Two tanks and several other armored vehicles are sitting in a rail yard a few miles away from the Lincoln Memorial, waiting to be displayed during a Fourth of July celebration at President Donald Trump’s request. Their presence suggest the president has largely succeeded in turning an annual Independence Day celebration into a salute to the American military. [NYTimes]
Happy Wednesday!
Topping the news: A 28-year-old Eagle Mountain Republican has announced his run for Utah’s 4th District Congressional seat on a platform of accountability measures for law enforcement and lawmakers. [Trib]
-> The San Juan County Commission held its first meeting in the community of Oljato within the Navajo nation on Tuesday — a move residents called “historic.” [Trib]
-> Forty nine people were arrested for drunk driving in the first three months of Utah’s new toughest-in-the-nation DUI law. [Trib]
Programming note: Political Cornflakes will be off Thursday for the Fourth of July holiday but will be back in your inbox bright and early Friday morning.
Tweets of the day: From @pattymo: “TRUMP: Big tank GENERAL: That’s right, Mr. President. Big tank”
-> @kris86: “utah in july be like ‘what if independence day but louder, more obnoxious, and with 100% more pioneers?’”
-> From @eyeonutah: “Recent deaths of UofU students proves that Utah needs instant online access to court records. Currently only people who pay monthly subscription or go to local courthouse can search these records. Citizens need to the ability to do background checks on people. #utpol”
Happy Birthday: To Matt Slonaker, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project.
Also in the news: The Wasatch Front Regional Council is asking residents to weigh in on where they would like to see about $4 billion for transportation spent over the next six years. [Trib]
-> A Utah developer is reapplying to build a controversial high-density residential and commercial project west of Herriman. [Trib] [DNews]
-> Utah’s only congressional Democrat joined the national push to raise the federal tobacco age to 21. [DNews]
-> A district court judge has ordered a southern Utah company that used child labor from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to pay more than $1 million in back wages. [FOX13]
-> The remains of Army Sgt. 1st Class Elliot Robbins, a Utah soldier who died in Afghanistan, returned to the United States on Tuesday. [Trib]
-> West Valley City residents are bracing for another summer of bad smells that city officials believe are wafting from a waste processing company near the landfill. [FOX13]
-> Cartoonist Pat Bagley wishes Trump would “zip it.” [Trib]
Nationally: The House of Representatives’ tax writing committee sued the Treasury Department and International Revenue Service on Tuesday, demanding access to Trump’s tax returns. [NYTimes]
-> More than a dozen members of Congress toured Texas border facilities on Monday and reported seeing women held in rooms without running water, sleeping bags set up on concrete and other poor conditions. [CNN] [NYTimes] [TexasTribune]
-> Three dozen prominent national Republicans are filing a brief with the Supreme Court urging it to declare that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly discriminates against LGBTQ+ individuals. [NYTimes]
-> Trump and the Republican National Committee have raised $105 million for his reelection campaign, signaling that the president will have more campaign resources than he did in 2016. [WaPost] [PBS] [NYTimes] [NBC]
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-- Taylor Stevens and Alison Berg
Follow @sltribpolitics