This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
After about a dozen advertisers and at least two radio affiliates dropped Rush Limbaugh's program for his disparaging remarks about a female Georgetown law student, some local listeners wondered why three messages from the LDS Church ran during Limbaugh's program on KNRS in Salt Lake City.
One spot urged parents to "talk to your daughter about her day" during the show hosted by the man who called the law student a "slut" and a "prostitute" for testifying before a congressional committee in favor of insurance coverage for contraceptives.
But don't blame the church.
The spots were public service announcements the church prepares for numerous radio stations and times those announcements run are at the discretion of the radio station. None of the announcements were ad buys by the church.
Just so you know.
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Expanding the base • A Google search for "Utah Democratic Caucuses" yields an interesting find.
The first result that appears from the search has a link to Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's website, which reminds the reader to attend the caucus on March 15. That actually would be the Republican caucuses. The Democrats meet on March 13.
Perhaps Hatch is trying to lure unsuspecting Democrats to the GOP meetings as a way to enliven the discussions.
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Careful what you wish for • When Democrats click onto the Hatch website while trying to find their caucus information, they are treated to a favorite refrain from the Hatch campaign. "Why do Washington, D.C., liberals fear Utahns in 2012?" it asks. "Because you can make Orrin Hatch the next Senate Finance Chair."
The pitch is that Hatch will have power over finance policy in Congress if the Republicans take the Senate and Utahns should not squander that opportunity.
One Hatch flier notes that a Utahn hasn't chaired the Finance Committee in 80 years, so this would be a great opportunity to bring Utah's conservative values back to that committee.
It doesn't mention, however, that the last Utahn to chair the Senate Finance Committee 80 years ago was Sen. Reed Smoot, co-sponsor of the Smoot-Hawley Act that raised tariffs on more than 20,000 imported items and is widely credited by historians with exacerbating the Great Depression.
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Try to do better • While Utah legislators put the final touches on the 2012 general session that ends at midnight Thursday, a broad coalition of environmental, LGBT, public education and immigrant rights groups plan a protest in the courtyard behind the Capitol on Wednesday from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
Serving as a reminder of last year's protest of the notorious HB477, which would have gutted the state's public records access laws, this group says in a press release that it will "show the governor and legislators that their constituents believe in science, believe in clean energy, believe in equality and believe in public education, even sex education."
My plea: Don't do what protesters for gay rights did last week when they sent in dozens of belittling notes to Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Provo, castigating her, calling her a hate monger, and, in some cases, including vile, profane language.
Protests can be a good thing, but try not to be like Rush Limbaugh.