Since talk show hosts can create “Universities”, I decided I should start my own.
Here is your assignment:
Go to Midvale City Park. Select one of the immigrant families there celebrating their child’s birthday with their friends and extended family. Gather the children together and explain to them that their parents are criminals. Tell them also that they are not good enough to be American citizens like the rest of us and they should not be allowed to attend school or visit the doctor. Don’t worry, they speak English.
Then gather the parents. Tell them their children do not deserve to be US citizens and that they will be forcibly separated from them. Then pull out handcuffs and place them on the parents.
Make sure you clean up the paper plates, balloons, and bunting after you’re finished. If you really have guts, eat the birthday cake as social services hauls the kids away.
Can’t do it? You’re not patriotic enough?
Congratulations! You’re a good person. Please run for the Utah State Legislature.
Extra credit if you can get Rep. Stephen Sandstrom to complete the assignment.
Go for the throat.
Both Mike Lee and Governor Herbert are fairly unknown to the general public. This is a perfect opportunity, so where are the Democrats?
The Corroon campaign continues to roll out rambling, unbranded position papers that are not holding anyone’s attention. They’re throwing tens of thousands of words to the wind. They need to start talking about Governor Herbert and strip mining and never stop. They also need to tell as many people as possible that Governor Herbert is afraid of the Legislature and will do whatever they want.
The Granato campaign has yet to really show up. The biggest thing to happen to that campaign was when we accidentally found out that Senator Bennett’s son is one of Granato’s volunteers. They are squandering a real opportunity here because Mike Lee has completely stopped campaigning. The task of branding Mike Lee should be immediately taken up by Granato. There is so much material here there really is no wrong way to roll it out.
A candidate must never again wave a portrait of Joseph Smith in my face to get elected to the US Senate. In another demonstration of how poor our candidates were, Mike Lee’s craven ad he shot in front of the portrait of Joseph Smith was a real low point in Utah politics.
Religious bullies are always the same. Sometimes it’s a man in robes but, as I personally discovered, religious tyranny often takes the form of a braying lay jackass. Either way, the idea that one of these feels entitled to leverage what he thinks I think of God or prophets in order to capture my will is as laughable as it is disturbing.
The larger this group becomes, the worse it will be for the Republican Party.
These lay pretenders are being led to believe that they are the modern heirs to our Founders. But I see very little in common between the celebrated 18th century revolutionaries and Utah’s pedantic “God Squad”.
Expand the customer base, improve choice, and foster open and aggressive competition. This works to guarantee high quality in everything from business to education to health care.
The rejection of this philosophy by the Utah Republican Party has predictably eroded the quality of candidates.
You only have to look at the Senate race to see it. The race was a shallow wallow of silly platitudes which rarely had anything to do with real- life governing and were even sometimes overtly racist. It was a poor showing by poor candidates. Unless a change is made, quality GOP leadership will be a blessed accident, not a consistent product.
Here is a simple idea to improve the quality of GOP candidates.
Convention: Raise the automatic candidate threshold to 85%. Any candidate who can capture 15% qualifies for a primary.
Primary: Open
I believe that the UTGOP can improve its own quality by embracing reform elements it is currently advocating in the public sphere.
I understand that for the dogmatically minded, there is safety in a closed system dominated by those who “ponder and understand the issues and candidates”. I’m sure they’d get along well in the public ed bureaucracy.
Maybe the UTGOP is the new public ed. It totally dominates, but also completely sucks.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit… radical.
I’ve been a registered Republican since I was 18 and I am more than a little surprised at what has happened. I think it goes without saying that I now fall outside a preference that has become dominating and dogmatic.
Many are upset with me, and on a human level I feel bad if you have felt personally slighted by my recent “observations”. I do feel, however, no need at all to apologize for what I have said.
I will continue to both speak out against religious bullies and in support of immigrants. I hope that my party will join me in becoming the place where the oppressed find their greatest defenders and where intellect, not dogma, holds the stage.
Rep. Sandstrom told NBC:
“I want people that are here illegally out of the State of Utah”
What does that sound like to you?
Does that sound like Utah?
Representative Sandstrom and The Patrick Henry Caucus is determined to bring Arizona’s law to Utah.
A review:
This is the law that has sparked numerous boycotts and threats of boycott and received international condemnation.
The law has been dismissed by everyone from Karl Rove to Chris Burbank to President Obama.
The law was sponsored by Senator Pearce who once endorsed an Aryan supremacy leader for city council, mailed an Aryan supremacy funraising letter to his email list, and called for a new “Operation Wetback”.
Senator Pearce is telling everyone he was compelled to sponsor the law because he’s Mormon and believes in “The Articles of Faith”
Which of course prompted the Arizona Republic to look into his claim. They eventually found Hispanics who were scheduled to be baptized until they heard Senator Pearce’s claims about what Mormons believe and promote.
So far, his Patrick Henry Caucus is standing by Rep. Sandstrom. But for how long?
Why on earth would we ever want this crap in our state?
I think most people knew his alleged consideration of a write in campaign was nothing but hot air. I myself believed he was just jerking everyone around because he’s mad about what happened.
But he had a very real plan.
In the time since the convention, he’s rallied his supporters around the idea of a write in campaign. He’s pulled together some positive poll numbers (I’d love to see them) on him as a write in candidate
and at today’s press conference he pulled the trigger:
“I can keep this seat if I want. I am sacrificing my career to keep the peace in Utah. No one is forcing me out of the Senate, I’m leaving on my own.” (my interpretation of his comments)
Most people snickered at his press conference. But a lot of his supporters will accept it as the official record of Senator Bennett’s voluntary retirement from the Senate.
Not anti- illegal immigrant,
just anti- immigrant.
Over the past few years, conservatives have seen their side of the immigration debate hijacked.
The overwhelming number of Republicans in this state will claim that they love legal immigration, they just dislike illegal immigration.
But Cherilyn Eagar was endorsed by Numbers USA, an organization that seeks to not only end illegal immigration but to dramatically curb all legal immigration.
The Arizona bill (sponsored by Rep. Stephen Sandstrom’s friend) was drafted by another organization that not only seeks to end illegal immigration but to dramatically reduce legal immigration.
Think about it…
On the one hand, immigration debate leaders are saying they love legal immigration. On the other, they slander the population of hispanic immigrants with sweeping claims of crime, abuse, disloyalty and disrespect.
They’re so different from us, we can’t possibly allow them to immigrate.
