News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 2404 - 2428 of 3191
In Montana, the Legislature is responsible for establishing the state programs to benefit the public, while the executive branch is charged with administering them. That structure has worked very well for decades, and is referred to as the separation of powers. When the power of the purse is taken over by the executive branch, that’s when we start having problems. In 2011, then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer established — without legislative authority — “free” health clinics for state employees and their dependents to use “free of...
Many on the left and in the media are praising Senate Bill 405 as a “bipartisan” health care solution. However, one thing is clear to the conservative legislators I serve with: SB 405 is an all-or-nothing expansion of Obamacare for Montana. There was no compromise in the drafting of this bill after it was rubber-stamped by the governor and the sponsor shot down all amendments in committee. Make no mistake about it, this bill is a massive expansion of Obamacare in our state and will add tens of thousands of new par...
Just when life in my neighborhood returned to normal: 8,000 motorcycles roared out of town. 50,000 tourists followed. Lingering snowbirds flew north. An unexpected and welcome rain shower blessed, washed and renewed the atmosphere. Geckos came out of hiding to skitter across my walls. Peace and quiet defined both day and night. Peace. Quiet. Too quiet. I rolled over in bed and looked at my clock. I distinctly recalled winding it last night. Poor thing expired halfway between...
Just before Easter, the Senate passed my Senate Bill 416, which is the only major infrastructure bill that might have a chance to pass. SB 416 passed the Senate on a 47 to 3 vote. Today SB 416 will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee and to pass the House it must get a two-thirds vote as it has a bonding component. This bill is one that no one particularly stomachs, but is a compromise bill that has a chance to pass. Just before Easter, Sarah Swanson Partridge and...
The three most importand tools in my barn are duct tape, bailing twine and WD-40. The first two on the list are in a constant battle for Top Tool, the primary go-to solution in any farming-ranching or equine handling emergency. For problems that are mechanical or generally metal in nature, WD-40 has been invaluable. It pitches in doing everything from starting an engine to breaking free a rusty bolt, and one time I used it as rattle snake repellent which, strictly speaking...
I never know. I never know what each day might bring. I think I do. I’m always wrong. Back when my children were youngsters, I used to pray, literally pray, for a boring day, just one boring day, please. At the same time, if one of my youngsters dared mouth, “I’m bored,” invariably I got a gleam in my eye and whipped out a list of positive motivational activities, i.e., jobs to do. Interestingly, following the initial attempt, my children were never bored. I never said li...
It’s one of those priceless moments in film: In the saddle, crusty old Curly (Jack Palance) turns to wise-cracking Mitch (Billy Crystal) and asks: “Do you know what the secret of life is?” A wry grin on Curly’s weather-beaten face. “No. What?” Mitch quietly responds. “This” says Curly, holding up one finger. “Your finger?” puzzles Mitch. “One thing. Just one thing,” Curly replies. “Just one thing” to change the world. “Just one thing” to make life worth living. “Just one thing” that makes everything else “click.” April is Nat...
New Hampshire legislators prove it’s not just Montana senators who feel it’s their elected and sworn duty to crush children’s dreams. A group of Bozeman elementary kids and their learned presenters went before the Montana Senate with a detailed and researched proposal that Scobey soil be declared the state soil, and the bill sponsor, JP Pomnichowski, D-Bozeman, explained that the soil helps grow Montana’s $4.7 billion agriculture industry, said an article by The Associa...
Like anyone, I have my “up” days and my “down” days. But, really, it is all about keeping life in perspective and finding balance. Take today, for instance. I leave the house for my morning walk at first light. I like to greet the sun. And as thoughtful as those words sound, it is as much about walking in the cool of the day. Perspective. Balance. Generally, I walk between 45 minutes and an hour. Don’t think I’m covering the miles. I am a mere two months away from hip-replace...
Montana residents assume that our state government supports the basic American goals of freedom, fairness and equal justice for all — the founding principles on which our nation and constitution were established. Yet some Yet many of our state leaders are overlooking a policy that denies Montana citizens a basic constitutional right. Some tribal people, as citizens of Montana, are not granted some civil rights — such as open meeting laws — that other Montana citizens take for granted. The “Right to know” is guarantee...
Jon Tester Seems like every time I turn on the TV, I see another pundit or politician calling for greater American military intervention in response to ISIS, or heading to war with Iran, or cleaning up after some other conflict around the world. While these threats are real and must be taken seriously, America can no longer afford to go it alone. We spend billions overseas every year and put thousands of young American men and women in harm’s way. And we pay for it by taking out new loans — mostly from foreign countries lik...
Laurel — Havre Police did a great job in capturing an escapee last week. Eric Bruce Fowler escaped from a Warm Springs drug and alcohol center for addicted inmates. He ended up in Havre. When local police tried to apprehend him, he took off in a car driven by a friend. A wild chase ensued that ended up outside of Chinook. Several other police agencies joined in the effort. We’re not the biggest fan of high-speed chases for fear they endanger police officers and bystanders more often than the criminals. But in this case, off...
In the months I have been in Mazatlan, I have collected referrals for several ways to enhance my poor command of Spanish. But all seem to be formal classes. No thank you. If small children point and laugh at me for my misuse of tense or gender, so be it. My desire is to understand, be understood, and interact in everyday situations. Like most gringos, I start with the elementary please, thank you, and where is the bathroom. From there I progressed to a smattering of weather...
Despite my long, sordid history of being unable to snap out of my obsessive obsession with, well, random obsessive things, I had fully planned on writing this week about something besides my house project. It would’ve happened, too, if I hadn’t suddenly realized that I am doomed. Duh-ooomed, I tell you. I could have written about any number of disasters, weird news items or politics, or the trifecta of disastrously weird politics, or even weirdly disastrous politics, whi...
Today’s column is brought to you by anxiety, a wholly owned subsidiary of deep dilemma, which is on a mission to provide my every thought a bumpy ride on the worry bus to crazy town. The problem is that thoughts are like seeds, like billowing fluffy-bottomed seeds off a cottonwood tree. Our brains produce these cottony seeds by the millions. They float around aimlessly, getting sucked into your lungs, drug into the house and mashed into the carpet. They pile up in drifts and,...
Lynn Hamilton Another litany of constitutional arguments from the gun lobby, Senate Bill 143, The “Higher Education Rights Restoration Act,” is designed to promote fear, grab headlines, undermine confidence in government institutions and public safety and boost gun sales. This is a bill looking for a problem. Statistically, college campuses are significantly safer than their larger communities. Campuses regularly examine safety and security and have invested millions in improvement projects recommended by students and emp...
I woke up homesick. I want real weather, I said to myself. I’ll take any distraction to keep myself from dealing with the deeper problem. Weather, indeed. Tip of my iceberg. Winter’s never been my favorite season. But spring came early to Montana this year. (The computer is a great tool.) I don’t trust an early spring. Nevertheless, I daydream warm Chinook winds, tulips and iris shooting sprouts through the sun-drenched ground, lilacs nursing baby buds through the chang...
March is upon us and with the change of calendar comes the dawn of springtime and many decisions for Montana farmers. And this year, these decisions include several important choices on federal safety net programs that could make a big difference for you, your family and your farm through 2018. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency is urging you, and farmers and landowners across the nation, to finalize your decisions on updating crop yield histories and reallocating base acres for new safety net p...
Last week I explored, in part, the idea of who knows me better: the people doing the health screening who said I’m now short and fat, or my Chinese Zodiac which says I’m “vain and high tempered” and the boar is my enemy. This week, I’m giving the Internet pop-quiz crowd a chance to tell you: Who is the real Pam Burke? These quizzes are one of the latest rages on the Internet. Working off your answers to a few simple questions, they tell you really important things like: Wha...
Laurel — Leroy Keller should make us all proud. He donated blood this week, just as he has done frequently for almost 60 years. As of this week, he has donated 35 gallons of blood. That's a record for the Havre area, and we’d bet it’s close to the record for Montana. Giving blood is not that difficult. It just takes a little while. It’s not painful. And people feel good after doing it. We hope more people follow Leroy Keller’s lead. Laurel — Janna Hoehn of Hawaii has volunteered countless hours in an effort to locate photos o...
Health screenings are meant to tell you, and others, important things about yourself, but really, I’m more than just a list of numbers on a page. Why just this week I took a 12-question quiz and found out that I am an “enlightened grammarian,” which means that I know proper grammar, but am accepting of the fact that language evolves with the times. I have “balanced the standardization of language with the practical usage.” That made my inner nerd feel awesome. Then came the...
Ai-yi-yi! I don’t know what to do. One minute I’m happily married, the next minute I’m headed for divorce court. You know how I’ve been purging drawers and cabinets, throwing away useless, outdated and un-used stuff — the stuff we tend to shove away to deal with later? Maybe I got carried away. Maybe I went too far. I didn’t mean anything by it. (This message was sent to me by Kathy, my friend, who with her husband Richard, lives on Pender Island in British Columbia.)...
Rep. John Brenden, R-Scobey It is halftime at the Legislature and they call it transmittal. The Legislature has a few days off until March 5. This is when all the general bills have to be passed from one house to the other in order to be heard in their respective chamber. This first half went much better than the 2013 session. There were some disappointments in my mind. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Water Compact passed the Senate, and I did not support the compact as I thought it was too much money and a...
I think that because my typical day starts before most people’s does, before the noise of civilization in motion, it’s the sounds of morning that captivate me most. I am used to the beloved sounds of home, which, on a Friday in February, start around 4 a.m. There's the squeak and groan of our home's old floorboards, the quiet padding of dog feet, horses nickering in anticipation of food, the cat's faint “mroww, mroww, mroww” growing steadily louder as he announces his approac...
Recovery from surgery has multi-faceted aspects. In my considered opinion, most aspects don’t bear the attention we tend to give them. The grim reality is that we get to go through the discomforts, fears, outright pain, immobility, etc., whether we want to or not, whether we give energy to the process or not. Eventually, discomforts pass. Take a simple thing like learning to walk. When an infant learns to walk, she is cute. The baby pulls herself up onto the lip of the c...
