Unless you’re over 42 or 43, you may not recall Merlin Olsen, who died last week. As a football star, famous in Utah, Olsen, by his own words, was raised in a strict Mormon home. He was a huge star with the Utah State Aggies. He won the Outland Trophy, was an All-American twice and led the Aggies to a couple of bowl games.

He spent 15 seasons with the Rams, never made it to the Super Bowl but never missed a game. He was a Pro-bowler for 14 consecutive years — a feat only matched by one other player. He logged 915 tackles for the Rams, a team record.

Olsen, who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1982, was a very intelligent man, and his wisdom showed on the field. He, along with teammates “Deacon” Jones, Lamar Lundy and “Rosey” Grier, were called the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome” on defense. They modernized the once-staid game of football with defensive stunts and loops that involved diagonal rushes and crossing each other to reach a rusher or quarterback.

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When failure is prolonged too long, it eventually turns into farce. The irony of the Democrats’ attempt to shove an unpopular health care reform horse pill down Americans’ throats is that the farcial failure may actually become law. Ever heard of the Slaughter Rule, or Deem and Pass? Its the latest harebrained, despeate, Quixotic maneuver by Democrats to shove ObamaCare into law.

Common sense 101: If the House Democrats had the votes to pass the Senate’s health care reform bill, the vote would have occurred, then maybe reconciliation, and President Obama would sign the bill. But they don’t have the votes. The Democratic majority in Congress is a dysfunctional mess of frightened moderates, petulant progressives and a few anti-abortion activists who are ignored because if their demands were met, three times as many abortion rights supporters would ditch the bill. Read

Enter Deem and Pass, a maneuver designed to pass the Senate bill without having a vote. As the Washington Post reports, “The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.” As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “I like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

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The Deseret News has a fascinating story about how in 2002 it  received word and verified that former Utah House Majority Leader Kevin Garn’s once hot-tubbed in the nude with a 15-year-old girl, Cheryl Maher, when the politician was about twice her age. Yet, even though Garn was a candidate for U.S. Congress at the time, the Des News decided it wasn’t a story worth reporting. Read

Let’s see, Garn was a candidate for high federal office, thousands of voters were about to make up their minds on whether he should represent them in Congress. The candidate had deliberately thrust himself into the public eye by his political ambition. It’s the responsibility and trust of the press to inform the public. The candidate admits to taking a minor to a public place and hot-tubbing in the nude with her. Of course it’s news. The Deseret News editors reject that bit of information, yet probably published thousands of words that Garn’s campaign team had fed the press for months, as more than one critic has mentioned.

I agree with Allison Barlow Hess, president of Utah SPJ (I am a board member) that the Des News, although making a bad call,  at least followed the right process: Reporter wrote story, it went through the chain of command, and editors killed it. Good reporters argue with editors, but they follow their judgment. I am amazed though, that the two top editors at the Des News don’t even recall the story being discussed. That makes me wonder how seriously it was debated.

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The Spring 1971 BYU Studies journal has an interesting article. Titled, “The 1968 Presidential Decline of George Romney: Mormonism or Politics?,” it’s an interesting look at the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney’s father. The elder Romney was as an attractive a candidate in 1967 as his son was 40 years later. They were both very handsome and about the same age when they ran. The elder Romney never ran for the presidency again. He served in President Richard Nixon’s cabinet for one term.

It’s popular today to assign Romney’s relatively early demise in the 1968 presidential derby to the bad publicity resulting from his claim that he was “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam War by U.S. military, but writer Dennis L. Lythgoe disagrees. Romney’s perfect persona was disconcerting to many voters, Lythgoe asserts. The American electorate may not have bought a used car from a man like Richard Nixon, but they were more apt to vote for Tricky Dick than for auto executive George Romney, who had revolutionized the auto industry by pushing compact cars onto the market.

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Social conservatives, who often grumble about the liberal 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, may finally have a kind word for the San Francisco-based court. By a 2-1 margin, the court ruled the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional. Also, the court upheld the use of “in God we trust” on currency.

The main loser in this case was Michael Newdow, a prominent atheist whose challenge to the pledge was heard by the Supreme Court in 2004. At that time, the high court punted, deciding that Newdow lacked standing to sue on his daughter’s behalf. In this latest attempt, Newdow, a doctor and a lawyer, represented several parents claiming the pledge was unconstitutional. The appeals court that rejected Newdow’s arguments today had agreed with him on the pledge in 2002.

Had Newdow been successful, it would have likely made for a dramatic day at the Supreme Court. The high court would have had to finally rule on whether the Constitution agrees on mixing God with the Pledge of Allegiance.  Read more about today’s decision here

While the White House and congressional Democrats try to con Americans into believing that 10 years of Medicare cuts and tax increases and six years of new health care benefits equal deficit reduction, another hot-button issue is waiting its turn before the spotlight. According to the Wall Street Journal, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are proposing a mandatory national ID card for American workers. The card, they claim, would make it impossible for illegal aliens to work in this country. The ID card would accompany a comprehensive immigration plan that would provide a long-term path toward citizenship for some illegals already here and a guest-worker plan to help businesses that need immigrant labor.

“The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past,” writes WSJ reporter Laura Meckler. You can read the entire article here

Personally, I don’t think this is the worst idea in the world. If we want to stop illegal immigration, we need to assimilate millions and then prevent others from working illegally. An ID card would go a long way towards that, particularly since its never been a practical idea to wall off the southern United States. But I can’t be the only person who knows that Graham and Schumer’s ID card solution doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. A biometric ID card scares both extremes in this country. Both will see it as an excessive intrusion of privacy by government that can be abused. By the time the debate’s over, the whole purpose of an ID card — to make sure only American citizens are working — will mostly be forgotten.

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I serve as a home teacher to an elderly woman. She has very little money and tries to stay independent. Eager not to have her death be a burden to her children, she long ago started putting money away so that when she dies, she can be cremated.

However, as she expressed to me, the decision has caused her anguish, as some members of the church have told her that cremation is not permitted in the LDS Church. “I simply have no other way of paying for my funeral,” she told me with a mixture of frustration and determination.

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Note this exchange between MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and conservative Tea Party activist Mark Williams. See if you can spot the one out of control.

I know MSNBC is second in the cable news ratings only because CNN’s ratings have fallen below The Home Shopping Network, but a left-wing Glenn Beck is not going to help the Keith Olbermann Channel. Read