Free Republic

Wyoming --(Ammoland.com)- As early as today HB-60 will be introduced in the house by Representative Kendell Kroeker (R-Casper) — It will require a 2/3rds vote to advance to committee. Please email your House Representative ASAP and ask them to support this legislation that will put a end to local governments placing restrictions on your right to carry. Wyoming has enjoyed a preemption since 1995, but unfortunately the “local” municipal politicians seem to believe that they hold more than the keys to the city. Simply put, many city politicians believe they are above the law and ignore the state the preemption....

Wyoming lawmakers appear ready to change the state’s wolf management law to accommodate an agreement that Gov. Matt Mead and U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar reached last year on ending federal protections for the animals in the state. Under the agreement, wolves could be shot on sight in much of the state. The Republican governor has made wolf management a priority, saying the animals threaten agricultural interests and other wildlife. Officials say there are about 300 wolves in the state, and Mead has said the population grows by 10 percent every year. Under the deal, Wyoming would commit to...

Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group ? The Sierra Club may be about to find out. the 120-year-old organization’s hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled. The news cut especially deep for activists who have spent years fighting the spread of shale gas drilling in states like New York and Pennsylvania. The Sierra Club quietly accepted $26 million in donations from gas industry interests from 2007 to 2010 — years when the group’s national leaders...

A Denver woman claims she couldn’t board a flight from Wyoming to Denver because of her gender. Jennifer Winning makes the flight from the small airport of Rock Springs, WY to Denver often, but on January 29th it was different. “They wouldn`t let me get on the plane because I`m female,” Winning said. She said she checked in and arrived at security about 35 minutes before the scheduled departure of her United flight. “They asked if I was on the flight to Denver, I said yes, they said that they couldn`t screen me because they sent all the female TSA...

The US Bureau of Land Management published a draft programmatic environmental impact statement and possible land use amendments for federally administered oil shale and tar sands acreage in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. It also opened a 90-day comment period on the proposals on Feb. 3. The draft PEIS analyzes several land allocation and resource management alternatives, the US Department of the Interior agency noted. It said if it decides to adopt the preferred alternative, 461,965 acres would be available for research and development of oil shale (35,308 acres in Colorado, 252,181 acres in Utah, and 174,476 acres in Wyoming), and...

The Bureau of Land Management on Friday proposed scaling back a George W. Bush-era plan for development of oil shale and tar sands on Western lands, drawing the ire of Republicans and industry groups. The plan would reduce the available acreage for oil-shale and tar-sands development by about three-fourths in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming in an attempt to protect environmentally sensitive areas. It also would pull back the Bush-era proposal to make oil-shale leases available for commercial development, instead continuing to lease them only for research-and-experimentation purposes. BLM announced last year it would redo the Bush-era plan as part of...

WASHINGTON - Texas Gov. Rick Perry's retreat Thursday from the race for the Republican presidential nomination is likely to be a permanent exit from the 2012 race. He makes a poor pick for vice president, SO WATCH NEWT PICK RAND PAUL!

CHEYENNE — Alexander Frye was usually quiet and shy around other 13-year-olds. He was slow to make friends at school, his family said, and he was often teased and bullied by classmates. With adults, Alex was a different person: He was talkative, made friendships easily and impressed even longtime Union Pacific veterans with his encyclopedic knowledge of trains. About 200 of those adults packed the American Legion Post 6 hall on Wednesday for a police debriefing on Alex, who shot himself in a field south of the Union Pacific railyards early Sunday morning, according to the Laramie County coroner. The...

The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel? Yes, Milwaukee’s scrappy newspaper of record is taking a cue from the big boys and entering the seedy world of paid online subscriptions. Beginning tomorrow, JSOnline readers looking to enjoy the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning material (and/or the latest musin’-and-thinkin’ column from Jim Stingl) will have to shell out some cash for the privilege. Non-subscribers will be able to view only 20 articles a month, after which they’ll be publicly scolded for contributing to the downfall of print media and for keeping food off of Eugene Kane’s table. In a...

Patrons at a Cheyenne Starbucks got more than a shot of espresso Monday morning, when a gun inside a girl’s purse fired inadvertently. Though several people were reported to being inside the coffee shop at the time, there were no injuries. The single bullet, which fired around 7 a.m. Monday morning, reportedly went through a chair and into a wall, narrowly avoiding many customers. Police officers were at the Starbucks at the time and say the girl, who is under 18 and has not been identified, was cited for possession of a firearm by a juvenile which carries a $750...

Everyone will have to hang their guns at the door before entering the Casper City Council chambers under a new ordinance passed last week. In a five-to-four vote, the council approved a controversial measure that prohibits bringing a firearm or other deadly weapon into any public city government meeting. The law drew the ire of a number of gun rights and constitutional groups, and is expected to be challenged in the state legislature and also the courts. “We’ll bring a suit forth,” said Anthony Bouchard, executive director of Wyoming Gun Owners, following the meeting. “But we’re going to look at...

An armed officer dressed in a suit and tie stood behind Casper City Council on Tuesday as members patiently listened to seven arguments for or against banning openly carried weapons in city meetings. In the end, votes remained the same as those cast at the previous council meeting. Weapons are no longer allowed in city government meetings. “I expect this issue is not going to go away,” Mayor Paul Bertoglio said. He and council members Keith Goodenough, Bill Brauer and Maury Daubin opposed the ordinance that would restrict weapons in city government meetings. Council members Kate Sarosy, Paul Meyer, Kenyne...

Encana Corp. today ratcheted up its attack on Environmental Protection Agency allegations that the company’s hydraulically fractured natural gas wells are to blame for contaminating groundwater in Wyoming. The Alberta, Canada-based corporation has already broadly criticized the agency’s findings as flawed, and other industry representatives have joined in too. The American Petroleum Institute questioned the report’s validity, and Wyoming regulators have suggested the EPA’s own water well drilling techniques may be to blame for contaminants that surfaced during testing. In a conference call with reporters today, Encana’s environmental, health and safety lead for the North Rockies, David Stewart, said the...

The shale gas boom has been a rare bright spot in the U.S. economy, so much of the country let out a shudder two weeks ago when the Environmental Protection Agency issued a "draft" report that the drilling process of hydraulic fracturing may have contaminated ground water in Pavillion, Wyoming. The good news is that the study is neither definitive nor applicable to the rest of the country. "When considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained by hydraulic fracking," said the EPA report, referring to the drilling process...

Casper city council has recently released a statement suggesting they had no intentions of advancing gun free zones. But they have something they don't want you to know! During a council business meeting it was revealed that they were working with other police chiefs across Wyoming. They even stated on the record that the University of Wyoming Police Chief has commented that the Wyoming Association of Municipalities is working to advance gun free zones. What exactly other than pushing more bans does the University of Wyoming's Top-Cop have to do with Casper--and why did his name come up at a...

During the most recent legislative session, state Senator Kit Jennings (R-28) of Casper sponsored permitless carry legislation to expand the Right-to-Carry across Wyoming, only to see his hometown now fight to restrict it. Last week, the Casper City Council voted 5 to 4 in favor of an ordinance to ban the open carrying of firearms during city council meetings. While nothing has ever occurred to necessitate this proposed ordinance, the city council is one step away from making this ban a reality and will decide its fate on third and final reading at their next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, December...

Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is the process used by the energy industry to extract immense deposits of oil and natural gas from deep geologic formations that only a few years ago were unreachable. It involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals far underground, typically thousands of feet below groundwater supplies. Fracking was first used in Oklahoma in the 1940s and in the years since has been employed in more than a million oil and gas wells across the nation. There is not a single independently documented instance of groundwater contamination by fracking anywhere in the country, a fact that was...

The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that chemicals from "fracking," a controversial method of extracting natural gas from the ground, have polluted groundwater in Wyoming. The findings represent the first time in the heated debate over fracking that the agency has drawn such a connection, which has long been claimed by environmental activists. Doug Hock a spokesman for Encana, said concerns about the pollution of drinking water "are not borne out by the facts." The EPA's test wells, he noted, were far below the depth of drinking water wells. "At a depth where you would expect to find hydrocarbons,...

Wyoming --(Ammoland.com)- On Tuesday night the Casper city council voted 5 to 4 in favor of a gun ban at city hall. That’s the bad news. The good news is… Thanks to your phone calls and emails we picked up another “no vote”. But the hard work is far from over and with the final reading coming soon, I need your help. Remember the last thing you and I want are these anti-gun politicians getting a foothold on creating additional gun free zones or better named “criminal safe zones” around Wyoming. Of course we know their plan is to essentially...

Proposed restrictions on the open carry of deadly weapons into city of Casper meetings passed on second reading by a 5 to 4 vote Tuesday evening. They were three boyscouts working toward a merit badge at the November 1st Casper City Council Meeting. The first reading of the Proposed restrictions on the open carry of deadly weapons into city meetings was on the agenda that night. Following that meeting, Casper City Councilman Paul Meyer, in explaining his reasons for supporting the changes on second reading Tuesday, said one of the boyscouts told him afterward he didn’t want to go any...

On a chilly morning in Hebei province, 20 miles north of the Great Wall of China, Jiang Xiaotian wandered out onto his patio overlooking a town that bears a more than passing resemblance to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With its pitched roof, stone chimney and wooden exterior, his house looked just like every other in his neighborhood -- evoking the American Wild West he knows from the movies. Jiang, a Hong Kong corporate executive, has never been to the United States, and before buying his weekend home, he had no particular affection for cowboy culture or American life. But somewhere --...

The Casper City Council agreed to postpone until its Dec. 6 meeting any further action on a proposed gun ban at local government meetings. The controversial Second Amendment right issue continued to occupy the council’s agenda, however, as they attempted to deal with what they perceived as misinformation about the proposal. “There’s obviously a great deal of misinformation being promoted and repeated and exaggerated,” said council member Charlie Powell. “Are there any steps we can take to try to correct some of this misinformation so people know in fact what we’re really voting on?” “I agree with Charlie, there’s to...

The presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is scheduled to announce the endorsement of Representative Cynthia M. Lummis of Wyoming on Monday morning, adding a Tea Party voice to its chorus of Congressional endorsements. Ms. Lummis, who will serve as Mr. Romney’s Wyoming campaign chairwoman, is a solid fiscal and social conservative, and the Romney campaign hopes her support will underscore the already growing narrative that conservatives are rallying around Mr. Romney. “Governor Romney’s experience as both a chief executive and conservative businessman makes him highly qualified to lead our nation at this time — a time...

A high school football coach in Wyoming has resigned after orchestrating what may be the single least appropriate motivational tactic in recent years, handing his players a "Hurt Feelings Report" in which students were asked to select from various offensive options to describe why they were upset. As first reported by the Buffalo Bulletin, Casper Star-Tribune and The Advocate before being circulated throughout the internet, Buffalo (Wyo.) High football coach Pat Lynch offered up a questionnaire to his players that offered the following possible reasons for their disappointment, as reported by The Advocate (beware in reading the following paragraph: Some...

An ordinance banning people from openly carrying guns at Casper city meetings received initial approval Tuesday from the City Council. After more than two hours of debate, the council voted 6-3 in favor of the ordinance, which would make it illegal to bring a deadly weapon to any city meeting. Two more votes are required before the ordinance would become law. The council will discuss when to hold the next vote on Monday. Council members who supported the measure said they wanted people to attend city meetings without feeling threatened by others. “I don’t want to see intimidation in public...

The Casper City Council has pulled the trigger on a proposed ordinance prohibiting carrying firearms in local government meetings, setting up a showdown with gun rights advocates. “The proposal we have, is that weapons, open carry weapons, be banned from government meetings,” said Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh to the council at its work session last week, adding later, “This just mirrors what was already set in place in state statute for concealed weapons.” The issue arose after last year’s legislature removed the requirement for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, though still prohibiting concealed guns at governmental meetings...

Even the White House press office isn't immune from making geography gaffes. Per CNN's Mark Walz, the credentials given to members of the press corps traveling with President Obama on his campaign swing out west this week included a map that mistakenly identified Wyoming as Colorado. The two rectangular states do look similar on the map, but it's a pretty embarrassing error, especially considering how important Colorado might be to President Obama's re-election chances next year.

Looks like someone in the White House press office needs to brush up on their U.S. geography. The press office issued credentials to those reporters and photojournalists who are covering the president’s trip this week to Washington state, California, and Colorado. The credential even provides a handy graphic highlighting (in white) which states the president will visit. The only problem? Wyoming is highlighted, not Colorado.

Natural gas development in the U.S. will depend not only on what happens in Washington and in statehouses across the country. It could be shaped in part by what happens in a big antelope-dotted field south of this remote valley town. Here, Shell Oil Co. and others are taking steps – some required and others voluntary – that soon may be the norm for reducing the environmental impact of gas drilling and the extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Shell, for instance, now recycles more than half the water it uses in fracturing local wells, reducing the need for...

Former U.S. senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming) passed away on Wednesday at age 78. The Washington Post obit for him has a quote from one of his Cato appearances: Sen. Wallop was unapologetically conservative as a Republican, a position that sometimes drew ire from members of his own party.“Too many Republicans prefer to be a Democrat Lite,” he said in a speech at the Cato Institute in 1994. “As any beer connoisseur can tell you, Lite is a tasteless, repugnant concoction.” Way before the Tea Party came along, he penned a scathing and wide-ranging critique of the expansive growth of the federal government in...

<p>"...'Colorado has stated...that people at a high risk for infection should not eat whole cantaloupe from the Rocky Ford growing region." The recall covers cantaloupes sold between July 29 and Sept. 10..."</p> <p>"...Eleven illnesses in Colorado, one in Indiana, one in Nebraska, one in Oklahoma and two in Texas are linked to the listeriosis outbreak and contaminated cantaloupes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>

Tea Party Express V national bus tour begins this Saturday in Napa, CA. As I pack my bags and organize my performance music in preparation to embark on my fifth national Tea Party Express tour, I am a bit frustrated by those still clueless about the Tea Party movement; who we are and our propose. Please excuse my frankness. Despite all the Tea Party has done to pull our country back from diving over the cliff to it's death into liberal socialistic hell, incredibly, there are still “Republicans” who think we are “fringe loonies”. If God had not sent the...

I want to thank the Casper Journal for publishing the article by Greg Fladager outlining the Casper City Council’s proposed ban of open carry in their public meetings. I have a few comments regarding the proposed ban. During the City Council’s working meeting Aug. 8, acting Casper Chief of Police Chris Walsh stated that there haven’t been any incidents caused by a citizen legally carrying a sidearm in any city meetings here, but that there might be someday. None of the city council members could remember a time that a concealed or open carry weapon created a problem. The discussion...

...central Wyoming. The targeted area now has about 500 producing gas wells. Encana Oil and Gas, Noble Energy and ConocoPhillips are talking about adding some 4,200 deep gas wells in the remote sagebrush country about 30 miles east of Riverton.

Most agree the $658.4 million in federal funds has made an impact on the state that will be felt for years. But some have doubts about whether it had much impact on jobs here. One Laramie County project serves as a microcosm for some of the advantages and limitations of the spending. The county used $4.6 million in stimulus to help pay for its new 24-bed Juvenile Services Center that is being built east of Cheyenne. But county officials now say they need to delay opening the center when construction is finished because there is not enough money to fund...

CHEYENNE — A traveler driving along Interstate 25 at Cheyenne will come within 1,000 feet of Jessup Elementary School. If that Wyoming driver is carrying a weapon in the vehicle without a concealed weapon permit, he or she is in violation of a little-known federal law. The Federal Gun Free School Zone Act of 1995 makes it a crime to possess a functional firearm on public property, such as sidewalks, roads, highways, parks or fairgrounds within 1,000 feet of the property line of any elementary, middle or high school. The penalty for violations is up to five years in federal...

WHEATLAND -- A Wheatland man shot and killed his three children and his brother, and shot and injured his wife Thursday evening. Platte County law enforcement got the initial call of shots fired at 5:45 p.m. Thursday. Wheatland Police officers and Platte County Sheriff's deputies responded to the 700 block of Oak Street, where they became involved in a brief standoff with Everett Conant III, who was born in 1975. His exact age was not available from police this morning. Conant surrendered without incident and is in custody. At a news conference this morning, Wheatland Police Chief Randy Chesser said...

Platte County Law Enforcement responded to a 911 emergency call of shots being fired in the 700 block of Oak Street in Wheatland at approximately 5:54 pm on Thursday, July 7. The Wheatland Police Department and Platte County Sheriff’s Deputies immediately went to the subject residence. After a brief standoff with officers, the suspect, Everett Conant (DOB 1975), surrendered without incident and is in custody. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation was called to assist in processing the crime scene. Two victims were treated at the Platte County Memorial Hospital. One victim was pronounced dead at the hospital and one...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A law that allows Wyomingites to carry concealed weapons without permits goes into effect today. The new law, strongly supported by gun rights advocates, received the overwhelming endorsement of the Legislature last winter. Wyoming joins Alaska, Arizona and Vermont in allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns without undergoing background checks or firearms training. During the second of two seminars on the new law sponsored by the Cheyenne Police Department on Wednesday, the instructor, officer Jay Remers, told the group that it still is beneficial to get a concealed-weapons permit. The firearms training is valuable for gun owners...

Wyoming will soon become the fourth state in the nation to allow residents to carry a concealed firearm without a license or permit. A law effective Friday, July 1, will authorize permitted Wyoming residents 21 years of age or older to carry a firearm without obtaining a permit or taking a handgun safety course. This “constitutional carry” bill was one of the most controversial ideas the Wyoming State Legislature discussed during its session earlier this year. Gov. Matt Mead signed the bill in March, deeming it “appropriate” for Wyoming, after many Senate floor debates regarding state gun control and the...

Well, sporties, are you ready for 4,200 to 7,300 wolves in the Northern Rockies? Back in April, you’ll remember that Congress stuffed a “bipartisan” rider (Section 1713) into the 2011 Appropriations omnibus (Public Law 112-10). This rider supposedly de-listed Rocky Mountain gray wolves outside Wyoming, by reinstating the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) so called “2009 Rule,” shot down by federal judge Donald W. Molloy last August. Section 1713 went into effect May 5. The same day, two lawsuits were filed before Molloy by Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR)/Wild Earth Guardians (WIGs) and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)....

MISSOULA- The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation filed a note it plans to appeal any decision that adversely affects a state's right to manage fully recovered wolf populations. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is expected to decide whether Congress acted within Constitutional bounds when it delisted wolves in parts of the West. "We are protecting our right to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals any decision that results in another setback for conservation and science-based wildlife management," said RMEF President and CEO David Allen. An unfavorable ruling may stop wolf hunts planned for this fall in both Montana...

This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. It updates, expands, and improves upon our inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study. For this new edition, we have added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states based on our data and a survey...

A major furniture rental chain has software on its computers that lets it track the keystrokes, screenshots and even webcam images of customers while they use the devices at home, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Wyoming couple who said they learned about the PC Rental Agent "device and/or software" inside the computer they rented last year when an Aaron's Inc. store manager in Casper came to their home on Dec. 22.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) may be in the sights of Tea Party activists ahead of 2012, but the Utah Republican has given help to two of his Senate colleagues who face conservative primary challengers themselves. Hatch's political action committee — OrrinPAC — donated to both Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) during the first quarter of the year, according to the PAC's March filing with the Federal Election Commission. Both Republicans are Tea Party targets in 2012. Hatch's PAC donated $1,000 each to Lugar and Snowe in February. Asked about the donations, Hatch campaign manager Dave Hansen said...

A proposed drilling project could more than double the number of gas wells sunk to date in western Wyoming’s biggest gas fields. Encana Oil & Gas, USA, proposes to drill as many as 3,500 gas wells on 220 square miles of previously undrilled land in the Upper Green River Basin.

GILLETTE, Wyo. — Many economic signs are looking bright for Wyoming right now, and this red-knuckled city of coal miners and oil field mechanics is leading the charge. “Things are picking up,” said Cody Chase, 24, who had just finished an overtime shift at a coal mine north of here and was having a 7 a.m. burrito and beer at a downtown breakfast joint. Hours at the mine are up, said Mr. Chase, who makes $26 an hour after less than a year on the job, and new workers have started coming on. It is the sort of talk that...

Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days. It marks the first time Congress has taken a species off the endangered list. Idaho and Montana plan public wolf hunts this fall. Hunts last year were canceled after a judge ruled the predators remained at risk.

the wolf soap opera and U.S. District of Montana Judge Donald W. Molloy’s pending ruling – which is STILL pending – circumstances in the high-stakes Endangered Species Act (ESA) political mix have gotten even nuttier. ... USFWS gave away the store in return: In parts 2 and 3, USFWS agreed to withdraw and resubmit for “public review” within 60 days the so-called “M-opinion” that interprets ESA’s statutory (and fuzzy) “significant portion of range” language. This interpretation is critically used to determine whether a species is to be listed as threatened, endangered – or not at all. Now, aren’t you just...

From www.unews.utah.edu via Eurekalert Electric YellowstoneConductivity image hints volcano plume is bigger than thoughtThis image, based on variations in electrical conductivity of underground rock, shows the volcanic plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. Yellow and red indicate higher conductivity, green and blue indicate lower conductivity. Made by University of Utah geophysicists and computer scientists, this is the first large-scale "geoelectric" image of the Yellowstone hotspot. Credit: University of Utah. SALT LAKE CITY, April 11, 2011 – University of Utah geophysicists made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot...