"Rise up" and become leaders says Martin Luther King III and 23 additional species now extinct
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The Utah Policy newsletter is your one-stop source for political and policy-minded news. Send news tips or feedback to editor@utahpolicy.com.

 

Situational Analysis | September 29, 2021

It's Wednesday and it will (finally!) feel like fall today. It's National Coffee Day, so if that's your thing, enjoy!

The Utah League of Cities and Towns' annual conference also begins today.

Be in the Know

  1.  "Leadership is not reserved for an elite few," said Martin Luther King III at yesterday's BYU forum. "Rise up," he said and become leaders. Rise up and create his father's beloved community. "Rise up and take a stand against poverty, racism, war and violence...Rise up and lead nonviolent movements to feed the hungry. Rise up and use your economic power to support a culture of nonviolence. Rise up and work for peace, dignity and human rights for all people in every nation.”

  2. The ivory-billed woodpecker is officially declared extinct, along with 22 other species. "The ivory-billed woodpecker, a ghostly bird whose long-rumored survival in the bottomland swamps of the South has haunted seekers for generations, will be officially declared extinct by U.S. officials after years of futile efforts to save it. It earned its nickname because it was so big and so beautiful that those blessed to spot it blurted out the Lord’s name.
    Even the scientist who wrote the obit cried."
 

FROM OUR SPONSOR

The Hinckley Report with Jason Perry

In partnership with the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, PBS Utah produces and airs "The Hinckley Report," providing insight and analysis into Utah politics, covering the most pressing political issues facing our state. Hosted by Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics, each week’s guests include Utah’s top journalists, lawmakers and policy experts. "The Hinckley Report" airs on PBS Utah Fridays at 7:30 p.m. and is also available to stream or as a podcast.

 

Utah Headlines

General

  • Perspective: The group that’s happiest in the pandemic may surprise you (Deseret News)
  • In-Depth: FBI report shows spike in Utah murders (Fox13)
  • Utah health centers to receive $7 million in federal grants (Fox13)
  • Gabby Petito’s parents plan to ‘let it be’ but still seeking justice (ABC4)
  • Search for Gabby Petito helps find another missing person (KUTV)

Politics

  • Editorial board: Endless GOP election audits have become a farce. It's over. (Deseret News)
  • Catherine G. Weller: What Utah voters do now can affect our democracy for the next decade (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Chris Stewart: President Biden is making the world a more dangerous place (The Hill)
  • Podcast: Stop the steal, border crisis, & flags in school (Political as Heck)
  • Utah lawmaker Mark Strong invites GOP caucus to reception with COVID-19 vaccine skeptic from Texas (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Sen. Lee blasts Biden vaccine mandate proposal on Senate floor (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Utah Sen. Mike Lee says people are scared of Biden’s vaccine mandate. ‘I’m here to defend them’ (Deseret News)

COVID Corner

  • 1130 new cases, 13 new deaths
  • Sundance Film Festival attendees will have to wear masks, as well as get vaccinated against COVID-19 (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Weber, Morgan counties see leveling of COVID-19 case growth, but officials still guarded (Standard-Examiner)
  • Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids may not be FDA authorized before November (Wall Street Journal)
  • N.C. hospital system fires about 175 workers in one of the largest-ever mass terminations due to a vaccine mandate (Washington Post)
  • Vatican ordering all employees to be vaccinated or tested (The Hill)
  • United Airlines says nearly all workers met vaccine mandate deadline, 593 could face termination (Washington Post)

Education

  • UVU celebrates 80 years of training and educating (Daily Herald)
  • Dixie State University Board of Trustees welcomes new leadership, members (St. George News)
  • Americans are surprisingly supportive of religion in school (Deseret News)
  • The Education Department negotiates Navient’s exit from federal student loan program. The deal, if green-lighted by Education Department officials, would represent one of the most dramatic shakeups of how the federal government collects student loans in recent years. (Politico)

Environment

  • Can the Great Salt Lake be saved? Rep. Blake Moore and Sen. Mitt Romney are behind bills to conserve saline waters in the West before they become environmental and health disasters. (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Utah Climate Week kicked off on Monday with an optimistic update on how communities in the Beehive State are faring in their goal to procure net-100% renewable energy by 2030. (Deseret News)

Housing

  • You won’t be surprised to learn housing in Salt Lake City, Ogden and Provo are overpriced. You may be stunned by how much. If the market tanks, Wasatch Front homebuyers may have to wait years to see a return on their investment. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Infrastructure

  • Why Sen. Romney says the negotiated infrastructure plan would benefit Utah. An estimated 62 bridges and more than 2,064 miles of highway in Utah are in poor condition (Deseret News)
  • Utah has billions in infrastructure needs as water, sewer lines reach end of life (Fox13)

Legal

  • Traffic stop yields drugs and stolen COVID-19 vaccination cards, UHP says (Deseret News)
  • Tsk tsk. Park City police blotter: Complaint involves ‘people yelling like they are having fun’ (Park Record)

National Headlines

General

  • Havana Syndrome attacks widen with CIA officer’s evacuation from Serbia. U.S. officials say the still-unexplained assaults are steadily expanding and sapping morale at the CIA and State Department (Wall Street Journal)
  • Capitol Police chief sees rising threats (AP)
  • Hospital to issue panic buttons as assaults on workers rise (The Hill)

Politics

  • Joint Chiefs chairman calls Afghan war a ‘strategic failure’ (AP)
  • Afghan army collapse 'took us all by surprise,' U.S. defense secretary says (Reuters)
  • Pentagon told Biden not to withdraw from Afghanistan (Roll Call)
  • Milley defends calls to Chinese at end of Trump presidency (AP)
  • What Jeff Flake told a Senate panel considering his nomination as U.S. ambassador to Turkey (Deseret News)
  • Janet Yellen says Treasury could exhaust cash reserves by Oct. 18 if debt limit isn’t raised (Wall Street Journal)
  • Sign of progress, Biden digs in to strike deal on $3.5T plan (AP)
  • Left warns Pelosi they'll take down Biden infrastructure bill (The Hill)

Courts

  • Judge blocks Arizona laws banning school, city mask mandates (AP)
  • 131 federal judges failed to recuse themselves from cases in which they had financial interest (The Hill)
  • Trump loses case meant to silence former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman (Washington Post)

Elections

  • There are just 9 female governors. Both parties want change. (Politico)
  • “I think it’s going to be the most important House race in the country in 2022,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said of her primary. (Deseret News)
 

Policy News

Webinar: Utah Inland Port Authority PID proposal

Please join the Utah Inland Port Authority for an informational webinar regarding the proposal to create a Public Infrastructure District (PID).

October 1, 2021

10:00am – 11:00am  

Zoom (Register HERE)

Numbers of the Day

Number of the Day Sept 29, 2021

 

 

Commentary: We should welcome Afghan refugees

By LaVarr Webb

Welcome to America! The far-right news media and politicians rightly excoriated the Biden administration for its botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. They lamented the abandonment of thousands of Afghans who supported our military for many years and could be targets of Taliban reprisals.

But now some of those same conservative commentators and politicians are questioning whether the United States should accept many of the thousands of Afghan refugees who did get out of the country. They’re turning Americans against the refugees by questioning how well they have been vetted and speculating that some of them might be terrorists.

Such rhetoric and thinking is most unfortunate. Certainly, all refugees should be carefully screened and their backgrounds reviewed. The State Department and other federal agencies have processes and procedures in place to do just that. They aren’t perfect, but certainly we can rely on them as we routinely do.

We should be welcoming the Afghan refugees and thanking them for their service. I’m glad Gov. Cox and most of the Utah community is doing so. These are people, and their families, who worked with the U.S. military and other agencies, whose lives are in danger if they stay in Afghanistan. Certainly, we can absorb them into America, and our country will be better for it.

I’m as critical as anyone of the way the Biden administration withdrew from Afghanistan. But you can’t criticize that disaster, and the fact that many U.S. citizens and deserving Afghanis were left behind, and then say we shouldn’t accept the refugees. 

I’m hearing far too much talk comparing Afghan refugees to the illegal immigrants besieging our southern border. There’s a big difference. Those coming in from Mexico are entering illegally. They are coming because we have a terribly broken immigration system that Congress refuses to fix, and also because of welcoming statements made by Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign.

The Afghan refugees are arriving in America legally, under programs specifically devised for them. Our attitude should be, “Welcome to America.”

 

Upcoming

  • 2021 ULCT Annual Convention with Capt. Scott Kelly – Sept 29-Oct 1. Register here
  • One Utah Summit held at SUU – Oct 4-6. Register here
  • Women in the money: Utah Financial Empowerment Conference with Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks – Oct 8, 8:30 am - 4 pm. Register here
  • Growth, Grit and Grace - SLC Chamber's Women & Business Conference and ATHENA awards – Nov 19, 8:00 am - 3:30 pm Register here
 

On This Day In History

From History.com

  • 1839 - Francis Willard is born. As president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest organization of women in the U.S. in the 19th century, she turned the organization into a political force working on a broad array of social reforms including women’s rights, social justice, and world peace.
  • 1850 - Utah Territory is created.
  • 1907 - The great singing cowboy, Gene Autry, is born in Texas.
  • 1914 - U.S. patent No. 1111999 is granted to Thomas Edison for the phonograph record.
  • 1916 - American oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller becomes the world's first billionaire
  • 1941 - The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine.
  • 1982 - Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills seven
  • 1983 - US Congress authorizes President Reagan to keep 1,600 US Marines in Lebanon
  • 1988 - Stacy Allison becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
  • 2020 - Helen Reddy dies at age 78

Wise Words

“If you see yourself as trying to beat the mountain, eventually the mountain will win. You don't conquer mountains, you cooperate with them.

-Stacy Allison

Lighter Side

“'I’m sorry' and 'I apologize' mean the same thing. Except at a funeral.” 

— Demetri Martin

 

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