News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1145 - 1169 of 5551
Every election cycle, you can count on Republican candidates promising to reduce the size and cost of government, and in general, getting government out of our businesses and out of our daily lives. Yet as every session of the legislature demonstrates, that pledge — for the majority of Republican lawmakers — has a distinctly hollow ring. Not unlike their Democratic counterparts, the GOP’s commitment to controlling government and reducing welfare dependency is highly selective. For their friends, the free money game conti...
Throughout the past year, my husband, Peter, and I have been seeing no one except Peter’s sister, Lori, and her husband. Lori has Stage 4 cancer and has had a tough fight. She’s been on oxygen all this time. The decision of how careful we needed to be was easy. If we were going to see Lori, we had to be extremely careful. And as a reward, once a week we have heard Lori’s laughter. I’ve been writing fiction for the first time in my life. No one told me in advance that writing...
Watching the county commission handle whether Hill County should have a mask mandate has been like watching The Keystone Cops. Except it isn’t funny. The chair of the Hill County Board of Health, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson, said Monday the mask mandate is over. Whether he had the authority to do that is another question, but more on that later. After COVID-19 numbers and deaths shot through the roof in the state and in Hill County last fall and early winter, the county issued a mask mandate and shortly afterward G...
The current debate surrounding SB 99, Planned Parenthood, and sex education in schools awakened old memories. While researching teenage pregnancy as a nursing student in 1977, I interviewed a pair of junior high school principals. Both 40-something men were visibly uncomfortable talking to me and acknowledging there was no sex education curricula in their schools. One shared an impactful anecdote. After a student had unprotected intercourse, she took one of her mom’s birth control pills. The student did not become p...
Some folks may not be familiar with the extreme state budget cutting measures that took place in “The Kansas Experiment,” look it up. That experiment was a disaster. Montana’s legislature is now trying to take us down that path. Trickle-down economics are proven to rig an economy against the average Joe. When public services are cut, rural health clinics, emergency services and schools suffer, and roads go unrepaired. The tax cuts go to the rich, and the tax incentives to create good paying jobs with good benefits have been g...
Week 11 already; just short of three months spent in Helena. Although we have a very nice place to live for the time we are here, it will be good to get back home. That being said, it is an honor to be here and serve you and watch out for what we Montanans believe in. We passed two voter initiatives dealing with marijuana in the last election. Now how to implement those into law is the task of the legislature. At present, a 280+ page bill is being drafted and being “fixed,” as they say, daily. One of the heavy lifts for Mon...
If citizens elect an anti-tax, anti-government legislature— like Montana’s 67th - it is not surprising that they get legislation that undermines government finances and weakens government services. Oklahoma and Kansas are two states that tried an ideological approach to fiscal policy a few years back. The results were disastrous cuts to public services, a fiscal crisis in each state, and near bankruptcy in the case of Oklahoma. They discovered that you cannot continually drain a state’s general fund and expect gover...
As I said in a column a few weeks ago, I’ve taken up archery and am completely enamored with it, largely because it has turned out to be one of those things in life that just hits me on a pretty deep and introspective level. Sure it’s fun — how can you not feel a rush shooting a bow and arrow? I split the tail end of one arrow with a perfect hit from a second arrow. That’s some next-level Annie-Oakley-with-a-bow stuff right there (Robin Hood, who?). Of course it was purely...
I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and among the many reasons for that is a question that seems to buzz around in the back of my head before I close my eyes: How will COVID-19 be remembered? To be frank, I fear the answer. The United States has been hit very hard by the pandemic with more deaths than any other nation, including those with larger and more crowded populations and less public health resources. Communities of color, especially Native-American communities, have seen a disproportionately high amount of i...
It’s a paradox. Constancy — firm, steadfast, permanent, consistent, un-changing. We can count on something with the property or nature of constancy. One thing we can count on is change. Saturday I double-masked my face, and with my bottle of sanitizer in hand, went to town, for the second time in a year. The first time was three weeks ago for vaccination. While this later trip was not of ultimate necessity, I let impatience rule and set off for my favorite furniture store wit...
It’s our anniversary, and Peter and I will be celebrating, like everyone has this past year, the best we are able. We have not yet won the vaccine lottery. I recently received a note from the health department that basically said, “Don’t get your hopes up.” Newspaper columnists are not, apparently, considered essential workers and, of course, I am not. Meanwhile, we continue to visit my sister-in-law, Lori, whose health remains precarious. So our anniversary celebra...
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Drop Structure #5 of the St. Mary’s Diversion, the spotlight remains on the unaffordability of critical repairs to the Milk River Project’s aged infrastructure. From Montana’s irrigators and farmers, ranchers, recreationists, and municipalities that span from Tribal Nations to Canada, the call for affordable repairs are continuing to grow. Not only are construction costs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Montana’s irrigators alone are responsible for 74% of...
Montana hunters are being shut out of major decisions on future access to elk. The new approach in Helena, led by Speaker Wylie Galt and Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Hank Worsech, is to spring legislation on us. Making major wildlife management changes without public input benefits few and hurts Montana hunters. I never thought it would happen here, but we must meet this full-on effort to limit public hunter involvement in wildlife management decisions if we are to maintain the title of the “Last Best Place.” For dec...
To the editor: I’d like to thank state Sen. Russ Tempel for his vote on SB 273, which would have given farmers the right to repair and diagnose their own farm equipment. The largest equipment manufacturers brought in their most expensive and high-powered lobbyists to kill a bill that advanced 10-1 in a bipartisan fashion out of the Senate ag committee. This bill would have put farm equipment on a path similar to automobiles, large trucks, boats, you name it, wherein a local mechanic or repair shop can diagnose and repair a v...
Editor, Throughout Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, he vowed if elected he would unite a deeply divided country. The reason behind an obvious national division could be up for a reasonable debate. And this letter is not meant to address that. But briefly, one always must consider who directly benefits from any division, which may purposely be maintained. This morning I wrote “American fellowship” in an email, and it was as if lights came on. I can’t remember seeing this term used anywhere. “Fellowship,” I have heard in te...
Editor, The Montana Legislature is back in session and I was more than a little concerned when I read that Republican Derek Skees introduced HB273. HB273 if passed would overturn Initiative 80, a long-standing initiative that gives the citizens of Montana the right to vote on nuclear power in Montana. I don’t understand why Derek Skees thinks the citizens of Montana would want to give up their right to vote on whether-or-not to produce nuclear power in Montana. I personally have huge reservations about producing nuclear p...
Anyone who watched or participated in the FWP committee meeting on HB 505 last week had to be amazed at the people who introduced the bill, those who showed up as proponents, and the opponent’s logical arguments. First Rep. Wylie Galt spoke, then WFP Director Hank Worsech, then Chief of staff, Quentin Kujala. By now everyone probably knows the specific bill details. What really stood out was while Worsech and Kujala were explaining the bill, Galt was standing in the doorway right behind them. Evidently he was making sure they...
As leaders in the health care, patient advocacy and public health community, we applaud the State House Appropriations Committee vote to retain the Department of Public Health and Human Services’ two positions dedicated to tribal health, the tribal relations manager and director of American Indian health. As statewide health organizations and associations committed to ensuring access to quality healthcare across the state, we rely on and partner closely with Native-led health organizations and tribal health authorities, i...
The first week after transmittal is always like starting refreshed, with new vigor and looking forward to seeing what the House folks have for our committees. This week, I sponsored Emma Wickum as a Senate Page. Emma is looking to study political sScience and one day do lobby work. I connected her with some Helena folks and we visited with them: Molly Kruckenberg, the director of the State Museum, lobbyist Kali Wicks, with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and lobbyist Mark Baker, who works as a contractor for a number of businesses....
Dear Montana Education Leaders, In his recent directive implementing Executive Order 2-2021, Governor (Greg) Gianforte highlighted that “access to school is essential to the developmental, social, mental, and educational needs of school-age children.” We cannot agree more that access to school is essential to the health and well-being of our children and adolescents. Across our state and nation many K-12 schools have remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic by following a multi-layered approach to protecting students, tea...
Apparently, the coronavirus social distancing guidelines haven’t slowed down the Good Luck Fairy from spreading her magical glittery stardust around the world. Good Luck Fairy, better known to her friends as G’Luck, went nuts with that glitter in Connecticut last year in order for its magic powers to play a bit of a long game. The Associated Press reported March 2 that a Connecticut man, who wished to remain anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, bought a cobalt blu...
We all know what happens to the frog in a gradually warming pot of water. Too slow to react it eventually boils to death. Since the Industrial Revolution humans have been steadily turning up the heat in this big pot we call planet earth with ever increasing carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuel. Even hard core climate change skeptics are finding it harder to deny the harsh reality of global “weirding,” as dramatized by the recent extreme winter storm in Texas where millions suffered from lack of electricity, hea...
Editor: With his rumpled suit, his old-school haircut, and his folksy ways, Sen. Jon Tester would have us believe he is a friend of working Montanans. Do not be fooled. When Sen. Tester had a chance to vote to raise the minimum wage, he voted no and told the working people in Montana that $8.75 an hour was good enough for them. Trust me, the senator’s corporate handlers were pleased with their boy, Jon. John Snider Ashland, Wisconsin...
Because of the pandemic, health cautions and precautions, these past several days, I’ve found myself to be the only gringo in town, or to be precise, on the ranch. Tom and Janet drove their big yellow cargo van to Arizona for medical appointments and to bring back another load of belongings from storage. Lani and Ariel exited Etzatlan about when winter entered, gone off to lounge on a beach somewhere near Manzanillo. John and Carol, in a fit of stir-crazy, packed up their a...
I’ve never been a fan of March. March is supposedly spring, but we all know it’s not. In much of the country, more snow falls in March than any other month. But it doesn’t have the courtesy to stay. March snow falls, makes us shovel it, then turns into a sloppy mess in three days. It becomes slush, mixed with mud. The sky stays gray. And all the ... things (you know what I mean), things that were buried in previous snowfalls ... all those things come to light. Whatever they...
