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[{"type":"text","text":"Drag racing gone wrong, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman....."}]

Inman 10 21 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Steve Inman: Tuesday, October 21, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Drag racing gone wrong, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

Steve Inman: Tuesday, October 21, 2025

 Drag racing gone wrong, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily political columnist, Rod Miller.

Rod Miller

Opinion

CSD Columnists

Alexis de Toqueville, a French observer during the formative years of our republic, called us “The great experiment in democracy.” 

He saw that our Founders didn’t create a stagnant system, but rather a dynamic nation that is always growing and changing as we try new ideas. 

Picking up on de Toqueville’s metaphor, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called America a “great laboratory” in which different experiments in self-government are tested, to see what succeeds and what doesn’t. 

Seen in that light, we are a nation of experimenters driven by a curiosity to find out what works best for us, and our history is record of the results of those experiments.

And I think it was Sigmund Freud, I’ll paraphrase, who offered the sage political advice that the definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment over and over, expecting a different result. 

While we’re on the subject of political experiments, imagine that we’re back in chemistry class and a mad scientist, dressed in a red blazer instead of a lab coat, is lecturing the class. 

He says, “Class, today we’re gonna do the Freedom Caucus experiment.”

He looks at his phone for instructions, then grabs a Wyoming-shaped test tube and starts tossing in ingredients from weird little vials and bottles. 

The mad scientist in the red coat tells us, “For this experiment, we’ll need a mixture of caustic populism, fake grassroots, some tincture of fear-mongering and a big dose of centralized control mixed with faux religious zeal. 

Then we’ll add some forced patriotism, political opportunism, and stir in some scorn for small communities and a whole bottle of distilled self-righteousness. 

To give it bite, we’ll add some acidic divisiveness, concentrated hubris and a dash of tribalism.

The rest of the ingredients are secret and available only from national Freedom Caucus bigwigs in Washington, D.C., and I’m sworn never to reveal what they are. Now, let’s see what happens when we heat if up!”

The redcoated mad scientist reads his texted instructions, stirs the mixture and cooks it over a bunsen burner. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The concoction begins to bubble and fizz. "}]

Finally it blows up with a loud plop, like an exploding skunk, and the lab is filled with a miasma of sulfurous yellow smoke that burns the eyes and smells like brimstone and buzzard puke.

The lab walls are dripping with a toxic goo that will take years to clean up. 

The mad scientist stands in front of the class, all his hair singed off and a look of shocked surprise coupled with glee on his bald face.

Evidence of the failed experiment litters the lab floor, still fizzing and bubbling – a scorched campaign check from the Checkgate scandal here, a pool of chemtrail paranoia there. 

Under the desk is a smoldering pile of UFO panic, still wearing a crumpled tinfoil Stetson. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Smoke rises from a proposal to sell state land for a dollar an acre."}]

The ashes of of the hopes of schools, small towns and counties coat the windowsills. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Books are blasted off the library shelves. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Shards of shattered civil liberties are scattered hither and yon. "}]

The carcass of a dead legislative agenda twitches in a dark corner of the lab. 

Election certificates of Freedom Caucus legislators are smeared with hilarious DUI bodycam videos, concealed felony convictions in Colorado and political flip-flops worthy of a contortionist in a snake oil show. 

The right-wing "media outlets" that serve as the pep squads for the Freedom Caucus carry the stench of the failed experiment, and their microscopic audience shrinks with every new scandal. 

Windows and doors are thrown open to air out the lab. Just then the bell rings, announcing a new election, and we want nothing more than to go home and shower off the residue of this experiment gone hideously awry. 

But before we can step carefully across the slippery floor toward the door, the mad scientist in the red blazer whines, “Hey, the people voted for this! Who wants to try this same experiment again on 8/18/26? Maybe we’ll get a different result.”

Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com

Rod miller headshot scaled

<title>Rod Miller: The Wyoming Freedom Caucus – Our Failed Experiment | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Rod Miller writes, "Imagine that we’re back in chemistry class and a mad scientist, dressed in a red blazer instead of a lab coat, is lecturing the class. He says, 'Class, today we’re gonna do the Freedom Caucus experiment.'"

Rod Miller: The Wyoming Freedom Caucus – Our Failed Experiment

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

to loosen Wyoming’s restrictions on selling raw milk and certain other home-grown foods, state lawmakers advanced a “Band-Aid” measure this week.

The proposed law change is not perfect, Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, conceded during a meeting of the Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee, which he co-chairs.

“We are trying to put a Band-Aid on something right now,” said Ide. “But I think the Band-Aid’s probably good … and we maybe can amend it in committee before it goes to the floor.”

The bill seeks to give the director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture the discretion to give one exemption each, for home food sellers wanting to sell products outside the designated food-freedom sale sites already in law.  

It’s an answer to outcry over the stop-sale order the Hippy Cow Creamery in Cody

 for selling raw-milk lattes out of a shop a few feet from the owners’ home kitchen.

It’s also a stopgap meant to prop up a complicated law that needs much more detailed rewriting, multiple lawmakers and advocates said in the Tuesday meeting.

Wyoming Department of Agriculture Director Doug Miamoto indicated the stopgap emerged from concern about rolling the state’s food freedom law back too much.

He said it’s hard “to figure out how you would craft that wording so that you don’t create a dumping ground out of the state of Wyoming for corporate food manufacturers that could make a claim that, you know, (their wares are) homemade food.”

Miamoto said discretion may give the department the ability to identify true local producers and their intentions for exemptions that pose “no health and safety risk.”

“I’m under no illusion we’re going to fix this overnight,” said Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, who brought the bill to the committee after leading a working group on the topic. “I’d like to get this bill passed, and help Hippy Cow Creamery, and anyone else that needs an exemption like that.”

But Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, worried aloud that the bill might not help Hippy Cow. 

The shop didn’t just run into trouble for selling raw-milk lattes outside the owners’ home, but also for selling coffee without a commercial license.

[{"type":"text","text":"So Give Coffee Away"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Miamoto hinted at a workaround."}]

“We have muffler shops all over the state that give away coffee,” he said. “You could do that.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Rep. Bob Davis, R-Baggs, pressed for clarification."}]

“So he (the shop owner) essentially is giving away the coffee, and then selling the raw milk?” asked Davis.

“That’s correct,” said Miamoto. “If he wanted to operate without a license we couldn’t allow him to sell the coffee itself because that requires a license.”

[{"type":"text","text":"That would leave only the location problem to exempt, indicated Miamoto."}]

Crago said he wants to help people toward food freedom, but he also voiced uncertainty toward workarounds and potential vague points in the bill.

“Let’s not make promises that are hollow,” he said. “Let’s actually get to the bottom of this and start digging into the statute itself, and figure out what we want to regulate and what we don’t.”

Crago ultimately voted for the bill, saying he was still hoping for a longer-term fix.

The committee adopted it 12-2, meaning it could go into the January 2027 lawmaking session with an edge. If it passes, the bill would not become effective until July of next year.

Davis and Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, voted against it, both saying the policy change would offload the Legislature’s responsibility to make laws onto an executive-branch department head.

“I support the effort of what we’re trying to do,” said Provenza. “But there’s intent, and there’s impact.”

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<title>Food Freedom: Legislators Advance ‘Band-Aid’ For Shutdown Of Cody Creamery | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming legislators have advanced a “Band-Aid” solution to food freedom laws that led to shutting down Hippie Cow Creamery in Cody over selling raw milk lattes. “I’m under no illusion we’re going to fix this overnight,” said one lawmaker.

Food Freedom: Legislators Advance ‘Band-Aid’ For Shutdown Of Cody Creamery

Kerry Drake

Crime & Courts

A Colorado man has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of a 22-year-old passenger flung from his car after he crashed while trying to elude police at more than 100 mph on Clear Creek Parkway near Cheyenne. 

Both Colorado resident James K. Moore and another passenger from South Carolina were hospitalized. Christian Dawsey, 22, also from Colorado, was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene, the Wyoming Highway Patrol reports.

In addition to aggravated vehicular homicide, which can carry up to a 20-year sentence, Moore was charged in Laramie County Circuit Court on Thursday with aggravated assault, property destruction and defacement, reckless driving and attempting to elude police.

WHP Trooper Brandon Todd initially noticed that Moore, 26, did not have functioning taillights as he drove near Exit 7 

 in Cheyenne just after 11 p.m. July 23. In an affidavit, Todd wrote that the car appeared to be pulling over after the trooper activated his emergency lights while leaving the median.

The incident escalated quickly when Moore’s white Hyundai IONIQ 5 instead exited at West College Drive and Clear Creek Parkway, then quickly accelerated to flee southbound. Todd wrote that the vehicle was traveling more than 100 mph in a 45 mph zone, and he eventually saw Moore's car crash.

Moore failed to navigate a sharp left turn and continued straight, exiting the roadway and becoming airborne, Todd wrote.

"I saw what looked like a small explosion from the vehicle," the affidavit says, adding that he found the wreckage in the parking lot of Simon, a business at 6215 Clear Creek Parkway.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Thrown From Car"}]

He approached and found Moore “unconscious and unresponsive." A passenger later identified as the man from South Carolina was semi-conscious and had severe bruising on the right side of his face, Todd wrote.

"I ran through the parking lot and made my way to the vehicle, where I made contact with the driver, who was unconscious and unresponsive," the affidavit says, adding that he was identified as Moore from his Colorado driver's license.

 twice told Todd that he and Moore were the only two people in the car, while “Moore began itching his nose and would not respond to verbal stimuli,” according to the affidavit.

It was when he was walking back to his patrol car that Todd says he found Dawsey's body, and it was apparent he had been killed.

"I began walking back to my patrol car through the debris field and the path the vehicle took as it crashed through the parking lot," Todd's affidavit says. "I located the third occupant of the vehicle, who was laying on his stomach, face down, and had sustained injuries in the crash that were not compatible with life."

Todd said he identified a strong odor of a flavored alcoholic beverage while he attempted to talk to Moore and the other passenger, and later found a small red-and-clear alcoholic beverage in the driver’s side door cup holder.

Todd wrote that he found empty beer cans and smaller alcoholic containers called “shooters” as he walked through the debris field.

Both Moore and the South Carolina man were extricated from the vehicle at the scene by emergency medical responders. A blood sample was taken from Moore and he was read Wyoming’s Implied Consent Advisement.

Moore was flown to Colorado via LifeFlight for further care. The surviving passenger was transported by ground ambulance to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.

Dawsey died at the scene, Todd wrote, adding that he was not wearing a seat belt. 

During the investigation, Todd said Dawsey’s grandparents notified the WHP dispatch that they had received a crash notification from his phone. 

While completing his inventory of the crash scene, Todd opened a backpack that contained a urine test and a sex toy.

On Monday, Todd noted that he had discovered from the Larimer County (Colorado) Probation Office that Moore was on probation for felony menacing with a real or simulated weapon and he was not allowed to come into Wyoming.

He also wrote that people on probation sometimes use fake urine for required drug testing.

High Speed crash WHP 7 30 26

<title>Colorado Man Charged In Death Of Passenger Thrown From His Car At 100 MPH | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Colorado man is charged in the death of a man flung from his car when it crashed in a Cheyenne parking lot while running from troopers at 100 mph. The passenger “sustained injuries in the crash that were not compatible with life,” a trooper reports.

Colorado Man Charged In Death Of Passenger Thrown From His Car At 100 MPH

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Business & Tourism

Dozens of horses might have been exposed to a highly contagious disease recently at the Park County Fair in Powell.

On Tuesday, Smallwood Horses announced it was placing its Powell facility under a voluntary two-week quarantine after one of its horses presented symptoms of an infection of the bacterium Streptococcus equi, also known as Strangles.

“This horse presented no symptoms before, during, or immediately after (the) fair,” Ashley Smallwood said 

. “Veterinarians contacted about possible exposure suggest that the horses attending the fair be monitored for symptoms.”

Britt Whitt of Whitt Veterinary Services in Powell released a statement saying strangles is “a highly infectious disease” with “high morbidity and low mortality.”

“In the case of an outbreak, many animals that are exposed will develop the disease, but very few will die from the disease,” Whitt said.

Whitt was not available for additional information at the time of publication. Smallwood told Cowboy State Daily she would “absolutely not” discuss the exposure and quarantine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"How Serious Is Strangles?"}]

Erin Brus is a Certified Equine Massage Therapist (CEMT), veterinary technician, and horse owner working in Park County. She had strong feelings about the strangles exposure at the Park County Fair.

“On a personal level, there are a lot of words I cannot use,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “On a professional level, I’m severely disappointed.”

Brus explained that strangles affects horses like a combination of “pneumonia and a really bad head cold.” Symptoms include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes, nasal discharge, lethargy, and loss of appetite.

What concerns Brus and other horse owners is how easily strangles can spread.

“It is, by far, one of the most contagious sicknesses there is,” she said. “It’s as easy as sharing a water or feed bucket with a friend, and owners can transfer it off their boots, jeans, shirts, and hands.”

Brus said she’s constantly disinfecting her equipment and herself to prevent spreading any infections to the horses she owns and works with.

“I’m a paranoid horse owner that when I heard about this, I immediately texted the vet I work with to see if I needed to do anything,” she said.

Around 75% of horses infected with strangles come out of it within two weeks and develop an immunity within three to six weeks, according to Brus. The infection can be fatal, but usually only for foals or immunocompromised adults.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where’s The Outrage?"}]

Brus has been following the spread of strangles this summer. According to the data she’s reviewed, via 

, the impact has stretched across Wyoming.

“We have 12 confirmed cases in Wyoming across seven different counties this summer,” she said.

 said that strangles cases had been confirmed in Albany, Campbell, Carbon, Converse, Park, Sweetwater, and Weston counties.

In her statement, Smallwood said, “We can all use this as a learning experience about biosecurity when traveling,” and that “when we do take our horses places, they can be exposed to disease without knowing.”

Brus took some exception to that, calling out “the horse community as a whole" for not testing their horses before taking them to fairs, rodeos, and other events throughout the country.

“If you are taking your horse anywhere 

 the fair, across state lines, to a sale 

 you need to be doing a full panel for everything,” she said. “You need to see if your horse has any diseases, sicknesses, or issues before you do anything.”

Brus said she believes the Park County Fairgrounds and other Wyoming venues with horse-related events should implement mandatory bacterial cultures, blood tests, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests before any horses are allowed on the grounds.

If the horse comes back clean, off to the fair. If it doesn’t, the horse can be quarantined at home without the risk of infecting other horses at a high-density event like a fair or rodeo.

“It's the wisest decision, especially in (Park County),” she said. “You have rodeo people coming in and out all summer. It’s 90 days of people in and out consistently. If you’re going anywhere with your horses, more people need to do it.”

, an outbreak of equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) and EHV-4 was reported in four states. If infected animals aren’t treated, the respiratory illnesses can progress into equine herpes myeloencephalopathy, a serious neurological condition with a 75% mortality rate.

The source of the outbreak was a horse at the World Championship Barrel Racing Finals in Waco, Texas. Around 1,000 horses attended the event.

Like strangles, EHV-1 and EHV-4 can be spread by horse-to-horse contact as well as via shared buckets and people's clothes and equipment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Better Safe Than Sorry"}]

Of all the thoughts and emotions Brus had when she heard about the strangles exposure at the Park County Fair, she wasn’t surprised.

“Professionally, I am disappointed in the horse community as a whole,” she said. “Getting horses tested needs to be at the forefront of their minds, and many aren’t doing it.”

Brus doesn’t see the strangles situation at the Park County Fair as an unfortunate accident. Even if the infected horse wasn’t showing symptoms, it clearly had been exposed to strangles at some point.

“The best way to beat this thing is when it hasn’t fully developed in their system,” she said. “If you share a water bucket with a friend, now both your horses have strangles because one of them was a carrier without symptoms. Even if you’re taking your horse to visit a friend’s house, you don’t know if they’ve gotten their horse tested.”

In Brus’ opinion, the lesson from the Park County Fair incident is the consequences of irresponsibility.

If someone’s horse is going to mingle with other horses from around the state, it should have a clean bill of health, even when it isn’t showing symptoms. Brus said that isn’t happening, which is how strangles and other equine diseases spread so far and quickly.

“If you’re smart, you’ll get ahead of it,” she said. “PCRS don’t cost that much. Microbial cultures are two-day, low-cost. When you get your horse tested, it clears everything up.

Brus also shared her concern about upcoming fairs. Several are already underway, and the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas starts Aug. 11.

Could a horse exposed to strangles at the Park County Fair show up and spread the infection at other fairs? Brus said there’s a good chance it could happen, and might already be underway.

“From what I've heard, they're keeping it under wraps because they don't want to panic the community,” she said. “Fairs are a huge thing right now, and with a Park County outbreak, we don't know what state fairs are even going to look like.”

Prevention is the best way to protect horses from strangles, she said. That’s why Brus wishes, and hopes, more horse owners will start regularly testing their horses before taking them anywhere.

“It’s like going to a walk-in clinic for a cold and getting antibiotics early,” she said. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Park county fair horse 7 30 26

<title>Worry That Dozens Of Horses Exposed To Highly Infectious Strangles At Park County Fair | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dozens of horses might have been exposed to strangles, a highly contagious equine disease, at the Park County Fair in Powell. Smallwood Horses announced Tuesday it placed its facility under a two-week quarantine after a horse presented symptoms.

Worry That Dozens Of Horses Exposed To Highly Infectious Strangles At Park County Fair

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Agriculture

A sweeping class-action lawsuit accusing the nation's four largest meatpackers of conspiring to manipulate cattle and beef prices is moving forward after a federal judge in Minnesota certified several classes of plaintiffs earlier this month.

The lawsuit alleges that JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and National Beef coordinated to restrict beef supplies and inflate prices between June 2015 and February 2020, harming ranchers who sold cattle while forcing wholesalers, grocers, consumers, restaurants and caterers to pay more for beef.

Together, the four companies control more than 80% of the U.S-fed cattle processing market, giving them wide influence over cattle prices and the nation's beef supply.

[{"type":"text","text":"U.S. District Judge John Tunheim issued his ruling July 16."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From The Big 12 To The Big Four"}]

For Wyoming ranchers who have watched consolidation reshape the industry over decades, the lawsuit is about far more than the five-year period covered in the complaint.

"The packers have controlled the destiny of beef for decades upon decades," Crook County rancher Tyler Lindholm told Cowboy State Daily. "It's getting to the point where people are starting to push back."

State Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, said the current market is the product of decades of declining competition.

"Our federal government has allowed our federal packing industry to go from the big 12 to the big 10 to now the big four," Driskill said.

With a dozen major packers competing, coordinating prices would have been far more difficult, he said. Today, with only four dominant players, ranchers are left with few options for selling cattle.

"It really is high time for the government to step in and say we have to get a process that treats everybody fairly," Driskill said. "We're not asking for an upper hand. We're looking for everyone to be treated fairly."

Driskill blamed what he called a "very, very failed federal bureaucracy" for allowing market concentration to reach its current level.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Every Rancher Is Convinced"}]

Not everyone in Wyoming's cattle industry believes the allegations will hold up.

Laramie County rancher Mark Eisele said he remains skeptical that the major packers have engaged in coordinated misconduct.

"I'm not sure how I feel about this lawsuit," Eisele told Cowboy State Daily. "I would like to see what comes from this."

After decades in the cattle business, Eisele said he has never seen evidence of retaliation or deliberate manipulation by the major packers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Court filings paint a different picture."}]

According to the plaintiffs, economic modeling shows ranchers were underpaid by nearly 7% during the period covered by the lawsuit because the packers coordinated slaughter schedules and managed beef inventories to suppress cattle prices while increasing wholesale beef prices.

Lindholm said he believes market behavior itself supports those allegations.

He pointed to the Trump administration's approval of roughly 2 million additional pounds of beef imports from Argentina, saying a significant increase in imported beef should have softened domestic prices if the market were functioning normally.

"By all expectations, having an insane amount of beef imported from a country should have moved the beef prices here. It did not," Lindholm said. "Some might call that a conspiracy. But the proof is there. You can see it in the market."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Harm Than Good?"}]

Eisele, however, questioned whether repeated class-action lawsuits are driven more by financial incentives than by wrongdoing.

If plaintiffs prevail, attorneys could receive more than one-third of any award, he noted.

[{"type":"text","text":"Activists often follow the same pattern of suing and settling, he said."}]

He suggested that previous settlements, including one involving JBS, reflected business decisions rather than admissions of wrongdoing.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It was a pressure point,\" he said."}]

Meanwhile, Eisele worries the industry faces another challenge altogether: shrinking cattle supplies.

Some large packing plants are already slowing production or closing facilities because there simply aren't enough cattle moving through the system, he said.

"Cattle producers need to be real careful of what they wish for," Eisele said.

If additional plants close, ranchers could find themselves with even fewer places to process cattle.

"We're starting to paint ourselves into a dangerous corner on this," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Difficult Case To Win"}]

Even if the allegations are justified, Driskill said he believes proving them in court will be difficult.

"They have deep pockets," he said of the meatpackers. "They're going to have the better lawyers."

Price-fixing cases are notoriously difficult because plaintiffs must show competitors acted together rather than making similar business decisions independently.

Regardless of the lawsuit's outcome, Driskill said Congress should revisit the Packers and Stockyards Act to strengthen protections for independent producers and smaller regional packing plants.

A federal judge has OK'd a class-action price-fixing lawsuit against the nation’s four largest meatpackers. "The packers have controlled the destiny of beef for decades," Crook County rancher Tyler Lindholm said. "People are starting to push back."

Steve Inman: Tuesday, October 21, 2025

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