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The Donald doesn’t think much of Mitt or Jeb. Donald Trump came out guns blazing at a high-profile GOP event in Iowa on Saturday — blasting possible presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. “It can’t be Mitt, because Mitt ran and failed. He failed,” Trump bellowed, drawing cheers from the riled-up audience at the Freedom Summit. “He choked. He had that election won.” Trump was equally blunt in assessing former President George W. Bush’s younger brother. “You can’t have Bush,” Trump said. “The last thing we need is another Bush.”

Two environmentalist groups filed suit Tuesday seeking stronger protection for a bird found only in Colorado and Utah ... The Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project said in court papers that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should go back and produce an “adequate finding” on the status of the Gunnison sage grouse ... The threatened designation could result in restrictions on oil and gas drilling, agriculture, recreational and other land uses. ... both camps will be watching litigation closely, in part to see how it might influence policy on the more common greater sage grouse. The...

Expert says western yellow-billed cuckoo may be more prevalent than first thought. Paonia ornithologist Jason Beason likes to say that there are a lot of cuckoos out there. The line is good for laughs at presentations like the talks he gave in the Roaring Fork Valley last week, and it accurately reflects the fact that dozens of species of cuckoos populate the Earth in both the Old and New Worlds. These include birds people might not immediately think of as being cuckoos, such as the greater roadrunner in the southwestern United States. But in the case of the cuckoo of...

Washington, DC – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today issued a Secretarial Order calling for a comprehensive science-based strategy to address the more frequent and intense wildfires that are damaging vital sagebrush landscapes and productive rangelands, particularly in the Great Basin region of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. The strategy will begin to be implemented during the 2015 fire season. Goals include reducing the size, severity and cost of rangeland fires, addressing the spread of cheatgrass and other invasive species, and positioning wildland fire management resources for more effective rangeland fire response. “Targeted action is urgently needed to...

U.S. wildlife officials will decide next year whether a wide-ranging Western bird species needs protections even though Congress has blocked such protections from taking effect, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday. They could determine the greater sage grouse is heading toward possible extinction, but they would be unable to intervene under the Endangered Species Act. The bird’s fate instead remains largely in the hands of the 11 individual states where they are found. President Barack Obama signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill late Tuesday with a provision that barred money from being spent on rules to protect the chicken-sized bird...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appears poised for a presidential run and is currently leading the polls among potential Republican candidates for 2016, but the comments he made in 1994 during his first run for Florida’s highest office may come back to haunt him.The Associated Press reports that Bush described himself then as a “head-banging conservative” and used fiery rhetoric — such as claiming he would do “probably nothing” for African-Americans if he became governor — in his ultimately unsuccessful bid. Bush made that statement in response to a question on what he would for African-Americans if elected to office.“It’s time...

Jeb Bush’s moves to attract supporters and donors this week put the 2016 race for the White House into sharper focus earlier in the new year than other presidential hopefuls probably anticipated. One apparent result: Mitt Romney, the Republican standard-bearer in 2012, told a group of donors Friday that he is “seriously considering” a third try for the White House after all. Romney continues to lead in polls that include him in the GOP field. With casual but succinct Instagram videos shot on a New York street and posted Tuesday on his Facebook page — one in English, one in...

A former Utah high school teacher had sex with an underage student after she was arrested in October 2013 in another sex abuse case involving that boy and two others, prosecutors said this week. Brianne Altice, 35, was arrested again Wednesday on four new sex abuse charges and released from jail after posting $10,000 bail, court documents say.

Utah Rep. Mia Love, who recently became the first black female Republican ever elected to Congress, joined the Congressional Black Caucus, according to a Tuesday announcement — potentially bad news for the group. Love, the former mayor of Saratoga Springs, has stated that she would likely join the CBC but would attempt drastic change from within the group, which tends to lean to the left.

Utah passed a law in 2012 demanding the federal government give up about 31 million acres, about 50 percent of the state, by Dec. 31, 2014. ... Ivory and other supporters of the land transfer say the state’s legal claim lies in the Utah Enabling Act, which led to Utah’s statehood in 1896. .. If Utah pursues a lawsuit, the state attorney general’s office has warned lawmakers they need to avoid flawed theories or inconsistent arguments used by western states in the 1970s and 1980s during a similar push known as the Sagebrush Rebellion. ... Montana, Wyoming and Nevada have...

Republican lawmakers closed ranks Sunday behind the No. 3 House GOP leader, Steve Scalise, as the party aimed to move past the controversy over his speech 12 years ago to a white supremacist group. Scalise has said the speech was a mistake he now regrets, and party leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, have backed him. Several incoming rank-and-file lawmakers added their support Sunday, including Utah’s Mia Love, the first black female Republican elected to the House. …

I told you last night, there was only one way for this year to end on Hot Air. May one word ring in your ears as the ball drops, my friends: Romneymentum.Hopefully you’re all already liquored up sufficiently to dull the pain. “I know exactly what Mitt’s going to do,� [Ken] Gardner, a real estate developer who helped bring Romney to Utah to lead the 2002 Winter Olympics, told the Deseret News. “I think over the next few months, a lot of things will happen.�…“If it’s Ted Cruz that’s the candidate, he’s in. If it’s Jeb Bush, he’s probably not,�...

It is rare for conservatives to score a federal policy victory these days, especially with a Democrat in the White House, but as Michael Barone reminds us, just by playing defense conservatives have done exactly that on transportation. Unfortunately there are some in Congress who want to reverse these gains. The big win for conservatives on transportation comes from two sources. First, when the gas tax was last raised in 1993, it was not indexed for inflation, so the 18.4 cents a gallon collected today doesn't go as far today as it did more than two decades ago. Second, thanks...

Mitt Romney is eyeing a third run for the White House and will get in the race in the coming months if he doesn't like how the GOP field is looking, his longtime friend Kem Gardner said Monday. "I know exactly what Mitt's going to do," Gardner, a real estate developer who helped bring Romney to Utah to lead the 2002 Winter Olympics, told the Deseret News. "I think over the next few months, a lot of things will happen." But Spencer Zwick, who raised $1 billion for Romney's 2012 campaign, said the decision is a personal one for Romney...

While states debate expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare, they're wrestling with a looming 2017 deadline — when their taxpayers begin paying for the cost of the expansion. Beginning in 2014, states that agree to expand Medicaid to persons with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty line will have the federal government pay 100 percent of the cost. But beginning in 2017, the federal share will fall to 95 percent, and it drops to 90 percent in 2020. This has officials — many of them in Republican-dominated states across the country — worried that they will not...

The best news is the straightforward fact that in 2013 the fewest number of women in Utah had abortions than at any time since 1977. These encouraging results came about even though the number of women in their childbearing years has doubled in the intervening 36 years. Utah Department of Health’s Maternal and Infant Health Program reported that 2,893 women had abortions last year–only 4.6 abortions in every 1,000 women. While generally a confirmation of longstanding trends, the results also raise some intriguing questions. Among other pro-life provisions on the books, in 2012 Utah was the first state in the...

The "CRomnibus" government funding bill passed handily last weekend, but not before Senators Lee and Cruz had their say. In a controversial move, the two senators managed to put their colleagues on record voting for or against funding President Obama's latest unconstitutional executive power grab. Many Republican senators, however, protest too much, claiming that Lee and Cruz may have allowed the Democrats to pass a number of executive nominees because of their insistence upon making their point. As the story goes, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had promised to adjourn the Senate after passing the CRomnibus and a couple...

Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA) called on Congressional leaders to reauthorize a program that provides key support to rural communities. Representatives Kilmer, Chris Stewart (R-UT), Jared Huffman (D-CA), and Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) led a letter urging the swift renewal of Secure Rural Schools (SRS) to help counties with national forests. Since national forest land cannot be taxed by counties or states, for more than 100 years the Forest Service has shared revenues from timber harvests on federal lands with the nearby communities. In the letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi the members pointed out that SRS...

Flathead, Lincoln counties could lose millions if Secure Rural Schools is not reauthorized. Congress recently passed a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the United States government in operation, but missing from that bill are the funds that many counties in Montana have come to rely on in their annual budgets. The budget bill dropped $330 million in funding from Secure Rural Schools, a federal program run through the U.S. Forest Service providing funding for counties and schools. Last year, Flathead County received just over $1.6 million in SRS funding; roughly $1,067,000 went toward the county’s road department, and the...

Would conservatives support a presidential bid by David Petraeus? The Iraq surge architect isn't a candidate. But for years prominent conservatives from Rep. Peter King to Andrew Breitbart have touted the soldier-scholar as a dream conservative candidate to take on Barack Obama. The question is, if Petraeus had run, would his service in the Obama administration -- first as head of U.S. Central Command, then as Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and now as CIA Director -- have counted against him? It's safe to say conservatives wouldn't have re-purposed the old "General Betray-Us" moniker for the man who has...

To think, we’ve spent two years believing it was Romney that had the nastiest, most relentless seek-and-destroy oppo operation on the GOP side. Now I feel like Frank Drebin discovering the missing evidence in the Kelner case. My god — he was innocent. If you believe the sources in “Double Down,” Team Huntsman feeding a mega-smear of Romney to Harry Reid was the tip of the iceberg. 1994, his wife Cheri left [Mitch] Daniels for a married man, but then the couple reconciled and remarried. “In the years since, she had never spoken publicly about the turmoil, and Mitch had...

Was Bill Kristol kidding—just throwing a sop to the not-inconsiderable ego of his host—or could he have been serious? On today's Morning Joe, unveiling his line-up of the nine Republicans he sees running for president in 2016, Kristol included none other than Joe Scarborough himself. But in an unkind cut to someone prospectively facing the famously conservative GOP primary electorate, Kristol described Scarborough as "filling the Huntsman lane" and representing a "Morning Joe conservatism." Ouch! As interesting as were Kristol's nine [which included Sarah Palin] were the names he left off his list, including Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. View...

Former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has engaged in discussions with supporters in recent months about pursuing another White House bid — this time as an independent, according to three sources close to Huntsman. The former Utah governor declined to comment for the record. His daughter, MSNBC co-host Abby Huntsman Livingston, who was a surrogate for Huntsman’s campaign in 2012, said in an email that her father is “primarily focused on family and private-sector endeavors.” She added: “He has no plans to run, but in politics never say never. I know there is a lot of pull out there for him...

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who ran for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination in 2012, suggested he might run again but said he is not a candidate yet....

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has become the second Republican voted off the island in the 2012 Republican primary campaign (we don't count Tim Pawlenty or Herman Cain, both of whom dropped out before voting began). His decision late Sunday to suspend his campaign is a bit jarring, given that he had insisted after a disappointing third place finish in New Hampshire that he was staying in through South Carolina. I suspect that what happened is a combination of two things. First, financial reality set in. If you don’t think a candidate is going to win, you’re hard pressed to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. I tasked Cookie with getting some audio sound bites of Jon Huntsman Jr. My e-mail is overrun with people who want to know: "Who is this guy, the ambassador to China? Who is he?" because of course the mainstream, the Drive-Bys have thrown him now in the top three Republican presidential candidates. (interruption) I have not played golf with Jon Huntsman Jr., no. Nor have I played golf with Jon Huntsman Sr. I haven't played golf with anybody. No. (interruption) No, I have not smoked cigars with Jon Huntsman Jr.,...

Presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman has snagged an endorsement in a key battleground state - Jeb Bush Jr, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Rumors of a "major" announcement from the Huntsman campaign have been circulating through Florida for days, leading many to speculate that the former governor himself would throw his weight behind Huntsman. It was his 28-year-old son, however, who accepted a position with the campaign and detailed his support in a statement released Wednesday.

Last week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced his intention to "actively explore" a run for president. That announcement spurred spasms of joy in some segments of the Republican Party who have been itching for an effective counter to the enthusiasm of the grassroots right. Those Republicans -- largely coastal donors who scorn social conservatives as rubes, and shun the supposed fiscal extremism of the tea party -- have been searching for a candidate who will buck the base on immigration, who doesn't mind hand-in-glove corporatism, and who, most of all, feels the same way they do about the grassroots....

Some prominent moderate establishment Republicans in Utah are plotting to target conservative icon Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) with a primary challenge in 2016. Lee’s offense? He didn’t drink the Washington Kool-aid and see the D.C. cesspool as a jacuzzi after he ousted incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT), who had supported the TARP bailouts, in 2010. When Lee prevailed over Bennett, he gave other conservatives across the country hope that they could also defeat entrenched incumbents who cared more about preserving the status quo above all else. Once Lee arrived in Washington, he didn’t turn his back on the base, which...

Today the Club for Growth PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, and Madison Project released the results of a poll done by Basswood Research in the Utah Senate race of likely Republican Primary voters. The poll finds incumbent Senator Mike Lee in an extremely strong position for re-nomination. Senator Lee is endorsed for re-election by the Club for Growth PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Madison Project. Among the poll highlights: Senator Lee has a +65 favorable rating, with 76% of Utah Republicans having a favorable opinion of Lee and only 11% having an unfavorable opinion. By contrast, Senator Orrin Hatch, while...

It is extremely notable that Manu Raju of the Politico has written that the establishment intends to destroy Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Raju serves as the court stenographer for the Senate GOP leadership. His pieces are routinely littered with the conventional wisdom and talking points of the Senate GOP leadership. He has more than once anticipated Senate GOP leadership strategy based on their conversations with him. So when Manu Raju says the establishment intends to go on offense against the tea party by beating Sen. Mike Lee in the Utah Republican Primary, we can be sure Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY),...

One of the top possible candidates to lead Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has dropped out of contention. That has left the door open to the presidential of a leading pro-abortion group to become her campaign manager should she decide to run for presidential in 2016.Clinton is a longtime pro-abortion activists, opposing any pro-life limits on abortion and backing taxpayer funding of abortions. That gels with the views of Emily’s List, which opposes even a late-term abortion ban and requires that all of the candidates it endorses support forcing Americans to fund abortions.Now, reports indicate that Emily’s List’s president may run...

Tea party favorite Mike Lee roiled the GOP establishment four years ago when he knocked off a sitting senator on his way to the Republican Senate nomination in Utah. Now, the establishment might strike back. As the 43-year-old Lee plots his 2016 reelection bid, he is courting business leaders under the radar, hoping to head off a primary challenge backed by business leaders and other establishment figures in his home state, like billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr., an influential bank CEO and a former Utah GOP party chairman. Some powerful establishment Republicans in Utah are tired of Lee’s hard-line positions. He...

Barack and Michelle Obama, speaking to People Magazine, of all disappointments, shared the disheartening news that they have experienced what they called racism. Barack, for example, apparently has had trouble, before he was president, hailing a cab in Chicago, to which an immediate thought might occur to anyone who has been to Chicago: Who hasn't? Also, Barack, at a black-tie event, when he, too, was in festive livery, apparently was asked by another guest if he would get them a cup of coffee. For her recollection, Michelle came up with a visit to a Target store as first lady. She...

Utah Sen. Mike Lee defended himself Tuesday against allegations that his point of order vote, which he earned in partnership with Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions, contributed to President Barack Obama being able to confirm more of his nominees through the outgoing Democratic Senate majority. “Look, I’ve got tremendous respect for Charles Krauthammer, but he does not have a crystal ball,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee said on the Laura Ingraham radio show.

The end times are upon us. I find myself in agreement with not just Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). It’s not just me. Right Wing News’ John Hawkins — not exactly a cheerleader for bipartisan consensus — is publicly standing with Warren, Pelosi, and their liberal allies in the House and Senate. As have conservative Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), Townhall.com’s Amy Otto, and Tea Party Patriots, among many others. And I’m not only opposed to the omnibus bill that squeaked through the House and may fail in the Senate. I’m...

BUENOS AIRES, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dismissed Tuesday accusations of Moscow’s alleged role in the deadly Malaysian passenger plane crash as “primitive.” “Accusing the Russian Federation of destroying the Malaysian Boeing during the flight is horrifying primitivism,” Castro wrote in an article published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper. “Neither President Vladimir Putin, nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nor other Russian leaders could have ever done such a stupid thing,” Castro stressed. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board,...

WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that starting to trade with Cuba "is probably a good idea" and that the lengthy economic embargo against the communist island "just hasn't worked." Paul became the first potential Republican presidential candidate to offer some support for President Barack Obama's decision to try to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. The president's surprise announcement on Wednesday was slammed by several potential GOP candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who said it amounted to appeasing the Castro regime. Paul said in a radio interview with Tom Roten of...

Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked." Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants. Paul...

Rand Paul Breaks With Rubio and Bush Over Cuba Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the latest potential presidential candidate to weigh in on policy changes to Cuba and the libertarian leaning Republican's position splits from other Republicans who are also considering a presidential run. Paul told Tom Roten of News Talk 800 in West Virginia that the 50-year embargo "just hasn't worked" and normalizing relations with the island nation is "probably a good idea." "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime...

With the federal government engaged in a de facto unconstitutional occupation of some two thirds of Utah’s territory, citizens of the state and their elected representatives have had just about enough. So, on December 31, the State of Utah is formally demanding that Washington, D.C., relinquish control over more than 30 million acres of valuable land currently controlled by various federal bureaucracies. While apparatchiks for an all-powerful U.S. government and far-left activists are fuming over the plan, Utah lawmakers, citizens, and experts say the time has come for the state to manage — and profit from — its own resources....

Editor's note: This piece was co-authored by Tim Graham.Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are polar opposites, a Tea Party conservative and an Occupy Wall Street socialist. Then there are the similarities: Both were elected in 2012, both have Harvard on their resume and both are mentioned as presidential material. But the media's read of the two demonstrates an unquestionable slant. Both senators have shaken up the Senate over heavy spending and regulation. When Warren does it, she's promoted as a profile in courage, standing up for fairness. When Cruz does it, he's a selfish brat causing meltdowns. On...

He didn’t say whether he had a particular moderate in mind. Any theories? Cruz, a deeply conservative Texas Republican and likely 2016 candidate himself, called Bush a “good governor in Florida,” before warning against nominating a centrist Republican. He didn’t specifically place Bush in that category, but the implication was clear: Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush and the brother of former President George W. Bush, is far more moderate than the Republican base is on a host of issues including immigration and education.“If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a...

<p>Earlier Tuesday, a federal court in Pennsylvania declared aspects of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration policy unconstitutional.</p> <p>According to the opinion by Judge Arthur Schwab, the president’s policy goes “beyond prosecutorial discretion” in that it provides a relatively rigid framework for considering applications for deferred action, thus obviating any meaningful case-by-case determination as prosecutorial discretion requires, and provides substantive rights to applicable individuals. As a consequence, Schwab concluded, the action exceeds the scope of executive authority.</p>

Ted Cruz privately apologized to GOP senators Tuesday for interrupting their holiday schedules by his surprise tactics that effectively brought the Senate into session over the weekend. According to five senators who attended Tuesday’s caucus lunch, Cruz offered the apology in unsolicited remarks, saying that he regretted if any of his colleagues’ schedules were ruined by his maneuvering. He didn’t say whether he would do something similar again, senators said. And unlike a contentious lunch last year after GOP senators pointedly blamed Cruz for prompting the government shutdown, no sharp words were directed at the Texas freshman at Tuesday’s lunch,...

Sen. Ted Cruz, the firebrand conservative freshman from Texas, has blown up the Senate leadership’s plans to have a peaceful weekend by forcing round-the-clock votes on President Obama’s nominees and the $1.1 trillion omnibus.Cruz took to the floor late Friday to castigate congressional leaders for trying to pass the 1,600-page spending bill after only a few hours of debate and questioned the resolve of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to fight Obama’s executive order protecting five million illegal immigrants from deportation.“Even though millions of voters rose up just one month ago to protest how...

On Friday evening, the Senate's leaders, Mitch McConnell and and Harry Reid thought they had an agreement from their members to let the clock run over the weekend without actually being in session, and vote Monday on the $1.1 trillion spending bill needed to keep the government up and running. But Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah objected to the spending bill. This meant their colleagues in the Senate would have to hold a rare Saturday session to keep the spending bill moving. It also had the unintended benefit of helping the Democrats move forward with...

Other than the Koch brothers, there is arguably no one outgoing-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid disdains more than the Tea Party. And no one represents the Tea Party in the Senate more than Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Yet, after hours of tedious wrangling, Reid on Friday agreed to allow a vote on a measure from Cruz questioning the constitutionality of President Obama’s executive order on Deferred Action, which does, in effect, grant de facto amnesty to upwards of 5 million illegal aliens. Cruz told Breitbart News that a Senate vote on Obama’s executive action was important for two reasons: “First,...

Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Enzi (R-WY) Flake (R-AZ) Graham (R-SC) Hatch (R-UT) Heller (R-NV) Johnson (R-WI) Kirk (R-IL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Toomey (R-PA) Wicker (R-MS) Not Voting Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)

It’s a question that will prove crucial next year when Mitch McConnell takes the reins of a new Senate: Just how big is the Ted Cruz caucus? Three votes on the “cromnibus” late Saturday night suggest it could be as large as 22 senators — a dangerously high number for McConnell — or as few as a handful. Let’s break down the three votes — on filibustering the $1.1 trillion package, on Cruz’s point of order aimed at targeting the president’s immigration action, and final passage. The high-water mark for the Texas Republican came on his point of order vote,...