Al Green Sunday Morning Sermon:"A Change Is Gonna Come."

Impeaching Donald Trump; part of a real Christian God's plan, no?

Here's your Sunday Morning Sermon peeps, via the inimitable American church crooner and love-soother Al Green:

• Al Green - A Change Is Gonna Come

We kinda figured that most of our Weber County Forum readers probably skipped their formal LDS church services this morning, so's we'll suggest you just happily sing along. Although we confess that we don't know much about Mr. Green's personal personal politics, we'll nevertheless leap to the conclusion that Mr. Green's "Change is Gonna Come" message might have something to do with impeaching Donald Trump, which would be part of a real Christian God's plan, no?

Weber County Forum Sunday Sermon: "And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan ..."

Check your "Christian Values," US Republicans

Fine Nicholas Kristof Op-ed from the New New York Times. It's a true work of genius, we think, so we won't clip it; but will instead incorporate every dang word of it in full:

And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan ... 
by: Nicholas Kristof

A woman who had been bleeding for 12 years came up behind Jesus and touched his clothes in hope of a cure. Jesus turned to her and said: “Fear not. Because of your faith, you are now healed.”

Then spoke Pious Paul of Ryan: “But teacher, is that wise? When you cure her, she learns dependency. Then the poor won’t take care of themselves, knowing that you’ll always bail them out! You must teach them personal responsibility!”

They were interrupted by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and shouted, “Jesus, have pity on us.”

“NO!” shouted Pious Paul. “Jesus! You don’t have time. We have a cocktail party fund-raiser in the temple. And don’t worry about them — they’ve already got health care access.”

Jesus turned to Pious Paul, puzzled.

“Why, they can pray for a cure,” Pious Paul explained. “I call that universal health care access.”

Jesus turned to the 10 lepers. “Rise and go,” he told them. “Your faith has made you well.” Then he turned back to Pious Paul, saying, “Let me tell you the story of the good Samaritan.

“A man was attacked by robbers who stripped him of clothes, beat him and left him half dead. A minister passed down this same road, and when he saw the injured man, he crossed to the other side and hurried on. So did a rich man who claimed to serve God. But then a despised Samaritan came by and took pity on the injured man. He bandaged his wounds and put the man on his own donkey and paid an innkeeper to nurse him to health. So which of these three should we follow?”

“Those who had mercy on him,” Pious Paul said promptly.

Jesus nodded. “So go ——”

“I mean the first two,” Pious Paul interjected. “For the Samaritan’s work is unsustainable and sends the wrong message. It teaches travelers to take dangerous roads, knowing that others will rescue them from self-destructive behaviors. This Samaritan also seems to think it right to redistribute money from those who are successful and give it to losers. That’s socialism! Meanwhile, if the rich man keeps his money, he can invest it and create jobs. So it’s an act of mercy for the rich man to hurry on and ignore the robbery victim.”

“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven,” Jesus mused to himself. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.”

“Let me teach you about love, Jesus — tough love!” Pious Paul explained. “You need a sustainable pro-business model. And you need to give people freedom, Jesus, the freedom to suffer misery and poverty.”

“The Lord God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,” Jesus replied, emphasizing the last two words. Then he turned to a paralyzed beggar at his feet. “Stand up!” Jesus told the man. “Pick up your mat and go home.” As the man danced about joyfully, Pious Paul rolled his eyes dismissively.

“Look, Jesus, you have rare talent, and it should be rewarded,” Pious Paul said. “I have a partner, The Donald, who would like to work with you: He’d set up a lovely hospital, and the rich would come and pay for you to heal them. You’d get a percentage, and it’d be a real money-spinner. Overhead would be minimal because every morning you could multiply some loaves and fishes. You could strike it rich!”

“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God,” Jesus said. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received comfort.”

“Oh, come on, Jesus,” Pious Paul protested. “Don’t go socialist on me again. Please don’t encourage class warfare. The best way to help the needy is to give public money to the rich. That then inspires the poor to work harder, galvanizes the sick to become healthy, forces the lepers to solve their own problems rather than kick back and depend on others. That’s why any realistic health plan has to focus on providing less coverage for the poor, and big tax benefits for the rich. When millions of people lose health care, that’s when a country is great again!”

“From everyone who has been given much,” Jesus told him, “much will be required.”

“Well, sure, this hospital would have a foundation to do some charity work. Maybe commissioning portraits of The Donald to hang in the entrance. But let’s drop this bleeding heart nonsense about health care as a human right, and see it as a financial opportunity to reward investors. In this partnership, 62 percent of the benefits would go to the top 0.6 percent — perfect for a health care plan.”

Jesus turned to Pious Paul on his left and said: “Be gone! For I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; and I was sick, and you did not help me.”

“But, Lord,” protested Pious Paul of Ryan, “when did I see you hungry or thirsty or sick and refuse to help you? I drop your name everywhere. And I’m pro-life!”

“Truly, I say to you,” Jesus responded, “as you did not help the homeless, the sick — as you did not help the least of these, you did not help me.”

Check your "Christian Values,"  US Republicans.

Dominus Vobiscum, Peeps!

Sunday Funnies: In Red-State Utah, a Surge Toward Obamacare

Utah Buyer's Remorse? Read up, WCF readers

Eye opening article from the New York Times.  Here's the lead, Folks:

SALT LAKE CITY — From the moment the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, most elected officials in this sturdily Republican state have been eager to squash it.
But something surprising is happening here. Despite deep uncertainty about the law’s future, Utah recorded one of the biggest increases of any state in residents who signed up for coverage under the act this year. Now, the state is seeing a surprising burst of activism against repealing the law — including from Republicans.
“I’m naturally a really quiet person, but if I sit and do nothing and they take it away, how can I live with that?” asked Kim Nelson, 54, a Republican second-grade teacher who buys coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace and was recently treated for breast cancer. She has been calling and writing her congresswoman.
Many Utah residents still detest the law, but the activity here, and in other politically conservative states, highlights the challenges Republicans and the White House face as they struggle to come up with a palatable replacement.

Check out the full story, Peeps:

• In Red-State Utah, a Surge Toward Obamacare

Here's one of the several "money quotes" contained within this interesting NYT story:

Mary Wood, a divorced mother of two who works three part-time jobs, none of which offers health insurance, said she had voted for Mr. McMullin as part of “this movement in Utah of people who had a hard time completely putting themselves behind either Trump or Hillary.” But now, she said, with Mr. Trump pushing for a repeal of the health law and for other policies she opposes, her vote is “one of the biggest regrets of my life.”

Read up, WCF readers.

Sunday Funnies: Trump Voters, Your Savior Is Betraying You

"You have a false savior, and you will have to turn on him to save yourselves and our nation,"

Eye-opening morning op-ed from The New York Times: Here's the lede, Peeps:

Dear Trump Voters,
You’ve been had. President Trump sold you a clunker. Now that he’s in the White House, he’s betraying you — and I’m writing in hopes that you’ll recognize that betrayal and hold him accountable.
Trump spoke to your genuine pain, to the fading of the American dream, and he won your votes. But will he deliver? Please watch his speeches carefully. You’ll notice that he promises outcomes, without explaining how they’ll be achieved. He’s a carnival huckster promising that America will thrive with his snake oil.
“We’re going to win, we’re going to win big, folks,” Trump declared Friday at the CPAC meeting, speaking of his foreign policy.
Great! Problem solved. Next? He then outlined his take on drug trafficking and what will surely be his outcome:
“No good. No good. Going to stop.” Wow! Why didn’t anyone else think of that?

Read the full NYT editorial, folks, which describes Trump's problems at length.:

• Trump Voters, Your Savior Is Betraying You

Here's more:

Trump’s career has often been built on scamming people who put their faith in him, as Trump University shows. Now he’s moved the scam to a much bigger stage, and he boasts of targeting Muslims, refugees and unauthorized immigrants.Please don’t cheer, or acquiesce in these initial targets. The truth is that among the biggest losers from Trump policies will be you Trump voters, especially those of you from the working and middle class. You were hoping you’d elected a savior, and instead Donald Trump is doing to you what he did to just about everyone who ever trusted him: He’s betraying you,.

In summary, "[t]he sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can fight back and push for policies that will protect your health care and Social Security, defend the integrity of our election system and protect your own interests. You have a false savior, and you will have to turn on him to save yourselves and our nation," this morning's New York Times opinion writer, Nicholas Kristof, warns.

Sunday Funnies: Weber County's Form of Government at Issue - Updated

Time to lift up the bonnet, and look under the hood?

Interesting story in this morning's Standard-Examiner. Here's Cathy McKitrick's  tantalizing lede:

OGDEN — Has Weber County outgrown its three-member commission form of government?
That question will be explored in a Sept. 3 forum hosted by the Weber County League of Women Voters and Weber State University’s Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Read Ms. McKitrick's full story, peeps, wherein she does a aboslutely marvellous job of rounding up and sharing many of the predictably contradictory and sundry viewpoints:

• Weber County's form of government at issue

Here are the Time/Space coordinates, folks:

Public Forum: A Study of Weber County Government
When: Wed, September 3, 7pm – 8pm
Where: Shepherd Union Building, Ballroom A (map)
Description: Should we change the form of Weber County Government? Co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

During recent months it's become painfully apparent to many of us that our antiquated three-member commission form of government has been plagued with more than a mite of serious dysfunction.

We hope you'll all mark your calenders and be in attendance at the September 3 public forum, folks, as the best political minds in Weber County gather up, roll up their sleeves and take a gander under the Weber County Commission political "hood.".

A Weber County Forum Tip O' the Hat goes out to yeoman reporter Cathy McKitrick for the early heads-up.

Update 9/4/14 10:00 p.m.:  The Standard's Cathy McKitrick provides the post-event story:

• Weber County debates its form of government

Weber County Forum Sunday Funnies - "Cheers and Jeers"

One would-be Standard-Examiner page editor throws in his own 2¢

By Bob Becker

Since the Standard-Examiner is the source for most of what this thread discusses, maybe this is a good opportunity for a list of recent "Cheers and Jeers" for the SE.

Cheer: The SE's fact checking Superintendent Smith's claim that his school district is the only one left in Utah with paid professional librarians in its schools. The SE updated story establishes clearly that Superintendent Smith didn't know what the hell he was talking about. [The only other possibility is that he was being duplicitous. Not encouraging when an Ogden public official's best defense against a charge of duplicity is that he was being incompetent instead.] Good work, SE.

Jeer: running a shorter story on the firings first, which included Smith's claim, unchecked, and not providing readers with any hint that the short story was [in Dan S.'s term] a "placeholder" for a longer story being prepared. I know in the now Twitterpated world of news, it's important to get something up fast. But give readers some indication that what you have up is merely a teaser, that more is coming. Readers had no way to know that the shorter story leaving Smith's statement un-checked wasn't going to be the end of the reporting.

Jeer: Today's [Sunday's] front page of the SE is.... well, let's be delicate and say "thin" of substantive content for the front page of an urban daily on what it's editors tell me is its most-read daily edition. The lead story, with the biggest headline, taking up half the page, is about a decline in beauty pageant entrants in Utah of late. Much more than half the space devoted to this story is taken up by two pictures of last year's Miss Utah pageant winner. More pic than text. This is Utah local news, but not front page news. Second [of three] front page stories is about DNA testing of the beavers rescued from the latest Chevron pipeline spill. OK, it's an interesting local story. But front page? And front page when the Life section of the paper today devotes 3/4 of its front page, plus another entire page, to another story about those same beavers ["Beavers on the Rebound"]. That story runs nine pictures, which take up considerably more space than the text of the story. Can't help wondering then what the Beaver DNA story was doing on the front page at all, and can't help wondering if the SE is now running more and more pix in order to cut down on the actual text of stories and news? Is this the first hint of publisher changes with the new guy on board? More pictures, less text [and so fewer stories' or shorter ones, to make room for more pictures?], Last year's beauty queen filling nearly all the space above the fold on the front page, Sunday edition? Let us hope not.

Cheer: Becky Cairns "Beaver on the Rebound" story. It's a good features story. Well written and interesting. Not sure nine pictures served much purpose, but the story was a plus.

Jeer: Caption on one of the two pix on the front page running with the Pageant story: It reads as follows: "Kara Arnold of Bountiful, squats so she can be draped with the sash proclaiming her winner of the Miss Utah 2012 pageant." "Squats"? Ah, no. Beauty pageant winners do not "squat" on stage. Dips or bends, perhaps, if some description of her movement is thought absolutely necessary [actually, none was necessary for the picture]. But definitely not "squats." An inelegant choice. Reminds me of the story about a reporter describing Joan Crawford as "sweating" under the klieg lights. Someone, I forget who, corrected him: "Men sweat. Women perspire. Miss Crawford glows."

Cheer: WAPO wire service story on Cedar Mesa. Off beat, not expected, interesting read.

Cheer: J. Lampro's front page story on alcoholism. The only one of the three front page stories that belonged there this morning.

Sunday Funnies

The real reason there will be no outright ethics ban on legislative gifts

By Ozboy

I would like to point out an incredible editorial in today's Tribune by the new speaker of the house Dave Clark.

It is packed with lies about how the legislature is finally going to go after the putrid and ever present ethics problem in Utah's state government.

It is so full of crap that it ends up being very funny. If you read it be sure and catch the very, but unintended, funny piece of comic genius at the end, where the clueless and Nancy Workman Award winning speaker tells us that the reason there will be no outright bans on legislative gifts is because they do not want to offend the school children who want to give them such gifts! Hey, I'm not making this up, read it here:

• House of Representatives ready to consider ethics reforms

Don't let the cat get your tongues.