Free Republic

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead issued a statement Tuesday saying that he expects the state to seek a stay of Jackson’s decision. He said the state will seek an emergency rule from the Fish and Wildlife Service to allow continued state wolf management. ... Wyoming took over wolf management in late 2012 after the federal government ruled that wolves no longer needed protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Kansas – A federal judge has decided a lawsuit challenging increased federal regulation of economic activity and land use in the area that is habitat for the Lesser Prairie Chicken will be litigated in Oklahoma and not transferred to Washington, D.C., Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said today. The decision yesterday by U.S. District Judge James H. Payne is the second time in the last two months that the federal judiciary has rejected an attempt by the federal government to move the litigation from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C. “This is good news for Kansas,” Schmidt said. “It means our case...

The Senate approved a continuing resolution for the budget which included a provision authorizing President Obama to arm and train Syrian rebels for the purpose of combating Islamic State terrorists. The legislation passed 78-22. Of the 22 Senators that voted no, here are the 12 Republicans that voted against the provision: John Barrasso (WY) Tom Coburn (OK) Michael Crapo (ID) Ted Cruz (TX) Mike Enzi (WY) Dean Heller (NV) Mike Lee (UT) Jim Moran (KS) Rand Paul (KY) James Risch (ID) Pat Roberts (KS) Jeff Sessions (AL)

Rod Coronado, a convicted eco-terrorist, is the leader of the controversial “Yellowstone Wolf Patrol,” a new environmental group that plans to shadow legal Montana wolf hunters during the state’s fall and winter wolf season and document the hunts with a video camera. Coronado, a resident of Michigan, is a radical environmentalist who “sank whaling ships nearly 30 years ago in Iceland and later went to prison after torching a Michigan State University lab in 1992 for conducting research for the fur industry” according to The Buffalo News of Buffalo, NY. He also serves as a spokesman for the radical, militant...

BOISE, Idaho – A SUV full of teenagers crashed in Idaho after one of the passengers lit the driver's armpit hair on fire with a lighter, authorities said Wednesday. All five young people in the Ford Bronco were hurt in the crash Sunday and received medical treatment, the Ada County Sheriff's Office said. Two of the passengers, ages 15 and 16, were thrown from the vehicle, but none of the five suffered life-threatening injuries.

A follower of a breakaway Mormon polygamous sect who came under public scrutiny after eight boys were taken from his Idaho home in a police raid will plead guilty to child-injury offenses in a plea agreement, prosecutors said on Wednesday.Nathan Jessop was cited with three misdemeanor counts of injury to a child last month for confining one of the boys in a tiny furnace room as punishment for alleged misbehavior and for failing to report two teens as runaways after they fled his home.Under the plea deal that must still be approved in court later this month, Jessop would serve...

More than a half-million acres of land across nine Western states is being proposed for designation as critical habitat for the yellow-billed cuckoo. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 546,335 acres of critical habitat is up for listing in 80 separate units in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The bird is a neotropical migrant that winters in South America and nests along rivers and streams in western North America. ... The Service is seeking information concerning the western yellow-billed cuckoo’s biology and habitat, threats to the species and current efforts to protect...

Hacktivist Group Anonymous Steps up Threats Against Coeur d'Alene Police Department Over Fatal Dog Shooting The Internet activist group Anonymous is stepping up its threats against the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, demanding a full investigation of the shooting of a 2-year-old black Lab named Arfee by an officer. In a video released Aug. 9, Anonymous accused the department of not adequately investigating the shooting, which took place in the parking lot of a coffee shop July 9. According to reports, the officer fired on the dog after he allegedly lunged from the window of a parked vehicle. "To the Coeur...

Large turnouts are expected at two upcoming public hearings on proposed changes to the Mexican wolf management plan, including expansion of the wolf-management areas in Arizona and New Mexico. The hearings, Aug. 11 in Pinetop, Ariz., and Aug. 13 in Truth or Consequences, N.M., will be the final opportunity for verbal testimony on proposed changes to management of the endangered Mexican gray wolf population in the two states. Public hearings last year in Albuquerque and Pinetop drew a total of around 1,000 people, most of whom were not allotted time to speak. ... The Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to...

Hurricane Sandy victims were improperly denied grant money to rebuild. Criminals escaped from halfway houses and committed murder and assault. Case managers for people with developmental disabilities failed to file accurate reports about their visits with clients. Those were some of the findings of a recent Rutgers University study, which concluded that for years, New Jersey officials did a poor job overseeing state contracts with outside firms. The review, which examined how New Jersey procured and monitored contracts, determined that oversight failures not only wasted taxpayers’ money but put some of its most vulnerable residents at risk. ... shocked by...

A federal judge handed a landmark victory to Kane County and the state of Utah on Wednesday in a years-long dispute with the federal government over whether some rural routes should remain in use as roads, or if they should be closed to the public. In two decisions, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups found he had jurisdiction to hear Kane County's claim, gave parameters for "reasonable" right-of-way widths on some routes and determined that 12 of 15 routes in dispute were roads and therefore accessible by the public. The distinction hinged on an 1866 law through which Congress sought to...

Despite an eleventh hour interjection from the U.S. Forest Service, the Ouray County Commissioners made history this week, unanimously voting to adopt a new county road map that brings it into the 21st century. The last time an official county road map was prepared in Ouray County was in 1961. Proposed revisions to this 1961 iteration of the map took place over the past five years, first through the work of the collaborative, multi-jurisdictional Public Access Group and later through two years of intensive work by Ouray County IT/GIS Manager Jeff Bockes, who integrated modern computerized mapping techniques (including GoogleEarth)...

BATTLE MOUNTAIN — Once again ranchers who run cattle on the Argenta Allotment in Lander County were told Wednesday that due to drought a number of areas would be closed to livestock. Pete and Lynn Tomera were told by the Bureau of Land Management they had a week to remove cattle from nine segments of the allotment ... We have 7 days to ride the entire mountain and have the cattle off. We are right in the middle of haying and are forced to drop everything and begin gathering cattle,” the Tomeras wrote. “We are forced to put the cattle...

Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter sent a letter to federal officials Wednesday voicing his opposition to using the state as "a destination or a staging area for the influx of unaccompanied and illegal immigrants entering the United States through our southern border." In the letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Otter blames the federal government for creating the current crisis at the border, and says Congress needs to take action to enforce the law. "Idaho will not open itself to the unwelcome challenges...

A new study shows the lesser prairie chicken population has exploded by 20 percent prompting concern by western lawmakers that the Obama administration acted hastily when it listed the bird as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The aerial survey conducted last month by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies showed the grouse species numbers jumped from 18,747 to 22,415. That study plus the Agriculture Department’s tardiness in reporting conservation efforts to Congress as required by law prompted a letter from lawmakers including Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton demanding the report. “We request that your department provide this...

Miss Idaho, aka Sierra Anne Sandison, could certainly be posting pictures of crowns and diamonds all over her Twitter page. But the beauty queen is choosing to show off another accessory — her insulin pump. Sandison, a 20-year-old diabetic, was crowned Miss Idaho last Saturday and has talked openly about how she felt when she got diagnosed with type one adult-onset diabetes in 2012. She tweeted a picture of herself lying on her bed, wearing her Miss Idaho sash and crown, a Wonder Woman sweatshirt, and an insulin pump. She tagged the photo #showmeyourpump and encouraged friends and followers...

BOISE, Idaho - A U.S. Navy veteran filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday after the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery refused to allow her to be buried with the ashes of her late wife. Seventy-four-year-old Madelynn Taylor filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boise after she tried to make advance arrangements last year to have her ashes interred with Jean Mixner, whom she met on a blind date in 1995 and married in California in 2008 when gay marriage was briefly legal. Though federal veterans cemeteries allow the spouses of gay veterans to be interred with their loved ones,...

Cable News Network has sued Blaine County seeking information from a 1999 police investigation involving the family of Bowe Bergdahl, the Wood River Valley soldier who spent five years in captivity of the Taliban. CNN says the report from the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office is subject to disclosure under Idaho public records laws. Sheriff Gene Ramsey has twice denied the network's request. The lawsuit was filed June 25 in District Court. A hearing is scheduled at 2 p.m. July 21 before District Judge Robert J. Elgee.

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the meadow jumping mouse as an endangered species. Now, the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the Santa Fe National Forest, is considering erecting a series of 8-foot high fences to protect the mouse’s habitat. The Luceros, members of the San Diego Cattleman’s Association and holders of grazing permits with the federal government, say the fences will lock out their cattle — as well as those of other permit holders — from ever returning to the meadow where the livestock graze for 20 days in the spring and up to 40 days...

Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) demanded that the President Obama dispel misinformation regarding U.S. immigration policies, which they say is causing thousands of undocumented children to cross the border.Lawmakers have grown increasingly concerned about the thousands of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing the border.“The current crisis at our border is a direct consequence of the administration’s dangerous, piecemeal approach to reforming our broken immigration system,” Crapo said. “Backdoor executive orders have the potential to spread misrepresentations of current immigration policies — a situation we are unfortunately seeing play out at the border.”Crapo and Risch’s comments came after Obama...