Free Republic

Surprise action outside Denver's Brown Palace Hotel this morning, as a press release from a coalition of groups including Together Colorado and the Colorado Immigration Reform Coalition (CIRC) explains: Outside a fundraiser headlined by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) for Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) today, local leaders staged a rally to protest the fact that these three House Republicans are key obstacles standing in the way of immigration reform that would keep Colorado immigrant families together. It has been 322 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, but Speaker Boehner and House...

THOMPSON SPRINGS, Grand County — Four people were killed and four others critically injured after a van that was apparently involved in a human smuggling operation rolled multiple times on I-70 Friday morning. About 4:30 a.m., approximately 34 miles west of the Utah-Colorado border ... Investigators believe a ninth person, possibly a woman, walked away from the scene. That person had not been located as of noon. "We're looking at this as possibly being a human smuggling case," Royce said. The Utah State Bureau of Investigations, Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were assisting the Utah...

Forest Service says it's mouse habitatThe Obama administration’s crackdown on Western land use has sparked a furor over the Forest Service’s decision to fence off a creek used by thirsty cattle in drought-stricken Otero County, New Mexico. The Otero County Commission is scheduled to meet Monday to discuss whether to order the sheriff to open the gates against the wishes of Forest Service officials, who have argued that the fence is needed to protect the Agua Chiquita riparian area and habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. Otero County Sheriff Benny House said he worries that the increasingly tense...

Dozens of people rode their ATVs and motorcycles on an off-limits trail in southern Utah on Saturday in a protest against what the group calls the federal government's overreaching control of public lands. San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge said from 40 to 50 people, many of them waving American flags and some carrying weapons, drove about a mile down Recapture Canyon

Militiamen and woman camping on Cliven Bundy’s cattle ranch are packing up and heading to Utah where another protest against the Bureau of Land Management will happen Saturday. Ryan Payne, a Montana resident who had been staying at the ranch for a month, said he drove eight hours to arrive in the eastern Utah town this morning. Three militia members from the ranch and a handful of people from a group called Citizens Action Network came to Utah, too, he said. ... At Recapture Canyon, federal officials aren’t planning to send armed federal agents to the Utah protest like they...

This eye-blink of a town in the state’s scenic southeastern corner bills itself as the “Gateway to Adventure.” But this weekend it promises to be more like a launchpad for civil unrest. A band of angry citizens plans to ride all-terrain vehicles onto closed-off, federally managed public land Saturday in protest against the federal Bureau of Land Management, which many say has unfairly closed off a prized area, cheating residents of outdoor recreation. The ride, organized by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, is a gambit to assert county sovereignty over Recapture Canyon, known for its archaeological ruins, that BLM...

The May 10 All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) ride into restricted Recapture Canyon is still moving forward, threatening a collision between local residents and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The ATV ride is planned by a group of Blanding residents in an attempt to force the BLM to make a decision on who has jurisdiction within the canyon, which is just east of Blanding. Motorized access to the trail has been in dispute since the BLM forced its closure in 2007. San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who has planned the ride, does not plan to back down to mounting pressure...

Date: May 10, 2014 Time: 9:00 AM (possible meeting the night before, TBA) Place: Blanding, Utah – 255 North Hwy 191. Purpose: Assert local jurisdiction and challenge the overreach of federal agencies. Who is invited: This is not being formally sponsored or organized. It was deemed necessary at a town hall meeting in Blanding on February 27, 2014, and we welcome ALL supporters... On the 10th We will have some introductions, some instructions, and I will explain the topography including what trails have been “closed” by the BLM and which ones remain open. We will also have a flag ceremony...

The Talk Shows May 4th, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas; Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, California; Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Richard Williams, father of tennis players Serena and Venus Williams.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.; former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabber; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

SALT LAKE CITY -- State Rep. David Lifferth has apologized over his comment that the NAACP is a "racist" organization. On Tuesday, Lifferth tweeted that "we should have known Don Sterling was a racist when he gave money" to the NAACP. He then tweeted, "Yes, any group that tries to advance specific people based on their race is by definition racist."

Frustrated with President Barack Obama’s reaction to Russian action in Ukraine, a group of Republican senators said Wednesday they will introduce legislation outlining a more muscular response. “What we’ve seen from the administration is a lot of rhetoric,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning. The White House has been dealing “with the situation after something bad has already occurred,” he said. Earlier this week, violence flared up in another area of Ukraine that hugs the Russian border, as the new government in Kiev criticized local police...

...This recent roundup ended a season of wild horse “gathers” in which the government captured and removed thousands of mustangs from nearly 32 million acres of public land in 10 Western states. Afterward, the Bureau of Land Management reported new numbers likely to shock many Americans unfamiliar with the economics and politics surrounding the roundups: A record number of wild horses – almost 50,000 – are now living in captivity, far more than the 32,000 left on the range. :snip: In January 2013, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order halting another roundup after Leigh produced photos of a...

Former Republican mayor of Saratoga Springs Mia Love didn’t waste much time after losing to incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson by fewer than 800 votes in 2012 to announce that she planned to try, try again to represent Utah’s 4th Congressional district, and then in December, Matheson announced that he was retiring from the seat. I missed this over the weekend, but Love did indeed secure the Republican nomination on Saturday — and since she’ll now be facing a non-incumbent in a district Romney took by a 37-point margin in 2012, the GOP is feeling pretty jazzed about her...

What was initially conceived as a ride involving a handful of Blanding residents in Recapture Canyon could grow into a massive statement against the federal government. San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman has called for the May 10 ATV ride on public land in the canyon, located just east of Blanding city limits. Lyman said he has lost patience with the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which “temporarily” closed the area to vehicular traffic in 2007 and has yet to reopen it. Lyman said the ride is to make a statement regarding local jurisdiction. However, because of the timing...

Former Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love earned ample support from Utah Republicans on Saturday to win her party’s nod for the House — and most likely become the GOP’s first black congresswoman.

A new report analyzing the financial ramifications of a takeover of some of Nevada’s millions of acres of federal lands suggests the state would benefit from such a transfer. A transfer of 4 million acres of U.S. Bureau Land Management land could bring in anywhere from $31 million to $114 million a year, based on a review of four Western states that have significant amounts of trust lands under their control, the report says.

Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston. The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the tea party and libertarian-minded activists who rallied behind his father’s...

Sounds like the very definition of elitism. The elites in Washington DC, most of whom have never set foot in Nevada (outside a casino), controlling what the local citizens can or cannot do on the land within their state boundaries? This is not the way America was intended to be governed. Ever heard of local control? Self-government? States rights? To many of us out here in the West, pursuit of happiness means ranching, farming, logging, mining, drilling, hunting, fishing, or just living in and enjoying God's great outdoors. It's un-American and unconstitutional for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington DC to...

US attorney's office reports shooting at federal courthouse in Salt Lake City, at least 1 hurt.

Over the past week, I had conversations with two long-time friends who are interracially married, over the ongoing controversy over gay marriage in Massachussetts and San Francisco. One is a next door neighbor in Louisiana, who is a white man married to a Vietnamese woman. The other is a black man from Seattle whom I have known since college, and he is married to a white woman from Alabama, and they are now living in Salt Lake City, Utah (we talked over the phone). Both men are very conservative Christians and very pro-family, and they feel deeply insulted when they...