Paul Mero

Are Facebook and Twitter responsible for the content of their users? Some people argue that both mega-companies are publishers, no different than a book company or a news agency. The CEOs of Facebook and Twitter argue they run tech companies, not newspapers.

Of course, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos runs both! Should Bezos apply the same content standards to Amazon that he does at The Washington Post? Should every non-fiction book on Amazon be held to the Post’s standard of journalistic integrity or be banned? Bezos would fire a Post reporter who lied in a story or who fudged the truth a bit. Should he also insist on dumping disreputable books from Amazon’s web site? read more

The First Amendment is many things. One thing it is not is the Second Amendment. A Unites States senator from Florida introduced legislation that would ban the publishing of instructions on how to make a 3D-printed gun. Utah’s Senator Mike Lee blocked the bill from being considered. The 3D gun is a Second Amendment issue. Instructions on how to build it are a First Amendment issue.

The differences are so clear that I need to invoke a tag line of the cartoon dog, Droopy: “What’s all the hubbub, bub?” read more

Utah is considered a desert climate. On average, Utah receives about thirteen inches of rain every year – only Nevada receives less. Our northern back country mountains get about sixty inches while parts of southern Utah only get about five inches a year. And yet Utahns consume lots of water – the most water usage per capita in the United States.

Combine low rainfall totals with the highest usage in the nation and it is no surprise many people ring the alarm bell of water shortages this time of year. Many alarmists often pick one point in time as if that moment represents the entire picture – like a warm winter being evidence of global warming or a cold one proving the theory all wrong or how some people measure air quality during the couple of weeks of inversions every winter. read more

Former FBI Director James Comey recently called on voters to elect Democrats this November saying, “Policy differences don’t matter right now. History has its eyes on us.”

And just a few weeks ago, conservative George Will authored an op-ed titled, “Vote Against the GOP this November.” Will wrote, “In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him.” read more

Even as I slip on my brand new “Impeach 45” t-shirt, I feel prompted to use this time to remind and assure everyone that we will be okay. America will endure well because it was constructed to endure well. Our dead white fathers were many things but, above all, they understood human nature and built a nation that could withstand tremendous shocks to its system and could repair damages in due time.

My “Impeach 45” shirt displays my concern that Trump threatens systemic elements of our constitutional republic and democratic processes. That is it. Wanting him out of office has little to do with his often-insane level of ignorance about freedom. Americans have survived a whole bunch of leaders who fit that category. The real concern is threats to freedom’s support system. read more

As Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke laments a new poll revealing that over half of Utahns oppose a ballot initiative to raise the gas tax to increase funding for education, I wonder why Utahns fail to understand the nature of public education. A person can be pro-education and still oppose a gas tax. What a reasonable person cannot do is claim to be in favor of public schools but only the schools their children attend.

The real problem inside Utah public education is the failure to embrace all Utah children. The money is there. Utah spends more of its budget on education than any other state. The outcomes are there. Utah has higher graduation rates than states that spend as much as three times more per pupil. Utah’s middle to upper class kids do well because the entire public school system – from standardization to family structure – serves them well. read more

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

Most Utahns do not know what it is like to smoke pot or use cannabis in any of its commercial forms. I do. I smoked lots of pot when I was a teenager – lots of it. I bought it. I sold it. It’s no secret among people who really know me and I do not mind talking about it. I do not care who knows about it. My kids know. Any close co-worker knows. I unhesitatingly reported it on my application to get a Top Secret security clearance when I worked in Congress.

Whenever I write or speak about any aspect of public policy dealing with marijuana, I inevitably receive all sorts of feedback from people correcting me about this or that. Everyone has an opinion and that is cool. Most criticisms of my pot commentaries complain about my use of generalities. Pot supporters, it turns out, are obsessed by pot minutia – everything from vernacular to science to medicine to the law. And, you know, I am not really surprised by these high-minded attempts to intellectualize a narcotic. Have you ever actually listened to two potheads discuss world affairs? They think they make sense. read more