Category Archives: Radio Commentaries

Over my lifetime, like all of you, I’ve had the chance to work with great colleagues who have become dear friends. One of these friends of mine is Janice Shaw Crouse – a beautiful lady, inside and out. Janice has her Ph.D., was a presidential speechwriter for Bush senior, an appointee by Bush junior as an official US delegate to the United Nation’s Children’s Summit and the Commission on the Status of Women. Janice was a longtime senior executive for Concerned Women of America and she’s a very accomplished author and speaker. I trust her judgment and her heart. read more

When I was growing up, I knew very little about races and racism. I was born and spent the first nine years of my life in the Bay Area, the east Bay Area, the Oakland side – the real Bay Area. Dad owned several delicatessens at the time and they all served very working class people of all races. While we lived in a very white neighborhood our churches and schools were a racial mix of Asians, especially Japanese, blacks, Hispanics and us.

I suppose racial sensitivity was high living so close to Oakland in the 1950s and 60’s. Maybe that’s why everyone seemed to get along where I lived. But I have to think as well that we got along because we didn’t have class distinctions, even if racial tensions were high inside the big cities. read more

As if it matters at all, the Clinton campaign has created a new support group in Utah: Mormons for Hillary. The initial group is comprised of over 100 Latter-day Saints who say they are voting for Hillary – 120 founding members to be exact.

At the forefront of this new group are self-identified Republicans, such as attorney David Irvine. I say “self-identified” because typically Republicans, such as Irvine, are rarely viewed by others as Republican – mostly they are called RINOs, Republican in name only. But even that doesn’t matter. read more

For a good five or six years over the past decade I have encouraged the state Legislature to reign in the power of the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA). Recently, and surprisingly, the State Board of Education had the same thought. The State Board proposed to end the control UHSAA has over school athletics by controlling the transfer process.

UHSAA has purview over all extracurricular activities in Utah schools – music, science, vocational programs and, of course, high school sports. For every other extracurricular activity a student is free to transfer to any other school to pursue those activities. But not if the student is an athlete. In fact, state law rules that any student can transfer to any school for no reason if the transfer school has space. But not if the student is an athlete. read more

If Donald Trump was not having enough trouble in Utah, a former Colorado congressman and Trump supporter just added to his woes by taking on the LDS Church. Like many Americans, Tom Tancredo opposes illegal immigration – a big reason why he loves Donald Trump. It’s anybody’s guess why Tancredo thinks he is the guy to take on, or even lecture, the LDS Church about immigration policy. But, for whatever reason, he picked up the gauntlet.

In a recent piece he wrote for Trump’s ad agency Brietbart News, Tancredo writes, “It is an open secret in Washington, D.C. that the Mormon Church supports open borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws. Many Mormon politicians have been supporting amnesty and open borders for decades.” Well, that is news to me. I’ve been a Latter-day Saint for 38 years now, pre-dating Ronald Reagan’s immigration policies. I’ve spent most of those years working in and around Washington, D.C. and I’m not aware of this “open secret.” read more

I was 19 years old when I first imagined anything political. Back then, young and foolish, I was a libertarian, meaning I hated authority and I smoked pot. For two years, in the late 1970s, I also was a dues-paying member of the John Birch Society. I attended monthly meetings and read their material that was readable (some of it wasn’t) because somewhere in the deepest recesses of my young mind I just knew politics was corrupt and selfish wealthy businessmen were pulling the strings of governments around the world. read more

On the northeast corner of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. is the inscription “What’s past is prologue,” a quote from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, meaning that history often sets the content for the present. One piece of history that very well could explain conservative opposition to Donald Trump occurred mid-January, 1962.

National Review founder, Bill Buckley, received an urgent phone call from William Baroody, then president of the American Enterprise Institute. Baroody urged Buckley to come to the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, to meet with Barry Goldwater, Russell Kirk and a public relations man named Jay Hall, who worked for General Motors. They were meeting ostensibly to discuss the policies of President John F. Kennedy and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. But the topic soon turned to The John Birch Society and, as it turned out, the real reason for the meeting. Goldwater needed counsel. read more

Imagine you are a motel owner and local riff-raff has been using your property to sell their illegal drugs. You take every reasonable step to prevent these crimes from being committed on your property – you buy flood lights, put up fences and video cameras. But the buying and selling continues until, one day, your local police and the Feds swoop in to break up the drug ring. In the course of arresting the drug dealers, authorities confiscate your property. Yes, the Feds take your motel from you as part of the crime. Yes, your property (not you) is a part of the crime so the Feds confiscate it and sell it right from under your feet. Adding insult to injury, you get none of the proceeds. Whatever the Feds or local authorities got for the property they kept. read more

Ted Cruz’s moment last night at the Republican national convention was an excellent, if not dramatic, reminder that being a conservative is different than being a Republican. Typically, in debating political differences here in Utah, we are focused on who is the real conservative and forget, that for most citizens anyway, the real choice is principle or party.

In light of Cruz’s convention speech, many pundits hearken back to 1976, the last time Republicans really had a contested convention. Back then Ronald Reagan was the Ted Cruz figure and Gerald Ford was the Donald Trump figure. Reagan pushed hard for the nomination but, when it was clear that Ford captured a majority of delegates, Reagan acquiesced and endorsed Ford. Many critics of Cruz judge him now by Reagan’s standard then. read more

I am out of the Republican Party. With the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican Party has dumped the last vestiges of conservatism. Though party faithful scramble, spit and stutter to make the best of this intellectual disaster, it pains me to see so many otherwise reasonable people defending the indefensible. Mike Pence isn’t running for president. Trump’s kids aren’t running for president. Newt, Christie, Paul Ryan and other more reasonable Republicans aren’t the Republican nominee. It should tell us something that Trump’s defenders must point to people who support Trump rather than pointing to Trump himself. read more