The Wyoming left is apoplectic about the possibility of their vote buying machine going away. For years, the Wyoming Business Council has funneled millions of your dollars to dubious projects--often losing millions. In one case, they lost $20M on a berry farm. In another, they gave $2M to a cosmetics company that already sold their products at Sephora.

Now, Albert Sommers and Gail Symons are claiming the reason we have to keep the WBC is for community infrastructure. The problem with that argument is we already have another office that handles that.

Appropriations Chairman Rep John Bear, also known as Lex Luthor, joined me for the entire 2 hour live program on Friday. Anything you want to know about the hot-button budget issues, we probably talked about it.

Gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien called in to talk with Rep Bear. He was conspicuously absent from a Wyofile article about all those running for governor.

This is a great, really long form interview with the guy crafting the finances for the next two years. It's well worth a listen!

There are a lot of problems at the University of Wyoming; not the least of which is how they've been hiding really destructive courses from the legislature. After publishing the most recent episode on it, I got what I thought was a random social media message.

Turns out, it was from a member of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. Dr. Jenna Robinson is the president of that organization. She joined me on the show to talk about what can be done to fix a lot of these programs and the center she leads.

I spoke with Rep Hageman right before she was to cross examine Jack Smith. We had time to walk through her decision to run for the U.S. Senate and discuss some of the bigger issues happening right now.

In previous interviews Harriet has called herself a "free speech absolutist." So, I wanted to ask her about the the Trump Administration's FCC's decision to 'go after' talk shows that favor liberal guests. To me, that smacks of the fairness doctrine and 'net neutrality' that conservatives have been fighting against for decades. Why are we the ones suggesting it now?

At length, we discussed some of the issues she planned on asking Jack Smith about. At the end of the program, you'll find out what happened to him when he sat across from our Representative.

Earlier this week, J.D. Wasserberger of Lusk, WY distributed a deceptively edited video of Rep Ken Pendergraft. It purports to show the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Ken said in committee. This is the type of politics that most of us really despise--the politics of personal destruction.

Using my sources, I tracked down Mr Wasserberger and called him. He claimed that it was he who was sent the video and he only forwarded it on. Whether he made the video or not, it is clear from the phone conversation that he knew it was taken out of context. When asked about it, he said, "That's just politics."

Not exactly, it's the WORST kind of politics.

Governor Gordon claims that the Appropriations Committee took a chainsaw to the budget with no rhyme or reason. The Cow Pie's headline claimed the JAC "defunded" WYPBS. But, neither of those things are true. To cut through the media's bullcrap, I talked with Reps Pendergraft and Haroldson--both of whom are on the legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee. Shocker, there's a big difference between what the media is telling you and what really happened.

Don't worry if you don't know what Eco-feminism is, just understand that you are paying for it at UW. The Appropriations Committee called UW for one more discussion on January 9 to discuss some of the course offerings at the school: among those, Eco-feminism, global climate governance and environmental justice.

When asked to explain them, President Ed Seidel basically said the programs aren't offered any more but that he believes they are in the best interests of the State.

Also, a BIG Announcement about The Open Range Record.

The 1,000th EPISODE of Cowboy State Politics! Megan Degenfelder sat down with me earlier this week to discuss her recent gubernatorial announcement.

It's a wide ranging discussion in which I, once again, did the job the mainstream Wyoming press won't do. I asked her the hard questions: everything from windmills, to her time in China and why Wyoming school test scores are mediocre. Nothing was off the table in this very candid interview.