Jay Evensen
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Legal gambling is a bad bet for Americans

10/30/2013

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By now, the 79-year-old images of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia swinging a sledgehammer and smashing a slot machine seem about as outdated as a newsreel or a typewriter.

However, not until you see the image of a handful of little-known people doing the same thing a few weeks ago in Albany, N.Y., do you understand the difference all those years make.

In 1934, the mayor of the nation’s largest city saw it as good politics to stand up against the immorality of the idea of giving hard-earned money away to gamblers in the futile hope of getting something in return. Today, people who oppose legal gambling on the same grounds are seen as oddballs. They wield sledgehammers without the help of any smiling politicians. And the gamblers who were getting rich in the old days are now


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Oppressed viewers want freedom from cable TV bundles

10/23/2013

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A colleague at work said his cable company called with the triumphant news he now has 20 new channels coming into his home. He might as well have gotten a call from the neighborhood thrift store telling him he now gets to keep lots of other folks’ useless junk in his basement.

He doesn’t want 20 new channels. Also, he is not happy that, in order to enjoy the sports he wants to watch, he has to subsidize all of the rest, including MTV3, E!, and a host of other channels he would prefer not to have a remote-control click away from his grandchildren.

The Canadian government just announced that it will force cable companies up there to unbundle their services, letting Canadians pick and choose — and pay only for — the


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Staying a step ahead of the coppers

10/22/2013

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Copper thieves first hit my radar screen earlier this summer when they stripped the air conditioning unit of a church in my neighborhood, leading to an uncomfortably warm day of worship. At about the same time, my sister told me of the exact same thing happening to a church near her in the Los Angeles area.

That’s when I did some Google searches and learned of churches all over the place going without air conditioning and lights. But it wasn’t just churches. Businesses of all kinds, vacant houses and even streetlights were, and


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Another round of budget negotiations? Yeah, that'll work

10/16/2013

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If Hansel and Gretel were in Congress, they would be noticing their own breadcrumbs again by now.

That’s what happens when you constantly wander in circles hoping to find a fiscal gingerbread house.

In the past three years, Washington has sent


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Will Fitch force lawmakers to get serious this time?

10/15/2013

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Two and a half years ago, when Standard & Poor’s first applied a negative outlook to the long-term credit rating of the United States, the Deseret News editorial page said, “Rubber, meet road.”

Washington was stuck in a stalemate over philosophies. Democrats wanted to tax the rich more


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Where are Simpson and Bowles when we need them?

10/14/2013

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Where, you may be asking, are those intrepid truth-tellers — former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and former Clinton administration chief of staff Erskine Bowles — when we need them?

The answer is they’re still around, and they’re still trying to spread their message, and no one is listening to them still.

Here’s an ad they have produced for a group called “Campaign to Fix the Debt.”


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Forget the shutdown; local elections are looming

10/9/2013

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PictureSalt Lake City and County Building
Ask people what they think about politics these days. Chances are you won’t hear a treatise on how a candidate for mayor in your town is unrealistic about what it takes to foster economic development or how an upcoming bond issue overreaches.


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Why the heck do we even have a debt ceiling?

10/7/2013

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Would the American people be better off if Congress didn’t have to worry about increasing the debt ceiling?

After all, increasing the debt ceiling isn’t a decision to increase spending. It’s a decision to pay debts already incurred. The real decisions come when Congress votes to fund programs or make other expenditures.


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Politicians count on Americans to be ill-informed

10/2/2013

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Americans aren’t stupid — at least not any more so than people in other nations. But they are ill-informed about their own government.

That seems to be the underlying premise behind the current partial government shutdown in Washington. It may be the only bit of common ground 


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    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Opinion Editor of the Deseret News. He has more than 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

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