Olympic Flashback: '02 Salt Lake Games Tainted By Scandal, Bribery and Glenn Beck's Church
By Logan Murphy Saturday Oct 03, 2009 10:00am
President Obama has been getting a lot heat since the announcement that the 2016 Olympics would not be coming to the United States. The right has rejoiced in our loss, and Fox News and other right wing media have gone berserk with stories about the Chicago Olympic Committee, and false claims of cronyism and corruption.
Lost down the memory hole was the shame and scandal that tainted the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Eventually led by Republican Mitt Romney and his cronies, the 2002 games were plagued by fundraising woes, bribery scandals -- and the committee was also heavily infiltrated by Glenn Beck's Mormon Church:
Romney communicated his intention to take full command of the Olympics on his first day on the job in February of 1999. A century and a half after his ancestors trudged through Emigration Canyon to help pioneer the valley as a land of the righteous, Romney arrived in a cheerless ballroom in a Salt Lake City hotel. Immediately, he raised a rhetorical scythe at the trustees of the scandal-tainted organizing committee.
Much of the damage seemed to stem from decisions made by two previous executives on the Salt Lake City organizing committee, chief executive Thomas K. Welch and vice president David R. Johnson, who embraced the tacit form of influence peddling that greased the international selection process for Olympic sites.
Vowing not to be defeated again, Welch and Johnson funneled through the committee more than $1 million in gifts to numerous IOC delegates for the 2002 Games - a stunning trove of booty that included cash, college tuition, medical-care payments, jobs, lodging, beds and bedding, bathroom fixtures, Indian rugs, draperies, doorknobs, dogs, leather boots and belts, perfume, Nintendo games, Lego toys, shotguns, a violin, and trips to ski resorts, Las Vegas, and a Super Bowl in Miami. Almost no request from an IOC member went unmet.
Shamed by the scandal - in which 10 members of the International Olympic Committee would resign or be expelled for accepting gifts from the Salt Lake committee - Utah's power brokers believed they needed a new CEO wise in the ways of business, the law, and Mormonism.
Enter Mitt Romney, his buddies and the Mormon Church:
Almost as soon as Romney took the job, however, the Mormon Church's role in the Games became a source of contention - a dispute exacerbated by Romney's request for an additional $8 million in loaned property and cash from the church, among other contributions.
Utah's wealthiest businessman, Jon Huntsman Sr., the father of Utah's current governor, assailed Romney for exploiting his ties to the church. Huntsman himself is prominent in the Mormon Church, which is officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
''We've got a chairman who is active LDS, now we've got a present CEO who is active LDS,'' Huntsman was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune as saying of Garff and Romney. ''They claim they're going out [to] really scour the world to find the best person, and Mitt brings in one of his cronies to be the COO. Another broken promise. Because we've got three LDS folks who are all cronies. Cronyism at its peak. ..... These are not the Mormon Games.' Read on...
Romney came in after the initial bribery scandal, but created plenty of controversy of his own.
Romney later successfully lobbied the IOC to drop its opposition to the US team carrying into the opening ceremonies a tattered American flag found in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
But he angered safety officials when his office denied free or discounted tickets to widows and orphans of firefighters who died at the World Trade Center. Romney's executive assistant, Donna Tillery, twice rejected the requests, citing a policy barring ticket giveaways, according to e-mails she sent to former Salt Lake City firefighter A.J. Barto. Romney's staff says he was unaware of the request.
Six weeks later, the committee found itself with unsold seats and Romney approved distributing 100 tickets valued at $885 each to Utah legislators.
''I was outraged at the hypocrisy,'' Barto said. ''In less than two months, he went from saying we're going to run a tight ship to throwing out free tickets to a group of people who could help him politically.''
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Okay...lessee if I got it straight (so to speak)
All religions are irrational and superstitious
But Mormons are the worse of all.
I think they're tied with the Southern Baptists.
Then again most evangeicals are nuts.
Southern Baptists think of Mormons as a cult
Roman Catholics do too; they view Mormon baptisms as invalid since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Here in Dallas cult means if you're against the Trinity River Project.
abominations and a cults.
So all the silly organized superstition movements are even I guess.
First paragraph generally supports your contention:
http://www.allaboutmormons.com/mormon_beliefs...
Thassawhy I went from Mormonism into Witchcraft; I figure if I'm gonna be irrational I might as well go whole-hog, since we're not kosher.
And technically to be evangelical one has to believe in the Sola Scriptura/Sola Fide of the canonical Bible; whilst Mormons are accused of trying to replace the Bible with the Book of Mormon.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473700/
September Dawn. (Hollywood's) proof of how mean and nasty the mormons are.
They slaughtered a bunch of people from Missouri!
That's exactly why I posted what I did in the very beginning.
People forget they were being driven from state-to-state just previous to that, with high murder rates against them at the hands of "God-Fearing" Christians.
Catholics were torturing and burning people from the 15th century to the 19th. As late as the 1830's they were burning people alive in South America for committing the sin of refusing to convert.
Protestants did the same thing (although in England and it's holdings burnings were replaced with hangings under King James I except in Scotland where they continued to burn), until the 18th century with some scattered trials until the early 19th century like in Virginia, that resulted in acquittal. Even then they didn't think the chief witness should also be the jury foreman, and the court investigator.
And in the UK the dissenting churches (those that didn't agree with the 39 Articles) had very little legal or political rights, and only gradually gained them through the late 19th century.
Is there anything that these people betwet themselves over that isn't a complete and utter hypocritical lie?
I don't understand why a group that doesn't even seem to care about its image, morals, etc...still hold such sway with people.
In a just and normal world, these people would be all committed, in prison, or at least shunned by decent society.
Has this world become that evil now, that this is tolerated?
...they would be denouncing the IOC as a bunch of dirty America-hating terrist sympathizing foreigners and demanding a total ban on all Olympic-related activity inside the borders of the U.S. for all eternity.
So little room in hell.
http://www.enotes.com/faustus-text/scene-xvi
Something tells me I won't be clicking on that link.
No, that would be more like:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...
That musta been why they were so hostile, endowed as they were.
http://www.artinthepicture.com/artists/Hans_M...
... both the Salt Lake and Atlanta Olympics just plain sucked.
Certain sectors of the American population need to learn they can't have it both ways: we can't go around the world telling other people to f*ck off, and then expect them furrigners to be beside themselves to organize stuff in our country when we need to earn a quick buck off them.
must think about us when their news programs show angry teabaggers prancing around the POTUS with loaded firearms?!?
"Yeah! Let's send our best and brightest young athletes to THAT country!"
Kneejerk ululations regarding The Right To Bear Arms(TM) in 5...4..3..2...
...our imperialistic bullshit and the Continent of South America has never hosted an Olympic games.
Obama had nothing to do with it.
Not only was it time for a South American nation to host an Olympiad, but Rio has something else going for it: A 90,000 seat stadium is being built in Rio for the 2014 World Cup Finals.
So Rio will have a major, modern venue (Estádio do Maracanã, built in 1950 and currently being upgraded for the World Cup) in place, but it will have two years to work out the infrastructure and security kinks by the time the Olympics roll around.
Andy, I live here in Chicago and am one of Obama's biggest supporters. But if Rio had lost to my hometown it wouldn't have sat well with me. I think Rio was the best and most correct choice.
Not a Chicagoan, but it's a short drive for me (Grand Rapids, MI), and I would have tried to make it for an event or two. Chicago would be a great host city (much more so than LA and Atlanta, the way those cities sprawl)....But Rio deserves to get the 2016 games. I'm not going to say that the city will effect the competition between the athletes more than the other, but the spectators should have a great time down there.
When it's in Rio?
:D
The games will run from August 5-August 21, 2016.
They can get away with those dates in Brazil. Had Buenos Aires bid and won, those dates would be far too cold and rainy.
There's one stadium, and it's being upgraded.
branding foreigners as criminals at US entry points, all thanks to the brown shirts who brought you fatherland security, the patriot act, torture and any other illegal acts wrapped in the stars and stripes.
Fuck the reichwing.
proverbial injury.
At some point they were seriously considering charging each tourist $10.00 upon entry to the United States. So basically, we get to treat tourists/visitors like criminals, and we want to charge them 10 bucks for the "privilege."
This country has gone insane.
According to the Grey Lady, our border control policies were what really sunk the idea of the Olympics in the US.
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/02...
Religion and the Olympics:
http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/...
The ONLY people the Olympics EVER benefit are the greedy real estate developers who use the Olympics as an opportunity to bulldoze low income inner city housing and replace it with glitzy expensive upper crust hotels, condos, events venues, etc, etc.
Then EVERYONE'S rent goes up, food costs more, etc.
My advice: DO NOT HOST THE OLYMPICS !!
its a total boondoggle for a few rich white ruling class types, and their political cronies....
The same tiresome sleight of hand is being perpetrated on the teeming unwashed in Vancouver for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics. The real estate developers who own mountain-side tracts of land overlooking the Straight of Georgia between Vancouver and Whistler (the site of the skiing and cross-country events) are having all of the infrastructure (roads, bridges, electric) put into place for the highway at taxpayers' expense as they can then flog their 2 acres/3 million dollar homes to the well-heeled. Of course, the teeming unwashed won't be invited for drinks on the deck at sunset. The good citizens of Chicago might want to collectively let out a sigh of relief.
Although I may've come close to derailing it subject, what's interesting is how romney ran for president AFTER he helped caused America to lose the Olympics, and there's a strong chance he'll run again.
I'm sure soon we'll see bumperstickers of huckabee/romney: a ticket you can believe in.
But my preference was always Picard/Ryker: Make It So.
Kirk/Spock: The Logical Choice is obviously republican, space cowboy diplomacy.
Mittens is like a creepy hybrid of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush.
Reagan or W would have killed for that hair!
How do you know romney didn't?
all you need to do is read the history of the church of latter day saints, or the mormons. scary bunch of crazy's rapping themselves up in a weird form of christianity. you want a cult, check out the LDS....
blenn geck was converted to LDS, but he was wacko before that. read his back story too, beck is a walking schizoid...
oh did i mention the mormons were totally in bed with the mafia in the early days of vegas. they were the chicago mobs partners there!!!....
I thought that was Bugsy Siegal and the "Jewish Mafia."
when you're wearing magic underwear!
They're bullet-proof.
. . . of how President Mitt Romney would run his administration.
Mormons in the Cabinet, Mormons on the Supreme Court, Mormon agency heads, Mormon federal attorneys, you name it.
Forget the Establishment Clause. Anyone think they have separation of church and state in Utah?
and sealed to our families for eternity.
I think 6 out of the 9 supreme court justices are now Roman Catholic.
A bunch of Mormons, led by a prominent Republican, screwed up the 2002 Olympics, which is possibly one influence on the IOC rejecting the US for the 2016 games, and the Republicans are CHEERING just because Obama got involved in the lobbying effort?
These people are really unbelievable.
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002209/
do what's right mitt.
Don't forget the nutty abortion bombing - Centennial Olympic Park Atlanta.
Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bag and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers; 9 minutes later, Rudolph called 911 to deliver a warning. Jewell and other security guards began clearing the immediate area so that a bomb squad could investigate the suspicious package. At 1:20 AM, the bomb exploded.
An Albany, Georgia woman, Alice Hawthorne, was killed by a nail that struck her in the head. The bomb wounded 111 others. Turkish cameraman, Melih Uzunyol, died from a heart attack he suffered while running to cover the blast.
President Bill Clinton denounced the explosion as an "evil act of terror".
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olymp...
I'd be surprised if the OC gave the USA an Olympics in the next 1000 years.
I would have publicly asked Chicago to withdraw and given my support to Rio. It would have served two purposes. One, it would have been a nice thing for us to do in welcoming Brazil to the next tier as a regional power. It would have gone a long way to establishing a good relationship with a country we're going to have to reckon with. Second, it would have shown South America that we want to be friends, not enemies. It would have also forced Chavez to tone down his rhetoric.
But by trying so hard to bring the Olympics to Chicago, it made us look greedy. We always have the damned things and South America has never had it. And now it looks more like they beat us despite our best efforts.
Obama could have really scored a lot of points if he had supported Rio's bid. But who knows? I could be wrong.
"I feel so silly for even saying this because it's so obvious. The thing that we have failed to do for far too long is turn to our God, not our guns, but our God. If we are not down on our knees praying and asking for assistance, asking for help, turning back towards him, we ain't gonna make it. Only God is going to set this country straight".--Glenn Beck FOX and Friends, Aug. 3, 2009
A judge struck down a 2006 state law that required the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to stress “dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the commonwealth.”
"Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames." --Glenn Beck WABGAM Radio, March 16, 2003
Glenn Beck on Romney's Faith Speech:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY2T76GJMyk ](6:56)
Perhaps the single most profound change in our political culture over the last 30 years has been the transformation of conservatism from a political movement, with all the limitations, hedges and forbearances of politics, into a kind of fundamentalist religious movement, with the absolute certainty of religious belief. --Neal Gabler The Los Angeles Times October 2, 2009
[ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentar... ]
America's Top 10 Religious Bodies Listed by Year Organized:
1 Catholic Church
2 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 1830
3 Southern Baptist Convention - 1845
4 Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - 1847
5 Church of God in Christ - 1897
6 Assemblies of God - 1914
7 National Baptist Convention of America - 1915
8 United Methodist Church - 1968
9 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) - 1983
10 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - 1987
[Some of America's largest religious bodies are fairly new, some of them representing recent schisms or mergers.]
National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.:
Many books have published membership totals for the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. which indicate a membership of 8.5 million, which would make it one of the largest religious bodies in the country. However, during the 1999 trial of now-jailed church convention president Henry J. Lyons, prosecutors revealed that these figures were fabricated and the convention actually has closer to one million members, many of whom left during the Lyons fraud trial.
Reminds me of the Tea-Party estimates. ;) H.L. Harvey, the convention's statistician, admitted that the figure of eight million was simply an estimate.[ http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html ]
Don't get me wrong -- Glenn Beck is a blithering psychopath whose politics are ugly and divisive at best and fascistic at worst. But the story is about Mitt Romney and the ridiculous corruption behind his efforts to bring the Olympics to Salt Lake City. Just because Beck is a Mormon doesn't make him complicit in anything involving this. You could just as easily say "Neil LaBute's church" or "Donny Osmond's church" -- they ultimately have as much to do with what Mitt Romney did as Glenn Beck. Besides, if it's wrong for the right to demonize Muslims, it's no better for the left to demonize the LDS ... I think all religions have some good people and some messed up people. Unfortunately, the messed up people often have a will to power, which is how they end up in charge.
Ya, it's all a nasty little feedback-loop from hell.
Romney and Beck will believe anything but anything. For example, they believe their underpants were born in America. What else do they believe?
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