Free Republic

On Wednesday, August 17, the Wyoming Supreme Court heard a case that has huge implications for each and every one of us. The case involves Judge Ruth Neely, who has served with distinction for twenty-one years as the municipal judge in Pinedale, Wyoming. Since municipalities have no authority either to issue a license or solemnize a marriage, you would think that she’s unaffected by all the hoopla over same-sex marriage. But you would be mistaken. Because of her beliefs about marriage, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics (CJCE) wants to remove her from her job and disqualify her...

Will a Cheney be returning to power in Washington? Liz Cheney, that is, a daughter of Dick Cheney, the former vice president, and the favorite in Tuesday’s crowded Republican primary for Wyoming’s at-large House seat. Ms. Cheney opted to try for the House seat being vacated by Representative Cynthia M. Lummis after Ms. Cheney’s 2014 Senate primary bid against Mike Enzi, the popular Republican incumbent, spurred Republican infighting and raised questions about her ties to Wyoming after spending most of her life in the Washington area. She ultimately withdrew. Ms. Lummis’s retirement opened the door for Ms. Cheney to try...

ot long after it became clear that the robust winds that blow down from the Rocky Mountains and across the sea of sagebrush here could produce plenty of profit in a world that wants more renewable energy, some of the more expansive minds in the Wyoming Legislature began entertaining a lofty question: Who owns all of that wind? They concluded, quickly and conveniently, that Wyoming did. Then, with great efficiency for a conservative state not traditionally tilted toward burdening the energy industry, they did something no other state has done, before or since: They taxed it.

Actually, you should know and you’d better care. Let me explain why through an analogy. Let’s say you live in a repressive Middle Eastern country where homosexual beliefs can lead to arrest, and homosexual behavior can result in execution. You have friends or family you know to be homosexual. You are not homosexual yourself. You don’t approve of their inclinations or behavior. But you value them as fellow imperfect human beings whose imperfections are merely different than your own. An acquaintance finds out about your views and asks why you would hold such views or have such scandalous associations. He...

ASKED by an out-of-stater where the nearest shooting range is, Patrick Leavitt, an affable gunsmith at Riverman Gun Works in Coeur d’Alene, says: “This is Idaho—you can shoot pretty much anywhere away from buildings.” That is one reason why the sparsely populated state is attracting a growing number of “political refugees” keen to slip free from bureaucrats in America’s liberal states, says James Wesley, Rawles (yes, with a comma), an author of bestselling survivalist novels. In a widely read manifesto posted in 2011 on his survivalblog.com, Mr Rawles, a former army intelligence officer, urged libertarian-leaning Christians and Jews to move...

Wildfires were burning Monday in seven Western U.S. states, from California's famed Big Sur region to tribal towns and hamlets near Reno, Nevada. Evacuations were ordered in Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming and firefighters were trying to stop a Washington blaze from reaching a thickly forested security zone at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

AUSTIN, TX -- Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been released after four nights in the hospital for treatment of severe burns he suffered while vacationing last week. Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott left San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center on Friday and is returning to the governor's mansion in Austin. Abbott, a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair, sustained extensive second- and third-degree burns on his lower legs and feet after being scalded July 7 while in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His office won't say exactly how he was burned.

The United States Forest Service severely damaged a forest road and trail in Northwestern Idaho earlier this month, raising serious questions about the agency’s ability to care for federally-managed lands. During the first weekend in June, several members of Northwestern Gold Prospectors Association (NWGPA) planned to attend a gathering to prospect private claims in the Bedrock Gulch and Eagle Creek areas. When the prospectors arrived, Forest Road 152 was blocked with cement barricades and hundreds of felled trees. ... Photographs from that day show large logs laid crosswise and laterally on the trail, covered with hundreds of large pine branches...

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

As America reels from yet another mass shooting, inevitable questions resurface about guns laws and the nation's pervasive firearm culture. Here is a look at per capita weapons data, based on the ATF's National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, and 2013 data from the U.S. Census... ...it does not include categories like pistols, which make up a large percentage of the guns in the U.S.

In the latest rebuke of the Obama administration’s expansive view of executive power, a federal judge has struck down the Interior Department’s effort to regulate fracking for oil and natural gas. Judge Scott Skavdahl of the District Court of Wyoming already had put a hold on the regulations last year, and in a decision released late Tuesday, he ruled that Congress did not give Interior the power to regulate hydraulic fracturing, indeed it had expressly withheld that power with some narrow exceptions.

Reid said the man is presumed dead because he has yet to be found, "the recovery process is very difficult because of the hazards of the environment,” said Reid. Reid said the man is in his 20s, but she would not identify the man or where he is from. The man reportedly walked about 225 yards off the board walk before falling in to the hot spring. The springs are known to reach temperatures that would be deadly to humans on contact.

The following is a list of prominent Republicans who say they’re not planning to attend the Republican National Convention -- based on responses from their offices and previously published reports: Former President George W. Bush Former President George H.W. Bush 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Arizona Sen. John McCain 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney 2016 presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson Kansas Sen....

Some current and former Wyoming lawmakers as well as national religious groups are supporting a municipal judge who faces a dismissal petition before the Wyoming Supreme Court for saying she would not preside over same-sex marriages. The Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics is recommending the court remove Municipal Judge and Circuit Court Magistrate Ruth Neely of Pinedale. The commission started investigating Neely after she told a reporter in 2014 she would not perform same-sex marriages because of her religious beliefs.

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

I am certain you’ve never heard of me, unless you are a friend or relative, because I am just a beginner at politics. Yet somehow, in this most contentious political year for Republicans, I am going to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland as a delegate. Here’s how it happened. Wyoming, the least populated state, sends 29 delegates to the Republican National Convention, but that number varies every four years, depending on how well the Republican Party is represented in the state (i.e. legislative seats held, governorship held, party membership per capita). The same system exists at the state level....

Female Republican lawmakers are making the case for Donald Trump to choose a woman as his running mate. Picking a female vice presidential candidate could help mitigate the damage Trump caused with women voters in the primary, they say, as well as counter Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) offered the idea, somewhat unprompted, at a Capitol Hill event hosted by the Heritage Foundation this week. When a reporter asked a panel of conservative House Republicans who Trump should choose as his running mate, most lawmakers demurred. But Lummis, the only woman on the...

Over the past week, our planet has been hit by large earthquake after large earthquake, and according to Volcano Discovery, there are 38 volcanoes around the world that are erupting right now. We have seen a dramatic spike in global seismic activity that is unlike anything that we have seen in ages, and that is why what is going on at Yellowstone is so incredibly alarming. Geologists tell us that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would have up to 2,000 times the power of the Mount St. Helen's volcanic eruption of 1980, and approximately two-thirds of the country...

Donald Trump is complaining that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is racking up “voterless” victories in states such as Colorado and Wyoming, where delegates are chosen by a “small handful of elites” who are “sidelining” Republican voters. This is dead wrong. In both Colorado and Wyoming, all registered Republican voters in the state had the chance to vote and participate in the delegate selection process. The Wyoming Republican Party website explains the process clearly: “Delegates to the state convention are elected by the county conventions. Delegates to the county convention are elected by precinct caucuses in their respective counties. Any person...

Ted Cruz on Wyoming win: "This is how elections are won in America." Once again, voters are not represented in the process. Instead, "votes" for the nominee are gained by backroom politics. Another corrupt process by the GOP establishment. From Fox News: Ted Cruz on Saturday won all 14 delegates in the Wyoming GOP convention -- a relatively small number but enough for the Texas senator to declare victory and keep GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump from securing the nomination. “We are likely to have a battle in Cleveland to decide who is the nominee,” Cruz told party members before...