Some you God fearing folks such as myself may not be aware that sin is soon upon our fair state. You see, effective midnight tonight, our great state of Deseret will soon be barraged by unseemly individuals who want nothing more than to take down the very fabric of our society. They claim that they are just trying to improve our image to the outside world – but I know the facts.

You see, at midnight tonight, people would be able to simply walk into a bar and get a drink! Yes, a BAR, not a Private Club for Members (an already intolerable institution); this fine state will be flooded with drunkards who want nothing more than to rob our homes and kill our children – I just know it.

Before we were at least protected thanks to the “private club” aspect of these dens of inequity. The $5 membership fee made would-be criminals think twice before picking up that first drink. Now, they can spend that $5 on what I can only assume is 5 shots of the hardest alcohol you can get, stumbling out much sooner and wandering our gated communities.

But now, now, they can just pony up to the devil and order a drink! These so called “adults” will loose all control without the fine guidance of our very reasonable laws.

What is even worse is that children (I presume) will be able to walk in with out people so much as batting an eye. Where is the control people? Where is the duty to protect our children from reality? Where does it end?

I hear these same sinners want them to put two or more ounces (what users call “shots”) or more of alcohol into their drinks – claiming that some drinks can’t be made because of a recipe. Boy, howdy, sounds like they are cooking up hard-core drugs.

But, alas, the users have won. I, for one, will be having a tall cool glass of water tonight as I sit out on my porch and watch the world inevitably come to an end.

Original post can be found at Blue in Red Zion.

There are numerous factors that create power on Capitol Hill: how well you are able to talk to people to get what you want, your position within your own party, your ability to rally troops for a particular issue, and what committees you sit on. The first three are somewhat obvious – but committees are a tricky thing – some are more powerful than others, and all have the potential to make you new friends or enemies.

Committees act as a sort of halfway house for bills and are generally the only place that most bills will ever see proper debate – furthermore this is the only time that the public can provide direct input on any particular bill. Committees are specialized into various fields such as rules (the most powerful) to ethics (the least used); this specialization allows the hundreds of bills to be heard at any given time. What makes committees so important is that anywhere from 5-15 legislators sit on a panel and decide if the bill should even be heard by the full legislature – if it does not make it out of committee, the bill is dead.

Within committees, certain positions are more important than others. The most important position in any committee is the chairperson; they control the agenda and what bills will be discussed in the first place – if the chair does not like a bill, guess what, it ain’t going anywhere.

So now we come to Senator Buttars, former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee – a relatively powerful committee because it is in charge of confirming judges after they have been suggested by the governor. This committee is one of the few places where all three branches of government intertwine and where the legislature has a distinct advantage. With removal from the committee, Buttars continues to hemorrhage political power; the downward slide started in earnest this time last year with his infamous “black baby” comment.

To put it perspective, my Senator, Luz Robles (a freshman, female, Hispanic, non-native English speaking, Democrat, whom I think is fantastic, by the way) now has more political power than Buttars if only because she is the Minority Caucus Manager in the Senate. I have more powerful representation on the Hill when compared it to West Jordan; and this is not due to simple luck of the draw, but because Buttars made statements that compromised his position.

And so here we are, West Jordan is represented by someone who made their district weaker. But don’t cry for them, it is not as if they did not know what they were getting themselves into when they chose to reelect Buttars in the first place; they took a gamble and they lost. Congratulations West Jordan, you have now become politically muted over the next three years, and you had the power to prevent it.

I’ve been hearing quite a bit about HB 187, which is of interest to the Utah Rivers Council and users of Utah’s rivers. This bill could mean 1000’s of miles of Utah rivers could be open to development. This bill is going to hearing and Utah Rivers Council could use your support by showing up Friday, February 20 at 2:00 pm in Room 445 of the Utah Legislature. See more about this on the Utah Rivers Council website.

In case you don’t get the paper and you need a laugh you can see the ad by clicking the photos below:

A full page of hate in the Salt Lake Tribune

A full page of hate in the Salt Lake Tribune

What I didn’t expect was for the new clown of a Senate President Michael Waddoups to try to make our laws even more regressive. Despite his previous waffling on the issue, Waddoups has recently stated that he wants to start collecting information about drinkers in the state, recording where they go (and in his dream world how much they drink, no doubt) into a central database of sinners. And not just for bar patrons - he also wants to record everyone who has a glass of wine with their dinner in a restaurant. Privacy? Who needs privacy? What’s next, a Ministry of Information?

The Republican party claims to be the party of limited government, don’t they? How is creating a large database of your citizen’s social habits not an intrusion of government? And is this something the state should be spending money on?

To create a database of drinkers is to presume guilt before innocence; assumes the majority of drinkers are reckless and irresponsible. In my experience this is the opposite of reality. Don’t treat us all as potential criminals, Sen. Waddoups.

Click here to learn who your legislators are!

Since Drinking Liberally came up with the Official Unofficial Drink of the Obama Administration, we have to wonder if he’s serving up Obama’s Hope Float to his guests.

In the spirit of Obama’s spirits, we’re hosting a drinks party of our own. Next Friday, February 6th, we’ll be mixing inauguration-themed drinks at Jeremiah and Heather’s house. Bring what you need to make & share your inauguration-themed - and cleverly named - drink. We’ll be making it a contest (with prizes) and voting on our favorite. If you don’t want to participate in the competition, just bring something to keep yourself from getting thirsty. We’ll provide the ice, lemons, limes, etc. as well as some finger foods to munch on. 214 W. 600 N. We’ll be starting at 7, but stop by at any time. Map