While America is squaring off against ISIL for having killed three Americans, the American public seems less worried that Mexican cartels have killed 293 Americans and have repeatedly attacked U.S. Consulates in Mexico.

Top of the Alty World

Mexican drug cartels are worse than ISIL—Al Jazeera America

A politically-connected charter school broker knows how to funnel public money to private charter schools he controls.—ProPublica

A Pew Research study finds that conservatives and liberals don't overlap when it comes to the news sources they refer to and more likely to interact with like-minded individuals online and in social media.—Journalism.org

The National Republican Congressional Committee is running a “Willie Horton” style ad Nebraska that is not likely to win the party any points with Black voters.—Slate

Top of Alty Utah

An independent poll finds Utahns increasingly supportive of a law to protect LGBT Utahns from discrimination in housing and employment, but they're split on whether the law should have a religious exemption.—Utah Policy

Today is the 10-year anniversary of UVU's academic freedom battle fought over having controversial film maker Michael Moore to the college to speak to students.—Salt Lake City Weekly

A symposium explores relationship between social media, the LDS Church and journalism.—Salt Lake City Weekly

An ex-Mormon, ex-Utahn explains the sci-fi cult he started as an art project in Chicago and how it got the attention of the FBI.—Salt Lake City Weekly

Rantosphere

Jason Williams looks at the recent debacle in which a post was removed that highlighted challenges being faced by Democratic candidate Liz Muniz in her legislative race. The post was a feature shared by Utah Politico Hub and Utah Political Capitol where writers from the different sites would offer analysis of different campaign races. A writer for Utah Political Capitol with ties to Democratic campaigns highlighted challenges faced by Democrat Liz Muniz and as a result his post ended up being taken down.

“Asking for the removal of a post, unless it contained factual errors or private information is, by far, bad form that exceeds anything in the post at issue or who wrote it. Any consultant, union rep, or party officer who may have been involved or even knowledgeable of the request for removal has done nothing more than discredit themselves and create a story where there was none.

Worse, my educated guess is this was one person making a very stupid rookie mistake, and now both the author of the post and the candidate and two campaigns have been hit by this person’s bad judgement. Bad form, indeed.”—Utah Politico Hub

The Long View

The Salt Lake City Weekly looks at how critics say Rocky Mountain Power can flex its muscles in regulatory proceedings to block renewable development projects in the state.

“Sarah Wright of Utah Clean Energy says ratepayers are hungry for renewable projects because they’re a safe and stable bet going into the future. After the cost of steel in the ground and panels pointed at the sky or windmill blades in the air, they have no 'fuel' costs, and maintenance costs are relatively flat compared to fossil fuels, providing rate stability for the energy customer.

'It’s like having a bond in your investment portfolio,' Wright says. 'You build solar and you know what it’s going to cost today and you know what it’s going to cost 20 years from today.'

While that may keep coins in the pockets of average homeowners, it doesn’t exactly profit a utility like Rocky Mountain Power, which has almost all of its eggs in the carbon basket. RMP’s current energy mix—the energy it sells its customers—is 65 percent coal and 10 percent natural gas, and that doesn’t count the market purchases it makes, which are often natural gas as well.”—Salt Lake City Weekly