Salt City Sinner

"Hey, Charles! It's super cool that you've been at Pioneer Park and elsewhere taking pictures of a growing, self-sustaining movement of serious activists and also the two or three dudes rocking Guy Fawkes masks, but what is going on with that whole 'redistricting' thing? Have we figured out the creative and amusing way in which the Utah GOP has decided to slip a shiv into the vitals of local Democrats?" I'm glad you asked! I admit that of late I've neglected this story a bit, and my apologies. The "good" news is that the redistricting process has made little-to-no progress, and is slowly unfolding like a repulsive strip tease performed by a fat, drunken clown. Lee Davidson of the Salt Lake Tribune provides some illumination : Lawmakers began a Redistricting Committee hearing on Friday in a stalemate over how to redraw congressional districts. They ended it that way, too.   But in between, Democrats and reform groups zinged Repu...

This morning's episode of Good Morning Utah featured an amusing update from failed gubernatorial candidate Morgan Philpot on one of the more idiotic conspiracy theories I've heard lately. Given a 15 - 4 majority on the Redistricting Committee, a 55 - 20 majority in the House, a 21 - 8 majority in the Senate, the Governorship, and a 4-1 lead in the United States Congress, what would the logical appraisal of this situation be for the Utah Republican Party? If you guessed "whine and bitch like a bunch of cranky toddlers," you are a winner! As GMU has been telling us (with a little help from Carl Wimmer ), Herbert is apparently afraid of a confrontation with Jim Matheson, the lone "Democrat" representing Utah in the House of Representatives. Matheson, you see, has threatened to run for...er....Governor, or Senator, or something... if the current redistricting scheme puts him out of a job. It has been reliably hilarious to watch political cannibals like O...

The fix is in! From Lee Davidson ( for the Tribun e): Republicans plan to let Democrats win a small battle or two but force them to lose the overall war on Wednesday as the Legislature’s Redistricting Committee debates new Utah Senate districts... Republicans plan to let Democrats win a small battle or two but force them to lose the overall war on Wednesday as the Legislature’s Redistricting Committee debates new Utah Senate districts... Republicans do plan to add a seat in Utah County by consoli dating  the Senate’s current seven Democratic districts — all in Salt Lake County — into six, eliminating one.  It's good that the UT GOP has agreed to leave Senator Robles' seat alone: a merger with Davis County would have been insane enough to attract unwelcome scrutiny (even in this state). Senator Robles' district on Salt Lake's west side has absolutely nothing in common with Senator Liljenquist's Davis County district, and combining the two would have been bad fo...

Joseph Farah's World Net Daily , a clearinghouse of unhinged wingnut lunacy and a website that's about as far to the right as you can go before you hit Stormfront country, posted a re-hash of a recent CNN poll today, and got kind of...creative...with what them liberal elites call the "mathemagics." In a post titled CNN's bad news for Obama: 6 of 10 doubt U.S. birth story , the brain trust at WND dusted off Glenn Beck's chalkboard, started scribbling away, and came up with the following : [CNN's poll] question was: "Do you think Barack Obama was definitely born in the United States, probably born in the United States, probably born in another country, or definitely born in another country?" Definitely in the United States got the vote from 42 percent of the respondents, and probably in the United States another 29 percent. But that leaves almost 6 of 10 Americans uncertain about the president's birth – and therefore his eligibility under the...