Three thoughts on the Jazz’s 128-125 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Derrick Rose scored 50 points. How?

The Jazz waived Derrick Rose last season after ending up with him in a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The plan was always to waive him, and it made sense: he’s had a negative plus-minus for the last four years, and with his high usage rate, could have hijacked the Jazz’s offense. Even after tonight’s performance, I still think it was the right call.

But there’s no denying he was sensational tonight. Rose scored 50 points overall on 19-31 shooting, including 4-7 from 3, plus 8-11 from the free-throw line. The Jazz last gave up 50 points to James Harden early in last season in a road loss to Houston.

How did this happen? While you’ll hear this performance referred to as a throwback to his 2011 MVP season, Rose scored in slightly different ways tonight. Then, Rose’s game was all about getting to the rim and finishing once he got there. He doesn’t have that now: the knee surgeries have robbed him of some verticality. So he had to score more from the mid-range, which he did:

The Jazz are okay with giving up mid-range shots over the aggregate, but they don’t want them to be uncontested. Too frequently, Ricky Rubio died on the screens the Wolves set, and Rose attacked quickly. That left Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors some decisions to make, and they chose to leave the iffy shooter open, even though he had shot well earlier on in the game. The Jazz fouled him and allowed him to get inside far too frequently.

But truthfully, they also were a casualty of Rose’s best shooting game of his career. Early in the game, the Jazz actively helped off of Rose, figuring that his poor outside shooting would let them use the defense elsewhere. He’s a career 29 percent 3-point shooter, but made just 23 percent last year, 21 percent in 2016-17, and 26 percent so far this season. So it makes sense to leave him like this:

And when he takes a pull-up three in transition, you’re pretty cool with it, because he’s made exactly three pull-up threes in the last four years.

Rose was fantastic tonight, but his performance reminded be of something the economist John Maynard Keynes allegedly said about the stock market: “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” Sure, you can find a market inefficiency, in this case, allowing Rose to take jumpers. In general, that’s a good idea when he shoots less than 30 percent from distance and 35 percent from mid-range. But over the course of one trade, or one game, your market inefficiency may not pan out the way you want it to. You might go bankrupt. Or, if you’ve chosen your career a little better, lose a regular-season basketball game.

That being said: you would have liked to see the Jazz adapt to the changing situation a little better. The Jazz are capable of playing lights-out defense, not just math-dependent defense. Tonight, they didn’t have any of the former.

2. Jazz try different looks against KAT, none pay off.

And even though Rose scored 50, it could have been all for naught if the Jazz had done a better job defending the rest of the Wolves. Karl-Anthony Towns scored 28 points, shooting 9-17 overall. Towns is a great offensive player, one of the best, so this isn’t too out of the norm.

What I did think was surprising was how the Jazz chose to defend Towns with Jae Crowder for much of the game. The idea makes some sense: because Towns is a perimeter-oriented big man, having Gobert or Favors switch on to Taj Gibson or Gorgui Dieng might mean that they can stay closer to the basket, giving the Jazz some rim protection.

But what ended up happening was Towns just scoring over Crowder with relative ease.

Towns also beat Crowder for an offensive rebound late in the game: Crowder’s not used to boxing out big men. Now, in Crowder’s defense, Towns just scored with ease over Favors a couple of times too. He’s just very good.

That was a trend in tonight’s game: the Jazz’s defense wasn’t good with Gobert in, allowing a 115 defensive rating. With him out, though, it was catastrophic: in 15 minutes he was off the court, the Jazz gave up a 135 defensive rating.

That led Snyder to change his rotation: Gobert actually started the fourth quarter along with most of the bench, and the Jazz actually went on a 8-3 run during that three-minute stretch.

Towns will do that to teams, he’s a matchup problem.

3. Rudy Gobert’s rush of blood to the head

Again, Gobert was very good overall tonight, scoring 22 points on 9-12 shooting. He added six more dunks to get to a league-leading total of 34. The defense improved as noted above, but the offense took even a bigger jump: the Jazz had a 134 offensive rating with him on the court, and an 84 offensive rating with him off of it.

He finished as a +13, the highest plus-minus total for anyone on either team. Really, if he hadn’t had picked up two extremely questionable fouls in the first six minutes of the game, the Jazz probably would have won: I doubt the Wolves go on a 14-2 first-quarter run with Gobert on the court.

And yet: this isn’t a good shot for Gobert to take in this situation. It’s not a terrible look, I suppose: he has an open look at the basket. But Gobert’s not super adept at making this kind of shot.

Down two, the Jazz need to focus on getting the best shot possible. That’s not a Gobert hook/push shot. In the last three seasons, Gobert is 20-68 on hook shots; essentially, you’ve seen him make them before, but it’s not an efficient look. And with 17 seconds on the shot clock, there’s just a lot of time to get something better, especially given that the Wolves' defense wasn’t exactly playing well all game long.

Gobert knows better than this normally, but you got the sense that he wanted to put his stamp on the game, to hit the big shot when his team needed it. Instead, though, he made a mistake that hurt the Jazz’s chance at winning in a big way.

Tired of campaign robocalls? Sick of stacks of political mailers arriving every day? One easy step may put an end to them: Send your by-mail ballot, already.

“That’s probably the best way to stop it, to be honest,” chuckles Dave Hansen, campaign manager for GOP Rep. Mia Love, who is in a tight-as-possible race with Democrat Ben McAdams.

Why is that?

Campaigns buy updates every day from the state about who has voted — and remove those names from supporter lists they have developed over time. So only those who haven’t voted continue to be targeted with phone calls, mailers, door-hangers and visits by volunteers.

Sorry, the TV and radio ads continue to go to everyone.

The campaigns of Love and McAdams discussed some of their get-out-the-vote strategies Tuesday. Love’s camp talked more, while McAdams' people didn’t want to reveal too much about their endgame strategy.

McAdams spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend said simply, “We’ve been phone banking and knocking on doors for months, identifying our supporters and persuadable voters.”

Now that it has those people targeted, she added, “We’ve now shifted into get-out-the-vote mode, phoning and knocking on doors, urging people to return their ballots and to vote. That will continue through Election Day. It’s a robust field plan, and we’re going after every single vote."

Recent polls by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics and The New York Times have shown the race as tied. A KUTV poll showed McAdams up by six points. The FiveThirtyEight.com website that combines numerous polls gives McAdams a five out of nine chance of winning.

But as McAdams said this week, the only poll that really counts is the one that culminates on Election Day, and everything depends on campaigns getting supporters to return ballots.

“There’s really no deep, dark secrets about how to get out the vote," Hansen said. “You just try to do it better than your opponent.”

A first step is identifying supporters, and Hansen said voters likely would be surprised about how much campaigns know about them — including how likely they are to vote, whom they tend to support and how to phone or otherwise contact them.

“We use a modeling” with “perhaps 30 factors” on everything from age, gender, voter registration and voting history — with data from voting records, public records and data gleaned from donations, polling and other sources, he said.

“You try to figure out which groups are with you, which are against you, and which are possibly with you with some persuasion,” Hansen said. “You concentrate on making sure your supporters stay with you, and convert the persuadables.”

Love’s campaign looks “religiously” at daily reports on who has voted to help target remaining resources on those who have not, said Hansen. That includes tweaking lists for late mailers, phone calls, and visits by volunteers to drop door-hangers or make personal appeals to vote.

He said by-mail voting has changed strategy.

“Now we essentially have an Election Day that lasts three weeks,” he said. “It used to be that you wanted to make sure that your best, most persuasive message went out just before the election. Now, you have to do it weeks in advance and continue throughout the mail-in process.”

Hansen said he believes by-mail ballots will help Love this year. It is the first time they are being used in Utah County, where the former Saratoga Springs mayor tends to win by big margins. “It’s easier for people there to vote now,” making get-out-the-vote efforts a bit easier in a nonpresidential election.

About 85 percent of voters in the 4th District live in Salt Lake County, home to McAdams, 11 percent in Utah County and the rest in other rural counties.

According to data released Tuesday morning by the office of Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, nearly 100,000 people have voted so far in the 4th District — about a quarter of all registered voters there. Among those voting so far are 45,470 Republicans, 33,396 unaffiliated voters, 18,128 Democrats and 2,520 members of other parties.

Using breakdowns from previous polls about what percentage of each group supported the candidates (for example in The Tribune’s poll, Love had support of 75 percent of the Republicans and McAdams had 66 percent of the unaffiliated and 95 percent of Democrats), analysis suggests that McAdams may lead Love in early polling by roughly 47,000 to 44,000.

Hansen did not dispute that but added that history suggests Democrats may vote earlier in the process. Hansen adds that Republicans — especially those who are still unsure how they will vote — tend to wait longer, “but I expect that they will come in strongly for us.”

And, he adds, the campaign will keep urging them to do so until the last possible moment.

Minneapolis • With no Jimmy Butler and no Jeff Teague on Wednesday night, the Timberwolves appeared to be short-handed going up against the Jazz.

Apparently nobody told Derrick Rose.

The former MVP and onetime brief Jazz acquisition erupted for a career-high 50 points Wednesday at the Target Center, as Minnesota ended Utah’s three-game winning streak with a 128-125 victory.

Adding injury to insult, Donovan Mitchell left the game in the key final minutes with right hamstring tightness. He will be re-evaluated Thursday.

While Rose was clutch late, scoring 34 of his points after halftime, the Jazz said the game may have actually been determined early, when their lack of perimeter containment allowed the Wolves to get rolling from the outset.

“We gotta start better. We can look at the last quarter, the last minute, but we gave them confidence in the first quarter and then we were trailing the whole game,” said center Rudy Gobert. “It’s hard to win a basketball game against a team that has a lot of confidence. We gave them confidence. That’s the big takeaway.”

Indeed, Minnesota shot 59.1 percent in the first quarter to lead 32-25. The Wolves were hitting 56.5 percent from the field, and 57.1 percent from deep to take a 65-56 halftime advantage. (They finished the game making 58.1 percent of their shots and 48 percent of their 3s.)

Rose, who was technically a member of Utah’s roster as part of last year’s Jae Crowder trade, though he never suited up before being waived days later, turned in a vintage performance.

Despite years of serious injury issues, he looked deft and elusive, snaking to the rim for lay-ins; beating his man off the dribble and stopping on a dime for midrange pull-ups; nailing his open looks from beyond the arc.

He had 16 points at the break, and hadn’t done anything yet.

Jae Crowder, postgame pic.twitter.com/li35OjzblN

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) November 1, 2018

“He had it going, he was confident. He was hitting pull-up jumpers, he was confident getting into the paint,” Crowder noted. “We just gotta find a way — good teams always find a way to win games like this. We’re building, we’re trying, and we got a lot more games to go. … We have to find a way somehow.”

While Rose continued his one-man show in the third quarter — hitting 9 of 11 shots and scoring 19 points — the Jazz started clawing back.

Mitchell himself began to heat up, scoring 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting in the quarter. More importantly, the Jazz started turning the other Wolves into bystanders.

The defensive intensity picked up, guys were able to better stick with their man, rotations improved.

The Jazz’s offense followed suit, with the ball going high and inside for lobs to Gobert (who finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds), and moving crisply around the perimeter for open 3s (the Jazz went 13 of 30 from deep).

When Dante Exum and Crowder hit back-to-back 3s to open the final quarter, the Jazz took a 102-101 lead.

“We got stops. We didn’t get stops the whole game. Whenever we started to get stops, we got some life,” Gobert said. “You could feel it — the ball started moving, we stopped turning it over, and we scored pretty easily. The offense was pretty good tonight — we just gotta be able to get stops.”

Once again, though, Rose rendered them unable to do so. After failing to score for the first 41/2 minutes of the fourth, he finally broke through with six straight, tying the game.

The teams kept trading body blows down the stretch — there were eight ties and eight lead changes in the fourth quarter alone.

Rose ultimately made the difference. Exum stuck with him well on a drive, but a stop and reverse pivot got him a clean look and the Wolves a 125-123 lead with 30 seconds left. His two free throws with 13.8 seconds to go were points 49 and 50, and made it 128-125.

Rudy Gobert, postgame pic.twitter.com/jVgjRSjIsr

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) November 1, 2018

“We gave him the opportunity to have that kind of night, and then he was feeling great. He was feeling great,” Gobert said. “And when you start feeling great, you get some extra extra energy, some extra adrenaline, you make amazing plays, and that’s what he did the whole game.”

Still, the Jazz had three final chances. Crowder took the inbound pass out of the timeout and got a good look at a 3. An offensive rebound gave Joe Ingles a shot. After yet another offensive rebound, Crowder had the ball, passed up an open look, and swung it to Exum in the corner, whose last-gasp attempt was deflected just enough — by Rose, naturally — to fall short as time expired.

It was a brutal ending for the Jazz. But again, it was their rough beginning and subpar defense that paved the way, according to coach Quin Snyder.

“The first part of the game, we weren’t very efficient, we gave them open shots, we turned the ball over, and they took advantage of it,” he said. “… We have to compete collectively. We can’t compete as individuals — that’s when you see breakdowns. We talked about how we want to make our mark with our defense, and tonight we weren’t able to do that. We weren’t able to get stops. That’s what cost us the game.”

San Francisco • Willie McCovey, the sweet-swinging Hall of Famer nicknamed “Stretch” for his 6-foot-4 height and those long arms, died Wednesday. He was 80.

The San Francisco Giants announced McCovey’s death, saying the fearsome hitter passed “peacefully” on Wednesday afternoon “after losing his battle with ongoing health issues.”

A first baseman and left fielder, McCovey was a .270 career hitter with 521 home runs and 1,555 RBIs in 22 major league seasons, 19 of them with the Giants. He also played for the Athletics and Padres.

McCovey made his major league debut at age 21 on July 30, 1959, and played alongside the other Willie — Hall of Famer Willie Mays — into the 1972 season before Mays was traded to the New York Mets that May.

McCovey batted .354 with 13 homers and 38 RBIs on the way to winning the 1959 NL Rookie of the Year award. The six-time All-Star also won the 1969 NL MVP and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986 after his first time on the ballot.

“You knew right away he wasn’t an ordinary ballplayer,” Hall of Famer Hank Aaron said, courtesy of the Hall of Fame. “He was so strong, and he had the gift of knowing the strike zone. There’s no telling how many home runs he would have hit if those knees weren’t bothering him all the time and if he played in a park other than Candlestick.”

McCovey had been getting around in a wheelchair in recent years because he could no longer rely on his once-dependable legs, yet was still regularly seen at the ballpark in his private suite. McCovey had attended games at AT&T Park as recently as the season finale.

“I love him so much. It’s a very sad day for me. We were very close,” Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda said in a telephone interview. “Willie McCovey was not only a great ballplayer but a great teammate. He didn’t have any fear. He never complained.

“I remember one time in 1960 they sent him down to the minor leagues after being Rookie of the Year the year before. He didn’t complain. He was very polite, he was very quiet. He was a great man, a great friend. I’m going to miss him so much. He didn’t say a bad word about anybody.”

While the Giants captured their third World Series title of the decade in 2014, McCovey returned to watch them play while still recovering from an infection that hospitalized him that September for about a month.

He attended one game at AT&T Park during both the NL Championship Series and World Series. He even waited for the team at the end of the parade route inside San Francisco’s Civic Center.

“It was touch and go for a while,” McCovey said at the time. “They pulled me through, and I’ve come a long way.”

McCovey had been thrilled the Giants accomplished something he didn’t during a decorated career in the major leagues.

Even four-plus decades later, it still stung for the left-handed slugging “Big Mac” that he never won a World Series after coming so close. He lined out to end the Giants’ 1962 World Series loss to the Yankees.

He often thought about that World Series, which the Giants lost in seven games to New York, and it remained difficult to accept. The Giants lost 1-0 in Game 7 when McCovey lined out to second baseman Bobby Richardson with runners on second and third for the final out.

“I still think about it all the time. I still think, ‘If I could have hit it a little more,’” he said on Oct. 31, 2014.

In 2012, he said: “I think about the line drive, yes. Can’t get away from it.”

McCovey narrowly beat out Mets pitcher Tom Seaver for the 1969 MVP award. McCovey led the NL in home runs (45) and RBIs (126) for the second straight year, batting .320 while also posting NL bests with a .453 on-base percentage and .656 slugging percentage. He was walked 121 times, then drew a career-high 137 free passes the next season.

He had been third in the ‘68 voting for NL MVP, but after 1969 would never again finish higher than ninth.

McCovey and Ted Williams before him were among the first players to really face infield shifts as opponents tried to affect his rhythm at the plate.

On Wednesday night, former teammate Felipe Alou recalled inviting McCovey to play winter ball with him in 1958 for Escogido in Alou’s native Dominican Republic.

McCovey got homesick, so a still-single Alou moved out of his parents’ home and into an apartment with his dear friend and teammate. They were roomates in the minors and majors, too. McCovey called Alou “Rojas,” his father’s last name. Alou called him “Willie Lee,” McCovey’s middle name.

“We had a great relationship. Incredible friend and player and individual,” Alou said. “I have so many good memories.”

McCovey was born on Jan. 10, 1938, in Mobile, Alabama. He had spent the last 18 years in a senior advisory role for the Giants.

“For more than six decades, he gave his heart and soul to the Giants,” team president and CEO Larry Baer said. “As one of the greatest players of all time, as a quiet leader in the clubhouse, as a mentor to the Giants who followed in his footsteps, as an inspiration to our Junior Giants, and as a fan cheering on the team from his booth.”

Said McCovey’s wife, Estela, whom he married this past summer: “Every moment he will be terribly missed. He was my best friend and husband. Living life without him will never be the same.”

McCovey had a daughter, Allison, and three grandchildren, Raven, Philip, and Marissa. McCovey also is survived by sister Frances and brothers Clauzell and Cleon.

McCovey said that 2010, when the Giants won the franchise’s first World Series championship since moving from New York in 1958, helped eased the pain for players like him, Juan Marichal, Mays and Alou. Seeing San Francisco in the Fall Classic again brought those smiles back to McCovey’s face even more.

“We’re kind of getting spoiled,” he said in 2012. “This is two in three years. People don’t realize how hard it is to get here. We’ve been pretty lucky.”

McCovey presented the “Willie Mac Award” each season — except in 2014 while dealing with complications from the infection — an honor voted on by the players, coaches and training staff to recognize the team’s player most exhibiting McCovey’s inspirational example both on the field and in the clubhouse. He was there this year as reliever Will Smith was honored.

“Something I will cherish forever,” Smith wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “May he Rest In Peace.”

When San Francisco opened its new waterfront ballpark in 2000, the cove beyond the right-field fence was named “McCovey Cove” in appreciation of all he did for the organization. There’s a statue of McCovey’s likeness on the other side of the water from where those splash hits land.

“Willie McCovey was one of our game’s greatest power hitters. He won the National League MVP in 1969 and, alongside fellow Hall of Famer and Alabama native Willie Mays, was a key part of many memorable Giants’ teams,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “For 22 years on the field and many more after retiring, Willie was a superb ambassador for the Giants and our game.”

The Giants said a public celebration of McCovey’s life would be held at a later date.

Southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument may have originally safeguarded untapped troves of ancient fossils, but the Trump administration’s unprecedented reduction of the monument has exposed vast deposits of these scientific treasures to potential energy development.

Areas removed from the Staircase are nearly as rich in fossils as those that remain, according to an analysis by the Wilderness Society.

“The fossil resources are throughout the original monument. The redrawn monument has no correlation with the fossil resources now at risk of fracking,” said Dan Hartinger, the society’s national monuments campaign director. “The paleontological science keeps getting better. The risk is we might not even know what we are losing until it’s too late.”

The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comment through Nov. 30 on its draft plans for the reduced monument and lands pulled from the previous 1.9 million-acre Staircase. The 1 million acres in the shrunken monument will remain off-limits to mineral development.

But in deference to President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda for public lands, the BLM’s preferred alternative prioritizes energy extraction on much of the 900,000 acres taken out.

“It is not a coincidence that some of the potential energy sources overlap the paleontology. The fossils are in the same geologic unit as where the uranium is. It’s a mineral that is deposited in ancient rivers, which is where fossils are found,” said David Polly, president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. “Coal itself is a fossil resource formed in swamps in the late history of dinosaurs.”

Areas categorized as “very high” for fossil yield potential were largely left inside the reduced monument boundaries. But nearly half the 900,000 acres culled from the monument still hold a high potential for fossils, and nearly 250,000 of these acres overlap with lands that could be pegged for mineral development.

The greatest degree of overlap occurs in upper Alvey Wash, south of Escalante, an area once blanketed with oil and gas leases, and the Smoky Mountain area northeast of Big Water, once proposed for a coal mine.

A BLM spokeswoman was not able to immediately comment Wednesday, but the agency has previously stressed a commitment to protect ecological and geologic resources while opening places for mining and drilling. For any new project, site specific analyses would be required to identify the optimal places to dig and drill, officials say.

Critics, however, fear the BLM can’t really know whether a specific project would wreck fossils until after rigs bore into the ground in search of minerals and turn up bones. Few of these lands have been surveyed for fossils, which are largely invisible to the untrained eye.

The BLM data analyzed by the Wilderness Society simply identify the level of potential that lands have to yield fossils.

“It doesn’t tell us what we might find there,” Hartinger said. “[But] the risks weighed against reward couldn’t be clearer here.”

The wilderness and paleontology societies are among the many groups suing the Interior Department seeking to restore the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears monuments. They contend Trump overstepped his authority when he slashed the monuments designated by two Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Since the Grand Staircase monument’s creation in 1996, thousands of dinosaur fossils, many representing species new to science, have been pulled out of the Kaiparowits Plateau. Ornate horned skulls from various ceratopsians grace an entire wall of the Natural History Museum of Utah.

These finds have advanced scientists’ understanding of the Cretaceous, a period when dinosaurs achieved their greatest degree of evolution before a stray asteroid wiped out these reptiles and most other large-bodied animals 65 million years ago.

And the discoveries keep piling up. Yet, of the 2,100 scientifically significant sites that have been identified within the old monument, more than one in three are now outside the reduced monument, according to The Wilderness Society’s analysis.

Also over these past two decades, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the practice of injecting water underground to break up geologic formations, has triggered a revolution in oil and gas production by unlocking previously unavailable liquid minerals. Deposits that industry ignored are now economically recoverable.

Deposits of such energy resources are embedded in the Tropic shale formation under lands removed from the monument, according to Polly. Scientists worry industry could get its hands on these lands before anyone has a chance to see what fossils they could yield.

“Fracking would be disastrous for the paleontology here. It could destroy the entire unit very quickly," said Polly, a professor of geology at Indiana University. “The mineral resources at Grand Staircase are comparatively poor, not a good trade for what could be lost."

And it’s not just fossils at stake.

University of Utah geologists, for example, have documented 37 natural bridges and arches “evicted” from the Staircase, and another 78 from the Bears Ears monument. And a new report, commissioned by Western Resource Advocates, details ecological resources found on lands removed from the monuments.

These reports will not only influence how the monuments’ management plans shake out, but also they will likely be deployed in the legal battler over whether Trump had any business shrinking these preserves in the first place.

Frank Underwood used to be a role model for Donald Trump. The fictional man at the center of “House of Cards” did, after all, improbably rise to become president of the United States.

In Season 5, President Underwood (Kevin Spacey) became wish fulfillment for anti-Trump viewers. With scandals closing in on him, Frank resigned in disgrace.

Those fictional scandals turned out to be nothing compared with the real one that fundamentally changed the show. After “Star Trek: Discovery” star Anthony Rapp came forward with his account of how Spacey made sexual advances on him in 1986 — when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26 — dozens more allegations were made against the “House of Cards” star.

Netflix shut down production; Spacey was fired.

And, yes, there’s a certain irony that the actor portraying a fictional president lost his job, but the real president is still in office despite at least 22 women making similar allegations.

Netflix and the producers, after regrouping and rewriting, went back into production on a shortened sixth and final season — eight episodes instead of 13 — that starts streaming Friday. The focus now is on the new President Underwood — Frank’s vice president/wife, Claire (Robin Wright).

It’s not a spoiler to tell you that Frank Underwood is dead. The series picks up 100 days into Claire’s presidency, when she’s dealing with death threats and politics while trying to keep up the façade that she’s in mourning for her late husband.

If you made it to the end of Season 5, you know that the marriage was over and Claire was planning to divorce Frank.

Like most TV series, this one exists in a world of heightened reality. You can pick it apart if you want to get all logical about it. But for the first few seasons, if you bought in, “House of Cards” was a great ride.

The show has long since collapsed upon itself under the weight of all the schemes and scandals. That Claire Underwood ended up on the ticket with her husband and the way they stole the election was simply ludicrous.

That wasn’t just jumping the shark, that was jumping a whole school of sharks.

Having seen five of the eight Season 6 episodes, I can tell you “House of Cards” is improved. There’s too much that looks too familiar, but the addition of Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear as siblings/industrialists out to control Claire, the White House and the country seems to be working.

So is it worth watching Season 6?

If you've stuck with “House of Cards” through the 65 episodes to date, sure, stream the final eight.

But if you gave up along the way, don’t bother to come back. It’s not worth it.

This isn’t another op-ed about gun violence. This is an op-ed about hate crimes. Hate crimes that could come right to your front door. Hate crimes that could attack your places of worship, as mine was attacked on Saturday.

I was in a great mood last Saturday. Better than in a long time. For a moment, I wasn’t worried about how to raise my teenage boys in the age of extreme partisan politics and increased vitriol. It was a beautiful Utah fall day and I ran 8 miles for the first time in months; it felt great. I texted my sister to thank her for a call we’d had earlier in the morning that helped lift those clouds. I had breakfast with my boys and my wife. I threw tennis balls to my dogs.

And then a man walked into a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the world came crashing down. By day’s end, 11 people were dead and the investigators had characterized the massacre as a hate crime.

This event is, of course, no more tragic than Haun’s Mill, or arson at a Texas mosque, or the shooting at the Pulse nightclub. It is no more tragic, but it is more personal to me. It’s more personal because I am Jewish. While I live in the Salt Lake valley, I am a member of Temple Har Shalom in Park City, and the 11 dead could easily be 11 of us on any given Saturday morning of worship.

While this event is certainly more personal to me than other mass acts of violence, they all share a tragic commonality: They are all hate crimes. Hate crimes — motivated by race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity — are the highest priority of the FBI’s Civil Rights program, not only because of the devastating impact they have on families and communities, but also because groups that preach hatred and intolerance can plant the seed of terrorism here in our country.

Hate crimes are particularly heinous because they strike fear into entire communities; they send the message, “You don’t belong here. Leave, or you may be next.”

I commend the FBI and our other federal law enforcement agencies for their recognition and focus on hate crimes. What if a gunman who hates Latter-day Saints walked into an LDS chapel today and started firing? While there are federal laws that could prosecute that individual for a hate crime, here at home, at the state level, we are lagging far behind. We have no effective hate crime legislation. And that is, unfortunately, intentional.

There has not been a single crime successfully prosecuted under Utah’s weak hate crimes statute. Year after year, a new version of hate crimes legislation is unsuccessfully proposed — often not even receiving a hearing in committee, let alone receiving a floor vote. Most recently, Sen. Dan Thatcher, a Republican from District 12, has led this legislative effort, to no avail.

This effort has the support of legislators, law enforcement, the general public and faith leaders from various denominations around the state. But our Legislature has been openly hostile to passing hate crimes legislation, despite the shared history of violent religious persecution shared by so many legislators who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After all, it was to escape hate crimes in Illinois and Missouri that Brigham Young led the pioneers to the valley that I now call home.

I have great respect for our Legislature and the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ. But it is past time for effective hate crimes legislation to come to Utah, and with this latest in a string of horrific hate crimes throughout the country, I challenge our Legislature to see that it does. And we, as Utahns, should demand no less. I urge everyone to call your state legislators today and encourage them to pass effective hate crimes legislation in the upcoming 2019 legislative session.

Josh Kanter lives in Granite. He is the founder and board chair of the Alliance for a Better Utah.

The community gathering took place in the northern reaches of the Navajo Nation. Hundreds of people lined up in view of Monument Valley’s towering red mesas to enjoy traditional singing and dancing but also to register to vote — and end the legacy of racial gerrymandering that, for decades, has blocked Native Americans from power in this isolated corner of the American West.

Here in southern Utah’s redrock country, as in other rural reaches of the U.S., Democrats are working hard to make the so-called blue wave a reality. But the history of disenfranchisement has cast a long shadow over the Navajo Nation, one they hope they can throw off in the election.

Today, American Indians, who lean heavily Democratic, make up a slight majority in San Juan County, which encompasses this part of Utah. But for decades they were “packed” by Republican officials into a single district in the county’s southernmost reaches, echoing other partisan gerrymandering efforts across the U.S.

In 2016, a federal judge ruled that San Juan County had violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by illegally drawing contorted voting districts to disenfranchise American Indian voters. In a follow-up ruling last December, the judge handed down newly drawn district maps that give Navajos a majority by population in two of the county’s three commission districts. If Navajo candidates win next week, it could reshape the region.

James Adakai, a Navajo tribe member and Democratic party chairman of San Juan County, sat at a desk inside the Navajo Welcome Center in Oljato, Utah, in mid-September, sipping from a bottle of Gatorade as the powwow and voter registration drive took place outside. He was losing his voice. For weeks, Adakai had been on a frenetic circuit, working with tribal officials and volunteers from the Rural Utah Project, a not-for-profit, nonpartisan voter registration group, to get residents scattered across the 27,000-square-mile expanse of the Navajo Nation on the voting rolls. “I’m tired, but people are energized,” Adakai said.

Since last October, more than 1,600 voters — many of whom live in remote corners of the Navajo Nation and don’t have formal street addresses — have been registered, according to the Rural Utah Project.

The inequitable drawing of voting districts has meant that Navajos have never held a majority on the school board or County Commission. (In fact, the first Navajo county commissioner, Mark Maryboy, was only elected in 1986, nearly 30 years after American Indians were granted the right to vote.) As a result, some Navajos say they have seen funding for classrooms, roads and infrastructure pass them by.

In the Navajo community of Westwater — just minutes outside the tidy downtown and neatly clipped lawns of the majority-white town of Blanding — residents lack running water and electricity. “There are no sidewalks, no streetlights,” said James Courage Singer, a Democrat running for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District. “This, right here, is the legacy of gerrymandering.”

The midterm ballot in San Juan County includes two Navajo candidates for county commissioner and Singer, who is the first Navajo — and probably the first indigenous candidate — in Utah to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The election is also seen as a referendum on the Trump administration, which has attacked tribal sovereignty on various fronts.

The Navajo, like tribes across the country, have bristled at Trump’s suggestion that tribes should be reclassified as races rather than separate governments, a legal shift that would mean that tribal members were no longer exempt from Medicaid work requirements. Trump’s downsizing of Bears Ears National Monument, which was done at the urging of Utah Republicans, has also been a key rallying point for Native Americans.

‘They don’t want us to tell our story’

“There has been a deliberate effort in San Juan County to make it hard for Native Americans to cast a ballot,” said Leonard Gorman, executive director of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission.

Gorman points to 1957, the year the state constitution was amended and Utah became one of the last states to give Native Americans the right to vote. Ever since, he says, white GOP leaders — many of whom trace their ancestry to Mormon settlers who moved into the region in the 1860s, after the Navajo were forcibly removed by the U.S. government — have used a host of tactics to suppress the Navajo vote.

The 2016 redistricting order was followed by a legal settlement requiring mail-in ballots to be distributed in the Navajo language as well as in English. The settlement also requires San Juan County to open three satellite polling places, each staffed with a Navajo translator.

In response to these legal victories, there has been a concerted pushback from entrenched Republican interests. Phil Lyman, a powerful county commissioner running for a seat in the state Legislature, told one reporter that he would not comply with the redistricting order and would be “happy to be held in contempt."

Local Democrats have accused county officials of failing to observe the redrawn boundaries. During the June primary, for example, hundreds of voters received ballots with candidates from the court-invalidated districts; others received ones with the wrong party affiliation. In addition, said Adakai, hundreds of voter registration cards were reportedly “lost” by the county clerk’s office. “They’re worried that the redistricting order might shake up the balance of power,” he said. “They’re playing dirty.”

Jesse Trentadue, an attorney representing San Juan County in the redistricting case, denied Adakai’s claims. He said that local election officials were acting in good faith to implement the new voting requirements but that San Juan County’s vast size and rugged, rural character have made the effort more complicated. “The county is almost twice the size of the state of Connecticut,” said Trentadue. “But only a quarter of its residents, both Navajo and non-Navajo, have a street address.”

According to Trentadue, even in urban districts where voters have traditional street addresses it is not uncommon for 10 to 12 percent of voters to be placed in the wrong precinct. “We’re doing the best we can but mistakes happen,” he said.

Perhaps the most overt attempt to short-circuit mounting American Indian power in San Juan County came last June, when the county clerk, John David Nielson, removed the Navajo county commissioner candidate Willie Grayeyes from the primary ballot. Nielson based his decision on a complaint from Grayeyes’s Republican rival Wendy

Black, who claimed that the Navajo candidate did not live in Utah but across the border in Arizona — a violation of state residency requirements.

Those assertions were later found to be false by a federal judge and Grayeyes was returned to the ballot. Nielson, who may face an investigation for allegedly falsifying documents to remove Grayeyes from the ballot, declined to comment.

Grayeyes lives at the foot of Navajo Mountain, in an isolated community called Paiute Mesa, which, like Westwater and dozens of communities across the Navajo Nation, lacks running water and electricity.

Because of the district realignment, another Navajo Democrat is running unopposed for one of San Juan County’s three county commissioner positions. A Grayeyes victory would therefore mean that Navajos would go from decades of nominal representation on the County Commission to a majority. That, Grayeyes said, would mean more resources could be marshaled to fix the rutted roads, crumbling water systems and aging schools in Navajo communities. It would also mean a reversal of the County Commission’s presently vehement anti-monument stance.

But Grayeyes knows that, even if he wins, change will not come easily. “We’ve got Republican politicians all the way up the line who are invested in deceiving the public about what the monument is and what it stands for,” he said. “They don’t want us to have power. They don’t want us to tell our story. We have a mountain to climb.”

This article was originally published as part of This Land is Your Land, a Guardian U.S. special series on America’s public lands.

Albany County, Wyo. • Thoman Ranch Elementary in Sweetwater County has two students. There are a few other public schools in Wyoming with three students.

Notch Peak Elementary in Albany County, however, stands alone.

Ten-year-old Corinne Gaby is its only student and Ms. Lisa Geary the only teacher.

It begins with a simple idea: Every child in the U.S. has the right to a public education — no matter where that child lives.

Notch Peak Elementary was created for Corinne when she entered kindergarten. It will almost surely dissolve when she leaves sixth grade.

Corinne has no siblings and lives with her parents on a ranch nestled among the granite peaks of the Laramie Range.

Wheatland is the closest town. From Corinne's house, it's 27 miles on a dirt road. In good weather, it's an hour drive. After a good snow, the road's traversable only after replacing a pick-up's tires with rubber snow tracks.

The closest school in Albany County is Rock River — about an hour-and-a-half drive on Fetterman Road, which isn't maintained in the winter.

Getting Corinne to a traditional school simply isn't feasible.

Corinne's parents, Jack and Rachel Gaby, moved to Notch Peak Ranch in 2002 after having managed another ranch in western Colorado.

Owned by a Colorado-based real estate developer, Notch Peak is 34,000 acres and lies south of Britania Mountain.

Here, the Gabys, along with two ranch hands, run 600 head of cattle.

When Corinne was born, her parents didn't know what the possibilities were for schooling.

"It was the main reason I was hesitant about having kids," Rachel said. "Because I've always been in these backcountry places. . I couldn't teach. I don't have the patience."

When Corinne was nearing kindergarten, Rachel and Jack met with Albany County School District No. 1 administrators.

They were surprised by how willing the district was to establish a school on the ranch.

"It was a really smooth process," Rachel said. "They were so helpful. It's just been awesome. I can't tell them how thankful we are."

"We are so blessed for this opportunity for Corinne," Jack said. "I don't know another kid who gets to ride their horse to school and bring their dog to school. It's such a brag on this great state that they want to keep these rural schools."

The second floor of a horse barn was converted into a classroom. Large windows keep the cozy room well lit. There's couches, a wood stove and a smartboard.

With each new teacher, the district has invited the Gabys to be part of the hiring process.

"It's not for the faint of heart for a teacher to be out here," Lisa said. "It gets pretty quiet in the winter."

"Ooooh yeah," Corinne echoed.

Corinne's first teacher lasted one year. A second teacher was hired when Corinne was entering first grade. She left after two years. Both teachers lived in the horse barn. By the time Lisa arrived, the district had bought a trailer for her to live in.

In 2016, Lisa was teaching at an elementary school in Peyton, Colorado, but better wages in Wyoming made her want to cross state lines.

The Oregon native had been teaching in Peyton for four years. The smallest number of students she had in a classroom was 16.

Peyton's principal had been friends with Corinne's previous teacher. When she left, the principal tipped off Lisa.

Lisa jumped at the opportunity. She's an avid mountain biker and hiker and knew she'd be well suited for the isolation.

She was the first to apply.

"A lot of people that applied didn't know the remoteness of the position," she said.

When she got the job, Lisa was apprehensive.

"It was a lot of life changes for me," she said. "I was scared."

That first year on the ranch was hard.

"Harder than I expected," she said.

The winter took a toll.

With the ranch lying on the north side of mountains, it gets dark unusually early in the winter.

The pipes to Lisa's trailer froze. At one point, she was snowed in for three weeks.

"I learned to buy a lot of groceries," Lisa said.

When Lisa interviewed for the job in June 2016, she joined two applicants at the ranch.

After talking with Jack and Rachel, she met Corinne for a one-on-one session.

The precocious 7-year-old sat on a chair, crossed her legs and put her hands on her knees.

"So — how long have you been teaching?" Corinne asked.

Not an ounce of shyness. The Gabys were lucky with Corinne.

"She's very outgoing," Rachel said.

When Corinne was starting school, her social life was Rachel's main concern.

While Corinne doesn't spend most of her days with other kids, when she does, she blends right in.

Corinne has two close friends in Wheatland. Each Wednesday, she also attends church school and takes violin lessons in town.

Lisa said Corinne "does great in any social situation."

"She feels like she's part of the team," she said.

For her, the isolation isn't a hindrance on having friends.

"In some situations, with some kids, it would be," Rachel said.

Each morning, Corinne's usually driven by her mom the 2 miles to the horse barn.

When it's too snowy in the winter, she'll arrive on horseback. Now that Corinne's older, she'll sometimes ride alone on her horse, Little Red, with her dog Pancho running by her side.

Class starts at 8 a.m.

They do reading lessons until 10 a.m. Lisa tries to get math done by noon before Corinne's attention wanes.

After lunch, they move onto English, science and social studies.

The one-on-one situation also allows them to incorporate other skills like sewing, knitting and cooking.

Finally it's time for P.E. Their options are much wider than at a typical grade school.

When it's warm, Lisa and Corinne bike or run outside.

There's also a treadmill on the first floor of the horse barn, and both are now training for a 5k they plan to run in December. When they can't get outside, yoga's also an option.

A one-student classroom has obvious advantages to learning.

"The coolest part about this is we can dig deep into so many things," Lisa said. "If something sparks an interest in her, we can go deeper. There's no time constraints."

But in some ways, Lisa said she has to work harder. Corinne doesn't benefit from the same type of competitive learning environment other students have.

"I have to be more animated," Lisa said. "If I get up and teach on a normal level, she gets bored."

She also can't expect to stick to a certain lesson plan.

"If she gets a concept super quick, I have to be ready to move to the next thing," she said.

Sometimes, Corinne doesn't understand a concept in the way Lisa's accustomed to teaching it.

Lisa will try out other ways of teaching. She expands her skill-set. If Lisa eventually ends up back in a conventional classroom setting, she expects her experience with Corinne will help her cater to the diversity of learning styles children have.

"It's helped me be a stronger educator because I learn all those different perspectives," she said.

Two weeks ago, Lisa tried to challenge Corinne as they were working through long division. Lisa added more digits to the problems. She tried giving tips to Corinne, who would cut her off.

"Remember, you need to_"

"I know, Ms. Geary."

"How am I supposed to show off my teaching skills if you know everything?"

"Ms. Geary, I like it the hard way."

This is not the same student Lisa started with in 2016.

Lisa thought having just one student would be easy.

But Corinne, then a third-grader, wasn't an easy student.

"She was happy as a lark when we got outside," Lisa said.

But in the classroom, Corinne was hard-headed. Sometimes mopey.

"I was a little head-strong from my last teacher, but she straightened me out," Corinne said.

When Lisa started with Corinne, she set high expectations.

"If you set the bar very high, she'll reach it," Lisa said. "It took her a while to understand that. We struggled a little bit with respect."

"It's very hard reteaching me," Corinne said.

Fourth grade was a little easier, but still, there were challenges.

"It could be she didn't understand the value of education," Lisa said.

During the past two years, both Lisa and Rachel have pushed Corinne to appreciate the uniqueness of her situation.

As she gets older, she's understanding that more.

At the start of fifth grade, Lisa said it was "like a switch flipped."

Corinne became earnest.

"I keep telling myself to be thankful that I can have this and that she cares a lot," Corinne said.

On her first WY-TOPP test, Corinne scored "advanced" in all three subjects.

Lisa said Corinne's become "just an unbelievable little reader."

The Gabys have had chickens for two years. Four chicks were born Aug. 1.

Lisa got used to waking up to the sound of a rooster every morning.

Then on one morning after Labor Day, there was no crow.

Corinne later came running inside, screaming through tears, with one baby chick in her hands.

A raccoon had broken in and eaten the entire family.

The only living chick was given a name: Survivor.

"He's the sweetest little rooster," Corinne said.

"We've experienced loss, and Corinne needs to learn loss in life too," Lisa said. "The chickens seem to be what everybody wants to snack on."

Notch Peak is rife with wildlife. The Gabys' animals, and those that roam the mountains, greatly shape the world Corinne lives with.

Rattlesnakes are a constant worry in the summer, and Corinne doesn't do as much hiking then.

Black bears and mountain lions make an occasional appearance on the property.

Bighorn sheep are often seen and there's a herd of 50-100 elk that roams the ranch.

Corinne's dog, Pancho, is her faithful co-explorer of the ranch.

The ranch also has cats, burros, mules, four bottle-fed calves and Corinne's bearded dragon named Puff.

Lisa's dog, Soleil, comes to class every day.

"He's a big part of our world," Lisa said.

Animals play a big part of Corinne's education.

When the ranch got a family of peacocks in August, it became an opportunity for both Lisa and Corinne to learn about the life cycle of a new species. They did some research to determine whether the peacocks are male or female.

They think all are female, but they won't be certain until the birds reach 10 months old.

The animals are also an opportunity for Corinne to become the teacher.

During breaks, she might quiz Lisa on the names of the horses or the breeds of chickens on the ranch.

Their mutual fondness of animals and their environment shapes their studies.

So, of course, when they're talking about Lewis and Clark, Corinne remembers that Meriwether Lewis's dog was a Newfoundland named Seaman.

On an October morning, Corinne and Lisa are reviewing American history.

They're talking about the end of the Nez Perce War, and disagreements Chief Joseph had with his daughter about ending the fighting.

Corinne interrupts.

"Have you ever argued before?" she asks.

"With Ashley?" Lisa clarifies. That's her daughter.

"Yeah."

"Probably — like about tattoos," Lisa said. "Just like with Chief Joseph, there's always generational differences where parents and their children don't agree."

The relationship between Lisa and Corinne goes beyond teacher and student. Their personal life is bound to bleed into the classroom.

This bond is also a friendship. It's mother-and-daughter.

Corinne accidentally calls Lisa "mom."

Lisa accidentally calls her "Ashley."

The bond is also sisterly.

They're each other's confidantes and they tease each other constantly. They debate who's the bigger "wuss" when it comes to snakes.

Corinne teases Lisa for her inexperience with guns and her gravitation toward name-brand clothing.

"I don't know how Ms. Geary doesn't like country music, but she doesn't," Corinne jokes.

"She doesn't get a lot of opportunities to be hard on me, so when she does, she's so good at it," Lisa said.

It helps that Lisa and the Gabys have such a strong relationship. Jack and Rachel trust her.

"I'm part of the family now," Lisa said. "I've caught myself disciplining her when (Jack and Rachel) are around, and that's OK."

"That's where the trust comes in," Rachel said." It takes a village."

___

As Lisa and Corinne are reviewing the Trial of Tears one day, Corinne mentions an American Indian worldview.

"If you take care of the land, it takes care of you," she said.

She can relate to that idea.

By Labor Day, the Britania Fire had come within two miles of the horse barn, reaching the edge of the Notch Peak.

The Gabys lost a few cows but went almost entirely unscathed.

"We're lucky that it didn't jump over," Rachel said.

They were never mandatorily evacuated. Jack and Rachel stayed the entire time.

Lisa and Corinne both left over the Labor Day weekend after the power was shut off.

Now, when Corinne hikes to some of the tallest peaks at on the ranch and looks north, she can see the devastation that nearly threatened her home.

That experience has helped inspire her to want to eventually be a firefighter (she's still also considering horse wrangling).

Corinne's aspirations are greatly shaped by the world she occupies.

As Corinne's getting older, both Rachel and Lisa are both focused on getting more experiences off the ranch for the 10-year-old.

They take a lot of field trips, often to Denver, where Lisa's daughter lives.

They've gone rock-climbing, visited the Denver courthouse, the Butterfly Pavilion, the zoo and the aquarium.

"It's important for her to see the world," Lisa said.

___

In 2020, Corinne will finish sixth grade. At that point, Notch Peak Elementary is likely to cease.

The Gabys don't know what will happen at that point. They don't want Lisa to leave.

"We don't even want to talk about," Jack said. "But we're not moving to town."

Despite having a master's degree, Lisa would need to get four more teaching certificates to be qualified to teach Corinne after 6th grade. Having Corinne take classes online is more likely.

Having the same teacher for multiple grades has shown significant benefits, but Lisa also thinks it might be a good thing she won't be able to teach Corinne into high school.

"She needs a new perspective," she said.

These four years Corinne and Lisa have together might have be very different if they hadn't bonded as they have.

"We're lucky that we love each other," Lisa said. "Our relationship is huge. We could have not connected. She had to really like me."

Lisa has become Corinne's favorite part of school.

"She's my everything teacher," Corinne said.

When Lisa finally does leave Notch Peak, no one expects a permanent goodbye.

“I will always be connected to Corinne,” Lisa said. “Even after I leave after sixth grade, she will always be a part of my life.”

I was wondering how much of my tax dollars goes to cover the cost of the president holding these rallies that he seems so fond of. It is my understanding that during his first two years in office he has held about 40 of these things.

Short of making the president feel good about himself, do they serve another function? Is there an oversight committee of the Senate or House that approves these expenditures and, if so, how do they justify these expenditures?

You would think that either the senators or House members would be able to tell me how many tax dollars are spent on these rallies. None of them seem to know. Since they have oversight responsibility for the administrative branch of government, you would think they would know.

Allan Ayoub, West Valley City

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As a longtime resident in the Sugar House area, I see that it has become increasingly difficult to maneuver the streets because of ongoing reconstruction of 1300 East. I appreciate the upgrades but want to include some observations from the honorary position I maintain as a member of the "Cranky Old Men's Brigade."

Aside from the heavy machinery parked along the sides of the road, various potholes, giant asphalt cracks, bicycle riders with earbuds and constant pedestrian red light crossings at the college, there is the new complication caused by flying Limes and Birds. To make matters worse, they are mounted by young adults, seemingly indifferent to danger.

I have given up hope that they will become more responsible for their safety and have reluctantly resorted to yelling at them out of my car window, "Hey there young whippersnapper, go vote early … and often.”

Horst Holstein, Salt Lake City

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The downfall of our democracy is imminent. It may not happen today or tomorrow, and it won’t be an event, but rather a slow and steady decline into a morass of intolerance and irrational fear, until hatred and distrust of our countrymen become the norm.

When Americans send pipe bombs to their fellow citizens just for having a difference of opinion, can total anarchy be far behind? When the supposed leader of the free world condones violence and contempt, the nobler principles of freedom and equality will surely perish.

I look at what is happening in our once-great country and all I can see is rancor, division and discontent, all promulgated by a myopic, moronic miscreant. Not a leader, but an agitator. Not a peacemaker, but a warmonger, a whoremonger and a disciple of all that is wrong and unholy, motivated by a quest for power and a lust for greed.

All the world’s great empires crumbled, most after only a few hundred years of prominence. At 242 years as a shining city on a hill, the United States of America will eventually meet her demise at the hands of corrupt and conspiring men who have forsaken the righteous ideals of our founding fathers in exchange for unrighteous dominion and the adulation of a gullible and feeble-minded proletariat.

If we don’t stand up for our rights while we can, we will forfeit them forever.

David E. Jensen, Holladay

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Dear President Trump,

Stop the hate. Your rhetoric of hate has been assaulting the minds and hearts of Americans for years now. While most of us can see through its lies and untruths, obviously some people take your words to heart and act on them. Whether it’s mailing pipe bombs to political figures, hitting journalists, shooting black church attendees or killing Jewish elders in a synagogue, these actions all lead back to you and your hate speech.

Sir, America cannot stand for this. America does not stand for this. End your rallies of hate. Stop speaking in white nationalist code. Take up the true mantle of president and strive to bring us together as a nation of equals. While this may be more tedious for you personally, it is the essential function of your job.

Jonna Ramey, Salt Lake City

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In addition to the excellent work of the Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, the media can be a good source of information about judges, as Holly Richardson wrote on Saturday. But this is only true if members of the media have accurate information and a good understanding of the issues that judges face in criminal sentencing.

Understanding the sentencing guidelines is a great place to start. The Utah Sentencing Commission, which is made up of 27 of the best and brightest minds from all areas of criminal justice, has been producing guidelines for decades. The guidelines create a more uniform, transparent, accountable and effective criminal sentencing system.

When sentences are too long, they can foster antisocial networks and disrupt families and communities in ways that actually promote crime. At the same time, a sentence that is too short might return someone to the community before it is reasonably safe. No one can tell the future, but the sentencing guidelines are based on the best available evidence to strike the right balance in the majority of cases.

When a judge follows the nonbinding guidelines, it shows that the judge is consistent and fair, not lenient or arbitrary.

Marshall Thompson, Director, Utah Sentencing Commission

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Our oldest boy asked me why I was laughing at the campaign ad we were watching for Mitt Romney on the TV. I told him I thought it was funny that one of Romney’s claims is that he will balance the budget if elected to represent Utah in Congress. He didn’t understand the humor until I explained that the last time we had a balanced budget was during the Clinton administration and that the Republicans just blew the biggest hole in the budget to give the rich and corporations a bigger advantage over the rest of us than they already have. Of course, President Donald Trump vows to give us middle class a 10 percent tax break before the election — impossible, of course, since the Congress is not in session, among other reasons.

Good thing for Romney he made $22 million last year.

The GOP slaughters all of us on almost every critical issue they tackle. Still, Utahns and others are more than willing to vote against their own best interest just to make sure that the despised liberals don’t participate in governing.

At least we can keep on laughing.

Joe Ure, Taylorsville

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By all accounts, Utah is on track to set a record for voter turnout when Election Day rolls around on Nov. 6.

County clerks statewide are reporting huge increases in the number of new voter registrations, and early voting numbers are also up.

It’s an encouraging sign in a community where voters have made a lackluster showing at the polls in recent years. In the 2014 midterm elections, for example, only 30 percent of eligible voters cast ballots — a record low, according to a report produced last year from the Utah Foundation. We did better in the 2016 presidential election, with nearly 58 percent turnout, but, overall, Utah was still ranked just 39th in voter turnout.

As Utahns, we can and should do better, but I also know that sometimes it’s hard to feel as if a single vote really matters.

As in many other states, gerrymandering — the process of manipulating political district boundaries for the benefit of candidates or parties — has left its mark on Utah. Often, a Utah Foundation report notes, a majority of our political races aren’t even competitive.

That’s why I’m supporting the bipartisan-driven Better Boundaries Initiative, also known as Proposition 4. Prop 4 would create a seven-member independent redistricting commission to draw the boundary lines for our school board, Utah House, Utah Senate and U.S. House districts.

States redraw their political district boundaries every 10 years with data from the most recent U.S. Census. Utah’s Constitution awards the responsibility of drawing those boundaries to state lawmakers, but that hasn’t always served voters well. In the 2011 round of redistricting, for example, lawmakers carved Utah up into four mixed urban-rural districts, diluting the voices of some voters. Salt Lake City, which has long had a strong Democratic presence, was broken up into three congressional districts (2, 3 and 4). And rural communities, which tend to tilt conservative but have needs far different from those of Wasatch Front cities, were left with congressional representatives who are based miles and miles away.

Under Prop 4, the Legislature would still have final say over our political boundaries, but the influence lawmakers have over the process would be more limited. As proposed, Prop 4’s rules would prohibit appointed commissioners from being lobbyists, political candidates, current office holders or anyone taking money from any political party. It also calls on the commission to strive to create boundaries that create greater population equity in districts and minimize the division of cities.

As a citizen of a republic founded on the core ideal of representative government, I don’t believe any politician — Republican or Democrat — should be in the business of choosing his or her voters. In our system of government, voters are supposed do the choosing, and we need Prop 4 to help us protect that right.

An independent commission would put the power squarely in the hands of voters and make the redistricting process more fair. I believe it will make government more transparent and allow voters to hold their elected officials more accountable for their decisions. And it may also increase voter participation at the polls.

I encourage you to join me in supporting Proposition 4.Let’s make sure that every voter’s voice is heard.

Ann Granato, a Democrat, is the District 4 representative on the Salt Lake County Council and is seeking re-election this year.

Racial attack ad released in the runup to the midterm elections. Anti-marijuana initiative forces spent $250K on their opposition campaign just before a truce was announced. And practical advice on how to stop getting all those Love-McAdams robocalls.

Happy Thursday. President Donald Trump’s campaign has produced and the president tweeted out the most racially charged political ad since the notorious Willie Horton attack ad of the 1988 election. The web video portrays the northward-bound caravan of Central American migrants as “invaders” aided by Democrats and infiltrated by criminals and cop killers. Democrats responded that it was fearmongering at its worst and a sign of desperation. [CNN]

Topping the news: Want to stop those obnoxious robocalls and flyers from Mia Love and Ben McAdams? Cast your ballot already. [Trib]

-> Navajos hope this election they can cast off the long shadow of disenfranchisement and gerrymandering in southeast Utah’s San Juan County. [TribviaGuardian]

-> President Trump’s shrinking of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument may have exposed troves of buried dinosaur fossils to the threat of energy development. [Trib]

Tweets of the Day: From @kumailn: “Voting is so important. It’ll make you feel important and better than everyone. Do it.”

-> From @Mikel_Jolette: “Louder for the people in the back. TRUMP DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION BY EXECUTIVE ORDER.”

-> From @aedwardslevy: “Takes I've seen in the last five minutes, in no particular order:-Polls are showing a late swing toward Democrats-Polls are showing a late swing toward Republicans”

Happy Birthday: to Salt Lake County Councilwoman and Senate candidate Jenny Wilson and Peter Urban.

Trib Talk: The Salt Lake Tribune’s owner and publisher, Paul Huntsman, joined reporter Benjamin Wood to talk about why the Tribune’s editorial board endorsed Mitt Romney and Mia Love. They also explored Huntsman’s reasons behind doing endorsements and how the paper goes about making these decisions. [Trib]

Trib Caucus: Check out this new online conversation among The Tribune’s best and brightest political reporters and writers where they try out their new comedy routines and discuss their hot takes on the midterms — including their views/predictions on the 4th District. [Trib]

In other news: On the eve of pro- and anti- medical marijuana initiative forces joining hands behind a compromise bill last month, opponents dumped $250,000 into their campaign against Prop 2. [Trib]

-> A “Herculean effort” has been made in the rapidly growing Silicon Slopes area of Lehi to help deal with traffic congestion, says UDOT, as it opens a new bridge today. [Trib][ABC4]

-> Salt Lake County sheriff candidates Justin Hoyal and Rosie Rivera have surprising similarities — they both have long law-enforcement backgrounds and they tend to agree on the problems that need to be addressed in the immediate future. [DNews]

-> Lehi City released a letter saying that it found no significant health risks due to particulate matter air pollution from mining at the Point of the Mountain, but it has created a committee to monitor the operation. [DNews]

-> A survey is being distributed by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to solicit citizen opinions on how the state is doing running liquor stores. [Fox13]

-> Rideshare giants Uber and Lyft are offering free rides for Election Day. [DNews]

-> Voters are being asked to approve some $600 million in school bonds statewide for local school districts — nearly half of that for Nebo School District. [Fox13]

-> Pat Bagley illustrated President Trump’s best people. [Trib]

Nationally: President Donald Trump announced that he will be pushing forward with his attempt to end birthright citizenship one way or another, saying that ultimately the matter will need to be decided by the Supreme Court. [WaPostviaTrib][NYTimes][BBC][CNN][Fox]

-> The Trump Administration has been pushing to impose sanctions on Iran, with the full effect kicking into motion Monday. [NYTimes]

-> U.S. Marines practiced military exercises motivated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, making the term “cold war” take on a new meeting as the troops engaged in cold-weather warfare practices and braved frigid cold. [NYTimes]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com. And if you want Cornflakes to arrive in your email inbox each morning, subscribe here.

-- Dan Harrie and Cara MacDonald

https://twitter.com/danattrib and Twitter.com/carammacdonald

President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that there might be truth to an unfounded conspiracy theory that philanthropist and Democratic megadonor George Soros is funding a caravan of Central American migrants, telling reporters that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if that is the case.

As he left the White House, Trump was asked whether he thinks somebody is funding the migrant caravan that is slowly making its way through Mexico toward the U.S. border.

"I wouldn't be surprised, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised," Trump responded.

Asked whether the funder could be Soros, Trump said: "I don't know who, but I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people say yes."

Trump's comments came in the wake of Soros being targeted with a pipe bomb last week and the fatal shootings this weekend at Pittsburgh synagogue by a suspect who posted frequently about the migrant caravan.

The White House did not immediately respond Thursday to a question about what evidence Trump has that points to the possibility that Soros, a wealthy Jewish donor, has funded a caravan that originated in Honduras.

In the run-up to next week's midterm elections, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the caravan as a symbol of what is wrong with U.S. immigration policy and blamed Democrats for not passing legislation in a Republican-controlled Congress.

Trump told reporters that he considers such caravans "very dangerous," adding: "We're not going to allow people to come into our country that don't have the well-being of our country in mind."

The theory about Soros funding the caravan dates to late March, when an earlier wave of migrants was heading north. The rumors circulated on Facebook groups and various right-wing websites, as well as on left-wing sites seeking to debunk them.

The rumors cropped up again in recent weeks when a new caravan started receiving attention among conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., posted a video on Twitter of someone supposedly handing cash to migrants to "storm the US border," and he asked, "Soros?"

Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Fox Business hosts Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs have also raised the possibility that the caravan is getting outside funding.

Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man authorities have accused of mailing more than a dozen bombs to people who have criticized Trump, appeared to be obsessed with Soros, mentioning him dozens of times on one of his Twitter accounts.

Robert D. Bowers, charged with killing 11 people Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue, also reposted several viral comments on a since-deactivated social media account about the migrant caravan. One post described the "third world caravan" as a group of approaching "invaders."

The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach contributed to this report.

During a recent segment about a supermarket shooting in Kentucky, CNN host Don Lemon said that "the biggest terror threat in this country is white men."

Lemon was speaking on live television Monday about an incident in which a white man allegedly shot and killed two black people outside a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Ky., not far from Louisville.

The incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime, occurred during the same week that 13 potential explosive devices were sent to prominent Democratic and media figures across the country and 11 people were killed in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. White men were also charged in both of those cases.

“I keep trying to point out to people not to demonize any one group or any one ethnicity. But we keep thinking that the biggest terror threat is something else — some people who are marching towards the border like it’s imminent,” Lemon told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, referring to the Central American migrant caravan walking toward the United States. He added that “the last time they did this, a couple hundred people came and they — most of them didn’t get into the country. Most of them got tuckered out before they even made it to the border.”

“So,” he said, “we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban — you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white-guy ban. So what do we do about that?”

On Wednesday, following the backlash, Lemon doubled down.

"Earlier this week, I made some comments about that in a conversation with Chris," he said during a broadcast Wednesday night. "I said that the biggest terror threat in this country comes from radicals on the far right, primarily white men. That angered some people. But let's put emotion aside and look at the cold hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming."

Lemon pointed to a recent Government Accountability Office report that shows that since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, far-right violent extremists have killed 106 people in 62 attacks in the United States, while radical Islamist violent extremists have killed 119 people in 23 attacks.

He also referenced several studies, including a 2017 report from the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund and the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal, which found that from 2008 to 2016, there were almost twice as many terrorist incidents carried out on U.S. soil by right-wing extremists — many of whom are white — than by Islamist extremists.

It showed there were 115 incidents involving right-wing extremists and that those that ended in death were more deadly than incidents carried out by other groups.

"So people who were angered about what I said are missing the entire point," Lemon said about his earlier statements. "We don't need to worry about people who are thousands of miles away. The biggest threats are homegrown. The facts prove that."

Still, Lemon's remarks about terrorist threats ignited an uproar among many conservatives.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who survived a shooting targeting Republican lawmakers who were practicing for a Congressional Baseball Game in 2017, posted a link to a story about Lemon on Twitter — commenting simply with an emoji showing wide eyes.

And Donald Trump Jr. said in a tweet Wednesday that he thought it "was some sort of joke quote taken out of context but no ... it's just Don Lemon being a moron."

“Unfortunately this is how so many leftists actually think,” he continued. “Disgusting! Imagine the outrage if you changed ‘white men’ with any other demographic?”

Salt Lake City’s newest brewery — T.F. Brewing — opened last week in the Granary District, adding a German vibe to the state’s expanding beer scene.

The 8,500-square-foot structure at 936 S. 300 West has a 15-barrel brew house for beer production as well as a tavern for those 21 and older with large communal tables, velvet couches and a bar where guests can watch brewers at work.

An on-site beer store, a spacious patio and a private Barrel Room for private events round out the new locale.

Head brewer Kevin Templin — who co-owns the business with his wife, Britt — enjoys making German lagers, and his opening menu includes several on tap, including a Zitrone Wheat Ale, Kellerbier and Leichte Weisse. There are also an American Avenue Pale Ale and “My Son” Porter, named for his son, Porter. An Imperial IPA, called Ferda, will be available in cans.

In addition to the beer, the family-run brewery — T.F. stands for Templin Family — will host a rotation of popular food trucks each day.

Templin was one of the early players in Utah’s craft beer scene. He came to Utah more than two decades ago to ski but stayed to be the head brewer at Red Rock Brewing Co., a job he held for 18 years.

During that time, he watched the state’s brewing scene grow from just two breweries — Squatters/Wasatch and Uinta — to more than two dozen and counting.

But it was time, he said, to do something of his own.

T.F. Brewing • 936 S. 300 West, Salt Lake City. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Food trucks on site daily from noon to 10 p.m.