Free Republic

Three months after the fact, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office has released the final tally of costs associated with President Barack Obama's 36-hour August visit to Gallatin County. The total: $91,747.52 for 2,003 man hours, Sheriff Jim Cashell said. The tally includes costs incurred by several law-enforcement and emergency-services agencies, including the sheriff’s office, Belgrade/Central Valley Fire District and the Bozeman Police Department, according to county documents released Thursday. The sheriff’s costs topped the list at $38,278 for 1,165 man-hours, according to the report. The bulk of that -- $32,120 -- was overtime pay. The remaining $6,000 went to food,...

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) -- A Montana police officer who wrote on his Facebook page that there should be a law allowing police to take people to jail for being "stupid" has resigned.

Bozeman police officer resigns over Facebook comments Reporting from Z7 in Bozeman A Bozeman police officer embroiled in controversy over comments he posted on his Facebook page has resigned. Cody Anderson turned in his resignation Wednesday, Bozeman City Manager Chris Kukulski said at Thursday's weekly city press conference. The resignation went into effect Wednesday. Anderson resigned because he thought it was in the best interest of the police department in light of the controversial comments he posted on this Facebook page, Kukulski said, adding that he agreed with Anderson's decision. Anderson's decision to resign was his alone and he was...

This is a real letter a very good friend of mine got from a friend of hers who attended the Town Hall in Montana. Neither wanted to have their names on the internet and I am respecting that. Given what this former Obama supporter(yea really, and she was pretty hard core over the moon for Obama as well) I take her account even more seriously. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hello All, By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since XXXXX and...

The White House booked 400 (FOUR HUNDRED) hotel rooms at the Big Sky Resort for Barack Obama's overnight visit last week for a town hall meeting in nearby Bozeman, Montana. Two floors were completely taken over, including the penthouse suites.While the national news media is ignoring the story, local media let the news slip in their gushing stories of how thrilling it was to have Obama in their midst.The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported on Tuesday on Obama's visit, quoting Big Sky Resort spokesman Dax Schieffer:The First Family stayed in one of the eight penthouses on the tenth floor of Big...

There is no guarantee that President Barack Obama will be able to avoid critics of his healthcare proposal when he hosts a town hall meeting in Belgrade, Mont., on Friday. Local officials in Belgrade and neighboring Bozeman personally oversaw the handing out of passes Thursday in much the same fashion that a venue would dole out tickets to a rock concert. Hundreds of people seeking to attend the president's event began lining up Wednesday afternoon, and camped out overnight in the parking lots of the two local municipal buildings. . Gibbs said he believes the media have been disappointed that...

President Barack Obama will be holding a “town hall” meeting in Bozeman Friday to discuss his proposed health-insurance reforms, and the general public can attend by getting tickets, likely through some type of lottery system, White House officials confirmed this morning. The town-hall meeting, one of three the president is planning this week to counter vocal opposition to Democratic health-reform proposals, will focus on the problems of people being dropped by health insurers because of an illness. Reform proposals before Congress would ban this practice, as well as reform health-insurance markets in other areas. Sources have told the Lee Newspapers...

Obama is coming to Bozeman next week, sources familiar with the event say, but the White House is staying tightlipped about the reported visit. “He’s definitely coming, that much is clear,” Mayor Kaaren Jacobson Josh Holland, with Avis Rent a Car in Belgrade, told the Chronicle that Secret Service had reservations for more than 30 cars for Aug. 13 and 14.

If you’re planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page. As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said. “Please list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” states a city waiver form applicants are asked to sign. Three lines...

The city of Bozeman, Mt is asking potential employees for any web chat rooms or sites they belong to along with the passwords. Yikes. Bozeman demands Internet passwords By MATT GOURAS Associated Press HELENA - Job applicants with the city of Bozeman are finding that those private Internet discussions and pictures may not be so private after all. The city is asking job seekers for the user names - and passwords - to Internet social networking or Web groups they belong to. The decision is sparking an outcry from those who say the policy goes way too far. “I liken...

Lawyers for media mogul Ted Turner persuaded a district judge to issue a restraining order blocking Gallatin County from paving a five-mile stretch of road that runs through Turner's sprawling Flying D Ranch south of here. Attorneys for Turner Enterprises Inc. obtained the order from District Judge John Brown. It bars the county from paving a segment of Spanish Creek Road. Commissioners said the county has been planning to pave the road for years. To save money, the county was planning to use millings - essentially ground-up rubble from other road projects - provided by the Montana Department of Transportation...

08.13.2006, 11:31 PM The last two of the 11 Egyptian exchange students who failed to show up at their college program were apprehended Sunday in Richmond, Va., customs officials said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20, and Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17, at an apartment building in Richmond on Sunday night. Virginia State Police and the Richmond Police helped locate the students.

A vandal or vandals spray-painted words from "The Da Vinci Code" on the front doors of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church on Main Street late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.A groundskeeper at the church discovered the graffiti around 11 a.m. Wednesday and was visibly disheartened.A funeral was scheduled to take place at the church in the afternoon.The message sprayed in black paint read, "So DARK the con of man." That same message is a clue in the plot of "The Da Vinci Code," the best-selling novel by Dan Brown that has been made into a movie.The grafitti also included...

Cattle ranchers in the Paradise Valley say shipping weights have declined since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. They say their cattle stay close to gates instead of grazing entire pastures. Wary animals tend to eat less than relaxed animals.

White supremacist groups don't target communities at random, says Norm Gissel, a Coeur d'Alene attorney who has battled neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups. They come to a particular community because they see something that indicates they might be welcomed there. Gissel said he has no idea why Kevin McGuire, a National Alliance member, chose Bozeman. But he's convinced McGuire is not here by accident. Joe Roy, who works for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center and tracks hate-group activity, said such activity sometimes springs up just because someone already living in a community starts believing in...

HELENA -- Opponents of a proposal to issue death certificates for abortions accused Rep. Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, on Thursday of wanting to psychologically harm women. "It is meant to create suffering and trauma, and maybe that is what (Koopman) believes women who get abortions deserve," said Kate Cholwea of NARAL, a pro-choice group. Koopman is sponsoring House Bill 617, which would require death certificates for any fetus that is aborted before it is 20 weeks old. A hearing on the bill was held Thursday, which drew a small but emotionally charged crowd. "It certainly is a life in a mother's...

Girls For A Change, a group of Bozeman High School girls, have been busy creating an educational and inspirational one-day conference for high school-age girls and actress/activist Jane Fonda has agreed to be the keynote speaker. The conference will be held Saturday, Feb. 12, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Montana State University Strand Union Building. "Opening Doors" is designed to help girls build a future in which they are economically self-sufficient and successful in all aspects of their lives -- personal, academic, and professional lives. The planning committee's invitation to Fonda to be the keynote speaker "elicited...

Lane Miller not only survived a tractor-trailer crash Monday afternoon, but also the wrath of 9 million infuriated honey bees. Miller was hauling a load of 512 bee hives from Idaho to North Dakota on a flatbed trailer Monday afternoon. He lost control of the rig on a curve in Bear Trap Canyon on Norris Road, overturned and slid across the road before coming to a stop between the guardrails. His arm had been scraped to the bone against the pavement, but Miller was able to free himself from the seatbelt, he said Tuesday. But his troubles were far from...