Free Republic

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Grizzly bears continue to expand their range amid an ongoing effort to turn over management of the bears from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, a federal official said. “We’ve seen an 11 percent change in increasing range in just a couple of years,” Frank van Manen, head scientist of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said last week at a meeting in Jackson. Since coming under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, grizzlies have steadily expanded their habitat outward from the population’s core in Yellowstone National...

Advocates of abolishing the $1 Federal Reserve note are at it again, this time hoping that President Donald Trump and conservative Republicans will finally side with their three-pronged approach to revamping the nation’s currency system. Under S. 759, introduced March 29 by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the government would end production of the $1 Federal Reserve note, revise the composition of the 5-cent coin, and suspend production of 1-cent coins. While the draft legislation calls for an end to paper dollar notes and the cent, it is silent on dollar coin production. Backers of the legislation...

A small-town judge who says her religious beliefs prevent her from presiding over same-sex marriages was publicly censured by the Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday. But while the court said her conduct undermines the integrity of the judicial system, it does not warrant removal from the bench. In a 3-2 decision, Justice Kate Fox wrote that Judge Ruth Neely violated judicial conduct code but removing Neely would “unnecessarily circumscribe protected expression.” “Judge Neely shall either perform no marriage ceremonies or she shall perform marriage ceremonies regardless of the couple’s sexual orientation,” Fox wrote. […] Neely, who’s not a lawyer, is...

Peter Kearl is co-founder and CTO of Qmast which is a Colorado-based company pioneering the use of the microwave technology to recover oil. Oil giants BP and ConocoPhillips are pouring resources into developing similar extraction techniques, which can be far less water- and energy-intensive than fracking. There is more than 4.285 trillion barrels of oil barrels of oil in the Green River Formation (2011 U.S. Geological Survey of resource in-place). Using oil shale cutoffs of potentially viable (15 gallons per ton) and high grade (25 gallons per ton), it is estimated that between 353 billion and 1.146 trillion barrels of...

Diane Reiman, sister of Vietnam veteran Stephen Carl Reiman, is given the casket flag from her brother's coffin during his funeral on Tuesday morning at the Oregon Trail State Veterans Cemetery in Evansville. Stephen Carl Reiman, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam war, died on Nov. 17, in Casper. He suffered from PTSD and was homeless before he was discovered in a hotel room in Sheridan with only a few belongings, including some Bruce Springsteen CDs and his autobiography. Reiman appeared to have no family until his sister was finally located. EVANSVILLE, Wyo. (AP) — Hundreds of people...

he knows he served with honor in Vietnam. She knows he loved cooking and Bruce Springsteen. She knows he died lonely in Casper. But that’s about all Natrona County Coroner Connie Jacobson knows for certain about Stephen Carl Reiman, a 63-year-old homeless Navy veteran who died Thursday at Wyoming Medical Center. Her office has looked for a friend or a family member to claim Reiman. They haven’t found anyone. The other thing Jacobson knows is that Reiman needs to be buried with respect. And that he shouldn’t be alone. Reiman came to Wyoming from a Southern California community for homeless...

President Obama on Sunday refused to blame Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' failure to win the White House or take back the House or Senate, and instead said improved messaging and better luck will help Democrats in future years. . . . Aside from messaging, Obama said another reason Democrats didn't do well is the "nature of our system." While some Democrats have called for an end to the Electoral College, Obama didn't go that far, and instead indicated he was talking about how Republicans have a natural advantage in the Senate. "As long as Wyoming gets the same number...

IRS data show the average income of taxpayers leaving Illinois surpassed the average income of taxpayers entering the state by $20,000 in 2014, a record loss for Illinois in the wake of the 2011 income-tax hike. Politicians enacted Illinois’ 2011 income-tax hike during a late-night legislative session in January 2011 and raised the state’s personal income-tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. This 67 percent income-tax hike lasted for four years, during which time Illinois experienced record wealth flight. IRS data reveal what happens when politicians choose short-term tax revenue gains over long-term stability. The short-term increase in tax...

Dave Smith, a well known author and expert on bear attacks, sent me a heads up on a proposed Grizzly hunting regulation.  In the  Wyoming Grizzly Bear Management Plan(pdf), on page 47, (page 55 on some pdf versions), dated  5/11/2016, is a regulation requiring that grizzly hunters carry bear spray. “All grizzly bear hunters must carry bear spray while engaged in the act of grizzly bear hunting (WGFC Regulation Chapter 16, pending)” When you are hunting bears, you would normally be carrying a rifle.  You would have to drop the rifle, then access and deploy the bear spray.  That does...

CHEYENNE – With only about two months until the next Congress convenes, Republican Rep.-elect Liz Cheney is already starting her transition to the U.S. House of Representatives. Formal orientation for freshman lawmakers begins next week, and Cheney will also be working with outgoing Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, as part of the changeover.

"A woman has claimed her friend’s property was damaged by exploding salad dressing which may have been ‘possessed’."

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson says Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified data is grounds for impeachment. By Stephanie Liebergen | November 2, 2016 She hasn't been elected president, but one U.S. Senator says he's ready to impeach Hillary Clinton. In an interview with a Wisconsin newspaper, Sen. Ron Johnson said Clinton's email scandal qualifies as a "high crime or misdemeanor," meaning she could be impeached. SEE MORE: Trump Rally Speaker Talks Movie Plots — In Which Hillary Clinton Dies The U.S. Constitution states, "The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on...

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...