Free Republic

Flathead, Lincoln counties could lose millions if Secure Rural Schools is not reauthorized. Congress recently passed a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the United States government in operation, but missing from that bill are the funds that many counties in Montana have come to rely on in their annual budgets. The budget bill dropped $330 million in funding from Secure Rural Schools, a federal program run through the U.S. Forest Service providing funding for counties and schools. Last year, Flathead County received just over $1.6 million in SRS funding; roughly $1,067,000 went toward the county’s road department, and the...

Just days before he shot to death a 17-year-old German exchange student, Markus Kaarma told hair stylists he had been waiting up to shoot some kids who were burglarizing homes. He told them they would see it on the news. Kaarma hoped to bait an intruder by leaving his garage door partially open and placing a purse inside, prosecutors said. And when he did, a motion detector alerted him early April 27. Kaarma took a shotgun outside and almost immediately fired four blasts into the garage. Diren Dede, unarmed, was hit twice. He died after the final shot hit him...

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana violated state law in its campaign against a Billings Republican in the 2014 elections, the state Commissioner of Political Practices has ruled. Commissioner Jonathan Motl, in an opinion issued Monday, said Planned Parenthood Advocates failed to notify GOP legislative candidate Tonya Shellnutt of attack ads targeting her in the last 10 days before the Nov. 4 election. State law requires that candidates receive notice of attacks launched during the election cycle’s last 10 days so they can respond. Planned Parenthood Advocates acknowledged to Motl that its attack against Shellnutt didn’t comply with state law, then...

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...

A teen who was with a German exchange student the night he was fatally shot in a Montana garage testified at the homeowner’s murder trial that his friend thought burglarizing garages was a game and didn’t know he could get shot. Robby Pazmino told jurors Tuesday that he and Diren Dede went for a walk late April 26 when they noticed Markus Kaarma’s garage door partially open. Pazmino says he asked Dede if he was “going there.” Dede didn’t respond, so Pazmino says he waited down the street. He testified that he heard the first shot and started running. Pazmino...

This past summer, Montana resident Markus Kaarma pleaded not guilty to killing a 17-year-old German exchange student who had entered his garage. At the time, his lawyer said he would defend Kaarma using the state's version of the "castle doctrine," which says that a man's home is his castle and can be defended as such. Opening statements concluded today in Kaarma's murder trial with prosecutors alleging that he shot Diren Dede in cold blood. Paul Ryan, Kaarma's attorney, said his client, who had been burgled before, was acting in self-defense. Kaarma fired four times without warning after an intruder tripped...

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...

Voter Fraud AmmoLand Gun News MISSOULA, MONT. --(Ammoland.com)- Independent House District 94 candidate Gary Marbut has filed a lawsuit in Missoula District Court questioning county-created ballots posted late on election night that turned the election in favor of his opponent.In question are two small posts totaling 192 votes that were applied to the HD 94 race, at 11 PM on election night and 2 AM the next morning, that changed the outcome of the race. Two professional statisticians have examined this data and assert that there is less than a .00017% chance that these late ballots came from the same...

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...

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...

President Barack Obama might be open to using the Keystone pipeline as leverage with Republicans if they cooperate on other aspects of his long-stalled domestic agenda, such as investing in infrastructure, closing tax loopholes or reducing carbon emissions. After years of fighting over TransCanada's crude oil pipeline from Canada, a Keystone deal is not entirely out of the question, sources inside the administration and others close to the White House told Reuters on Tuesday. With the Senate's narrow defeat of a Keystone bill on Tuesday, Obama avoided the awkward position of possibly vetoing a bill supported by members of his...

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...

President Obama is fond of telling Congress that it should pass things with the overwhelming support of the American people, including (among other things) comprehensive immigration reform, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing gun background checks. And yet, Obama could soon be in a position of vetoing something with a similar amount of support: the Keystone XL pipeline. Poll after poll has shown support for Keystone is somewhere between very strong and overwhelming. A Pew Research Center survey this month showed support for the project at nearly two-to-one, 59 percent to 31 percent. And that was about the lowest level...

Federal wildlife officials have granted protection to the Gunnison sage grouse, a move that could to bring restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other land uses to preserve the bird's habitat in Colorado and Utah. ... They're related to the greater sage grouse, which is at the center of a separate and larger debate over federal protection across 11 Western states.

The white supremacist organisation, 'Ku Klux Klan', infamous for racism and violence, is reportedly rebranding itself and opening its doors – quite surprisingly – to other members of the society such as Jews, Blacks, Hispanics and gays. ..... The white supremacist group 'Ku Klux Klan' is reportedly rebranding to including jews, black people and gays.... The move reportedly comes after John Abarr, a KKK member from Great Falls in Montana, had a discussion with the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NCAAP), although it is not exactly clear what they talked about. Abarr is a now a reformed...

House Republicans will have their largest majority since the 1930s next year, but that doesn't mean Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) job will be easy.The House GOP leadership's struggles in keeping members in line over the past four years have been well documented. Some of the incoming freshmen will likely join the ranks of conservatives who frequently oppose leadership initiatives.Among the new freshmen, for instance, is one congressman-elect who has called Hillary Clinton the "anti-Christ," another who has suggested Muslims don't deserve First Amendment rights, and yet another who has declared himself open to the idea of the United States invading...

The Navy SEAL who shot dead al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is now reportedly living in poverty after leaving the military four years short of being eligible to receive his pension, he claims. Robert O’Neill, 38, from Montana, went public with his identity after meeting family members of 9/11 terror attack victims, he told the Washington Post. And now the heroic commando is saying he was left high and dry by the government he dedicated his life to serving. “The families told me it helped bring them some closure,” said O’Neill, of killing the al-Qaeda founder. O’Neill will also be...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus predicted Tuesday that the GOP regaining control of the Senate would mean a signature from President Barack Obama on a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Getting approval for TransCanada’s pipeline, which has been waiting six years to break ground on the project, would be among the top priorities for a Republican-controlled Senate, Priebus told MSNBC’s Daily Rundown. “We will pass a budget in both chambers, number one, and we will pass the Keystone pipeline, number two,” Priebus said. “And I actually think the president will sign the bill on the Keystone pipeline...