Free Republic

A political action committee backing former state Sen. Michael Johnston of Denver for the Democratic nod for governor has received another $1 million dollars from Michael Bloomberg, bringing the wealthy former New York mayor’s total donations to the committee to $2 million. ... The $1 million contribution was the largest that any campaign committee received in the most recent reporting period from May 31 to June 13, according to the secretary of state’s office’s TRACER campaign finance system. Second on the list: another $750,000 from fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Jared Polis of Boulder to his gubernatorial campaign, bringing his total...

The Mormon Church owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a national investigation released by the New York City Mayor's office. The website in question is KSL.com, the online hub for Utah's NBC affiliate and sister radio station, which are both owned and operated by the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church. In addition to local news, KSL.com produces a popular classifieds section that reaches millions of users well beyond Utah.The LDS connection drew little notice when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading financier of the gun control movement, published the report...

Despite KSL NewsRadio’s decision to drop Sean Hannity’s top-rated syndicated show from its lineup, fans of the conservative talk-show host will likely still be able to hear “The Sean Hannity Show” on local airwaves. KNRS-FM (105.7 FM) general manager Stu Stanek said before Thursday’s announcement that if KSL did cut its ties with Hannity, then his station would pick up Hannity “absolutely with a capital A.” Stanek added Hannity, who is also seen on Fox News Channel, would be “the perfect complement to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh,” whose conservative talk shows air on KNRS. KSL’s decision to end a...

Salt Lake City blowtorch KSL-AM (and its FM siblings) are said to be ending their relationship with conservative Fox News Channel/Premiere Radio Networks personality Sean Hannity, on grounds that he doesn’t fit in with the Latter Day Saints code of conduct. According to blogger Glen Warchol, whose Salt Lake Crawl appears in the Salt Lake Tribune, Hannity’s propensity to use uncivil language is running counter to a list of values that KLS owner Deseret Media Companies is adhering to. Among the tenets are things like “I promote integrity, civility, morality, and respect for all people” and “I seek to lift,...

It was one year ago today. Remember President Obama's first full day in office: "The record is clear: Rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security," Obama said during an address on national security at the National Archives in Washington. "It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it." At the time the President was roundly...

Five years ago, the 9/11 commission reported that Khalid Shaihk Mohammed initially proposed a Sept. 11 attack involving 10 planes that would be used to attack CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear plants and tall buildings in California and Washington state. KSL told interrogators that he planned to lead the hijacking of one aircraft himself. He intended to kill every adult male passenger aboard, then land at a U.S. airport and make a “speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children,” according to the report. Now, thanks to President Obama he will get...

Its a time-honored tradition,starting way before President Obama took office. Politicians break bad or embarrassing news (for them) late on a Friday afternoon or even better on a Saturday Night. The hope is the story will get very little play from reporters on their way home from a tough week, or from the weekend shift. The hope is that the Sunday News shows have already been booked to cover other topics and by Monday it will be old news. For example when Director of Homeland Security announced that the President was going to grant amnesty to Illegal Aliens it was...

A Military Tribunal in Cuba. That is what Barack Obama called for in 2006 while he was in the Senate (see video above) and that is what voters said to Rasmussen in the latest poll released today. Only 29% of American voters support President Obama's decision to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSL) and his band of thieves to NY for a civilian trial. 51% prefer that KSL remain in Gitmo to be tried in a military (19% had no opinion). Putting aside location for a moment, only 30% of Americans said suspected terrorists should have access to U.S. courts, while...

Since the Obama administration released memos describing the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A. to extract information from top-level al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other terrorists, there has been a running debate on such questions as: † Whether the memos should have been released (video link);† Whether all or just a few enhanced techniques meet some arbitrary threshold for torture, even when used on Islamic terrorists who have been trained to resist them ... As luck would have it, an unintentional snafu provided a much-needed reality-check for us all. Earlier in the week, people on both sides of...

Video Courtesy of KSL.com(KSL News) Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Henderson, Texas, stopped an armed robber in his tracks when he tried to steal congregation members' wallets. KLTV reports a gunman walked into an LDS church building last Sunday and fired a shot out the door. The women and children ran for cover, but the men formed a semi-circle around the gunman and urged him to leave. The man ran off with no money and without hurting anyone.

Preliminary results have come back on a suspicious white powder found at the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FBI officials say they aren't sure exactly what it is, but they know it's not toxic. The FBI says the substance was tested for known hazardous biological agents and toxins, and all tests were negative. Lab tests will continue to determine exactly what the substance is, and those results are expected sometime next week. Three employees inside the temple office were decontaminated as a precaution, and a hazardous material crew cleared the office of any...

On a sandy bluff overlooking the Pacific, surfer Mark Massara sees a developing threat to a California amenity: guaranteed beach access for average families. Luxury hotel builders are hovering over the coastline, hoping to expand to California's shores the nationwide trend of developments split between high-priced hotel rooms and privately owned condominiums. Where developers see opportunity in "condo hotels," Massara and others see a legal loophole that lets private buyers snap up parts of the coast which are supposed to remain public. And that, he fears, will make getting to the beach harder. In this low-key northern San Diego County...

SALT LAKE CITY - A Utah television station is refusing to air an anti-war ad featuring Cindy Sheehan, whose son's death in The ad began airing on other area stations Saturday, two days before Bush was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.However, a national sales representative for KTVX, a local ABC affiliate, rejected the ad in an e-mail to media buyers, writing that it was an "inappropriate commercial advertisement for Salt Lake City."In the ad, Sheehan pleads with Bush for a meeting and accuses him of lying to the...