Monthly Archives: June 2017

Commenting on the Senate health care bill currently being debated, conservative pundit Marc Thiessen writes, “Here is the summary of the bill that Democrats will take to the American people in 2018: Republicans voted to cut $701 billion in taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and pay for it with $772 billion taken from Medicaid for the poor — all while pushing 22 million Americans off health care. And Senate Republicans are writing the script for them. Have they lost their minds?” He concludes, “Paying for a massive tax cut for the wealthy with cuts to health care for the most vulnerable Americans is morally reprehensible.” read more

Okay, let me sound like the conservative heretic I am often accused of being: Conservatives should let the Our Schools Now initiative run its course. Don’t oppose it. To publicly and vociferously oppose the Our Schools Now initiative, Utah conservatives will look stupid, sound stupid and most certainly act stupid. The reason is simple: Utah conservatives, by and large, don’t understand the playing field in Utah education. They emphasize what doesn’t matter at the expense of what really does. read more

In response to the series of Senate Intelligence Committee hearings over the past couple of weeks, Utah Senator Mike Lee recommends that his colleagues and all of America just “move on.” He believes there is nothing to see so far coming from any of the four testimonies by Comey, Coats, Rogers and Sessions. Senator Lee has concluded that there is not a scintilla of evidence remotely indicating that Donald Trump is obstructing justice in the Russia investigation.

All I can say is really? Senator Lee is a smart man, probably the smartest legal mind in the Senate and certainly one of the most well read conservatives anywhere. I respect him deeply and, for the record, my wife works for him. I appreciate his usual candor as well as his characteristic caution. He’s not the kind of leader to jump to conclusions or accept the merit of a case on its face. He wants to know everything and, typically, in great detail. read more

Do you live in a bubble? Probably not, but it did get me thinking more seriously about the whole “bubble” concept. I remember a Saturday Night Live skit about progressives living in the Bubble now that Trump is president. It begins with a hippie looking guy saying, “What if there was a place where the unthinkable didn’t happen and life could continue for progressive Americans as before?” The skit goes on to describe this new Bubble as a “planned community of like-minded free thinkers…and no one else. If you’re an open-minded person, come here and close yourself in.” In the Bubble, “it’s like the election never happened.” Bernie Sanders’ face is on the Bubble’s one-dollar bill. They stream their high-speed Internet “with only the good sites” like Huffington Post, Daily Kos and “Netflix documentaries about sushi rice.” And “unlike the rest of America, anybody is welcome to join us…one-bedroom apartments start at only $1.9 million.” The only things the progressive Bubble community lack are police and fire departments because “they can’t find any who would agree to live there.” It’s great satire and deadly. But you get the idea of the bubble. read more