It might as well be kiss-up-to-Mitt month for the media, what with all the attention he’s getting. First, we have the love-fest that is Mitt, the 94-minute Netflix movie about Romney family prayer and the candidate’s overarching self-doubt. We have lots of people pondering whether he will run again for president, despite The Salt Lake Tribune’s pronouncement that he won’t because he’s sized up the negatives. Still, Romney stays out there, taking on a New York Times reporter for misquoting him on Russia and dissing the Sochi Olympics for wasting billions of dollars. Romney said that Putin was using the Olympics as a personal P.R. vehicle. Of course, the fact that Romney headed the Salt Lake Games didn’t hurt his bid for Massachusetts governor. And then there were the Olympic pins with his likeness. Never underestimate the power of hubris.
A House committee thinks it’s a good idea to get kids involved in a jury trial over termination of parental rights. Don’t trust a judge, and really don’t trust the guardians ad litem who are charged with protecting children from abuse and neglect—that’s the message from Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper. While there may be instances of children wrongly taken from parents, there are many more of children’s lives being saved. Christensen thinks this is about preserving families and somehow upholding parents’ liberties. Interestingly, Missouri is vetting the polar opposite of Christensen’s proposal—to speed up the process. If this is a constitutional issue, then kids have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, too.
Yes, we thought it was a joke. Good one, Rep. Jerry Anderson, R-Price. You want to limit state regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s all about saving the plants. God knows they’re not getting enough carbon dioxide. And yes, Anderson was a “science” teacher, and so he knows all about gases like nitrogen and radon and xenon. They’re natural. Well, a lot of things are natural that are not necessarily beneficial to human life. People have been naturally burning fossil fuels for a long time, and it’s been causing bad air, bad lungs and bad economies. According to a Salt Lake Tribune study, the bad air also seems to cause more school absences. At least legislators saw fit to hold this bill. Apparently, the plant lobby isn’t very effective.
