I heard there was a Cohen song, And all the Christians got it wrong, But you don’t really get the meaning do ya? ‘Cause you see its about getting laid, It’s sex, and love, and Jewish faith, But all the gentiles heard was “hallelujah!”

Insane but true fact: making US roads as safe as Canadian, Australian, or European roads would save more lives than eliminating murder from the US.

Of course I had to get a photo with these celebrities!

Utah House Minority Leader Angela Romero with an EPIC quote when I asked if she wants to run for the new congressional seat: “Why the f— would I want to be part of that s— show when I’m already in this s— show?!?!” She’s not running, for the record. She added: “I do love this s— show.” #utpol #Utah

In New York City for the first time. Greatest City in the World but everyone is walking single-file on the sidewalk so a few can store their private property on the street. Dozens waiting on every corner so a handful of idiots can roll past in SUVs. Car centrism is especially absurd in real cities.

A friend texted me because he just learned how catastrophic a shrinking Great Salt Lake will be. On one had I'm shocked he was completely unaware of the unfolding disaster (how?!?). On the other hand his education is an example of more and more people learning & getting motivated to save the lake.

This is interesting. SLC council member Eva López Chávez says she has NOT actually endorsed Ben McAdams for Congress.

No, Salt Lake City's ultra-wide streets were not built to accommodate turning wagons. It's a cute story, but there's no evidence for it in the historical record (and doesn't even make sense). This myth must be stamped out!

It can be a euphemism though

JD Vance a couple of years from now: the reason we don’t have as much gold as we used to is that the illegals put it in their teeth and wedding bands. We need some kind of final solution to that.

I remember being sad as a kid that I would never be able to have a bicycle-riding birthday party because there would always be too much snow. Today (my birthday) it was so warm I rode home in a T-shirt after sunset. Thanks, global warming 🙃

Who is WelcomePAC? I keep getting texts from them and the vibes just...feel off.

ICYMI, after a deadline by the Trump administration with no deal on the Colorado River, what happens next? Here’s what I know and it could involve cuts to water supplies in Utah: www.fox13now.com/news/colorad... #utpol #Utah

This is the perfect image to use for this story because "Provo Strong" was Kaufusi's previous campaign slogan. To have it immortalized in concrete and steel as a "public art sculpture" always seemed odd to me and it feels emblematic of Kaufusi's administration.

It's cool there are so many extremely qualified Democrats who could run for the new Utah District 1 seat. It's looking like it will be a crowded field.

I've been invited to speak at the BYU Stewardship Symposium this Saturday! I'm nervous, so I wouldn't mind seeing some friendly faces in attendance. It's free and there will be some great presenters. The keynote speaker, if you're interested, is Gérald Caussé, the newest Apostle of the LDS Church.

Huge bummer if this happens. Rad Power has transformed the lives of so many people I know.

My view of the aurora from the five-hour city budget meeting tonight. Not too bad.

👀 Bloutah 2026!?

His whining aside, Axson's writing in these 'official proclamations' is terrible. Don't center-align six paragraphs. That's not how you use an em dash. Why is King capitalized? There are three places where he really thinks he Did Something™ with words; you don't need three mic drops, buddy, pick ONE

I am not a crazy ideologue. I just think that the richest society in human history has a moral responsibility to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, treat the sick, and house the homeless. If doing that requires forcing comfortably-housed people to accept neighborhood change, I'm ok with that.

Keep thinking about the words of wisdom from @bradlander.bsky.social that the divide in Democratic politics right now is between folders and fighters.

Waiting for the D line, my 4yr old tells a stranger at the bus stop all about his cousin's bday party, which we're headed to. 3 hrs later, we get on the bus home and sit next to that same person! He asked my son about the party and how it went. It was a wonderful, spontaneous moment of community.

Sneeze the rent!

(explaining an american car to a european) yeah so imagine if you were sitting in the back seat while driving,

Excited to share that I’ll be co-hosting a new interview podcast, Deseret Voices. I wrote on Substack about why I’m taking this on, and my goals for the show. We’ve got some great guests lined up, but also taking suggestions—who should I interview? mckaycoppins.substack.com/p/some-excit...

Every time I see this guy he has a gaggle of people behind him just standing there dumbly, trying to look Very Serious™ Johnson himself is just a prop for the 'orange king', so imagine being a prop of a prop. Embarrassing.

HELL YEAH 😎 Marsha Judkins is now in the lead for Provo Mayor! Every ballot drop has favored her, so it's not likely Kaufusi will recover in subsequent updates later this week.

Nearly a quarter-century ago, Dick Cheney personally meddled in a govt report finding that Klamath Basin fish actually need, y’know, water—an act that led directly to the catastrophic salmon die-off in 2002 and thus paved dam removal’s way. Now Dick’s dead and the Klamath lives. Makes ya think.

Going through the late night returns for some of the races I've been interested in. More numbers will be posted later today, so here's a 🧵 of my observations... #utpol #Utah

I am equally excited about this. Feels as important to me locally as some of these big wins nationally.

here is my story about how Zohran's focus on community amid the loneliness epidemic helped young people connect their politics to an organizing infrastructure, that interviewed ZM, and does not use the NYT's framing of "they don't know how to make friends" :-) and also ran 4 days before NYT's lol

It looks like the entire slate of NIMBY incumbents in Orem is getting wiped out by forward-thinking moderates. It's a really big deal for Utah County; these reactionaries have been a roadblock to countywide improvements like BRT on a remained State Street.

It's going to be very, very close but if additional ballots follow the same trend as the primary then I think Marsha Judkins will be the next Mayor of Provo! We won't know more until tomorrow afternoon.

Day 2 of the symposium I'm learning carp eradication *is* possible with robust, sustained funding, but extremely difficult. The largest successful carp removal, Lake Sorell in Tasmania, is 1/7th the size of Utah Lake with 7x the funding and more favorable conditions (carp were found there in 1995).

She arrived just in time to make her speech, then she and her multiple photographers left as soon as it was over. I know she's a busy person but one would assume, as chair of the Utah Lake Authority board, she would stick around after announcing such an ambitious project to a room full of experts.

At the Utah Lake Symposiun Mayor Kaufusi announces intent to ENTIRELY eliminating carp from Utah Lake before the opening ceremonies of the 2034 Utah Olympics. Mild applause from a room full of people who understand exactly how difficult such an undertaking will be (+the fact it's election season).

Currently in a presentation about how important water conservation is, but the presenter has illustrated all of his slides with ai images, including one that shows an endangered fish crying, "Where'd all the water go?"

This is horrifying, and I think it's fair to call it evil.

Another headscratcher is this connection between Spanish Fork and Springville that uses Union Pacific RR right-of-way. This dotted line isn't on either city's plans, so where did UDOT get the idea? And if the RR *somehow* agreed to share their ROW, why not take it the whole way? Why zig-zag?

There are a couple headscratchers that pop out to me in this initial plan. For example, in Sanpete County why does this trail make a 3-mile detour and add 15 minutes of travel instead of continuing alongside SR-132?

The planned Utah Trail Network will connect the entire state and has been compared with the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Today UDOT released the master plan for the base network. The legislature has already allocated $45M annually. utahtrailnetwork.udot.utah.gov/master-plan

At a game night with new friends playing a witch-themed Halloween game, my wife suggests "We should each create fun names for our characters. Mine will be Bara-bara the Persnickety Witch." "Great idea!" they agreed, then pulled out ChatGPT to generate their witch names for them 😑

Utah County cities¹ want to eat their cake and also have it. They build wasteful, sprawling land use, then demand UDOT & UTA spend limited resources to provide disproportionately high levels of service. If you want transit you have to support it—with tax $$$, land use, staff time, & road priority.