DOWNLOADS: (59)

PLAYS: (512)

Embed

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday compared the U.S. government to "rapists" over recent so-called scandals, from the Internal Revenue Service's practice of scrutinizing conservative groups to last year's terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

In a bizarre rant on his radio show, Beck said that he didn't know why Congress was bothering with an investigation into the scandals because the federal government had been building a massive spying database in Utah.

"What is being built in Utah is the largest storage facility ever known to mankind," he explained. "They are storing all of the information. They have already admitted during the Boston bombings that they collect all emails and file it. Why are you asking the White House for the emails? Who is this security system for? Is it to protect the American people?"

"What the hell are we doing? What's wrong with us, America?" he continued. "You paid for it. You own it. You're the boss or are they? Why ask for it? Just go into the system that we paid for and you built for for our -- quote -- protection. You want to find it? Why are you waiting? The more you wait, the more time they have to delete. Go in and get it. You have it."

"Or is that security system you built for our protection not really for our protection?"

Beck added: "The American people have just been raped. Why are you asking rapists to hurry up with the swab test?"

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

DOWNLOADS: (107)

PLAYS: (671)

Embed

Police in Cottonwood Heights are searching for an assault rifle that was stolen Wednesday from the vehicle of a top Utah gun lobbyist, who called for more guns in schools after the shooting deaths of 20 children in Connecticut last year.

Utah Shooting Sports Council Chairman Clark Aposhian told KSTU that he was cleaning out his garage and placed the firearm in the back of his Dodge Magnum station wagon. He said the AR-15 military-style assault rifle was in a locked case and equipped with a thermal scope for night vision. Aposhian insisted the gun was not loaded at the time.

"To leave a weapon of that value, an assault rifle, in a car is just nuts," Cottonwood Heights Police Department Sgt. Scott Peck observed.

Peck fears that the weapon, which is registered, is on the streets of Cottonwood Heights.

“We definitely have a concern,” he explained. “There’s lots of them everywhere and we know there’s another one out there and it’s in the hands of a thief obviously.”

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (132)

PLAYS: (663)

Embed

A small town in Utah is responding to the recent mass shooting of 20 children in Connecticut by pushing through a resolution that calls for every home to have a gun, and the town wants to provide free concealed carry training for all elementary school teachers.

"The first recommendation was that we require, or we recommend, every household have a gun and be properly trained to use it," Spring City Councilman Neil Sorensen, who authored the resolution, told KSL on Monday.

But some residents -- including the Sanpete County sheriff -- were a little uncomfortable with requiring all residents to be armed so Sorensen agreed to dial back the resolution.

City officials are hoping to quickly get the ordinance onto the city books. Little resistance is expected at a public hearing next month.

"Law enforcement, that's a big expense for us," resident David Sedlak explained. "So if we can do our part, then it will be a better place."

Resident Michelle Chandler said she was "very impressed" that that the City Council "had the foresight to recommend" such the resolution.

Sorensen recalled that he had the idea of arming teachers after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month. Spring City will be sponsoring concealed carry permit training courses for each elementary school teacher in the town on Friday.

"I think if they would have had guns in there and the teacher would have had a gun, they wouldn't have killed so many kids," he insisted.

"I would like to see the people have guns to protect themselves, be trained and qualified," the councilman added. "I just feel it's a step in the right direction."

The city of Kennesaw, Georgia claims that crime rates there dropped after a 1982 law required "every head of household to maintain a firearm together with ammunition."

(h/t: Think Progress)

DOWNLOADS: (410)

PLAYS: (6664)

Embed

Now this is a clever web ad. Being a Democrat in Utah seems like it would be difficult at best but Ryan Combe running for Congress in their First District has some fun with it.

The YouTube version is here if you'd like to leave a comment.

Color me not shocked that our "mainstream" corporate media didn't touch this story this week, but Democracy Now did. I read James Bamford's article at Wired.com the other day and to call it deeply disturbing that this level of data mining and access to all of our personal information is going on with little or no scrutiny is an understatement, to put it mildly.

The type of abuses that can go on from this type of access to everyone's information is frightening and I don't know what it's going to take to finally put a stop to it, but here we are with a society that would have George Orwell turning over in his grave. But hey, the head of the NSA denied that we are actually spying on our own citizens and that this center would have the capabilities Bamford wrote about, so I feel so much better now.

Here's the lead up for the Democracy Now post and you can read the full transcript at their site -- Exposed: Inside the NSA’s Largest and Most Expansive Secret Domestic Spy Center in Bluffdale, Utah:

A new exposé in Wired Magazine reveals details about how the National Security Agency is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah, as part of a secret NSA surveillance program codenamed "Stellar Wind." We speak with investigative reporter James Bamford, who says the NSA has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas.

The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency. This includes the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails — parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases and other digital "pocket litter." "The NSA has constantly denied that they’re doing things, and then it turns out they are doing these things,"

Bamford says in response to NSA Director General Keith Alexander’s denial yesterday that U.S. citizens’ phone calls and emails are being intercepted. "A few years ago, President Bush said before camera that the United States is not eavesdropping on anybody without a warrant, and then it turns out that we had this exposure to all the warrantless eavesdropping in the New York Times article. And so, you have this constant denial and parsing of words."

You can read Bamford's article at Wired here -- The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say).

DOWNLOADS: (287)

PLAYS: (1392)

Embed

A bill passed by Republicans in the Utah House of Representatives would effectively ban comprehensive education about human sexuality, forcing schools to teach abstinence or nothing at all.

In all, 45 Republicans voted for state Rep. Bill Wright's (R) HB363, with 11 Republicans joining the 17 Democrats who opposed it, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The bill forbids advocating for "the use of contraceptive methods or devices," sex outside marriage or homosexuality. It also restricts teaching about sexual intercourse or erotic behavior.

Public and charter schools would have the option of developing an abstinence-only curriculum or skipping the discussion of sexuality altogether.

"We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest," Wright said in defense of the bill. "Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?"

One opponent, state Rep. Carol Spackman Moss (D), called the measure "immoral."

"You cannot speak of abstinence without talking to students about methods of birth control that are not certain, about protecting oneself from [sexually transmitted diseases] and all the things that can happen in a negative sense to a young person who engages in sex," she explained. "It’s really immoral not to teach kids about what the consequences are."

The bill now moves forward for consideration by the Utah Senate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the state that ranks number one in online porn consumption.

(H/T: Newser)

DOWNLOADS: (195)

PLAYS: (1260)

Embed

Utah has a state tree (the blue spruce), a state insect (the honey bee), and last week the Browning M1911 handgun came one step closer to becoming the official state firearm.

On a one-time-only holiday honoring Utah gun-maker John Moses Browning, a bill that would designate the handgun as a state symbol was endorsed by a state House committee on the way to becoming Utah law.

"It's an implement of freedom that has defended America for 100 years," bill sponsor Rep. Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) said. "This firearm is Utah."

Some see the bill an insensitive considering a recent mass shooting in the neighboring state of Arizona that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in the hospital.

"Semiautomatic pistols are the weapons of choice for those who are committing massacres," Steven Gunn, a board member of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, told the committee. "Is this the time to adopt as a symbol of the state the same kind of weapon used to kill all these people?"

Only two state representatives, Jennifer Seelig (D-Salt Lake City) and Marie Poulson (D-Cottonwood Heights), opposed the bill, which was approved 9-2.

"I think a lot of people think this is a big waste of time," Seelig told MSNBC Monday. "Particularly since we are facing some economic challenges in this state."

"If we want to honor an historical figure that's great. Let's do this another way than going through some official designation of a state symbol. A state symbol is supposed to be something that unifies the population in the state, and guns certainly are a divisive type of unit, and it's polarizing," she added. "We do not need that."

"The state bird, the beehive, they're fun and engaging," Rep. Carol Spackman Moss (D-Salt Lake City) told The Standard-Examiner. "Students will be coloring and drawing pictures and answering quizzes about guns and that seems inappropriate to me."

If Utah does adopt the handgun as a state symbol, the state will join the likes of the nation of Mozambique, which features an AK-47 on their official flag.

DOWNLOADS: (519)

PLAYS: (1571)

Embed

Keith Olbermann talked to The Washington Post's Dave Weigel about the significance of Bob Bennett's defeat in Utah.

How the Club for Growth beat Bob Bennett:

The free-market PAC's spokesman, Mike Connolly, explains all to David Catanese. The rundown:

-- The Club for Growth spent only $177,750 against Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), "largely on phone calls to delegates, online strategy, mailings and robo-calls."

-- The pivotal moment for Bennett, as many strategists told me, was the election of a new crop of conservative activists in the March 23 caucuses. Those activists, many coming out of the tea party movement, held Bennett's fate in their hands. And he never had a chance at the convention.

It emphasizes that as exciting as this story was, it's simply not repeatable in other states -- Utah's empowerment of the most dedicated activists, which lets them shrink the primary field to their two preferred candidates, is unprecedented.

Keith asked Dave Weigel if electing these tea party candidates is going to be beneficial to the Democrats.

Weigel: Well, they do celebrate whenever this happens. They’ll have a better shot at a couple of Senate seats, a couple of House seats if tea partiers nominate somebody who can’t win. In this case Utah’s a very tough nut to crack. They’ve got a candidate but they’re not optimistic. But in Arizona if J.D. Hayworth beats John McCain they’ve got a Phoenix city councilman who they think could win there.

Charlie Crist if he ends up winning that three way race or if Kendrick Meek wins in Florida that’s better than they could have had in a two way race. They actually had a bad situation this weekend in Hawaii where there’s an intra-Democratic Party feud that cost them a seat. But generally they’re quietly cheering and they’re waiting to unleash a lot of opposition research once these nominees are well chosen. Utah not so much, other states like South Dakota, Ohio, not Ohio yet, other states they’re hoping that tea party candidates make these challenges.

Keith also asked him if some of them getting elected are going to hurt the Republican Party since it's going to show them to be extremists. Weigel expressed something along the lines of my feelings about Republicans. If the crazies like Michele Bachmann haven't already hurt the party, a few more of these wingnuts isn't going to matter much with the electorate as pissed off as they are now at politicians in general.

DOWNLOADS: (193)

PLAYS: (278)

Embed

March 01, 2010 CNN

Utah lawmaker Carl Wimmer defends the law he's proposed that would punish "reckless" acts by pregnant women.