Free Republic

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...

There’s a small concern lurking beneath the surface in Utah’s same-sex marriage case, a quiet question that some experts say could derail the state’s push to permanently ban gay and lesbian unions. Although few believe it poses a serious threat to the case’s trajectory — likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court by summer — the question persists: Could Kitchen v. Herbert be thrown out on a technicality? On Tuesday, Utah’s lead counsel Gene C. Schaerr drew attention to a question posed to both sides by a three-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals last week regarding whether...

Isn’t there some way we can get money out of politics? Let’s ask Harry Reid. A Utah businessman is rocking both state and national politics after claiming Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped him broker a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into his company quietly disappear, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.Jeremy Johnson was allegedly told that the price would be $600,000, and claims to have made an initial payment of $250,000 when he was slapped with a federal lawsuit. Now he says he wants his money back.The Salt Lake Tribune points out...

A group of armed militia and protesters, some sporting nametags reading "domestic terrorist," remain camped out on a cattle ranch in Nevada, where they have been purportedly defending the property since a tense showdown ended with the federal government last week. A 20-year struggle between rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over decades of alleged illegal cattle grazing on public land ended last Sunday, with the government backing down from a controversial week-long cattle round-up. The BLM defused the standoff, citing safety concerns for its employees and the protesters, some of whom were on horseback and others...

Last week’s standoff at Bundy Ranch is still reverberating in Washington today. According to Kate Sheppard at Huffington Post, Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) has sent a letter to Mary Kendall, acting Inspector General for the Department of the Interior, asking her to investigate whether legislation pushed by the Koch brothers-linked American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been aimed at undermining the agency’s work.Two member affiliates of the Koch-supported Americans For Prosperity (AFP) organization gave their blessing as armed ‘Patriot’ militias showed up to confront agents of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doing the dangerous, difficult job of removing Bundy’s trespass...

It’s time for Western states to take control of federal lands within their borders, lawmakers and county commissioners from Western states said at Utah’s Capitol on Friday. More than 50 political leaders from nine states convened for the first time to talk about their joint goal: wresting control of oil-, timber -and mineral-rich lands away from the feds. "It’s simply time," said Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, who organized the Legislative Summit on the Transfer for Public Lands along with Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder. "The urgency is now." Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, was flanked by a dozen...

President Obama has warned that Iran is not open for business, even as the United States has loosened some of its punishing economic sanctions as part of an interim nuclear pact.Yet on Tuesday morning, Iran had an unlikely visitor: a plane, owned by the Bank of Utah, a community bank in Ogden that has 13 branches throughout the state. Bearing a small American flag on its tail, the aircraft was parked in a highly visible section of Mehrabad Airport in Tehran But from there, the story surrounding the plane, and why it was in Iran — where all but a...

After the federal Bureau of Land Management agents backed down from their intimidating stance at the Bundy Ranch last weekend, ample evidence has surfaced indicating the standoff between the government and the Nevada ranching family is far from over. Throughout the weeklong stalemate, members of the Bundy family were physically assaulted by armed officers, numerous cows were shot dead, and protesters faced threats of gunfire for merely expressing their outrage. Immediately after what many considered a victory against a tyrannical federal agency, a number of leftist voices – most notably, Sen. Harry Reid – indicated the action against this family...