Monthly Archives: June 2018

In the span of 30 years on the United States Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy changed the face of America and, in doing so, created Donald Trump and deepened our political divisions. While Justice Kennedy is receiving great accolades for many important court decisions that he authored, his legacy should be judged by his activism more than by any wisdom he provided.

Even after authoring Lawrence and Obergefell, perhaps Justice Kennedy’s greatest effrontery was his 1992 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, upholding Roe v. Wade, wherein he wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Actually, at the heart of liberty is order and a broad American consensus about the meaning of human life. If he did nothing else, this concept alone makes Justice Kennedy perhaps the greatest enemy of freedom on the Court since Chief Justice Roger Taney’s Dred Scott decision. read more

Since the advent of an Internet marketplace, states have been forbidden from collecting sales taxes for online purchases made out-of-state. States, such as Utah, have opted to work around that prohibition by encouraging online consumers to self-report on state tax forms and by creating direct agreements with large online sellers such as Amazon to collect taxes. But, by and large, those methods have been inefficient and unpredictable.

Well, all of that will now change with the Wayfair decision.

The United States Supreme Court just ruled that the old law governing collection of online sales taxes has become unfair and anachronistic. In a 5-4 decision, dominated by conservative justices, the Court corrected years of tax inequities and market distortions overturning its own previous decisions. read more

The Trump Administration has placed the name of Utah’s Ron Mortensen before the United States Senate as the administration’s nominee as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration – and senators, especially Utah’s senators, should oppose Mortensen’s confirmation.

The Bureau of PRM was created to “provide protection, ease suffering, and resolve the plight of persecuted and uprooted people around the world on behalf of the American people….” PRM “provides aid and sustainable solutions for refugees, victims of conflict and stateless people around the world, through repatriation, local integration, and resettlement in the United States. PRM also promotes the United States’ population and migration policies.” read more