Utahns Need Not Follow

A take-over of elections?

Nationalizing them, you say?

Utahns should raise their hackles

instead of being so quick to obey.

Don't jump to follow

when the president calls for such.

Tell him it's not in the Constitution

and that he wants too much.

Utahns say the Constitution

is inspired by the Mighty God,

and they bow not to a man,

but it's to God that they nod.

The Constitution gives states the right

to direct elections on their own,

and when we follow other paths,
seeds of danger are sown.

 

The Ones You Want, and the Ones That Haunt

The Utah Legislature is at it,

coming hard, coming hard,

bill after bill proposing change after change,

trying to take away the damage

wherever the people have been scarred.

SB 134 adds two justices

to the Supreme Court.

HB 179 expands who can sell raw milk—

is that a law that you support?

Andrew Stoddard

is a favorite legislator of mine,

and his HB 80 is his signature bill;

it gives firearm storage a new design.

HB 30 directly touches on bank fraud,

setting standards we are much in need of.

HB 331 expands the voucher program,

shifting education to private schools

instead of those run by the gov.

Then there is HB 72,

a crackdown on crypto‑ATM fraud.

There's a lot to be said about this proposal—

there's a lot to laud.

So follow the bills—

the ones you want,

the ones you love,

and the ones that haunt.

 

 

It Will Go Down in History as 'Judge Biery's Fiery Speech'

Let’s piece this together the best we can, trying to get as much of U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s fiery “speech” before you as possible. Maybe someday the “speech” will be found in American history textbooks across the land — you know, kind of like the Gettysburg Address.

It wasn’t really a “speech,” at least not like we think of where a dignitary gets up in front of an audience and pontificates in oratorical tones. No, Judge Biery’s words simply came as he ordered the Trump administration to release 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, from an immigration detention center in Texas.

You will recall how agents kidnapped . . . Okay, “kidnapped” might be too strong of a word. Let’s just say you recall how agents stole . . . Okay, “stole” might be too strong of a word. Or is it? Truth be told, perhaps neither “kidnapped” nor "stole" are too strong.

Let’s just say Liam and his father were apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during an immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Judge Biery looked over the case and started firing. Now, here is where this article/blog swings away from its light‑minded and frivolous tone. Judge Biery had serious words to say.

Judge Biery said, “the case has its genesis in the ill‑conceived and incompetently‑implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

“Apparent also,” Biery said, “is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence.” Biery, suggesting the Trump administration mirrored actions of England’s King George, quoted from the Declaration: “He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People” and “He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.”

The judge referred to two lines from the Bible: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” and “Jesus wept.”

Judge Biery suggested some officials are driven by a “perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest (that) know no bounds and are bereft of human decency.”

He said the father was asking for “nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law.”

“That pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment,” Biery quipped.

I will wish schoolchildren someday will be taught the words Judge Biery offered. For now, I just wish the parents of our day would listen to them.