Utah GOP leader in hot water over long ago hot tub party with 15 year old

It reads like a trailer trash pot boiler, but these aren't a packet of slack jawed rural meth freaks...

Kevin Garn is one of the most powerful Republican politicians in Utah, Utah House Majority Leader -- but in the mid-1980's he was a 30 year old business owner who arranged a one-on-one nude hot tub party with a then 15 year old girl.

Flash forward to 2002 and that girl, Cheryl Maher, now president of her Mormon ward's Young Women's Group -- yet addicted to illegal drugs -- threatened to go to the press and, according to Garn, extorted, with the assistance  of her husband, $150,000 from the Republican politician, then running for  U.S. Congress,   in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.

More money changed hands and the two met several times since 2002 but now Maher, now involved in a reportedly difficult divorce, is going public because, in part, she says she believes other women have been subjected to similar encounters -- a claim denied by Garn.

You don't normally get this kind of dirt from the Salt Lake City Tribune...

Garn admits paying woman

Sarah Palin grew up using crossing border for Canadian health care

In former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sara Palin's first Canadian public appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska, she reportedly connected with conservative Canadian fans who were, according to reportage, unclear on her policies (isn't everyone?) but largely adulatory.

Not quite lost in the appearance was a tidbit about the years Palin spent growing up in Alaska -- turns out that Palin -- whose approach to health care reform seems to be that it's the first step toward Soviet-era style prison gulags -- and her family used to zip across the Canadian border to take advantage of Canada's public health care system:

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn't that ironic?

Isn't it?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sarah-palin-sees-eye-to-eye-with-albertans-in-calgary-speech/article1492634/