Deja vu: Attorney Brian Barnard will never go hungry so long as the Utah Legislature insists on making rules that rule out the First Amendment. Barnard's latest paycheck, $9,000, covers legal fees awarded as part of the state's settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Utah Animal Rights Coalition and two protesters who claimed they were barred from carrying signs at a demonstration outside the Utah House of Representatives chambers in February. In a similar, successful suit in 2006, Barnard forced changes in the rules for demonstrations on Capitol Hill and was awarded $16,000 for his yeoman services. Let's see if the folks running things up there waste your tax dollars again by going for the free speech-trampling trifecta. While we wait, more wine with that caviar, Mr. Barnard?

No-brainer: They're as smart as the rest of the kids. But, due to a slower pace of learning in their old schools, many refugee children enrolling in Salt Lake Valley schools are behind from the start. The School for New Americans, by grouping students by skill level instead of age, would put these newcomers on a level learning field and allow them to catch up. If approved by the State Charter School Board, the new charter school would begin operating on the west side in 2009, and draw heavily from refugee communities. Sounds like a no-brainer.