Free Republic

The Bureau of Land Management is currently considering several Resource Management Plan proposals in Montana, with one major objective ostensibly aimed at conserving sage grouse habitat to bolster population growth. However, one look at the management plans clearly shows that the stated intentions are very different from what the plans would actually accomplish. In reality, these RMPs are one of the biggest threats to private property rights and natural resource development that our state has seen in years. The RMPs would effectively shut down BLM-managed land, as well as some privately held land, to development by eliminating grazing permits, restricting...

Energy Policy: The Environmental Protection Agency declines to have outside experts review its study claiming water contamination from fracking in Wyoming. Why confuse an analysis based on ideology with the facts? As we noted in December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from environmental groups, tried to manufacture a crisis in which hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was said to have contaminated test wells in Pavillion, Wyo. Those claims and others made in the six-decade history of the technology's use have repeatedly proved groundless. In 2011, the EPA released the non-peer reviewed report on Pavillion in which the agency publicly...

U.S. President Barack Obama has called into question the number of jobs that would be provided from the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in a New York Times interview over the weekend. Republicans have frequently stated that there would be a large number of jobs created if the pipeline is approved for construction, Obama said, adding that he disputes their premise. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said in the interview. “There is no evidence that that’s true. The most realistic estimates are this might maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the...

The Associated Press (AP) is refusing to comment on why it requested that the Montana Department of Justice (MDOJ) give it a list of the names and personal information of every concealed weapons permit (CWP) holder in the state... Montana’s Republican Attorney General Tim Fox had denied requests by the AP and a Boston media outfit called MuckRock News for all information pertaining to the state’s CWP holders. Fox cited concerns that the width and breadth of the requests violated CWP holders’ “reasonable expectation of privacy” guaranteed by the Montana Constitution... AP reporter Matt Gouras formally requested the information on...

What’s the outlook for the 2014 Senate elections? As in 2010 and 2012, the Republicans once again have a chance to overturn the Democrats’ majority. Much attention has been focused on whether Republicans this time will nominate candidates capable of winning key races, which they failed to do in the two previous election cycles. But another interesting question is how Democrats will try to hold onto seats in Republican-leaning states even as Barack Obama maintains his strong tilt to the political left. The lineup is certainly favorable to Republicans. Assuming the New Jersey seat now held by Republican appointee Jeff...

HELENA - The Associated Press isn't giving reasons for requesting the personal information of all conceal carry permit holders in Montana. On March 18, 2013, the AP requested a comprehensive list of information from the office of Montana Attorney General Tim Fox (R). "Everything from their date of birth to their driver's license to their address, every piece of information without limitation," Fox explained in an interview with MTN News. The request came just five days after the Montana Legislature passed a bill which makes all this information confidential. The bill was signed by Governor Steve Bullock (D) ten days...

President Obama talked earlier this year of a Democratic takeover of the House, but instead his party is now in danger of losing the Senate. The latest blow to their hopes of keeping the upper chamber came from former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D),who opted out of a race to replace retiring Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) ---- That party seems likely to lose seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia, where it cannot find find strong candidates.

From funding cuts precipitated by the federal sequester to changes in the rules for Pell grant recipients, tribal colleges face many challenges, but one of the most serious for colleges in the Northern Great Plains comes from a surprising source—the Bakken oil fields. The oil fields cover about 200,000 square miles of the subsurface of the Williston Basin underlying parts of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In a report issued April 30, the United States Geological Survey estimated that the U.S. section of the Bakken formation holds 3.6...

Following former Gov. Brian Schweitzer's decision not to run for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat this weekend, New York Times polling guru Nate Silver predicted Monday that Republicans will hold 50 to 51 seats in the upper chamber after all ballots are counted in the 2014 Congressional mid-term elections.

<p>Most political observers had assumed that former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer would seek the Senate seat being vacated by Max Baucus, who is retiring. Had Schweitzer decided to run, the seat would probably lean toward a Democratic hold, and the GOP would have only an outside chance at taking back the upper chamber.</p>

To f*** up, if we learned anything from 2012. With Schweitzer out, Montana Democrats are scrambling to find a means of holding a seat they have held since 1913. That's right: the Class 2 Senate seat being vacated by Max Baucus has been held by Democrats for a hundred years. With other salivating pick-up opportunities in South Dakota and West Virginia, along with vulnerable Democrat incumbents in Alaska, Arkansas, and North Carolina, Republicans have their third chance in three straight elections to win back control of the Senate. So that means only one thing: I have 100% confidence in this...

Popular former Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Saturday morning that he will not run for Montana's open U.S. Senate seat in 2014, an announcement that complicates Democratic efforts to retain their majority in next year's elections. Schweitzer told The Associated Press that he doesn't want to leave Montana and go to Washington, D.C. He had been considered the Democrats best candidate for holding onto the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus next year. Schweitzer said he felt compelled to consider the race only because many in his party said they needed him to run.

Former Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Saturday he won’t run for the Senate in Montana — a surprise development that imperils Democrats’ chances of holding the seat in 2014.

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Vice Chairman Rob Portman (Ohio) will headline a Capitol Hill fundraiser this month for Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), according to an invitation for the event obtained by The Hill. The event is the latest sign that Daines is seriously considering a run for the Senate — and that national Republicans are hoping he'll mount a campaign. Daines has been giving the race serious consideration ever since Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced his retirement in late April, and Montana Republicans say they see him as their most likely standard-bearer for the seat. The freshman lawmaker has...

Good news from Arkansascarry.com: In July, 2013, Arkansas will become the fifth state in the United States to enact “Constitutional Carry” into law. Act 746 of the 2013 General Assembly was signed into law by Governor Mike Beebe on April 4th, 2013, after receiving only one “nay” vote from the legislature. Constitutional Carry occurs in a state when no laws exist that generally restrict the carry of handguns (open or concealed) for self-defense purposes. Arkansas law 5-73-120 currently prohibits the possession of a handgun if it is possessed “readily available for use with a purpose to employ the handgun… as...

Continental Resources, the Williston Basin’s largest producer and one of the region’s most active and experienced explorers, has all but officially declared a significant increase in the amount of oil it believes can be recovered from the massive Bakken petroleum system. Its estimate today stands at 24 billion barrels of oil equivalent, already far exceeding the federal government’s official estimate, which it recently doubled. Continental’s recoverable calculation for the U.S. portion of the Bakken is based on a dated oil in-place estimate of 577 billion boe. Last year the company raised that in-place estimate to 903 billion boe without increasing...

American taxpayers will be tremendously relieved to know that the U.S. government is hard at work trying to get official endangered status for ... the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse and the feds want to designate it a critical habitat protected under the Endangered Species Act, the 1973 law signed by President Richard Nixon to protect species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.” The federal government’s list of more than 1,300 threatened or endangered species ... The Service is proposing to designate around 14,561 acres of critical habitat along streams...

An ongoing Media Trackers investigation into the D.C.-based, left-wing political firm Hilltop Public Solutions continues to yield evidence of that organization’s influence in Montana politics and the Montana Democratic Party. The firm is currently the subject of a Montana Office of Political Practices complaint which alleges that the group illegally coordinated expenditures on behalf of Gov. Steve Bullock’s election campaign, using funds provided by left-wing dark money groups and Political Action Committees. Furthermore, Hilltop partner Barrett Kaiser has close ties to former Baucus Chief of Staff and President Obama’s 2012 Campaign Manager, Jim Messina. Messina now heads the president’s political...

While attempting to attack an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would require a fence be built along Mexico’s border with the U.S. before legalization, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) made a significant geographical gaffe. Landrieu, who represents Louisiana in the U.S. Senate, was trying to undermine the amendment Sen. John Thune (R-SD) offered. In doing so, she tried to argue Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was more qualified to talk about border issues than Thune because McCain represents Arizona. “A smart fence, which is what Senator McCain and I want to build--since he’s from Arizona, I think he...

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, there’s something rotten in Washington, and the odor is emanating not just from the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. It’s also coming from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies accused of colluding with radical environmental groups to write regulations that are threatening the livelihoods of millions of Americans. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study has found that the EPA has given green groups a seat at the table when drafting environmental regulations, but it has excluded the people and industries most likely to be affected. The Sierra Club has participated in “closed-door...

The party has an outside chance of winning the five or six seats it needs to retake control, but needs to find top-tier recruits in several states and is running out of time to do so. ....Here are five states where the party needs to land strong candidates to broaden the battleground and have a hope of winning back the Senate. Michigan Iowa Montana Arkansas New Hampshire

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote this morning on a measure that will effectively end debate on the misnamed “farm” bill, cutting off opportunities to fix the deeply flawed legislation. At a cost of a nearly $1 trillion — 80 percent of which goes to the food-stamp program — American taxpayers deserve a robust debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) won’t let that happen. This isn’t the first time Reid has pulled this stunt. His iron-fisted approach to running the Senate is one reason Americans hold Washington in such low regard and have a strong distrust of politicians....

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s long-anticipated plan for the Oregon & California Railroad trust lands amounts to a bold call for — input. Anyone who thought that Wyden would propose something specific has to be disappointed. Nevertheless, people as prominent and impatient as Gov. John Kitzhaber dutifully issued stilted remarks thanking Wyden for his “leadership.” Tongues had to be firmly in cheek. No one dared point out that the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had again failed to do anything to help the people who inhabit a large part of his state. Instead of legislation, Wyden offered...

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is nullification — the idea that states can limit the enforcement of federal laws within their borders. --snip-- They’ve wiped the dust from the 10th Amendment with state laws seeking to nullify federal statutes. Over a dozen states, with South Carolina being the most recent, have passed legislation aimed at preventing the Obamacare health care mandate from being enforced in their jurisdictions. South Carolina’s goes the furthest by proposing to grant taxpayers a state tax deduction equal to the federal penalty for failing to purchase health care. Montana, Kansas and...

After wandering away from the Montana Veterans’ Home in Columbia Falls last June, a 77-year-old Korean War veteran suffering from severe Alzheimer’s disease was tased by police, fell face-first to the pavement where he struck his head and died later due to injuries from the fall, according to a lawsuit filed last month by a family member representing his estate. Tamara Downen of Columbia Falls filed the lawsuit on April 5 in Helena’s Lewis and Clark County District Court, claiming that her grandfather, Stanley Downen, died as a result of negligence by the Montana Veterans’ Home, Columbia Falls Police Department...

The apparent home intruder who died Wednesday after being shot by the homeowner has been identified as Henry Thomas Johnson III, 37, of Helena. Lewis and Clark County Coroner Mickey Nelson said Johnson died Wednesday from a single gunshot wound to the chest. Patrol Capt. Jason Grimmis of the Lewis and Clark Sheriff’s Office said dispatchers received a 911 call at about 2:40 p.m. Wednesday from the homeowner at 4276 Canyon Ferry Road, near the intersection with Ranger Drive. The homeowner reported arriving home to find a suspicious car at the residence, and then entered the residence and encountered the...

Scandal: Senate Democrats, including supporters of the Disclose Act, provided the names of groups they wanted targeted in a taxpayer-funded witch hunt overseen by an IRS employee and Obama campaign donor. Using the Citizens United case as a pretext, retiring Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., on July 27, 2012, wrote IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate 12 conservative groups he accused of violating their tax-exempt status and engaging in coordinated political activity. The groups Levin asked to be targeted for special scrutiny were Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, Priorities U.S.A., Americans Elect, American Action Network, Americans for Prosperity, American Future Fund, Americans...

Democratic senator Max Baucus is retiring because he is “fed up” with the Affordable Care Act, according to his Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. Speaking at Friday night’s Lincoln Day dinner in Iowa, Grassley told the audience the Montana senator is leaving office ”because he’s so fed up with the possibility of the implementation of Obamacare being a train wreck.” Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, played a key role in writing the 2010 law. Grassley said that dissatisfaction with the health-care bill exists across party lines, describing a “bipartisan coalition in Washington” that considers the implementation of the...

"Warsaw-based Zimmer Holdings Inc. has laid off between 40 and 50 employees in the wake of “transformation initiatives,” the global medical-device manufacturer said Thursday."

The Foundation for Individual Rights In Higher Education (FIRE) is the premier non-partisan organization fighting to protect free speech and other constitutional rights on campus.  The FIRE defends everyone’s rights, regardless of political affiliation.We have cited The FIRE numerous times here and at College Insurrection, and they have submitted a few guests posts on campus issues.The FIRE is not an organization prone to hyperbole.So when I received this email late this afternoon from FIRE Senior Vice President Robert Shibley, it got my attention: THIS. IS. OUTRAGEOUS. The government has mandated speech codes on all campuses. I hoped I would never see this day, but...

"Superficial" "A source close to the Senate negotiations [says] that two senators who voted against the background check bill would vote for it after minor, superficial changes." - Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, May 6, 2013ACTION: Senators who voted pro-gun last month are under intense pressure - by Senate Democrats and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hit ads - to switch their votes.  We need to keep applying the heat and let them know that gun owners are ready to help in any Senate campaign, no matter which state, to defeat ANY SENATOR who votes for gun control.LEGISLATIVE UPDATE FROM WASHINGTON, DC. It’s...

Energy companies are lining up for their shot to drill in the Dakotas and Montana after a new government report revealed that a massive geological formation stretching across the states contains twice the oil and three times the amount of natural gas than was originally believed. While the new estimate is drawing smaller companies to the game, the larger players like Schlumberger, Halliburton and Continental Resources are pushing forward with ambitious multi-year plans to stake their claim in the industry. Continental recently announced a five-year plan to triple its production by 2017. The company’s growth is based on success in...

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) are asking for help from the public in gathering information about the theft of approximately 559 pounds of high explosives from a USFS explosives bunker located near Red Lodge. A press release from the ATF says that in April 2013, someone used forced entry to get into an explosives storage facility owned and operated by the U. S. Forest Service. The storage facility is located approximately two miles south of the City of Red Lodge.

"... A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, however, has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question this assumption. Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone (femur) of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in the Hell Creek formation of Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

2014 retirements: Dems heading for the hills By: Alexander Burns April 23, 2013 04:49 PM EDT Doesn’t anyone want to run for Senate in 2014? Midway through candidate recruitment season, the bad news for Democrats is this: They are watching a generation of talent leave the Senate and head for retirement. The less-bad news: So far, few marquee-name Republicans are interested in these seats either. When Montana Sen. Max Baucus called it quits on Tuesday, he became the latest in a long series of senior legislators to announce that they’ve had quite enough of life on the Hill. National Democrats...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is retiring rather than seek re-election in 2014, according to two senior Democratic strategists familiar with his plans. First elected in 1978, Baucus has been the top Democrat on the powerful committee since 2001. The likely Democratic candidate to succeed him would be former governor Brian Schweitzer, sources said.

Montana --(Ammoland.com)-On Sunday, April 21st 2013, “progressives” (euphemism for statist liberals) ran large display ads apparently in all major Montana newspapers claiming that 79% of Montanans want more federal gun control. This humorous number becomes even funnier when it is attributed IN THE AD to “Mayors for Illegal Guns” (Yes, “FOR.” Check your copy). A curious person might ask, why would any mayors be FOR illegal guns in the first place? And, which specific Montana mayors are FOR illegal guns? Another curious person might ask why a group pushing more gun control would cite a “poll” from another group that...

President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech Thursday at the memorial service for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. But that was to be expected. We all know Obama can give a stem-winder. What wasn’t expected was that this would be by far the toughest week of the Obama presidency—the first time I can remember the president being dealt an unequivocal policy defeat. Only the “shellacking” of the 2010 midterm comes close, and even there a case can be made that achieving the decades-old progressive dream of universal health care was worth losing the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof...

Montana has been a little slow to decriminalize gay sex—but a law banning it was finally wiped from the books after Gov. Steve Bullock signed a bill yesterday. Activists had been fighting the ban for decades; the state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional 16 years ago, the AP notes, and it hadn't been enforced for years. Bullock's signature prompted cheers. "I am not going to speak too long because, frankly, the longer I talk, the longer this embarrassing and unconstitutional law stays on the books," he said. Gay rights advocates hoped the move was a step forward. "As more and...

An obsolete law deeming gay sex as deviant — akin to bestiality — was stricken from Montana code Thursday, prompting gay rights activists to say they hope that full legal equality may be close at hand. When Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed Senate Bill 107 decriminalizing gay sex, cheers erupted in the Capitol's Rotunda. It had been 16 years after the state Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional and 24 years after gay rights activists began their fight to take government out of the bedroom. "I am not going to speak too long because, frankly, the longer I talk, the...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Montana Gov. Steve Bullock will sign into law a bill that decriminalizes gay sex, 16 years after the state supreme court ruled the law unconstitutional. The bill's passage received an emotional response from gay-rights activists, who have struggled for 20 years to remove the obsolete law.

Prosecutors say a Billings woman used a gun to fend off an intruder who forced his way inside her home through a back door. The man was later arrested and is being held in the Yellowstone County jail on a $100,000 bond. Travis Bridger Soderberg, 38, has been charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor criminal mischief. He is expected to be arraigned on the charges in District Court next week. According to charging documents, a woman called police shortly after 8 p.m. on April 6 to report an intruder at her home. The woman, identified only by her initials in...

The woman who led the court battle to strike down a Montana law that made gay sex illegal knows that having the unconstitutional law struck from the books is a symbolic act. All the same, Linda Gryczan began to cry when the state House finally brought the issue to the floor on Monday. … Senate Bill 107, the measure that strikes from the state code the obsolete language criminalizing gay sex as deviate sexual conduct, passed its final legislative hurdle Wednesday with a 65-34 vote in the House. … Gryczan was the lead plaintiff in a 1995 lawsuit that led...

A plan to drop a recognizable logo in this part of the country — the Forest Service’s iconic shield — generated so much outrage among the agency’s retirees that the idea has been dropped. In early January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly introduced a policy to phase out all of its sub-agencies’ logos, including the Forest Service’s, and replace them with the USDA symbol. But that policy was kept so under wraps that not even Pacific Northwest forest supervisors were told. Some of them only heard about it in retrospect late last week — after the USDA had decided,...

Huh. Baucus won't commit to not filibustering gun bill debate: "That's to be determined."

Mandatory registration coming to state’s largest wilderness area . Visitors to the Weminuche Wilderness are going to be required to register before entering the almost 500,000 acres that stretch from Silverton to Wolf Creek Pass. Use and abuse of the pristine mountains, valleys and waterways through the years now require switching from voluntary to mandatory registration at trailheads, the San Juan National Forest said in a news release. “During the first two to three years of the new requirement, we’re going to educate the public on the reasons,” Forest Service spokeswoman Ann Bond said Saturday. “After that, rangers can issue...

Do you hear all the talk about the “inevitability” of same-sex marriage? Are you watching the second round of “war on women” ads aimed at opponents of the HHS mandate? President Obama insists that even employers who are opposed to abortion and contraception must provide insurance offering these options to their workers — and employers of religious organizations (even at family-run, long-established, morally oriented businesses) will receive no relief. We need to take a deep breath and consider how these radical changes might affect our freedom. On a secular campus in a major city — George Washington University in Washington,...

Montana legalises cooking and eating roadkill Montana has become the first US state to allow drivers to cook and serve carrion picked up from road accidents under a 'you kill it, you grill it' law. By Philip Sherwell, New York 7:10PM BST 07 Apr 2013 Lawmakers in the US state have overwhelmingly passed a bill allowing locals to salvage meat from the carcasses of wild animals killed in road accidents. When signed into law by the governor, Montana could become "the ultimate drive-through destination for adventurous foodies", the website Huffington Post noted. Steve Lavin, the legislator who introduced the bill,...

Senate votes on climate change and the Keystone XL oil pipeline laid bare divisions among Democrats — and underscored why the White House, not Congress, will be where the critical climate decisions reside in President Obama’s second term.Several votes during the freewheeling debate over a nonbinding budget plan provided a political barometer of where the chamber, including vulnerable Democrats, stand on the topics. Advocates of the proposed pipeline scored a symbolic victory Friday when 62 lawmakers voted for an amendment backing the project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. Seventeen Democrats supported Sen....