They shouldered their way into Wyoming politics a few years ago, proclaiming a gnarly populist gospel of “grassroots” change as preached by a national organization from back east. They gained control of the Wyoming House while we weren’t paying attention.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ two years in power have exposed their fumbling ineptitude, their disconnect with the values of Wyoming citizens, and their continuing lust for power. Their performance has doomed their movement and, after 8/18/26, they will be nothing more than a minor footnote to Wyoming’s political history.
When they gained a majority in the Wyoming House in 2024, the Freedom Caucus took control of the legislative committees that map out the future of our state. They proceeded to introduce a legislative agenda intended to transform the Cowboy State into the Biggest Booger Farm in the World.
Had they succeeded, the “Welcome to Wyoming” signs that greet visitors at our borders would have been replaced with rusted cars on cinder blocks and bathtubs full of empty beer cans.
The Freedom Caucus frittered away the first season of interim committee work crafting legislation addressing the pressing problems of UFOs and chemtrails (henceforth, they shall be known as the Chemtrail Caucus) and boneheaded ideas to sell our state land for a dollar an acre to latter day homesteaders.
They had a plan to “Nickel and Dime” our small, remote communities into subservience to central control in Cheyenne. Rep. John Bear, a Chemtrail Caucus poster boy, even said that he wouldn’t be heartbroken if small towns in the Big Empty simply dried up and blew away.
From banning books to keeping women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, the Chemtrail Caucus’ vision for us resembled nothing so much as the Sharia Law of the West. They even tried to cut 40 million dollars from the University of Wyoming, home of the Cowboys, simply because they didn’t appreciate the rigorous intellectual inquiry that occurs at a major institution of higher learning.
But wait, there’s more! The Chemtrail Caucus even managed to have campaign checks hand delivered to themselves on the floor of the Wyoming house by Rebecca Bextel on behalf of a rich donor from Teton County in the “Checkgate Scandal”. There is an ongoing criminal investigation into that hilarious debacle.
How’s that for Wyoming Values?
When their legislative agenda was thwarted by the Wyoming Senate or the courts, the Chemtrail Caucus whined like a gutshot goose, and called their opponents RINOs or “leftist activist judges”, and now they are trying to take control of both. They go so far as to say that the Wyoming Supreme Court should be reduced to three black robes instead of five, so the court can be more easily manipulated..
The current gang-warfare style of our politics, whereby we are told to think of ourselves less as Republican and Democrat neighbors and more as the Crips and Bloods fighting over turf, is about the only tangible Chemtrail Caucus gift to Wyoming. And, if I am reading the political tea leaves correctly, I think the good people of Wyoming are getting sick and tired of Chemtrail Caucus bullshit.
Good, solid Wyoming citizens are rising up to run against Caucus incumbents this election season. The real grassroots of Wyoming seems to be pushing back against the herbicide that the Chemtrail Caucus is spraying on us. Folks are seeing through the smokescreen
The Chemtrail Caucus Ministry of Propaganda, that handful of shrill media outlets, isn’t matching its noise level with numbers. The flagship of this media “empire”, funded largely by Rebecca Bextel of “Checkgate” infamy, boasts of a whopping 250 subscribers. Cowboy State Daily, which you are reading now, has over 110,000 subscribers.
The right wing media in Wyoming defines “echo chamber.” They represent a paper-thin slice of our state - the same angry voices, bouncing the same goofball rhetoric off the same narrow little walls. Nobody is paying them much attention.
In the competition for Wyoming’s eyes and ears, the Caucus is sucking hind tit
For these and many other reasons, I think this will be a tough year for the Chemtrail Caucus. I’m comfortable enough in my analysis to have serious money out on the street, betting on the outcome of the nest election. And I’m always willing to make more wagers with new suckers.
So vote your conscience on 8/18/26, and peel an eye for my column column on 8/21/26, where I’ll either eat crow or gloat in front of 110,000 people.
