Free Republic

The Western Governors' Association released a report today highlighting the voluntary efforts in 11 states to conserve the habitat of sage-grouse as part of an effort to avoid a federal listing of the bird under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The association, which represents the governors of 19 Western states, said that “the breadth and depth of voluntary conservation efforts across the region, if allowed to run their course, will provide the bird with the necessary habitat to live and thrive.” The greater sage grouse is found in 11 states and its habitat encompasses 186 million acres . The U.S....

This afternoon, Fact Check.org produced a fact-check that ostensibly criticizes U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) for his contention that there has never been an instance of ground water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing. Of course, this piece isn’t really about Inhofe at all; but before we get into that, we can’t help but wonder why they are fact-checking Inhofe and not former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson … or Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz … or Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell — all of whom have said exactly the same thing. Rather than a “fact-check,” it reads more like an advocacy...

BOUNTIFUL — A judge ruled Monday that a former Davis High School teacher will face separate trials on charges of sexually abusing three students. Brianne Altice, 35, faces a total of 14 felony charges — including rape, forcible sodomy, forcible sexual abuse, unlawful sexual activity with a minor and dealing in materials harmful to a minor — stemming from alleged sexual relationships with three former Davis High students who were 16 or 17 years old at the time. Second District Judge Thomas Kay ruled Monday that it was "appropriate and necessary" to split the 10 original charges into three trials,...

Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians. Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them wil drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training. But with residents of the entire states of Texas and Utah dubbed 'hostile' for the...

A massive U.S. military drill dubbed “Jade Helm 15” lists Texas, Utah, and part of California as “hostile” or “insurgent pocket” territory. The unclassified information about this drill is causing widespread alarm nationwide, with more than a few analysts suggesting it may be some sort of exercise practicing to impose martial law on Americans fed up with an out-of-control federal government. During the exercises, which will take place over the summer, Special Forces from various branches of the military will work with local law-enforcement in scenarios that, to critics at least, sound suspiciously like they are aimed at subduing rebellious...

A new study says that nearly one of every three farmworkers in Utah is an undocumented immigrant. So is one of every six construction workers. The Pew Research Center released a study Thursday that uses U.S. census and other government data to examine labor trends among undocumented workers nationally. It included a variety of state-by-state information. It estimates that 31 percent of the farmworkers in Utah in 2012 were undocumented immigrants, as were 17 percent of all construction workers. Randy Parker, CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, says the numbers are surprising at first, but may be close to...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Army Special Operations Command is pushing back against alarmist claims that an upcoming U.S. military exercise is a preparation for imposing martial law or subduing right-leaning groups and individuals. Conspiracy theories about the exercise, known as JADE HELM 15, appeared online this week. Some commentators railing against the event referred to an online slide show allegedly created by USASOC, which outlined a special operations exercise slated to take place across multiple states, outside the confines of U.S. military bases. In the slide show, a map of the southwest region of the United States labels Texas and other...

Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law Monday a bill to make firing squads the state's back-up method of execution — used whenever the state is unable to obtain drugs needed to perform lethal injections. The Republican executive signed the firing-squad bill despite international attention on the state as it becomes alone in allowing that method of execution. (Oklahoma authorizes execution by firing squad only if lethal injection and electrocution are found unconstitutional, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.) Numerous groups called for a veto, but Herbert signaled last week that he was leaning toward signing it. "Those who voiced...

After last election cycle, when Colorado House Republicans received 189,000 more votes than House Democrats, we began to highlight how grossly gerrymandered the statehouse has become. Now, even the liberals at the Daily Kos blog are acknowledging that the Colorado House is the Democrats’ “best chamber” in the entire nation. It favors Democrats even more than California’s general assembly. The reapportionment process is obviously deeply flawed ... Democrat obstructionists in the House should be careful. While they may think they’re the party of the people, they’re not actually representing the majority of people who voted in the last election. And...

Rep. Rob Bishop has a radical plan for changing public land policy, and it starts with an experiment in his home state of Utah. The Republican is known for shaking things up with his dry sense of humor and occasional belligerence toward Obama administration officials. Easily identified by his three-piece suits and coiffed white hair, the new House Natural Resources Committee chairman is trying to turn his panel from a legislative backwater into a driver of reform. Washington Examiner: With the Land and Water Conservation Fund, I hear a lot about how the states need more control. But how can...

Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City have the highest Job Creation Index scores among the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, based on employee reports of hiring activity where they work. San Francisco, Houston and Orlando rank just behind Austin and Salt Lake City in job creation. Many of the top-ranking metro areas are being boosted by growth in technology jobs, including traditional tech centers in San Francisco and San Jose but also emerging ones in Austin and Salt Lake City. These latter two may be increasingly attractive destinations for tech workers, given salaries that are becoming more competitive for the...

A 12-member jury deliberated less than 90 minutes before finding Doug Lovell guilty Wednesday of the 1985 killing of Joyce Yost of South Ogden. A likely week-long sentencing begins Friday with the same jury weighing sentences of death or life in prison with possible parole. Life without parole is not an option. That choice was added to the capital homicide in 1993 and is not retroactive to 1985, when Yost was killed. In closing arguments lead prosecutor Gary Hewad said at least four times the evidence against Lovell amounts to guilty not just beyond reasonable doubt as required by law,...

FOR A NATION that almost never puts murderers to death — there were 14,196 homicides in 2013, but only 39 executions — Americans spend an awful lot of time debating whether and how to do it. The Utah legislature last week passed a bill reinstating the firing squad to execute death row inmates, as a back-up in case lethal-injection drugs aren't available. It was in Utah five years ago that the last death by firing squad in the United States took place, when Ronnie Lee Gardner paid with his life for the courthouse murder of attorney Michael Burdell in 1985....

predation, not human activity, has reduced bird’s numbers. A coalition of rural Western counties and business interests is contesting the science being used to decide whether to list the Greater sage-grouse as endangered or threatened, accusing the Obama administration of relying on “selective, false and biased” research. Denver attorney Kent Holsinger filed three Data Quality Act challenges Wednesday with the Department of the Interior on behalf of the coalition, which includes the Western Energy Alliance, ranchers, mining and drilling companies and 19 counties in Colorado, Montana, Nevada and Utah. “We’ve documented real issues with transparency and scientific integrity ... The...

Congress’s two top tax chairmen warned President Obama on Wednesday not to claim unilateral executive powers to raise taxes on his own, saying it violates the Constitution and ruins chances for a lasting deal. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said they were troubled by White House’s announcement earlier this month that Mr. Obama is “very interested” in exploring what options he has to raise taxes without going through Congress. “This would be a mistake, both constitutionally and politically,” the two lawmakers said, adding...

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida have released a blueprint for federal tax reform called “The Economic Growth and Family Fairness Tax Plan.” First, we should not embrace the language of progressive socialism in believing tax reform should have as a goal to advance “family fairness.” The plan should simply be entitled “The American Growth and Opportunity Plan.” That said, the Lee-Rubio plan is a great improvement over the current system. For the individual tax structure, the plan introduces a two-tier system to replace the current seven tax brackets. This plan moves America from a...

The conservative Club For Growth released its annual scorecard for 2013 on Monday, bestowing two Republican U.S. senators — Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah — and four GOP congressmen with 100 percent ratings for their voting records “based on issues relating to limited government and economic growth.”The four congressmen with perfect ratings for 2013 are Republican Reps. Matt Salmon, Trent Franks and David Schweikert of Arizona and Tom McClintock of California. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan got a 99 percent rating in 2013 “but because of rounding has a 100 percent LifeScore,” the group said.“2013 saw...

With just a point and a click, you can browse a face book of felons, a new government website that will warn of the danger these criminals pose to society.Only these are not the faces of sex offenders and serial killers. These criminals are mortgage schemers and inside traders, most likely armed with nothing more than an M.B.A. or a law degree.Their faces will soon appear online courtesy of the Utah Legislature, which on Wednesday approved a measure to build the nation’s first white-collar offender registry, appending a scarlet letter of sorts on the state’s financial felons. The registry —...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says President Barack Obama’s Attorney General nominee, Loretta Lynch, is unfit to be the nation’s top lawyer because of her support for executive amnesty and other positions she’s taken, the governor’s spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski tells Breitbart News.“Given Loretta Lynch’s failure to commit to protect Americans from the president’s lawless executive overreach, that even he said nearly two dozen times, she is not fit to serve as the nation’s Attorney General,” Kukowski said in an email.Walker is in New Hampshire,the first in the nation primary state,on Friday, meeting with—among other—former Sen. Scott Brown(R-MA)—who narrowly lost to Sen....

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Randy Gardner still struggles four years later to talk about seeing his brother's bullet-riddled body at the mortuary after he was executed. -snip- "When you take somebody and you tie them to a chair, put a hood over their head, and you shoot them from 25 feet with four rifles pointed at their heart, that's pretty barbaric."