Am-not-sty
Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, is pretty predictable when it comes to President Barack Obama, in case you hadn't noticed. Her latest screed calls the president a dictator because of the Department of Justice's immigration policies. The Texas judge ruling on the case thinks so, too. Lies, lies, lies, the attorneys said, in asserting that the DOJ had gone forward with Obama's immigration plan after saying it wouldn't. But here's the deal: Love and her compatriots call the plan "amnesty." Visit PolitiFact.com to find out the nuances among the many immigration policies. The only immigration policy going forward is one from 2012, in which the federal government renewed 100,000 applications for deferred action from eligible immigrants. It's a third category not covered in the case. But to Love and Sen. (and presidential hopeful) Ted Cruz, R-Utah, that's just amnesty.
Meeting Mia
Speaking of Rep. Love, she is now one of the go-to people when delegations of Utahns visit Washington, D.C. Whether she heeds constituent concerns is another issue, but you have to give her a thumbs-up for meet-ups. When Everette Bacon, a Utah representative of the National Federation of the Blind, stopped in, he and his group were led to a committee meeting Love was attending. She came out, shook hands and took photos. Not so for Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. In the five years that Bacon has visited D.C., he has never met Chaffetz personally—only his staffers. Teresa Tavares, who runs Centro Hispano in Chaffetz's district, went to Washington, D.C., to speak with him about immigration reform—which Chaffetz says his constituents are against. He wasn't there, so she talked about supporting immigration reform—to his staffer.
Utah Women Earn Less
Utah's in the news again as one of the top four states for economic competitiveness. This is a victory for those who agree with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative, corporate-backed group that crafts model legislation across the nation. ALEC is all about supply-side economics. Here in Utah, corporations have low taxes, and poor people have no health care. Low unionization is another of ALEC's goals.You can see how Utah meets that goal when two of its cities show up on another ranking: the 10 worst-paying cities for women. Ogden/Clearfield got No. 2 and Provo/Orem came in at No. 1. "Nationwide, women did not have higher median earnings than men in any of the occupations reviewed by the census," wrote Thomas C. Frohlich in 24/7 Wall St.