Good Friday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 97th day of the year. There are 268 days remaining in 2017.
Trump launches airstrikes against Syria. Romney is weighing a run for U.S. Senate in 2018.
The clock:
- 43 days until the Utah Republican State Convention (5/20/2017)
- 71 days until the Utah Democratic State Convention at Weber State University (6/17/2017)
- 214 days until the 2017 municipal elections (11/7/2017)
- 290 days until the opening day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (1/22/2018)
- 335 days until the final day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (3/8/2018)
- 578 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 1,306 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
Today’s political TL; DR –
- President Donald Trump authorized an airstrike against Syria Thursday evening. 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles hit an airfield [Washington Post].
- In his brief remarks following the strike, President Trump said the action was in direct response to the chemical weapon attacks on the Syrian people. “No child of God should ever have to suffer such horror,” he said [New York Times].
- Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the missile strike [Washington Post].
- President Trump was against bombing Syria before he was in favor [CNN].
- Utah politicos react to the military action [Deseret News, Tribune].
- Mitt Romney is reportedly weighing a run for U.S. Senate in 2018 [Utah Policy].
- The amount of money Utah’s Republican and Democratic parties receive from the tax check-off form has fallen over the past few years [Utah Policy].
- The Utah GOP plans to use their tax check-off money to pay off debt from the lawsuits against SB54 [Utah Policy].
- Wanna understand what happened this week in Utah politics? Watch our week-in-review [Utah Policy].
- The U.S. Senate voted to change the rules to break a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch‘s nomination to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch will be confirmed by the Senate on Friday [Politico].
- Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee vote for the rule change despite opposing the move in 2013 [Deseret News, Tribune].
- Hatch says Democrats only have themselves to blame for the change [Utah Policy].
- Rep. Devin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, will step down temporarily from his position following an ethics investigation into whether he leaked classified information [Huffington Post].
- Rep. Chris Stewart, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, disagrees with Nunes’ decision to step away from the Russian investigation [Tribune].
- Whoops! White House adviser Jared Kushner forgot to mention his meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and dozens of other foreign leaders when he applied for his top-secret security clearance [New York Times].
- The Department of Homeland Security wants to know who is behind a Twitter account that’s critical of the Trump administration, but Twitter is suing to keep the user secret [Washington Post].
- Boring but important: The new chair of the FCC is moving toward the rapid repeal of the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules [Reuters].
- Mormon Church leaders speak out on the homeless issue, saying caring for the less fortunate “defines us as individuals and communities.” The Church has also poured $42 million into care for the homeless over the past decade [Deseret News, Tribune].
- LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson has been released from the hospital [Deseret News].
On this day in history:
- 1862 – Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
- 1922 – Under the direction Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall, petroleum reserves at Wyoming’s Teapot Dome Oil Field were leased without competitive bidding to private companies. A Senate investigation ensued, leading to a bribery case that would become known as the Teapot Dome scandal.
- 1969 – The Supreme Court unanimously struck down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.
- 1990 – Former national security adviser John M. Poindexter was convicted of five counts at his Iran-Contra trial. (A federal appeals court later reversed the convictions.)