Utah

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump depicted himself as synonymous with winning. “We’re gonna win so much,” he said, “you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please, it’s too much winning we can’t take it anymore.” Lately, however, Trump has been losing – losing not only in the court of public opinion, but also the courts themselves. The latest instance came with the decision of Utah judge Dianna Gibson to reject a congressional map that Republican lawmakers drew to try and ensure that a Democrat cannot win even a single seat in the state. Gibson ruled that the map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.” Utah Democrats rejoiced.

Tyler Robinson, who has been charged with seven counts, including aggravated murder, appeared in court on Tuesday.   Clad in what appeared to be an anti-suicide vest, the 22-year-old sat in front of a blank wall that mirrored his own silence. But in its lapidary tone, the indictment that the Utah prosecutors have compiled speaks volumes.   In all likelihood, the alleged assassin will receive the death penalty. “I do not take this decision lightly, and it is a decision I have made independently as county attorney based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime,” Jeffrey S. Gray said at a press conference.  Gray seems to be a model prosecutor.

Governor Spencer Cox of Utah rose above the crowd when he spoke of Charlie Kirk's assassination and the apprehension of his suspected killer. It was the second time in as many days that Cox voiced thoughts we all needed to hear. Instead of rage, the governor’s plainspoken, heartfelt language, together with his quotes from Charlie, underscored our country’s highest and best values. They were sober, profound thoughts, and we needed to hear them. Governor Cox’s comments on Thursday and Friday demonstrated rhetorical clarity and solid constitutional foundations, grounded in our shared humanity.

Six months before being shot in the neck and murdered, the popular conservative commentator Charlie Kirk retweeted our study on political violence in America. Warning the nation that assassination culture was spreading amongst the left, Kirk highlighted our study showing that 48 percent of politically left-wing respondents in a recent poll said it would be at least somewhat justifiable to murder Elon Musk. He noted, too, that 55 percent of them also believed the same about killing President Trump. And, most acutely, he highlighted that this is the natural outgrowth of a left-wing political culture that has tolerated violence for years. Sadly, tragically and unbelievably, we learn that he has become its latest victim. Left-wing violence is still being normalized.

Politico recently published a piece titled “Mike Lee Can’t Stop Throwing Social Media Grenades. His Church Isn’t Happy.” It cast Senator Lee as a liability to his own religion and positioned him against the church. The entire article hinges on a premise that is misleading at best and manipulative at worst: that Lee, being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church), must conform to a certain political tone or risk disapproval from “his Church.” But this article isn’t reporting on some objective religious rift. It’s a political attack dressed up in ecclesiastical robes. The author of the piece is himself a member of the LDS church.

Do you have to be a predator to catch a predator? Two lawsuits filed this week make claim to that, accusing Tim Ballard, the self-proclaimed savior of hundreds of trafficked children who inspired the movie Sound of Freedom, of sexual assault. On Wednesday, the attorney representing five women who filed a lawsuit against Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad earlier this week confirmed that a second lawsuit has been filed. The latest suit, brought against Ballard by a couple, accuses him of sexual assault, financial damages and ruining the couple’s marriage.  “Tim has taken everything from me. He has purposefully destroyed my marriage, manipulated my wife, ruined the relationship with my kids and with my wife's family,” the plaintiff and husband, known as FT, said.

Team Goop is victorious! In what will undoubtedly go down as the most pressing legal story of the week, Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski crash trial ended with the movie star prevailing over retired optometrist Terry Sanderson. The Wall Street Journal reported that the seventy-six-year-old doctor “sued Ms. Paltrow in 2019, alleging she rammed into him while they were both skiing at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah.” From brain scans to Sanderson’s daughter’s testimony, none of the “evidence” seemed to help his case. But the biggest clue that Paltrow was in the right was the fact that she would fight the case at all. In 2021, the optometrist sued the actress-turned-wellness-guru for $3.1 million.

Justice for Gwyneth Paltrow! The former Avengers and Shakespeare in Love star is one nepo baby that Cockburn has no trouble defending. Paltrow has had a tough PR week. First, she was vilified for her rather meager diet. Paltrow said on a podcast that she skips breakfast, sips coffee and bone broth in the afternoon, and eats a paleo meal with "lots of vegetables" for dinner. Yes, our Goop queen is looking a bit frail these days, but can we blame a gal who rose to prominence during the Kate-Moss-heroin-chic era? Even Jessica Simpson is still recovering from being called "Jumbo Jessica" in 2009 when she appeared on stage with a slight muffin top. Paltrow also finds her skinny self in court this week over a near-decade old skiing accident at the Deer Valley resort in Utah.

When Charles Barkley came to Salt Lake City for the NBA All-Star game, he found himself trapped in what he called a “boring-ass,” booze-free desert. (Impressively, Barkley did manage to at least sound drunk.) That's how it is in Utah, which sometimes gets depicted as the wet blanket of America. So it was that Marjorie Taylor Greene had cold water thrown on her by her Utah colleagues after she called for a national divorce on Twitter. “This rhetoric is destructive and wrong and — honestly — evil.” responded Utah governor Spencer Cox in a tweet. “We don’t need a divorce, we need marriage counseling.” "We're not going to divide the country,” said Utah senator Mitt Romney, “It's united we stand, divided we fall.