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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary August 31, 2006 Remarks by the President at Orrin Hatch for Senate Reception Grand America Hotel Salt Lake City, Utah 11:00 A.M. MDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's great to be here in Utah. Gosh, I landed at the airport last night -- a couple thousand people out there to say hello. I just had the honor of speaking to the American Legion; then come to a hall filled with great citizens concerned about the reelection...

Salt Lake City is preparing for at least five demonstrations the afternoon and evening of Aug. 30, but all five may miss their mark if President Bush doesn't come until later in the day. The White House said Tuesday that Bush will spend the night of Aug. 30 in Salt Lake City and then "on Thursday, Aug. 31, the president will have events in Salt Lake City" before traveling to Camp David for the Labor Day weekend. It is not known when he will arrive in Salt Lake City on Aug. 30, and rallies are scheduled beginning at 11 a.m....

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is pressing Senate leaders to open debate on a package of bills dealing with stem cell research in hopes that Congress could vote to expand the research by the end of May. Hatch and a bipartisan group of lawmakers back a bill that would loosen restrictions on government-paid research on human embryonic stem cells. He is lobbying Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to take action by May 24th, which would mark a year since the House passed the same bill. Hatch says Frist has promised to bring the bill up for a Senate vote this year,...

Judge Samuel Alito’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week confirmed his integrity and character. Patiently and clearly answering senators’ questions of all kinds, hour after hour, he also proved his judicial temperament. Now, as their hopes of defeating this nomination diminish, Judge Alito’s opponents are left trying to hype fake issues. One of these attacks focuses on Judge Alito’s initial failure to recuse himself in the so-called Vanguard case. It is time to set the record straight. Preserving both justice and judicial independence requires that judges avoid conflicts of interest. To that end, federal law requires that a...

If you can, turn-on the Alito Hearing. Senator Hatch is going down the list of Dem lies (Schumer, Kennedy, Moveon.org) and letting Alito answer their lies about his record. This is wonderful TV! I don't remember any other senate hearing when this has happened. Alito actually remembers the details of every case being discussed and is systematically crushing the Dem lies. Alito is being able to explain how all of the Dem lies about him are just that. I love watching Dem liars unmasked!

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) spokesman Dr. Jerry Vlasak openly endorsed murdering other doctors at an animal-rights convention, we expected some skeptics to give Vlasak the benefit of the doubt. Not any more. A stunning piece of audio surfaced ... Listen to Jerry Vlasak at the "Animal Rights 2003" convention as a PCRM representative. We forgave Doubting Thomases for wondering if our notes were accurate, or if we were perhaps making the whole thing up, even after U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) closed a Judiciary Committee hearing by reading, out loud, a letter from the Center for Consumer Freedom...

A computer entrepreneur from Utah is launching a campaign to unseat incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) next year -- in what may be the most heavily Internet-reliant campaign to date, using blogs, chats and the "Wiki" open-source model. Peter Ashdown is the founder of Xmission, Utah's oldest Internet Get Linux or Windows Managed Hosting Services with Industry Leading Fanatical Support. service provider (ISP). His Web site includes a blog and a monthly live chat session. But Ashdown's site takes public participation on his campaign Web site one step further -- opening his platform to all. The site is based on...

State Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, officially ended his challenge to the well-known and well-financed five-term U.S. senator Wednesday, saying he underestimated how popular Hatch is among Utahns.

A last-minute breakthrough in an immigration case helped four Phoenix students, including recent ASU graduate Luis Nava, escape the threat of deportation for the immediate future. U.S. Immigration Judge John Richardson threw out the federal government's case against the students on Thursday. He ruled that immigration officials unlawfully detained the students based on their ethnic origin during a school trip to Niagara Falls in June 2002. Prior to this decision, it had been widely expected that the students would request voluntary departure to avoid the potentially harsh consequences of forced deportation. This action would have required them to leave the...

Democrats said yesterday they will demand that the Bush administration hand over internal legal memorandums written by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. while he was a government lawyer -- something the White House has refused to do in the past. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said he broached the topic during a meeting yesterday with Judge Roberts, who replied that any decision about his writings as deputy solicitor general would be made by the White House. Republicans on Capitol Hill said the request is not likely to be granted. Demands for those same documents -- deemed...

The reality is that Urquhart is very seriously considering the prospect of challenging Sen. Orrin Hatch for the GOP Senate nomination. If Urquhart pulls the trigger, this would be the most serious intra-party challenge of a big-time incumbent in many years.

But there remain detractors, some in his own party, who argue he has lost touch with the state. And he angered some die-hard conservatives with his support for embryonic stem cell research and the expanded law enforcement powers in the Patriot Act. So it is not surprising that, as Hatch prepares to stand for re-election next year, there is a search - as there was in 2000 - for a dark-horse candidate willing to take on the Goliath.

The judicial filibuster agreement reached by a group of 14 Republican and Democratic senators may be a truce, but it is not a treaty.It remains to be seen if the Senate’s tradition of up-or-down votes for judicial nominations will be re-established. And make no mistake, every tool for returning to that tradition remains on the table. As Majority Leader Bill Frist and even some signatories to this agreement have acknowledged, this includes the constitutional option.Those who founded this republic designed the Senate without the minority’s being able to filibuster anything at all. After a rules change made the filibuster possible,...

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ponders a presidential bid.YOU REMEMBER, OR PERHAPS you don't, Sen. Orrin Hatch's 2000 presidential campaign. The senator talks about it in soft inflections, recalling this event and that debate. But especially he talks about what motivated him to run. Hatch, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cites polling data from 1999 suggesting that 17 percent of Americans wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president under any circumstances. "One reason I ran was to knock down the prejudicial wall that exists" against Mormons, he says. "I wanted to make it easier for...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Orrin Hatch expressed support Wednesday for the controversial bill to expand federal support of embryonic stem cell research, making a clear break from President Bush who has vowed to veto the measure. "I respect President Bush's views on this issue, and I fully support his efforts to promote embryo adoption in this country ..." the Utah Republican said at a news conference. "But I know, as a long standing pro-life Senator, that it is possible to be both anti-abortion and pro-embryonic stem cell research. I am pleased that many Right-to-Life Congressmen reached the same conclusion when the...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he will do everything he can to help ailing Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) overcome Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees, including use of the so-called nuclear option to allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Hatch’s reemergence as the top Republican on the committee — at least temporarily — places him back on the hot seat at a crucial time. Conservative groups, which strongly criticized Hatch at times when he headed the committee, are pushing Senate Republicans to press the nuclear button. Still, Hatch said he will be a placeholder for...

Stem-cell 911 By Robert Lanza and Wendy Goldman Rohm Worcester, MA, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- In an unprecedented move, the Royal Society -- Britain's National Academy of Science -- this week asked the United Nations to ignore President George W. Bush's call for a ban on all forms of human cloning, including stem-cell research. What hangs in the balance, on the cusp of the U.N. vote and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, is not only the plight of millions of patients, but also the future of one of the greatest medical advances in the 21st century. It is alarming that...

Oscar Rios Pohirieth dreads the conversation he's had again and again with some of Lincoln's Hispanic high school students. Lucero Satamaria, a UNL senior psychology major from Columbia, South America, shows her support for the DREAM Act at Broyhill Fountain Wednesday evening. They step into his office and ask how they can go to college. If his first question -- "Do you have a green card?" -- is met with a no, the Lincoln Public Schools bilingual liaison must tell them that high school graduation may be the end of the line.Not, mentioned are the ESL classes supported by the...

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com The balance of powerBy Orrin G. HatchPublished September 17, 2004 On this date, 217 years ago in Philadelphia, the Constitutional Convention approved the new Constitution of the United States and sent it to the states for ratification.It remains the oldest operative written constitution in the world. Americans understand the importance of the nation's charter to our lives and our rights. But what we sometimes fail to recognize is that only by appointing the right kind of judges can we ensure the continued integrity of this cherished document.     Believing that the people would embrace the Constitution...

Just when you thought software licensing enforcement couldn't get any more fun, the copyright cops at the Business Software Alliance have enlivened the process with a spunky cartoon ferret. The BSA--a trade group supported by Microsoft, Adobe Systems and other major software makers to enforce software licenses and copyrights--revealed the new mascot Tuesday as part of a national campaign to scare kids out of using peer-to-peer networks. The "Play It Safe in Cyber Space" campaign will culminate with a four-page comic book, distributed in conjunction with tot journal the Weekly Reader, meant to impress kids with the idea that it's...