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Senator Mike Lee to deliver Tea Party response to President Obama's State of the Union We have some great news to share with you!  Tea Party Express, the nation's largest Tea Party political action committee, will host the official Tea Party response to President Obama's State of the Union Address directly following the Republican response. Senator Mike Lee will deliver the Tea Party response at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and will focus on issues that are important and unique to you and me. Senator Mike Lee to deliver the official Tea Party response to the State...

When Republican delegates nominate their presidential candidate this week, they will be doing it in a city where residents who support George Bush have, for all practical purposes, already been disenfranchised. Barring a tsunami of a sweep, heavily Democratic New York will send its electoral votes to John Kerry and both parties have already written New York off as a surefire blue state. The Electoral College makes Republicans in New York, and Democrats in Utah, superfluous. It also makes members of the majority party in those states feel less than crucial. It's hard to tell New York City children that...

In western states, "school shooter" has a different meaning.  Many schools have rifle teams There are many likely contributors to the fact that Utah has zero school-related shootings.   Utah is one of the states that has the least restrictions on second amendment rights in the nation.   It is one of the few that do not forbid concealed carry permit holders from carrying their personal defensive firearms in schools.   Utah has very little crime, with one of the lowest homicide rates in the country.  As stated in this article from ksl.com, the odds that when you are in Utah,  someone...

Sybrina Fulton, who's 17-year-old son Trayvon Martin was shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2012, visited the University of Utah on Thursday to discuss racial profiling. Hundreds attended the Martin Luther King Week event, in which Fulton said that an "upside" to her son's death was the "opportunity to save someone else's child." "Don’t think for one second racial profiling doesn’t happen. Don’t think for one minute even in your community of Salt Lake City it doesn’t happen," she said. "Racism is still alive. Racial profiling is still alive. Injustice is still alive." Fulton said that the circumstances of...

what is viewed as a rush to the exits in the face of the Obamacare disaster and the Obama scandal machine bleeding into the 2014 mid-term elections, three prominent democrats in the U.S. Congress have announced their retirement this week. On Monday, 40-year Capitol Hill veteran and Pelosi Democrat, George Miller (D-CA) called it quits. Miller, 68, has been in the House since 1974, the year of Watergate. Miller stated that he looked “forward to one last year in Congress, fighting the good fight and then working in new venues on the issues that have inspired me.” Miller also indicated...

Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran will retire after 23 years in the House, according to multiple Democratic sources. The retirement is the third for Democrats this week: on Monday, Rep. George Miller (Calif.) said he would leave Congress after 40 years and Rep. Bill Owens (N.Y.) announced Tuesday he would forgo re-election in 2014. Moran’s northern Virginia seat is heavily Democratic, and is unlikely to be competitive in November: President Barack Obama won 68 percent of the vote in both 2012 and 2008, and Moran coasted with 65 percent of the vote in 2012. The Democratic primary is expected to...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The University of Utah is investigating a complaint that a convicted felon working at a fertility clinic replaced a customer's sperm with his own, fathering a girl 21 years ago. The mother of the girl, Pamela Branum, says she and her husband discovered a genetic mismatch in their daughter, and were able to trace her lineage with help from relatives of the now-deceased fertility clinic worker, Thomas Ray Lippert. "I don't think we're the only ones," Branum told CBS affiliate KUTV in Salt Lake City. "We think we're one of many" victims who used a...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in 2014 will pursue the IRS scandal, the deadly Benghazi attack and the botched Fast and Furious operation in what will likely be his last year as the House GOP's chief investigator. Issa sounded a cautionary note that the investigations might not conclude while he has the gavel. “The administration wraps up investigations. We are done when we are done … there shouldn’t be any sort of effort to load in or unload" before his term limit of six years as the top Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee ends in December. Rep. John...

**SNIP** Lippert, who had been convicted in a high-profile kidnapping in 1975, worked at the clinic part-time from 1988 to 1993, the University of Utah confirms. In his kidnapping case, reported by People magazine in 1975, Lippert abducted a 21-year-old female student at Purdue University whom he attempted to "brainwash" into falling in love with him through electric-shock therapy. The surprised mother told KUTV that she didn't know his criminal history until now. But she says she does remember him as being at the clinic when she visited, specifically in the front desk area.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)BOUNTIFUL -- It sits in the parking lot of the Emergency Essentials store in Bountiful, all but daring you not to stop and stare. The massive, bright yellow, corrugated metal section of pipeline is 10 feet across and thrice that length, with a few smaller sections of pipe sticking out at various angles. And just in case that's not enough of a draw for the terminally incurious, there's even a banner on the side -- at least there was until the last Bountiful windstorm -- that reads "Tour a 'Bomb Shelter' ... Atlas Survival Shelters." Bomb shelter? Trust us, you...

[snip]The federal government will recognize the marriages of same-sex couples performed in Utah during a brief period in which same-sex marriages were allowed, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday. “I am confirming today that, for purposes of federal law, these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages,” Holder said in a <"http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/10/obama-administration-to-recognize-utah-same-sex-marriages/">( video statement). On Dec. 20, federal District Judge Robert Shelby struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. Monday, the Supreme Court halted new same-sex marriages pending Utah’s appeal of Shelby’s decision. Between Dec....

The mother of Trayvon Martin will participate in a University of Utah public discussion on Jan. 16 during a weeklong celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., KTVX-TV reports. Sybrina Fulton is scheduled to speak at the university's Union Ballroom for the 30th annual Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year's theme is "Beneath the Hoodie: A Look at Racial Profiling in America." Fulton's son, a 17-year-old black Miami high-school student, was fatally shot in February 2012 by George Zimmerman. A jury in Seminole County acquitted Zimmerman in July of murder. The case stirred...

Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday the federal government will recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages in Utah, despite an earlier announcement this week from the state’s governor saying the state would not. The decision means those Utah couples will have access to federal benefits that are available to married couples in other states, including the ability to file joint tax returns. It also adds to the confusion in the state following a surprise ruling last month against the state's same-sex marriage ban. Hundreds of gay couples got married before another court put those weddings on hold. The Justice Department...

The federal government will recognize marriages performed in Utah after a judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban, Attorney General Holder said Friday, noting that the newly-wedded gay couples “should not be asked to endure uncertainty regarding their status” as the legal challenges unfold.

KANAB, UT – The Utah Department of Transportation is urging motorists to plan ahead for daily three-hour closures of U.S. Highway 89 immediately north of Kanab beginning Wednesday. UDOT will completely close three miles of the highway in both directions, from Kanab north to the Kanab Creek Bridge, Mondays through Fridays from 8:30-11:30 a.m. until approximately April 11.The highway will be open to single lane traffic for the remaining 21 hours each day and also open on weekends. Depending on a driver’s origin and destination, suitable detours could take as much time as waiting; so the Kane County Office of...

Utah said Wednesday it will not recognize more than 1,000 gay marriages that took place between when a judge allowed gay weddings last month and a US Supreme Court ruling this week suspending them again. A letter by Utah governor Gary Herbert to officials said the western US state -- which had opposed the district court ruling opening the way for gay weddings -- must obey the top US federal court's decision freezing them again. The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked gay marriages, after Utah filed an emergency request to stay the judge's ruling, which struck down as unconstitutional...

North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy will not seek reelection this year, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with their plans – marking a blow to Democratic efforts to win control of the House. The 57-year-old McIntyre, who was elected in 1996 to the Wilmington-area congressional seat, narrowly defeated Republican state Sen. David Rouzer in 2012 and was poised to face him in a 2014 rematch. His retirement from the heavily Republican district will further thin the ranks of Blue Dog Democrats. It comes less than a month after another Blue Dog, Utah Rep. Jim...

Are edible insects the food of the future? One Salt Lake City-based company thinks so. Chapul Inc. has cooked up an energy bar with an eye-popping ingredient -- crickets. Chapul Bars come in three flavors -- peanut butter, chocolate and Thai -- and sell for $2.99 to $3.59 each. They're made from natural ingredients such as dates, agave nectar, coconut, ginger, lime and dark chocolate. And all contain cricket flour. "Most people don't know that crickets are a rich source of edible protein," said Patrick Crowley, 33, an environmentalist and Chapul's founder. And compared to cows and pigs, crickets are...

Eighty-five of 100 U.S. senators voted to renew the president’s power to indefinitely detain Americans, denying them of their fundamental right to due process.On December 19, by a vote of 84-15 (Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, did not vote), the Senate sent the Fiscal Year 2014 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to President Obama’s desk. Although an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats signed off on the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, a small coalition of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats refused to accede to such a devastation deprivation of rights. A list of the lawmakers...

Question: What happens when you forcibly implement an overly ambitious plan to overhaul your entire energy infrastructure by ridding yourself of both nuclear power and coal, instituting on outright ban on hydraulic fracturing and hence natural-gas exploration, and relentlessly subsidize politically preferred forms of so-called “green” energy that investors and consumers aren’t choosing to use of their own volition?Answer, via Bloomberg: Across the continent’s mining belt, from Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic, utilities such as Vattenfall AB, CEZ AS and PGE SA are expanding open-pit mines that produce lignite. The moist, brown form of the fossil fuel packs...