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Situational awareness - March 29, 2018

Good Thursday morning from Salt Lake City. Welcome to Utah's must-read daily political news roundup. 

Build the wall? Utahns say not if they have to pay for it. Lawmakers mulling a veto override session. Trump's lawyer floated pardons for Flynn and Manafort.

It's opening day 2018, the earliest opening day in MLB history. Here's a little help in making your predictions for the season.

Tick Tock

• 17 days until the signature-gathering deadline for statewide ballot initiatives (4/15/2018)
• 23 days until the Utah GOP State Convention (4/21/2018)
• 30 days until the Utah Democratic State Convention (4/28/2018)
• 39 days until the final day a veto override session may begin (5/7/2018)
• 89 days until the 2018 Primary Election (6/26/2018)
• 222 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
• 305 days until the first day of the 2019 Utah Legislature (1/28/2019)
• 951 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)

Do you like podcasts? Give us a download! Listen to our interviews with Utah political newsmakers and "Bernick and Schott on politics" while you're on the go. Hosts Bryan Schott and Bob Bernick have more than 60 years combined experience covering Utah politics, so they bring you knowledge and insight that's unprecedented. You can subscribe using iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

Got a tip or story idea? Send me an email at bschott@utahpolicy.com.

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Here's what's driving the day

Utahns don't want to pay for Trump's border wall

Most Utahns say they oppose building a wall on the border with Mexico if taxpayer money is used to pay for it [Utah Policy].

Veto override?

Lawmakers have a little more than a month to decide if they're going to override any of Gov. Herbert's vetoes. At least two bills that were vetoed passed with a supermajority [Utah Policy].

Political bracket challenge rolls on

It's the "Elite Eight" in our 2018 Utah political bracket matchups. Hit the link to vote on who moves to the "Final Four" next week [Utah Policy].

Other Utah headlines

• The Utah Transit Authority board is considering whether they can put off the name change lawmakers tucked into a bill overhauling the agency [Deseret News, Tribune, Fox 13].
  
  
• Reps. Stewart and Bishop say they're opposed to using Pentagon funding to pay for President Trump's border wall [Deseret News]. 
  
  
• U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney says he favors a "merit-based" system for immigration [Tribune].
  
  
• Sen. Todd Weiler applauds the decision by Wal Mart to remove Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout aisles [Tribune].

National headlines

• President Trump's lawyer reportedly raised the possibility of pardons for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort last summer as the special counsel was building a case against them in the Russia investigation [New York Times].
  
  
• Rick Gates, a top Trump campaign official, had repeated contact in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign with a person the FBI believes had ties to Russian intelligence. Mr. Gates told associates the man was a "former Russian Intelligence officer" [New York Times].
  
  
• A federal judge allows a lawsuit alleging President Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the constitution by holding on to his business interests to move forward [BuzzFeed].
  
  
• The DOJ is launching a probe into alleged FISA abuse in the surveillance of former Trump associate Carter Page [The Hill].
  
  
• President Trump ousts David Shulkin as head of the VA, replacing him with White House physician Adm. Ronny Jackson [The Hill].
  
  
• A quarter of Trump's original core cabinet is gone. The Trump administration has averaged a high-profile firing or departure every nine days. The longest the administration has gone without a departure is 39 days [Washington Post].
  
  
• For the second time this term, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case against gerrymandering, considering a legal challenge against Democratic-drawn districts in Maryland [New York Times].
  
  
• NATO is preparing more troops to confront a rising threat from Russia [Wall Street Journal].
  
  
• North and South Korea will meet for a summit on April 27 [Wall Street Journal].
  
  
• President Donald Trump is reportedly "obsessed" with Amazon.com. Trump reportedly wants to go after the online giant using antitrust laws [Axios].
  
  
• Facebook is limiting how much information third-party aggregators can have access to in order to target ads on the social network [Recode].
  
  
• An investigation finds not all of the data Cambridge Analytica accessed was deleted. A British TV station found data for more than 130,000 in Colorado is still in circulation [Channel 4].
  
  
• Facebook is making their privacy tools much easier for users to find [Politico].

On this day in history

• 1886 - John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
  
  
• 1951 - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
  
  
• 1961 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.
  
  
• 1973 - The last U.S. combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
  
  
• 1999 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 10,000 for the first time at the height of the dot-com bubble.

Today At Utah Policy

Utahns oppose using taxpayer money to pay for border wall By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor Utah voters do not favor President Trump's plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico if taxpayer funds are used to build it....

Vote on the 'Elite Eight' in our 2018 Utah political bracket By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor It's time for the quarterfinals in our 2018 political bracket challenge....

Will there be a veto override session? Lawmakers have about a month to decide By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor Will there be a veto override session from lawmakers this year? We've got a little more than a month to find out....

Utah Thrives podcast: Making landfills last By Utah Foundation Once a week, we haul that big trash bin out to the street, waiting for a truck to come along and empty it....

Honoring Utah immigrants as new pioneers By Press Release Wednesday the Salt Lake Chamber, Utah's largest and longest-standing business association, recognized the incredible contributions immigrants make every day in Utah at the American Dream Awards....

Weekly survey: Gun control march/Social media By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor Do you think there will be a lasting impact because of the large anti-gun violence rallies over the weekend? Has your social media use changed because of the controversy surrounding Facebook? Vote now in our weekly survey....

Policy News

Wise Words

Cultivation

"If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery." John Paul Jones

Lighter Side

Worried

"Since it came out that Facebook's data was misused during the 2016 election, their stock has taken a huge dive. You can tell Mark Zuckerberg is worried, because today he applied for a job at MySpace." Jimmy Fallon