Free Republic

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he was “surprised” that his daughter Mary, who is a lesbian, publicly attacked her sister Liz on Facebook over her views on same-sex marriage. “We were surprised that there was an attack launched against Liz on Facebook, and wished it hadn’t happened,” Cheney said Tuesday during an event at the National Press Club to promote his new book. “It’s always been dealt with within the context of the family and frankly that’s our preference.” Cheney declined to address the subject further, telling the moderator, “don’t waste your time.” The Cheney sisters’ very public feud...

There are individual haters on the right and individual haters on the left. But there is no large-scale hatred in the United States of America today that compares with the hatred of the left for the right. Whereas the right regards the left as wrong -- even destructively wrong -- the left regards all those on the right as evil. Sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted -- these are typical descriptions of the right made by the most respected names on the left. This hatred is what enabled MSNBC's Martin Bashir to broadcast -- reading from a teleprompter, meaning...

A Bush, a Cheney, and a Carter will be on the ballot next year, but this is no ’80s flashback or stroll down memory lane. In the 2014 midterm races, the children and grandchildren of former presidents and a vice president are all trying to make their own political names. The latest addition to a growing list is Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, who announced Thursday he’s running for governor of Georgia. The Democratic state senator will try to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Jason Carter Meanwhile, Liz Cheney – the daughter of former Vice...

Countering many of his Republican colleagues, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday the tea party is actually a positive movement for the GOP. “It’s an uprising, in part, and the good thing is it’s taken place within the Republican Party,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “I don’t see it as a negative. I think it’s much better to have that kind of ferment and turmoil and change in the Republican Party than it would be to have it outside.” Mr. Cheney said that if it wasn’t for the tea party, his daughter, Liz, might not be seeking to unseat...

Liz Cheney is ending her campaign to be the next senator from Wyoming, dropping her primary challenge to Republican incumbent Mike Enzi. The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a written statement released Monday morning, cited health issues in the family. "Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign," she said. "My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority. ... Though this campaign stops today, my commitment to keep fighting with you...

Liz Cheney, oldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is ending her bid to run for Wyoming's U.S. Senate seat, citing health issues in her family. WASHINGTON — Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said Monday she is abandoning her effort to unseat Republican incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming. Cheney cited "serious health issues" that "have recently arisen in our family" as the reason for her decision. But her candidacy had raised hackles in the Republican Party and caused a public rift with her sister, Mary, a lesbian, over Liz Cheney's opposition to gay marriage....

First on CNN: Liz Cheney, whose bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN's John King. Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an announcement about the race as early as Monday.

New York (CNN) -- Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday. Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Hundreds of abandoned drilling wells dot eastern Wyoming like sagebrush, vestiges of a natural gas boom that has been drying up in recent years as prices have plummeted. The companies that once operated the wells have all but vanished into the prairie, many seeking bankruptcy protection and unable to pay the cost of reclaiming the land they leased. Recent estimates have put the number of abandoned drilling operations in Wyoming at more than 1,200, and state officials said several thousand more might soon be orphaned by their operators. Wyoming officials are now trying to address the problem amid concerns from...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- One of the country's largest producers of ammunition magazines for guns is leaving Colorado and moving operations to Wyoming and Texas because of new state laws that include restrictions on how many cartridges a magazine can hold.

Magpul Industries threatened to leave Colorado after the legislature passed a measure banning weapons magazines with more than 15 rounds. And now that is official. The Erie-based ammunition magazine manufacturer said on Thursday that it is relocating its operations to Cheyenne and Texas. "Moving operations to states that support our culture of individual liberties nad personal responsibility is important," CEO Richard Fitzpatrick said in a press release. "This relocation will also improve business operations and logistics as we utilize the strengths of Texas and Wyoming in our expansion. The move is expected to happen within the next 12 to 16...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The developers of what could become the nation’s largest wind energy project say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has overestimated how many eagles could be killed by wind turbines at the site. They say they’re planning a variety of measures to reduce eagle deaths at the $5 billion Chokecherry/Sierra Madre wind power project south of Rawlins, and those steps will result in fewer deaths than the BLM estimate of 46-64 per year.

An environmental activist who pled guilty this month to poaching elk during a November hunting trip will resign his position as the Idaho director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Marv Hoyt, a leading critic of mining activities on the health of sheep and cattle, killed three elk and left the carcasses of two behind to rot in the field. Hoyt had only one tag for one elk, and initially denied to fish and game officers he had killed the other two cows and tried to hide the carcasses with tree branches. Although the protection of elk is a central goal...

Budget deal cuts oil and gas royalties to states The budget deal in Congress will cost Wyoming, New Mexico and other states $415 million in lost oil and gas royalties over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Legislation implementing the agreement makes permanent an effective 51-49 percent split that favors the federal government in dividing the 12.5 percent royalty collected from energy companies on oil and gas production on federal land. Until 2008 when the Interior Department began setting aside 2 percent of the royalties as an administrative fee, the split between the federal and state government...

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US is far larger than was previously thought, scientists report. A study shows that the magma chamber is about 2.5 times bigger than earlier estimates suggested. A team found the cavern stretches for more than 90km (55 miles) and contains 200-600 cubic km of molten rock. The findings are being presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Prof Bob Smith, from the University of Utah, said: “We’ve been working there for a long time, and we’ve always thought it would be bigger... but this finding is...

Yellowstone's grizzlies, now classified as a threatened species, were briefly removed from protected status by the federal government in 2007, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the outsized, hump-shouldered bears had made a healthy comeback. At the time, the number of grizzlies in the region had exceeded the government's recovery goal of 500 bears, the government said. But conservationists successfully challenged the de-listing in court, arguing that the government discounted climate changes ... On Wednesday, members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee sought to reverse that decision, recommending a new de-listing after reviewing a report suggesting Yellowstone's...

Past experience in Idaho, northeastern Oregon and Washington state illustrate that it's time to take gray wolves completely off the federal list of endangered species. The West’s wolf problem started in 1995 and 1996. That’s when 66 wolves from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Those wolves multiplied and spread into Wyoming, Utah and Oregon. They also took up residence in Washington state and Montana, where other wolves from Canada already lived. Today at least 1,674 wolves live in 321 packs within the region, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s in addition to the...

You could call it the "Catfight at Cheney Corral" (but if you do, you should expect feminist outrage). When Liz Cheney moved from the suburbs of the nation's capital to Wyoming to run for the U.S. Senate, she knew she was asking for trouble. She risked being called a "carpetbagger," but that has a sharper sting in Virginia than in Wyoming. She pulled intimate and sensitive family laundry out for a public airing by emphasizing her conservative roots. Acknowledging that her sister was in a gay marriage, which isn't recognized as a true marriage in either Virginia or Wyoming, she...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took the side of his U.S. Senate candidate daughter Liz in her high-profile spat over gay marriage with lesbian sister Mary, saying Monday that he was "pained" that the family dispute had become so public, Politico reported. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, issued a statement noting that the gay-rights issue was one "we have dealt with privately for many years." "[We] are pained to see it become public," the parents wrote. "Since it has, one thing should be clear. Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage." The parents said Liz Cheney "has...

I’m tempted to call this a clever Cheney family ploy to burnish Liz’s conservative credentials ahead of her primary against Mike Enzi, except … Enzi’s opposed to gay marriage too. It may help her pass a tea-party litmus test but it doesn’t actually gain her anything against the incumbent. On the contrary, all the attention to this subject is likely to remind Wyoming conservatives not only that the Cheney family is notably pro-gay among Republican royalty — Dick Cheney’s other daughter is herself married to a woman — but that Liz herself was widely assumed to be pro-SSM based on...