Thanksgiving weekend is a good time to take it easy and digest recent news events. In that spirit, here are some thoughts to nibble on:

--President Obama caused a storm last week regarding immigration, but the most important thing his administration is doing on that front is secret, dangerous and no less controversial. The Wall Street Journal says U.S. marshals, who serve under the Justice Department, are donning Mexican Marine uniforms and helping in armed raids against drug dealers and other gangsters. Agents from the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration also help in a supporting role.

Mexican officials deny it’s happening. They probably worry about a backlash in public opinion, considering Mexicans generally don’t want U.S. officials wielding guns in their country. The U.S. isn’t anxious to talk about it either, but a raid last July ended with a U.S. Marshals employee being wounded, making it difficult to keep the operation completely secret.

If history holds, President Obama will issue a proclamation this week. And, most likely, no one will care.

It will say all the right things for the holiday, as last year’s did when it asked Americans to “lift each other up and recognize, in the oldest spirit of this tradition, that we rise or fall as one Nation, under God.”

But it will be about as surprising as when he once 

When I stepped from the baggage claim area at an airport in Tennessee recently, getting a ride to the hotel was as easy as opening a ride-share app and pressing a button.

I could view photos and ratings of available drivers. Within four minutes, the car I chose pulled up.

The driver was a retiree looking for a little extra money and a chance to get out of the house each day. His car was borrowed from his son, “because all I own are pickups,” but it was modern and

State lotteries are a ruse. If that’s a surprise to you, it’s because you haven’t been paying attention.

States almost always enter the lottery business by promising a lot of easy money for worthy things, such as public education. But once the politicians get hold of all that easy money, they start moving funds around, and education still ends up hurting.

Meanwhile, the poor and, ironically, uneducated, end up losing the most because they play the

Republicans scored huge victories nationwide on Tuesday. Families, however, took it on the chin.

Either voters are sending strange, mixed signals or, what is more likely, family values no longer are a perceived part of either party’s platform. We’ve come a long way from the days when it was a winning slogan for conservatives.

On Tuesday, voters in Massachusetts elected a Republican governor but, on the same ballot, 

I had to wait about 15 minutes to cast my ballot Tuesday morning. I took that as a good sign, but in truth it was probably a false indicator.

As I write this, not one single ballot has been tabulated, but I can make a fairly safe prediction: Voter turnout in Utah will be dismal.

The website Wallethub.com confirmed recently what people here have been noticing for years. Polling locations in the Beehive State end up with a big surplus of unused “I voted” stickers at the end