Jackson Hole Underground

When the filing period for the 2008 election closed last month, I was surprised to find no one challenging Mayor Mark Barron.

Fawning profiles in the local media nonwithstanding, there has been a lot of grumbling about Barron on barstools and coffee counters, owing mostly to the new parking garage and the rapidly changing face of downtown.

Another lawmaker ripe for a challenge is state Rep. Keith Gingery, a Republican who owes his election in 2004 to GOP gerrymandering. Gingery has rankled his constituency in Jackson by sponsoring abortion bills and his flip-flop on a secrecy bill that made correspondence between lawmakers and lobbyists off-limits to the public.

I wasn’t surprised to find him running unopposed because the Wyoming Legislature is an unpaid job that requires a lot of travel around the state and spending several weeks in Cheyenne each winter.

Should either of these pols be coasting to another term?

We who feel the issues merit more rigorous debate than a fill-in-the-blanks questionnaire from the local papers have another option: a write-in campaign.

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Some of the highlights from the 2008 Wyoming Democratic Convention:

• Willie Neal is going to Denver.
• Obama picked up two more delegates. Overall tally for Wyoming at this point: Obama 12, Hillary 5, Undecided 1.
• We persuaded Wyoming Democrats to unanimously endorse Wild and Scenic designation for the Snake River headwaters.
• Gary Trauner is a rock star.
• Gov Dave came out swinging.
• Brian Schweitzer wowed ‘em.

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“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
— Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002

Someone finally has done the math.

A nonpartisan research group has documented 935 false statements made by the Bush-Cheney administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Dick Cheney told only 48 of those lies, compared to 260 by President Bush, 244 by Colin Powell and 109 by Donald Rumsfeld.

The report was compiled by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit organization of independent investigative journalists dedicated to ethics in government.

Most importantly, the study found that Bush and seven of his top officials “waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation” about the threat posed by Iraq.

Join U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) in calling for impeachment hearings.

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In local GOP news, state Rep. Keith Gingery has renewed his efforts to saddle more young people with a criminal record.

Gingery, a Republican from Jackson, has introduced a bill for the third time that would give police more leeway in citing minors for possessing or consuming alcohol.

Gingery’s bill would make it a crime for a minor to attempt to purchase alcohol, to solicit others to purchase alcohol, to possess alcohol or to have consumed alcohol, even on private property.

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State Sen. Grant Larson, R-Jackson, killed a bill that would have stated Wyoming’s opposition to a national ID card.

Larson appears to have followed the direction of U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., who co-sponsored the Real ID Act and pressured Wyoming lawmakers not to oppose it.

The Wyoming House overwhelmingly approved a joint resolution calling for repeal of Cubin’s legislation, but Larson made sure it did not move past the Senate committee he chairs, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.

The resolution stated that the Real ID Act will “enable the crime of identity theft by making the personal information of all Americans, including date of birth and signature, accessible from tens of thousands of locations.”

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A Game and Fish officer counts the ungulates. Photo by Mark Gocke

Apparently, elk are getting along just fine despite the presence of wolves in northwest Wyoming. Wildlife managers recently counted 11,790 elk in the Jackson herd, 60 fewer than last year. In addition, the ratio of 25 calves per 100 cows is just about on par with the historical average.

The Jackson herd is Wyoming’s largest and lives in close proximity to a multitude of wolf packs in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the Teton and Gros Ventre wilderness areas.

Will these latest scientific figures stop state lawmakers and the governor from claiming that wolves are “savaging” wildlife? Probably not. But at least we know claims that the National Elk Refuge has been starving elk are pure fiction.

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