Free Republic

By the end of April, the new home of the Sundance Film Festival should be public knowledge with the Salt Lake City/Park City combo, Boulder, Colorado or Cincinnati bid picked as the host for the next decade. However, a bill heading toward Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk that would ban the Pride flag in schools and other state government buildings might be an eleventh-hour obstacle to the Beehive State’s hopes of keeping the Robert Redford-founded shindig past 2026. “What are they thinking?” a Sundance insider said late Tuesday of the bill to ban the LGBTQ+ flag after a virtual meeting...

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Following a 2News Investigation into accusations of prosecutorial misconduct at the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, the case at the center of it all was heard by a juvenile court judge on Wednesday. This comes after criminal defense attorney Nathan Evershed filed multiple motions to dismiss the case against 15-year-old Emiliano, disqualify the DA’s Office from the case, and a motion for immediate release from custody. On August 17, 2023, at Scottsdale Park in West Valley City, Emiliano was robbed at gunpoint by 24-year-old Niusami Auelua, an AP&P probation fugitive who had extremely high...

America bends over backward to financially support Islamic expansion within its borders, while Kuwait and other Islamic nations would never allow the same for Christianity. This isn’t religious freedom—it’s a one-way street to submission to Islam. The United States is allowing a foreign, Islamic government to plant its flag in Utah—of all places. A state known for its conservative values and strong Mormon heritage is now home to a Kuwaiti-funded Islamic center, openly acknowledging its financial and ideological ties to a foreign nation. The Islamic Center of Kuwait in Utah, previously known as the North Utah Islamic Center, was fully...

Utah State Senator Daniel Thatcher left the Republican Party this week to join the Forward Party, becoming the first sitting member of the Utah State Senate affiliated with the organization and its ballot line. In a statement released Friday, the Forward Party said that Thatcher changed his registration on the last day of the legislative session. Reasons provided from a speech Thatcher gave that afternoon include his disappointment with the Utah Republican Party’s leadership on voting rights and legislative priorities. Specifically, Thatcher voiced concerns over the passage of HB 300, which he believes undermines the vote-by-mail process, as well as...

Republican lawmakers in Utah are moving a bill through the legislature that if passed and signed into law would allow vendors working with the state to be paid in gold – a change that could inspire other states and the federal government to do so and perhaps return the U.S. to the gold standard. The bill has already passed in the state House and is working its way through the Senate, as this year's legislative session is coming to a close. The leader sponsor for the House bill is Rep. Ken Ivory, who says the measure will give vendors –...

The Republican-led state legislatures of Georgia and Utah are considering legislation to leave a voter roll data group, pushing back on their respective GOP state election officials who have advocated for remaining in the coalition. A nonprofit organization called the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), was founded in 2012 and calls itself "the most effective tool available to help election officials maintain more accurate voter rolls and detect possible illegal voting."for voter roll maintenance has had nine GOP-led states leave it since 2022, with two more looking to follow their lead. [snip] As these state legislatures have been concerned about...

Netflix series American Primeval has come under fire from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-say Saints (LDS), which has branded the show "dangerously misleading." The Mormon church responded to the series in a release on Friday, calling it "dangerously misleading" and the portrayal of Young "egregiously mischaracterized." "A recently released streaming series presents a fictionalized interpretation of events in mid-19th century Utah. While historical fiction can be illuminating, this drama is dangerously misleading," the church wrote. "Brigham Young, a revered prophet and courageous pioneer, is, by any historical standard, egregiously mischaracterized as a villainous, violent fanatic. Other individuals and...

Under the restored Trump administration, the rule of law is giving way to the law of the jungle. Fear, suspicion, bullying and “thuggery” are ascendent, and it won’t only be immigrants and refugees who will suffer as a result. It is going to be up to all Americans, public officials and private citizens alike, to stand up to the administration’s lawlessness and to publicly call out abuses of power whenever and wherever they occur.

An illegal migrant from Mexico has been charged with murdering his girlfriend in Utah — just a week after he was deported from the US for a second time, authorities said. Nestor Rocha-Aguayo, 24, is accused of killing 31-year-old Talia Benward and dumping her body in a remote area in Tooele, just outside Salt Lake City, last week after surveillance footage showed them arguing in a car. The accused killer, who has a string of drug and domestic violence raps, had already been deported back to Mexico twice — most recently on Christmas Eve, following a drug-related arrest. But he...

Gov. Spencer Cox plans to discuss unlocking energy potential on public lands among other issues as he heads to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday along with Republican governors from across the country to pitch their priorities to President-elect Donald Trump. “I plan to talk to him, if I get the opportunity, about energy and about public lands and how we can unleash the energy potential, especially in the West,” Cox told reporters Wednesday after his ceremonial inauguration. “We need significant reform in the energy space, especially when it comes to nuclear, being able to permit nuclear.” One of Cox’s main goals for...

Nineteen people were detained in Aurora, Colorado, Tuesday after two people were assaulted ... 100 percent gang activity,” Police Chief Todd Chamberlain ... During the fall, video of armed members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang roaming through an apartment complex in Aurora took center stage in America’s debate over the cost of Joe Biden’s immigration policies. .. Chamberlain said that .. the apartment of a man and woman was invaded, and the victims were taken into a different apartment where they were assaulted. Chamberlain said 13 attackers were male and, he believed, three suspects were female. ... The...

Venezuelan who is running for office in Utah warned that local authorities “are not ready” to deal with Tren de Aragua — as the vicious prison gang has expanded its territory to at least 18 states. Carlos Moreno, who is running for Salt Lake County Council in District 2, spoke out against Tren de Aragua gangbangers .. who have been linked to at least two separate crimes in the Beehive State capital — including a prostitution ring. “Our law enforcement people are not ready,” ... They are not ready yet to face these kinds of gangs in Utah because the...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., took NBC News to task for "selectively omitting" a key part of the 14th Amendment in a question about birthright citizenship during an interview with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday… "All persons born … in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,* shall be citizens of the United States," Lee wrote on X, highlighting the missing words in asterisks. "Those words matter," he added. The senator continued to break down the issue in a lengthy 12-part thread. "Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and...

The Democrats could win every presidential election and control the other levers of government if they would reconsider their views on this one thing: religion.In the past, Democrats could comfortably speak the language of the religious, especially the religious working class they have now lost to Republicans — at least, enough of them from every ethnic and racial demographic to cause Democrats to lose the presidency and control over the rest of government.The religious working class are indeed aggrieved. They have been neglected economically, educationally and religiously. The Democrats failed in their responsibility to fight for them — their base...

According to the lawsuit, the three asset managers acquired substantial stockholdings in coal companies, and then used their influence to pressure the companies to adopt ESG goals and reduce output. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 10 other state attorney generals, have filed a lawsuit against BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group, three of the largest institutional investors in the world. The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the firms conspired to artificially constrict the market for coal through anti-trade practices. “Texas will not tolerate the illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda....

Amap of the U.S. showing land under federal control paints large swaths of the West. In August, Utah filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that it’s unconstitutional for the feds to retain unappropriated land in a state indefinitely. Since the lawsuit was filed, a dozen other states, including Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming, have filed briefs asking the court to hear the case. Additionally, a coalition of counties in Arizona and New Mexico, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Utah Legislature and the Wyoming Legislature have also filed briefs in support of the lawsuit. “The federal burden in the West...

It was a long shot, but we all held out hope that Matt Gaetz could beat the odds and become our next attorney general. Once again, though, the RINOs played their dirty games and eked out a victory. But don’t worry—this setback is only temporary, because we’re just getting started. The war is far from over. As we assess what happened and how this loss unfolded, one thing is crystal clear: the Gaetz nomination was killed by a fresh-faced RINO from the same state that brought us one of the most infamous #NeverTrumpers in history—Utah. ... Yes, we finally got...

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) endorsed Donald Trump on Friday after saying last week he would endorse neither the former president nor Joe Biden. During a press conference Friday morning, Cox said he would “do everything I can to help” Trump win the election and unite the country. “My commitment to him was that I would help him try to lower the temperature in this country, and I sincerely hope — from what I’ve heard from people around him — that he’s committed to that,” Cox added.

With Republicans taking back control of the Senate and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell finally stepping down, three Senators have emerged as possible Majority Leaders. Two of them are RINOs—John Thune and John Cornyn—while Rick Scott may not have the support to prevent either “McConnell 2.0” from ascending. Senator Mike Lee has a plan. Well, it’s really just a theory combined with a wish, but it has a lot of conservatives wanting to sprinkle any fairy dust they can find on it so they can make it come true. The “John Adams Plan” would have Vice-President-Elect J.D. Vance ascend to the...

SALT LAKE CITY — As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are traveling to swing states across the country to make their final pitch to voters, the race in Utah is all but decided. A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by HarrisX shows Trump is polling 30 percentage points ahead of Harris among Utah voters, with just over a week to go before Election Day. The poll shows Trump with 61% support among Utah voters, compared to 30% for Harris. Another 2% say they'll vote for independent candidate Cornel West, while Green Party candidate...