jury's decision clearing Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast of any wrongdoing and instead indicting two anti-abortion activists who made a video that prompted the investigation should be an embarrassment to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.
The indicted activists released an undercover video they made that purported to show Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the sale of fetal body parts for profit.
Planned Parenthood denied the allegations, claiming the video was heavily edited and misleading. Eleven states have investigated Planned Parenthood and found no misconduct.
Yet Herbert, on the eve of last summer's Utah Republican Party Convention, announced he would cut off federal funding that flows through the state to Planned Parenthood of Utah — about $200,000 annually — because of his concerns about the video.
Herbert touted the move to GOP delegates the next day, pandering to his party's right wing.
He acted despite warnings from the state's top health officials that cutting the funding would harm thousands of Utahns who otherwise couldn't get needed services such as STD testing, sex education and cancer screenings.
And he did so without vetting the video's accuracy.
But Utah had no problem hiring a firm to manage its prison-relocation process that resulted in the selection of a Salt Lake City site near the international airport that will require a $60 million project just to stabilize the soil near the Great Salt Lake.
That firm, the New Jersey-based Louis Berger Group, agreed to pay millions of dollars in 2010 to settle fraud charges brought under the False Claims Act. Last year, the World Bank announced the debarment of the firm for engaging in "corrupt practices" involving payments to government officials in developing nations.
So a highly suspect video about an organization the right wing doesn't like gets a knee-jerk punitive reaction from the governor while a firm — hired to help steer a multimillion-dollar project — found to have committed fraud is just fine.
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Foot-in-mouth disease • Not only did Utah's governor offend a large segment of the Latino community when he made what some perceived as a racist comment during his monthly KUED news conference last week, but he also doubled down in the same sentence by unwittingly inferring Utah loves dope.
Latino legislators criticized Herbert after he remarked, while discussing the prospects of legalizing medical marijuana, that he didn't want "Dr. Feelgood out there saying], 'Yeah, yeah. Que pasa? Here's your doobie for the day and you'll feel better.' "
Since que pasa is a slang term in Spanish, the governor was criticized for singling out Latinos as druggies.
He also made a more subtle faux pas with saying "doobie," which is a slang term for a marijuana joint.
Dubhe, which is pronounced the same as doobie, is honored in Utah law as the official state star.
During Utah's centennial year of 1996, the Legislature settled on that star, located in the corner of the Big Dipper. But lawmakers failed to consider how the word is pronounced.
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Identity theft • Utah's top morality cop and Republican Party candidate approver, Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka, sometimes suffers the consequences of her own celebrity.
I wrote last September about right-wing blogger Ron Mortensen complaining in his online publication, the Salt Lake City Tea Party Examiner, that the LDS Church has damaged its relationship with the Eagle Forum because of the faith's willingness to grant certain status to undocumented immigrants.
That was a surprise to Ruzicka, who told me at the time there is no problem between the Eagle Forum and the church she wholeheartedly supports. She also said Mortensen never talked to her about the issue before he seemed to speak for her in his blog.
Now comes a fake twitter account purporting to be Ruzicka.
The account, @uefgayle, has been tweeting the story of Hansel and Gretel, in German, 140 characters at a time.