Political map changes

The Republican redistricting world suffered double blows this week, as their Utah measure to legalize partisan gerrymandering failed to qualify for the ballot and a pro-voter challenge to their gerrymander in Missouri cleared a major milestone.

Meanwhile, we continue to monitor the two states with active redistricting plans in the works. In Virginia, voters are currently casting ballots in a special election that could secure four more Democratic seats in Congress. And in Florida, Republicans are preparing to redraw maps next month.

  Democracy Docket

And Democrats flipped two red seats in Florida just a few days ago.

One more win for elections

 

We need all we can get.  I fully expect the Supreme Court to destroy the Voting Rights Act.

Aha! Voter Fraud!

 Okay, maybe not.

They have conducted investigation after investigation and have NEVER found anything near massive voter fraud.  

For the millionth time - stop electing Republicans.

John Curtis putting himself in Trump's crosshairs

My next post with John Curtis will likely be headlined: John Curtis, we hardly knew ye.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

Touché.

Frustrated with book challenges and bans in their school district, a parent in Utah decided to submit a complaint of their own — about the Bible.

The Davis School District took the parent's objection seriously, placing the Bible under review. This week, the district officially decided to remove the religious text from elementary and middle school libraries for containing "vulgarity or violence." The ban will take effect immediately, with Bibles being removed from classrooms even as they close down for the summer.

[...]

The committee assigned to review the Bible for the Davis School District determined that it does not meet the requirements to violate the state's law, but that it should still be limited to high school-aged students. The decision is already being appealed by another parent, and that appeal will be decided at a public meeting in the future.

  NPR

Appealed to be banned in high-school too, or appealed to be put back in elementary schools?

Ken Ivory, a Republican legislator in the state, released a statement on Thursday reversing his position on the ban, after initially calling the complaint a "mockery." He wrote that the Bible is a "challenging read" for children, and that the Bible is "best taught, and best understood, in the home, and around the hearth, as a family."

As if more than a handful of families even crack open a Bible at home. But, good on Ken.

In the day since this decision was announced, the Davis School District has also received a request for the Book of Mormon to be reviewed for inappropriate content.

That should be interesting. It's Utah.

Oh my

Will his head explode yet?

The great hunter

Utah hunting guide Wade Lemon faces five years in state prison for the death of a Carbon County bear killed during a guided hunt on May 18, 2018.

But Lemon, a well-known guide didn’t pull the trigger — Donald Trump Jr. did, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Trump Jr. is not named in a recent filing against Lemon, but the DNR confirmed his identity as the person named in the felony complaint as Lemon’s “client” on the hunt. Prosecutors have indicated there was no evidence showing Trump Jr. would have known about the alleged baiting that went on during the hunt.

Without naming Trump Jr., Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said the hunter in the case “was actually a victim and a now a possible witness in a fraudulent scheme to lead the hunter to believe it was actually a legitimate Wild West hunting situation.”

  St. Louis Trubune

Whatever. Fucking idiot.

DNR turned the case over to the Utah Attorney General’s Office. Utah Attorney General Reyes has close ties to Trump, having campaigned for him and even flying to Nevada to investigate the election results after Trump’s defeat at the polls and signed on to a lawsuit claiming “unlawful election results.” The Attorney General’s Office reinvestigated the case for months, then handed it off to the Davis County Attorney’s Office to screen for filing of charges.

[...]

“You will have to go a long way to find a bigger advocate for our hunting lifestyle, a more passionate hunter and conservationist than Don, Jr.,” reads a post Hunter Nation released in the fall of 2019 as part of a raffle for members to win a trip hunting elk in Utah with the president’s son.

“The opportunity to share a hunting camp with him is truly priceless,” the post reads.

There were no pictures of Don Jr.’s kills from his May 2018 trip to Utah on his social media feed, but DNR confirmed that over the course of two days the president’s son bagged two kills that many would consider once-in-a-lifetime hunts — a bear on May 18 and a cougar on May 19, 2018.

[...]

According to DNR, Wade Lemon Hunting has been investigated eight times for allegedly breaking the law to ensure a successful hunt, though he was not charged with a felony until Tuesday.

Aside from baiting, another tactic these assholes utilized was treeing bears and mountain lions and then building a fire under the tree to hold them there until their big shot client hunters could get there to shoot them, sometimes a day later.

Bastards.

Because they can't win if they don't cheat

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Making America Great Again

A Utah teen has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly stomping on and crumpling up a “back the blue” sign, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Garfield County Sheriff’s Deputy Cree Carter said in a statement that when he was doing a routine traffic stop at a gas station, he saw a teen take a “back the blue” sign and stomp on it.

[...]

The teen, identified as 19-year-old Lauren Gibson, allegedly crumpled the sign in a “destructive manner” and started to smirk at Carter in “an intimidating manner,” according to the officer's statement.

  The Hill

I was unaware that crumpling and stomping on a sign was any kind of crime, much less smirking in an intimidating manner.

Doesn't take much to intimidate Deputy Carter, apparently.

Carter then arrested Gibson and charged her with “criminal mischief” with a hate-crime enhancement, which strengthens penalties toward hate crime offenses, the Post reported.

Jesus Christ.

"Bringing a charge against this person that could result in her spending a year in jail makes no sense both in terms of simple fairness and expending the county’s time and money.”

That, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

WTF Montessori School?

A Utah charter school that incorporates Black History Month into its lesson plans is now facing backlash from some after the school announced it was allowing parents to opt students out of the curriculum.

Maria Montessori Academy Director Micah Hirokawa announced the decision in a Friday post on the school’s private Facebook page, according to local news outlet the Standard-Examiner.

  The Hill

Because American history taught in America's schools isn't already whitewashed enough, now people can simply pick and choose what history they want their children to know? Insane.

Hirokawa said in the post that “a few families” had asked not to participate in the curriculum, though he declined to tell the Standard-Examiner the exact number of parents who had contacted the school or the reasons they gave for making the request.

The public charter school director added that the demand from parents “deeply saddens and disappoints me.”

But you buckled to it. How many dollars did he calculate he would lose if he didn't?

Hirokawa, who is of Asian descent and noted that his great-grandparents were sent to a Japanese internment camp, told the outlet that he believes there is “a lot of value in teaching our children about the mistreatment, challenges, and obstacles that people of color in our Nation have had to endure and what we can do today to ensure that such wrongs don’t continue.”

They'll be challenging that history next. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

The backlash to Black Lives Matter is intense.

Mask up, people

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Colorado and Utah join California's inferno

Two wildfires are believed to have broken out in Utah on Saturday, burning more than 3,000 acres in less than a day, according to posts on Twitter from Utah Fire Info.

The Range Fire, burning just outside the city of Orem, has prompted the evacuation of about 10 homes as it burned 1,500 acres. It is 0% contained, the post said. Meanwhile the Fire Canyon Fire is estimated to be burning through 1,600 acres, but it is not currently threatening any structures.

The causes of both are under investigation, but the Fire Canyon Fire is believed to be human-caused, according to the post.

Reports of the Utah fires come as fire crews continue to battle the CalWood Fire, which sparked around noon Saturday north of Jamestown, Colorado, and quickly spread to more than 7,000 acres, according to Gabi Boerkircher, spokesperson for Boulder Office of Emergency Management.

Nearly 900 homes are in the area of evacuation, a tweet from the Boulder Office of Emergency Management said Saturday night.

[...]

In addition to the CalWood blaze, firefighters in Colorado also continue to battle the Cameron Peak Fire, the largest wildfire in state history. The fire is burning near the city of Fort Collins in the northern part of the state, which prompted new mandatory evacuations Friday night.

  CNN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mother nature pulling out all the stops

If she can get rid of enough humans, she just might stand a chance.

He'll be ragging on Mitt Romney till he dies

President Trump swatted at Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) during a White House event with governors from across the country Monday, telling Utah’s governor “we don’t want him.”

“How’s Mitt Romney? You keep him. We don’t want him,” Trump said to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) at the event focusing on business.

Trump then smiled, telling Herbert to “go ahead” and that he was “doing a great job in Utah.” Herbert didn’t respond to the dig and instead asked the president a question about the growing national debt.

  The Hill

Because that's how a decent person handles things.

You keep him - we don't want him? Does he not realize Utah is part of his charge?

New York, California, Utah - all disinherited.

More democracy in the states

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Where did he radicalized?

A Utah man was arrested on suspicion of two counts of aggravated assault after he allegedly beat a father and son at their tire shop, shouting about how he hated Mexicans and was there to "kill a Mexican." Salt Lake City police said it is unclear if Alan Dale Covington, 50, will be charged with a hate crime following the reported attack at a mechanic shop this week, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Friday. Jose Lopez was warming up chicken soup in the office on Tuesday when he heard his son screaming from the garage, the paper reported. He said he saw a man threatening his 18-year-old son, Luis Gustavo Lopez, with a 5-foot pole. “I hate Mexicans,” the man allegedly yelled. “I f---ing hate Mexicans … I’m here to kill a Mexican.”

The man allegedly began swinging a pole when Jose Lopez jumped in front of his son. Luis Gustavo Lopez tried to defend his dad with a tool bar but was hit in the face and knocked unconscious by the attacker, the paper reported.

His father was hit in the arm and back trying to protect his son.

The attacker was allegedly scared off when another family member came to check on the commotion.

Luis Gustavo Lopez has been in the intensive care unit since the incident, suffering from a shattered cheekbone and eye socket, as well as a collapsed sinus, the newspaper noted.

Doctors implanted a titanium plate on the right side of his face.

Jose Lopez needed eight stitches in his arm and has a bruised back from the attack, the paper notes.

[...]

Salt Lake City police detective Greg Wilking told the newspaper Friday that it appears Covington was under the influence of drugs during the attack.

He may also have "some mental health issues" that "clouded his judgement,” Wilking said.

  The Hill

He may also have been listening to Fox News and his president, and assumed he'd have cover.

Covington, who has previously spent time behind bars, was concerned in lock-up about being attacked by a member of the Mexican mafia — a prison gang mostly based in California.

“He wasn’t really based in reality," Wilking said. “We don’t want to ignore a hate crime if it’s a hate crime, but we don’t want to make it a hate crime if there’s not that aspect of it.”

For the love of Pete.




UPDATE:

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told the Salt Lake Tribune that charging Covington with a hate crime would not have been possible.

“Although we want to pat ourselves on the back and say we have a hate crime statute, it’s really not enforceable,” Gill said.

  The Hill

Why not?

Where are the presidential and GOP complaints about this vote still being counted?

Rep. Mia Love cut into the lead held by Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams on Friday as Utah County and Salt Lake County updated vote totals in the state’s highly watched 4th Congressional District race.

McAdams lead went from 7,128 to 5,286 after Utah’s two most populous counties updated vote totals, the first update for Utah County since Election Day.

[...]

Thousands of ballots still remain uncounted throughout the state. And the new vote totals on Friday showed McAdams had actually improved his performance in Utah County, a conservative stronghold. That could spell trouble for the Love campaign.

“We have no further statement at this time,” Sasha Clark, Love’s campaign manager, said Friday.

The new tally results in McAdams' lead margin dipping from 3.54 percentage points to 2.5 percentage points.

  Salt Lake Tribune

Two reasons there's no rage tweet about this one: 1) The vote change is going in the Republican's favor, cutting into the Democrat's lead;  2) His Lardship already pissed on Mia Love for not showing him the proper adulation; and 3) she's black - the only black female Republican in Congress. 

And then there were none.

Dear God!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Evan McMullin in Utah

This is the guy to beat in Utah.  He's polling in a three-way virtual tie with Clinton and Trump.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

The draft bill [proposed in Britain] explicitly includes in statute for the first time powers for the bulk collection of large volumes of communications and other personal data by MI5, GCHQ, MI6 and for their use of “equipment interference powers” – the ability to hack computers and phones around the world – for purposes of national security, serious crime and economic wellbeing.

  Guardian

In other words, an acknowledgement that terrorist prevention is not really the goal of state surveillance. Merely a good excuse. Which they apparently don't need any more.

In her statement, [Secertary Theresa] May also revealed for the first time that successive governments since 1994 have issued secret directions to internet and phone companies to hand over the communications data of British citizens in bulk to the security services.

That should relieve any fears the Brits may have.

Home Office estimates put the extra costs of storing internet connection records and the new judicial oversight regime at £245m to £250m over 10 years after the legislation comes into force in December next year. This includes £175m for the cost of storing everyone’s internet records and £60m for the extra judicial oversight.

[...]

May told MPs that the introduction of the most controversial power – the storage of everyone’s internet connection records tracking the websites they have visited, which is banned as too intrusive in the US and every European country including Britain – was “simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”.

Allow me to ask: where are they going to store this data? As far as I know, the Brits don't have a gigantic storage facility. Oh. But WE do. (There's a great knockoff website that had me going for a minute.)  And I'm sure we'll be happy to "handle" it for them.

Oh, wait.

Requires web and phone companies to store records of websites visited by every citizen for 12 months for access by police, security services and other public bodies.

So the burden of providing storage facilities falls on the web and phone companies. Nicely played.

And, that's not all.

Prime minister to be consulted in all cases involving interception of MPs’ communications.

[...]

Existing system of three oversight commissioners replaced with single investigatory powers commissioner who will be a senior judge.

A veritable coup.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.