Free Republic

Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal. With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and...

University of Utah scientists say seismic images of the plumbing feeding the Yellowstone supervolcano show a magma plume much larger than previously thought. Scientists say they've imaged a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth of at least 410 miles, contradicting claims there is no deep plume, only shallow hot rock moving like slowly boiling soup. A related University of Utah study used gravity measurements to indicate the banana-shaped magma chamber of hot and molten rock a few miles beneath Yellowstone is 20 percent larger than previously believed, so a future...

(Officials in Wyoming propose a new animal protection law that could affect the way you look at a decorative staple in many homes: Deer antlers.) There’s nothing quite as authentic as walking into a “country” home that’s replete with braided cotton rugs, hand-sewn valance curtains, pewter candlesticks, and, of course, antlers — antlers mounted above the hearth, antler chandeliers, antler flatware, antler bookends, antler coat racks, antler toilet paper holders, and so on. It seems to me that antlers pretty much define the hunting lodge design aesthetic and without them, a proper country home would feel naked. It’s nice to...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

Almost 20% of West Virginians eligible to vote are either dead or have moved. Five States with the Most Dead People Eligible to Vote: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. FUN TIME IN ACORN TOWN: DEAD PEOPLE RULE! Are you lonely when you go to the polling place? Want some company? Perhaps, you'd like to take along a dead "friend" to vote with you. That's a scenario that's becoming more possible across the United States. A combination of old voter registration lists that still contain the names of dead voters and voters who have moved, new "Motor Voter" legislation,...

<p>Need some FReeper help! The Tea Party Express is coming to Wyoming & Colorado on Wednesday for a series of tea party rallies and we're working hard in the short time that remains to get the word out and build up the sizes of the crowds.</p>

An early blast of winter walloped some western states with deep snow and slowly pushed into Nebraska and Kansas Thursday, bringing blizzard conditions to the eastern plains and causing treacherous roads, closed schools and hundreds of canceled flights. The fall storm spread 3 feet of snow and left much higher drifts across parts of northern Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, before its leading edge hit neighboring states just to the east. Wind-driven snow built to blizzard conditions over much of eastern Colorado. The weather service warned most area roads would be impassible Thursday night because of blowing snow and near-zero visibility....

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 15:33 A law loosening gun restrictions in America's National Parks goes beyond what proponents initially argued and would allow anyone with a gun permit to openly carry a weapon in Yellowstone National Park, if legal experts are correct. A legislation, proposed and drafted by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) was billed as a way to uniformly enforce gun laws across different states and National Parks, which are under federal supervision. The law was said to extend the state's guidelines concerning concealed carry into the federal National Park. If you had a permit for a concealed...

The Dillon ranchers who lost more than 120 buck sheep in an August wolf attack last week lost 23 lambs from the same area when wolves struck again. Kathy Konen said this week that despite the presence of a herder and guard dogs, wolves struck the herd sometime in the early morning hours Oct. 17. She and husband Jon Konen lost 23 weaned lambs. "They're in the area, and they've killed once," she said of wolves. "We knew they would come back and kill again." The Konens in August lost 122 sheep to wolves in the same pasture in the...

Cliff Hansen, a Jackson Hole native who served as U.S. senator and Wyoming governor, died Tuesday at his home in Spring Gulch, a family member said. He was 97.

In a case where a firearm was locked in the glove box of a postal employee, the strong central government once again stuck it's chest out and scoffed at the Second Amendment. From an appeals case in U.S. District Five: “the Postal Service owned the parking lot...and its restrictions on guns stemmed from its constitutional authority as the property owner” How arrogant of the Judges to rule that someone other than “we the people” own the postal property. Finally there is no constitutional authority granting them any right to restrict firearms, they do so only by a string of rulings...

On "The Senate Doctors Show" Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) answers health care reform questions about the supply of doctors and nurses, how Medicare will be affected, and government-run health care. Republicans want step-by-step health care reform solutions that reduce costs and covers more uninsured Americans without increasing the deficit.

Like Jim Vicevich, I like Shep Smith, but has he "sold out"on the healthcare issue? It’s classic Shep … he gets pretty hot. Senator Barrasso from Wyoming must have been scratching his head and wondering if he had suddenly been transported to MSNBC. I like Shep Smith very much. I think he is honest and sincere, and this certainly will not change my opinion of him, but this is just classic “wrong”.

It’s going to happen. Gun rights activist and former Afton resident David E. Olson of Glenwood City has announced that an “Open Carry Tea Party” will be held the afternoon of Oct. 17, a Saturday, at Lakefront Park in Hudson, Wis. The purpose of the event is for people to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly and their Second Amendment rights to own and carry firearms, Olson said. After holding an open carry event in Glenwood City on Aug. 23, Olson told other media outlets that he was planning a similar event for Hudson in mid-October....

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney's support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction. The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend Thursday's dedication of the new Cheney International Center on the Laramie campus. Protesters plan to be there, too. The center is funded in part with $3.2 million the Cheneys donated to the university in several installments while he was vice president. The...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Sept. 8) — A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney's support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction. The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend Thursday's dedication of the new Cheney International Center on the Laramie campus. Protesters plan to be there, too. The center is funded in part with $3.2 million the Cheneys donated to the university in several installments while he was vice...

In a last effort to give the Senate a bipartisan health care bill, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee circulated a comprehensive proposal on Sunday to overhaul the health care system and proposed a new fee on insurance companies to help pay for coverage of the uninsured. ... The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want. ... It remains to be seen how Mr. Baucus’s plan might mesh with any proposals Mr. Obama lays out as he tries to pump up support...

A federal judge has sided with managers of northern Wyoming's Bighorn National Forest and against an environmental group that challenged livestock grazing in the forest. Boise-based Western Watersheds Project filed suit over a 2005 revision to the forest management plan... U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled Monday that forest managers did as the law required -- they took a "hard look" at the environmental consequences of the forest plan.

GLENROCK, Wyo. — Bud Grose seemed like the last person who should attract the attention of police when the 76-year-old retiree hopped on his antique tractor and rumbled through the annual parade in this small Wyoming town. But what was supposed to be a day of fun at an end-of-summer festival ended abruptly when police shot Grose with a Taser in a dispute about where to end the parade route. The incident nearly incited a riot as outraged neighbors rushed to his defense. Now residents of this tight-knit town of 2,400 are seething over what they see as police brutality,...

Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming delivers the weekly Republican address on the loss of Senator Kennedy and the importance of getting health care reform done right. Sen. Enzi discusses how the Democrats are rushing a health reform bill through congress that will ultimately "raid Medicare", raise costs and increase the deficit. Sen. Enzi urges lawmakers to listen to what the American people are saying and scrap the Democrats' current plan in order to "enact common sense reform that will actually cut costs."

<p>A leading GOP negotiator on health care struck a further blow to fading chances of a bipartisan compromise by saying Democratic proposals would restrict medical choices and make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money."</p> <p>The criticism from Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., echoed that of many opponents of the Democratic plans under consideration in Congress. But Enzi's judgment was especially noteworthy because he is one of only three Republicans who have been willing to consider a bipartisan bill in the Senate.</p>

GREEN RIVER -- Like a lot of two-legged celebrities unaccustomed to the spotlight, this four-legged star couldn't handle fame either. He rose quickly to the top of the YouTube.com charts, then turned on his adoring fans and now he's got a long, rocky climb back from seeming obscurity. "Bam Bam" the famous bighorn ram has been banished from Sinks Canyon State Park. The bighorn sheep who gained local popularity and a devoted following on the Internet was moved to a new home in the eastern Wind River Mountains last week by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "We hope he...

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has rounded on his US critics over charges that he has been too cautious in the way he has handled the economic and financial crisis in the eurozone. He mounted the vigorous defence at the annual symposium organised by the Kansas City Federal Reserve at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the policies of the world's major central banks, the ECB, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan were examined by economists. The critics included Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor credited with forecasting the crisis. They accused Mr Trichet and...

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is set to meet with central bank governors from Italy, France and Japan at the annual gathering of at the Kansas City's Federal Reserve's annual symposium. The key question to be addressed at the weekend meeting is how the US will be able to bring an end to its considerable intervention in the financial markets without stalling its tentative recovery. Mr Bernanke is due to address the meeting on Friday in a closed session entitled "Lessons from a year in crisis." He is expected to touch on the need for stronger co-operation between regulators in...

congressional leaders from carbon-intensive states such as Wyoming remain adamantly opposed to the Waxman-Markey bill, insisting the real costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions would further bankrupt the nation. “There’s nothing good about it,” said U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “I’m going to do everything to make sure it doesn’t pass.” U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said the bill is “the biggest hidden tax in America.” “It’s a Ponzi scheme because we’re just going to print certificates for CO2 and not take care of any CO2,” Enzi said. “It’s just another way to make money.” The U.S. House in June...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration says it will defend a 2001 rule imposed by President Bill Clinton that blocked road construction and other development on tens of million acres of remote national forests. The administration's decision was contained in court papers filed Thursday in a case in Wyoming that could help settle the fate of remote federal forests. The administration is siding with environmentalists in the case.

GLENROCK, Wyo. - A 76-year-old Wyoming man shot with a Taser by police while driving an antique tractor in a small-town parade says it hurt but he's OK. Retired truck driver Bud Grose of Glenrock told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he has a heart condition but didn't require any medical attention. Investigators say police in Glenrock used a Taser on the man after he disobeyed orders. They say the tractor may have hit a car. Two officers were placed on paid leave and state agents are investigating, but the police chief says it doesn't...

So here we are in August, time for a little summer vacation. President Barack Obama is taking Michelle and the kids out on a Western swing to see some of America’s most famous national parks. Next Friday, August 14, they will fly out to Bozeman, Montana and the next day will visit Yellowstone National Park, home of the Old Faithful geyser, in nearby Wyoming. Later that day they head to Grand Junction, Colorado. On August 16, it’s on to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They end up in Phoenix for the president to address the convention of Veterans of Foreign...

Grand Teton National Park and the National Elk Refuge are encouraging hunters to voluntarily use non-lead ammunition during the upcoming elk and bison seasons. The park and refuge issued a joint release Thursday saying lead is an environmental toxin that can poison animals that eat carcasses shot with lead bullets. Officials say studies have found that lead levels increase in ravens and eagles

Energy Policy: The chief economist of the International Energy Agency says the world is running out of oil. We've been told that for the last 150 years. The only thing we're running out of is the will to drill.Ever since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, experts have been predicting we would soon run out of oil. The latest is Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency in Paris, whose job it is to assess future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with the Independent, Dr. Birol says that based...

People can no longer use almost 11,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land in Campbell County because an outhouse at the Weston Hills Recreation area was destroyed. The Weston area 25 miles north of Gillette, which is popular with campers, ATV users and mountain bikers, will be closed for the next month while an investigation is under way. The investigation will determine the environmental impact that may have been caused when a possible small explosive was set off in an outhouse in early July. Robert Sprentall, Douglas district ranger and Thunder Basin National Grassland manager, said a Forest Service...

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/TownHalls.aspx Health Care Public EventKingfisher County FairgroundsKingfisher, OK 73750Monday, September 28, 2009Start Time: 6:30 PM End Time: 8:30 PM In attendance, Rep. Mary Fallin H (REP) District 5 Health Care Town Hall MeetingHayward City HallHayward, CA 94541Saturday, September 12, 2009Start Time: 10:30 AM End Time: 11:30 AM In attendance, Rep. Fortney Stark H (DEM) District 13 Health Care Town Hall MeetingRuggieri Senior CenterUnion City, CA 94587Saturday, September 12, 2009Start Time: 9:00 AM End Time: 10:00 AM In attendance, Rep. Fortney Stark H (DEM) District 13 Health Care Town Hall MeetingAlameda City HallAlameda, CA 94501Saturday, September 12, 2009Start Time: 12:00 PM...

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal today transmitted the following memorandum and proposed resolution on state sovereignty to the Wyoming Legislature’s Management Council. MEMORANDUM To: Management Council Members From: Dave Freudenthal, Governor Date: July 28, 2009 Re: Sovereignty Resolution As you know, individual states have been adopting Sovereignty Resolutions over the past few years. Such resolutions have been considered by the Wyoming Legislature over the years as well. Representative Illoway is working on one for this session. The attached version expands slightly on the versions currently circulating. The resolution includes a list of specific federal laws and a reference to the idea...

Six months ago, embarking on the vice presidency, Joe Biden listed among his top priorities "restoring" the office to its proper constitutional role in the wake of the eight-year tenure of predecessor Dick Cheney. It's early to attempt a reliable assessment of his achievement of that goal. But at the half-year mark, he has from all appearances made a good start, if only because nobody is suggesting, as often was the case with Mr. Cheney, that Mr. Biden is really running the country. Nor has there has been talk of the vice president stealthily at work from an "undisclosed location,"...

WYOMING—Special Agent in Charge James H. Davis, FBI Denver, announced the arrest today of FBI Top Ten Fugitive Edward Eugene Harper, also known as Ed Harmon. Harper was wanted for his alleged involvement in the sexual assault of two girls, ages 3 and 8, in Hernando, Mississippi. FBI special agents, with assistance from the Wyoming Game and Fish, arrested Harper this morning. Harper has been a fugitive for approximately 14 years, and was arrested in Washakie County, Wyoming, in the southern portion of the Big Horn Mountains. The FBI, based on a tip generated from the media attention on Harper,...

Energy: New drilling techniques may open up a 14-year supply of natural gas trapped in porous rock in the Northeast. That is, if environmentalists in New York and elsewhere don't keep it trapped in the ground.Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels, so clean that it is a key part of oilman T. Boone Pickens' plan to wean us off foreign sources of energy. Natural gas can fuel a new generation of automobiles that would help us achieve energy independence and at the same time contribute to a cleaner planet. In the northeastern U.S., there is a massive...

Energy: With a media wind at his back, Barack Obama regularly gets away with false and distorted statements. He repeated one Tuesday that seems superficially plausible but should not go unchallenged.ust as he said during the Sept. 26 University of Mississippi debate with John McCain, the Illinois Democrat claimed during the Nashville town hall setting that "we have 3% of the world's oil reserves and we use 25% of the world's oil. So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem." It's disappointing that McCain failed to call out Obama on his figures,...

Energy: While members of Congress take vacations their constituents can no longer afford, a country prepares to end its dependence on foreign oil by extracting supplies from shale rock. It's not the U.S. It's in the Middle East.Jordan imports 95% of its oil. Unlike the U.S., the desert kingdom plans on doing something about it. It does not, however, plan to cover its flat open spaces with solar panels or wind farms. It's going to do something the Democratic Congress has refused to do — get oil from its abundant shale rock. On Sunday, Maher Hjazin, head of the Jordanian...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture again has excluded national forests in Wyoming from receiving federal economic stimulus program money. The federal agency on Tuesday announced nearly $275 million in new federal funds for improvements to U.S. Forest Service trails and facilities in 32 states. It included none for Wyoming.

Franklin Joseph Ryle Jr., a former Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper, pleaded guilty on July 20, 2009, in federal court in Wyoming to depriving a man of his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures by kidnapping him. Ryle also pleaded guilty to one count of using his firearm in relation to the crime. While working on duty as a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper on the night of Jan. 8, 2009, Ryle stopped a Wal-Mart truck with the intent to murder its driver and stage an accident with the truck that would either injure Ryle or kill his wife, allowing...

Wyoming 912 Project *Public Meeting Announcement July 25th, 2009 1PM -- 4PM Natrona County Library, Crawford Room Room capacity -- 150 people. First come, first serve. * Update on proactive patriotic efforts by Wyoming 912 Project. * Education of what we are facing today, _on both national and state levels_. * We have been working with State legislators to protect our freedoms - come to find out more! * Bring paper and pencil. *Due to a large daily influx of email, _please only respond if you will be attending this meeting._* Let Freedom Ring! ~ Wyoming 912 Project (307) 251-8140...

CODY, Wyoming - Wielding his chain saw as a weapon, a former U.S. Marine says he fought off a starving mountain lion that attacked him while he was camping with his wife and two toddlers in northwestern Wyoming. Dustin Britton, a 32-year-old mechanic and ex-Marine, said he was alone cutting firewood about 100 feet from his campsite in the Shoshone National Forest when he saw the lion staring at him from some bushes. Britton revved his 18-inch chain saw and tried to back away. But the 100-pound lion followed.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Thermopolis, Wyo.-based Bank of Wyoming was closed by regulators Friday, the 53rd U.S. bank failure of 2009 as the credit crisis continues to claim victims.

1. Alaska 2. Maine 3. New Mexico 4. Arkansas 5. Texas 6. Missouri 7. Oregon 8. Idaho 9. Virginia 10. Wyoming

NEW YORK (AP) - Former Vice President Dick Cheney has signed a book deal with a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster and said he hopes readers of all ideologies will be interested in his story. The memoir by Cheney, widely considered the most powerful vice president in history, is expected to be published in Spring 2011, a few months after President George W. Bush's book comes out. Cheney's work is currently untitled and will cover his long career in government, from chief of staff under President Ford to vice president under Bush, from Vietnam and Watergate to the first...

Gov. Dave Freudenthal concedes that he could have stretched next year’s budget without $230 million in cuts, but that it would be a very short-sighted view to take. Freudenthal addressed a packed room of Wyoming stock growers during their annual convention Friday at Cam-plex Energy Hall. He started the speech with a rundown of agriculture bills that didn’t make it through the state Legislature in the last session, but then moved into his recent 10 percent budget cut for the next fiscal year. “We are not the federal government,” Freudenthal said. “We don’t borrow money, we don’t print money and,...

Experts are baffled over the discovery of fossilized, three-toed dinosaur tracks that have been found in both north-central Wyoming and on Scotland's coast, The Associated Press reported. Neil Clark, a paleontologist at the University of Glasgow, has not been able to identify any differences between the two sets of 170 million-year-old tracks even after a series of painstaking measurements and statistical analysis. He told AP that since the footprints in Wyoming and Scotland are so similar, they may have been produced by a very similar kind of dinosaur, if not the same species. Paleontologists have never been able to say...

Wyoming or Virginia? Liz Cheney's media joyride is boosting talk of a possible congressional run. Benjamin Sarlin has the inside scoop on where she’d run—and if she can win. With the position of top Republican talking head up for grabs, it's been Liz Cheney's turn to wear the crown this month. In just a short time, the former State Department official under George W. Bush made dozens of media appearances defending the administration's policy on torture and calling on President Obama to block efforts to prosecute her father, Dick Cheney. Liz Cheney's strong performances on cable news debating her father's...

IT'S a lovely thing when the conventional wisdom proves to be so spectacularly wrong. The entire Democratic Party, not to mention the media establishment, simply took as a given that suave, charming, effulgent, numinous President Obama would mop the floor with grumpy, truculent, sardonic former Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet, on almost every issue he has championed since leaving office, Cheney has won the debate or at least put the White House on the defensive. From the closing of Gitmo and the placement of terrorists in domestic prisons to the release of the torture memos and the aborted release of...