Free Republic

The Senate voted to pass its annual National Defense Authorization Act on Friday , sending Montana’s first wilderness additions in 33 years to President Barack Obama’s desk. The National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $585 billion in Pentagon discretionary spending and $63.7 billion in overseas contingency operations.It also includes a package of 70 public land management bills; the biggest collection since the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. They create about 250,000 acres of new wilderness designations and protection of other lands from energy development. Other measures open thousands of acres to logging in Alaska and swaps federal lands for...

".....Yuma,Colorado, a farming town of 3,500 people near the Kansas border, celebrated last month as homegrown Republican Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Gardner, a high school football player and the son of a farm equipment dealer, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to help the GOP gain control of the Senate in the second-most expensive congressional race of all time.Gardner represented Colorado’s 4th Congressional District for four years, an expansive territory that covers the mostly flat and rural eastern third of the state. Farmers there mostly grow corn to feed cattle, and water comes from the quickly...

One Democratic congressman is so opposed to the Keystone XL Pipeline that he wouldn’t vote for it even if his party got a minimum-wage bump from Republicans in exchange. “I wouldn’t make that trade,” Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” of a hypothetical raise to $9.50 per hour. Senate Democrats late Tuesday filibustered a measure to green-light the contentious oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast, potentially dooming the chances of party colleague Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and underscoring the power of the pro-environment caucus. Republicans vowed to put President Obama’s veto pen to the...

Among Democrats, fighting is breaking out all over. The Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is hurling criticisms toward the White House over Barack Obama’s handling of the recession and his myopic and politically ruinous obsession with reforming the nation’s health care system amid that economic downturn.In response, the White House took what Reuters called the “unusual step” of publicly pledging to veto an overdue plan to reform the nation’s tax code which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been in the process of negotiating with House Republicans. When Obama announced his intention to extend legal status to...

Montana Marriage Ban Overturned; Licenses Granted HELENA, Mont. — Nov 19, 2014 By LISA BAUMANN A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the state gay marriage ban in Montana, one of the last states to continue defending its ban despite rulings in favor of same-sex marriage from appeals courts that oversee them. At least two counties ? Missoula and Park ? started issuing marriage licenses to gay couples soon after, while court clerks elsewhere in the state geared up to do so Thursday. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled Montana's constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman violates...

The Senate narrowly rejected legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, handing a defeat to the oil industry and dealing a major blow to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who staked her political career on the outcome. The Senate voted 59-41 for the legislation, falling one vote shy of the 60 needed for passage under the deal bringing it to the floor. But Keystone supporters insisted the defeat would be short-lived. Republican leaders are vowing to try again after they take over the chamber in January — when they will have more than enough votes to get a measure...

Six years into a wait for the approvals to operate the newest section of the Keystone Pipeline system, TransCanada has already spent $2.4 billion on the project. TransCanada had hoped that it would have the permits for its Keystone XL pipeline within two years, since the first phase of the Keystone Pipeline system was reviewed and approved in 23 months. But it’s been more than six years since TransCanada filed its application to build the Keystone XL expansion, and it has still not been approved. Facing environmental pressures from his liberal base if he approves the pipeline and strife from...

On Tuesday night, Republicans won big: They picked up governorships in blue states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they held House seats in competitive districts with embarrassing incumbents like Michael Grimm of New York, who physically threatened a reporter and is under indictment for tax evasion. But their biggest win by far was taking control of the U.S. Senate. As of this writing, Republicans had already secured 52 Senate seats, thanks to knocking off Democratic incumbents or replacing retiring Democrats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Another GOP pick up is probable in...

Freshman Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) easily clinched victory in the Montana Senate race Tuesday, scoring another pickup for Republicans. Daines was seen as the favorite throughout the year, and any hope of Democrats retaining the seat fell away when interim Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) bowed out of the race in August amid revelations that he plagiarized large portions of his master's thesis at the Army War College in 2007. The Associated Press and other outlets called the race shortly after polls closed there. Democrats scrambled to replace Walsh on the ballot, picking Amanda Curtis, a freshman state representative. But she...

Fox News projects that Republicans are making another two pick-ups in the battle for the Senate. This brings their total so far to five, with just six needed to take control of the Senate. In Montana, Republican Steve Daines is projected to defeat Democrat Amanda Curtis, flipping control of the seat to the Republican Party for the first time since 1913. In Colorado, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner is projected to oust first-term Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, one of the most closely watched contests in this election cycle Republicans have picked up three Senate seats, Fox News projects, bringing them halfway...

Based on our exit poll, ABC News projects that in the SENATE races the winners are: Montana, R, Daines Based on our exit poll, ABC News projects that in the GOVERNORS’ races the winners are: Iowa, R, Branstad

I wanted to get the current opinion of Freepers on whether or not they believe Gary Johnson will cost Mitt Romney the election? I am asking this because I have been seeing more and more polls as well as interest on Facebook and Twitter about Gary getting the Ron Paul voters and Independents to swing his way. A lot of them are from the legalize crowd and the others are from the Alex Jones wing. Recent polls in Montana show Johnson picking up 2% of the vote, in places like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada he is picking up around...

New Polls Show Republicans Pulling Away In Key Senate Races November 02, 2014 Republican Senate candidates are pulling away in the final days of key races, according to polls released this weekend. Republicans are either leading in Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana or will likely win runoff elections, according to a NBC/Marist poll released Sunday. In addition, the Republican nominee in Iowa, Joni Ernst, now has a 7-point lead over Democratic challenger Rep Bruce Braley, according to a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday. Most polls have shown until now that the four races have essentially been deadlocked in the closing...

Sen. John Walsh’s name has been removed from the U.S. Army War College’s academic rolls and grinded (sic) from a plaque listing the members of the graduating class of 2007 after the college stripped him of his degree for plagiarism. The announcement that the war college revoked the Montana Democrat’s 2007 master’s degree on Friday marked the end of a swift-moving controversy that began with a newspaper story in July and led to Walsh’s withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race weeks later. The lingering question is what effect the academic review board’s plagiarism report will have on the Senate race...

A Supreme Court order legalizing same-sex marriage in five states reverberated further on Thursday, with the attorney general of West Virginia conceding that its ban on same-sex marriage was no longer defensible but South Carolina officials vowing to keep fighting to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. Since the Supreme Court decision on Monday and a ruling from a federal circuit court on Tuesday, new developments have appeared almost hourly as gay-rights advocates press for action in nine other states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Unregulated genetically modified wheat... in a second location in the United States... in Montana, the Agriculture Department said Friday. The department said it is investigating the discovery of the Montana wheat, which is a different variety than the genetically modified wheat found in Oregon.

This video shows a huge herd crossing the road near Yellowstone. It’s located at Bozeman, MT. We have never seen such a big herd before. Poor little guy at the end. Luckily he finally caught up.

The U.S. Senate Energy Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday that would force congressional approval of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline project, but the measure seems unlikely to be taken up by the full Senate. The bill, the latest effort by lawmakers to breathe life into the long-delayed pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, will languish without a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring it to a vote. The measure, from Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would take a decision...

Jim Geragthy, acclaimed author and National Review’s chief campaign analyst, has been grousing about the lack of quality polling in key Senate races this year. His frustration is well-founded. So yesterday must have felt like Christmas in September for Jim and political junkies everywhere, as two pollsters released a deluge of surveys covering the most contested races in the country. In light of the results, I’d expect that national Republicans are kicking off the week with an extra spring in their step, as well. We were leaked an advance copy of last week’s much-anticipated Politico/GWU Battleground poll, which was packed...

When Max Baucus, the long serving Democrat Senator from Montana, suddenly stepped aside leaving Democrats no one to take his place they thought their problem was fixed with John Walsh. As Adjutant General of the Montana National Guard and State Lieutenant Governor he seemed like a great pick to hold the Baucus seat. That scenario fell apart when Walsh was exposed as just another phony Democrat. The New York Times revealed that he had plagiarized his pitifully brief Army War College Master’s thesis. After some agonizing about what lie might work to fix the problem and send him to Washington...