This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Doug Wright, the popular talk show host on KSL Radio, noted that he was shocked, SHOCKED, during Tuesday's program over the fact that Hillary Clinton was not criminally charged for erasing tens of thousands of her personal emails subject to an FBI probe.
A guest on his show said if any normal person erased their emails subject to an investigation, an IRS audit for example, they probably would be charged with a crime.
Wright's analysis was typical of many responses to FBI Director James Comey's announcement that he would not file criminal charges over Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state because there was no criminal intent.
Rush Limbaugh is so perplexed he might explode any day now. The folks at Fox News, who never met a potential Clinton scandal they did not love, have been on it 24/7. How could she not be charged for deleting emails when those emails were under government scrutiny?
The reaction from that same Clinton-bashing media about deleting emails was starkly different when the email-deleters were high- level players in Republican George W. Bush's administration.
Senior political adviser Karl Rove set up a private email account for purposes of political correspondence between Bush's re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee.
When eight U.S. attorneys were fired for poorly explained reasons, Congress questioned whether those firings were political. Some of the fired U.S. attorneys had declined to go after Democratic candidates in the 2006 election year.
Another scandal was the leak to the media of the identification of a secret CIA agent, allegedly as retribution for her husband's criticism of the Iraq war.
An investigation led to the conviction of one of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aides. His sentence was commuted by Bush.
In the course of those investigations, it was revealed that 5 million emails from the White House personal account had been deleted.
Investigators and technicians later suggested it may have been as many as 22 million.
The response from Fox News and other right-wing media?
Crickets.
—
But wait until Pioneer Day • Utah is one of the least patriotic states in the nation, according to a detailed study conducted by WalletHub, the online research marketing company.
Utah ranked 38th among the 50 states in patriotism, based on a detailed list of metrics used by the researchers to determine the red-white-and-blueness of each state.
Utah ranked 45th in the category of "military engagement," which looked at the number of enlistees and veterans in each state as determining factors.
Utah had the fourth-fewest military veterans per capita, beating only California, New Jersey and New York.
But Utah ranked seventh in the category of "civic engagement" and was first in volunteerism.
The most patriotic state in the nation, according to the WalletHub study, is Virginia, followed by Alaska, North Carolina, Colorado and Georgia.The five least-patriotic states are Illinois (46), Rhode Island (47), New York (48), Connecticut (49) and New Jersey.
—
Remembering D-Day • A Utah lobbyist and Republican Party activist was on a family vacation to Europe this summer when he took his three young sons to Normandy for a hands-on lesson about World War II.
He and the boys went to Omaha Beach where they traipsed up to where the bunkers had been, then hiked to the visitor center and to the cemetery where so many American D-Day casualties are buried.
Once on the bluff, they came across an old Nazi bunker that had been used as a sniper's nest to mow down the G.I.s as they stormed the beach on June 6, 1944.
"Let's pee on it," the 12-year old said. So he and his brothers, ages 9 and 6, did just that.
Their proud father, who stood nearby, said he could hear Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner from the skies above.
—
A break in the ranks? • Shortly after all the legislative candidates who got on the Republican ballot through signature gathering lost in the primary, Utah GOP Chairman James Evans, who has sued the state over the law that allows the process, declared victory.
Later, he sent a plea to Republican insiders for donations, since the party's fundraising efforts fell short of its goal for June.
"As a State Central Committee member, state delegate, precinct leader, and or elected official it is your duty to lead the way in fundraising and sustaining the Utah Republican Party," Evans wrote.
Salt Lake County Council member Aimee Winder Newton, considered a rising star in the Republican Party, responded to the request on the GOP-leaning site "Buckshot": "Would it be petty if I politely asked that any funds I donate not be used for pointless lawsuits and actually be used to help elect Republicans?"