News you can use
News you can use
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Montana farmers and ranchers face numerous challenges. Some of these challenges such as weather, commodity prices, and bank loan rates are beyond a single farmer’s ability to manage. On the other hand, there are challenges faced by Montana producers, which one could reasonably consider as manageable yet in reality are not. One of the biggest challenges thrown in the face of Montana agriculture that falls in this category is when original equipment manufacturers lock farmers and ranchers out of repairing their own e...
The redistricting wrangling is now over. The Commission has made its decision, will formally file the legislative district structure, and the 2024 elections will move forward. For the sixth time that the difficult and politicallycharged redistricting process has been handled by the Commission created by the 1972 Constitutional Convention — ConCon. Montana’s redistricting process over 50 years has stood the test of time. The Commission created by the ConCon called for four partisan members appointed by the legislative leaders...
Valentine’s Day is one of the oddest holidays of the year. I can remember back in grade school being required to fill out little Valentine’s cards for all my classmates and thinking that this was one of the stupidest, most awkward things I ever had to do. I asked my mom when I was in first grade why I had to give cards to all the kids, including the kids I didn’t know, the ones who were mean and the ones I had no thoughts on at all. Navigating social norms is difficult enoug...
Some say confession is good for the soul, and growing up Catholic, I’m a believer. Here is something I seldom talk about. First, though, the catalyst. For the past week, on my sunrise walk with Lola, I’ve been singing. Here is what you need to understand. I don’t sing. Ever. I love music. Songs weave through my days, mostly in my head. Silently. I don’t allow the songs to exit my mouth. Unlike bad words which squeak through frequently and often appropriately. My fear of bein...
In Taxation Committee, Week 5 started with bills to lower taxes for certain types of income or property taxes. SB 194 proposed to give tax credits to landlords who lower rent to below market rate, with taxpayers picking up the tab for the rest of the tax burden. The legislator who carried that bill pulled it after the cost to the state’s other taxpayers was pointed out. SB 125 is a bill still floating around that would require all mill levies passed by a vote of the people to have an automatic sunset (end) in a standard n...
“The worst thing,” I told my mother, “was when you made us eat venison sausage for lunch. That sausage lasted forever!” I am visiting my parents, and we somehow got to discussing our less-than-favorite foods. My mother always made wonderful school lunches with fresh fruit and a homemade cookie. But memory is fickle. What I remember most clearly was when my father brought home from work what seemed to me, as an elementary-school-age kid, a venison sausage the size of a basebal...
All Montanans have seen the bumper stickers and heard the chatter warning potential newcomers against changing Montana. This proud defense of our state often emanates from folks a lot like me; from hunters, anglers — people who love to hike our mountains and camp in the backcountry. Most of us have been quoting those bumper stickers assuming that any change would probably come from interlopers in rainbow-painted VW vans, or maybe from dangerously liberal urban yuppies with their shiny new electric vehicles and brand-new Monta...
I recently recognized the fact that I’ve been working my way through the five stages of greed. All I can say is that not all of life’s progress is in a positive direction. I’d like to blame my office’s personal benefactor, the cookie lady, who is, after all, a sweet little old cookie pusher. So I do. She has grandma-style old-fashioned manners, which mean she has her own wiliness. It’s like that social media challenge “How do you tell me (something), without actually te...
We finished Week Four of the 68th legislative session last week. For breakfast one morning last week, we were hosted by 4-H members from most of the counties throughout Montana. My home county sponsored me, and I also got to say hello to Chouteau County 4-H’ers as they sponsored Rep. Paul Tuss. Additionally, the School for the Deaf and Blind from Great Falls performed a song for us using American Sign Language. It was a very impressive program to have on the floor of the Senate. I just looked at the proposed constitutional a...
On a cold winter morning in the town of Clancy, state legislators gathered to make sausage. Clancy has two bars, two churches, a school and a post office. It’s the kind of place that lends itself to community sausage making. There is an old expression that you don’t want to see two things being made: sausage and laws. But when the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center brought together a bipartisan group of legislators, we learned that saying sells both short. We were called together to learn, both literally and figuratively, how...
My Grandma came to live with us when I was four so that my Dad didn’t have to farm me and my sister out to relatives. Grandma was a good cook and taught me the learn-it-by-doing-it method. She told me that she had to bake bread every day raising her own seven children and she didn’t intend to bake another loaf of bread. Funny, she made bread rolls every Sunday and the pies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, cookies that rolled out of her oven were bountiful and delicious. There were thi...
Thank you, Sen. Russ Tempel, for voting no on the unconstitutional SB 154. Your commitment to protecting the Right to Privacy as guaranteed in Montana’s Constitution is greatly appreciated. All Montanans deserve to make their own medical decisions and the Legislature should not be dictating how the judicial branch can and can’t interpret laws. We urge local community members to contact your representatives in the House and ask them to vote no on SB 154. Josh Kassmeier, House District 27, 406-781-5386, email Jos...
Consumers have the right to know the origin of the beef on their tables, and ranchers have the right to a fair and competitive market. This is a reasonable expectation. However, after 2015, beef and pork were exempted from country of origin labeling laws. As a result, consumers do not know where their beef comes from, and ranchers do not have fair prices. That’s why we are bringing forward country of origin placarding legislation (HB 350), which will set the story straight. Today, the “USDA Graded” and “Product of the USA...
After surviving an abscessed tooth, root canal, thorough a porcelain bridge, two rounds of antibiotics, bladder infection, severe sleep apnea, chest discomfort and soon the loss of my breath, I found this “Gem!” I always felt I could solve my own problems, plus help others solve their problems. One night late, I could not walk 115 feet in my own house without pure exhaustion. I told my husband that I was so weak, I was afraid. I didn’t know if I was going to die! Oh, I was old enough to die but I have lots of living to do an...
Government spending is increasing by $2.6 million a minute. The national debt now stands at over $31 trillion. That’s primarily money that people over 40 have spent, and a debt that infants born today will be burdened with, likely for their entire lives. This, in a great nation in which each generation has continually been wealthier than the one before. That is emphatically not so, now. The future generation has been accurately described as victims of “generational theft.” Out of deep concern about this, I contacted the w...
It was snowing hard, the way it almost never does anymore, and I decided I needed to go for my walk, heedless of the weather. “I probably won’t be gone long!” I texted a friend in California as I headed out the door looking like an Arctic explorer. The snow was coming down fast and sideways. Many businesses were closed, and the streetlights had eerily popped on at midday. Once outside, I wondered if this was such a good idea. It was impossible to keep the snow out of my eyes....
One of the big stories this week is about how eight U.S. Marines outsmarted a government artificial intelligence system by employing classic stealth tactics usually seen in Saturday morning cartoons and campy comedy movies — the exact type of maneuvers that would never work in real life. Until they do. A page from an advance copy of the book “Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” written by former Pentagon policy analyst and Army veter...
Montana is fortunate to be a state with farmers, ranchers and organizations dedicated to making quality food available to our communities. Unfortunately for many, local fresh food remains out of reach because of their income level. The Montana Farm to Food Bank program, House Bill 276, sponsored by Representative Marty Malone, R-Pray, aims to change that. Right now, state lawmakers have an opportunity to nourish families, boost rural economies and strengthen local food systems by supporting HB 276. Montana Farm to Food Bank...
Montanans respect “honest pay for honest work.” By putting these words into action, we can provide for ourselves and our families, while creating the opportunity for a better life today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, people aren’t always fairly compensated for their hard work. American Indians, for example, make around 77 cents for every dollar a white worker earns for substantially similar work. More disturbing, Native women are paid just half (51%) of what white men earn. White women also have a substantial pay gap, earning a...
Some days, it is a great comfort to me. Other days, a rather delightful joke, makes me chuckle at myself. I can still hear the laughter in my friend’s voice as he said to me, all those hundred years ago, “Tomorrow things will be different. They may not be better. They may not be worse. But they will be different.” I was a bit of a drama queen back then, a bit hooked on adrenaline. Even tragedy held excitement. I was prone to jump to conclusions, to make decisions and leap into...
Week three has started to sort out the ingredients that were put in the sausage. We have a number of legislators who voted on a bill to use federal money to double the payment to hunting block management leases. I understand that in some cases those individuals deserve an increase. However, some of these same legislators are pushing for a Constitutional Convention to stop the uncontrolled federal spending. I don’t know if it’s irony, misunderstanding of how funding works, or just self-serving lawmaking, but this kind of thi...
A former U.S. senator and vice president said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” We have a moral obligation to care for those in the twilight of life, the elderly, whose hard work and sacrifice helped make the Big Sky Country a vibrant and healthy place to work, raise our families, retire and receive health care. Our...
Recently there has been a media blast by John Deere claiming a Memorandum of Understanding signed with American Farm Bureau Federation provides right to repair for farmers, ranchers and independent repair shops. A closer look at the non-legally binding document shows the devil is in the details. John Deere signed a similar MOU in 2018, with the California Farm Bureau, when the California Legislature was on the verge of passing a right to repair bill. Their strategy worked as the bill lost momentum and failed on the last vote....
“I have to say, that is a very nice hat!” I told the man as he passed me on the sidewalk. The man in the snazzy blue fedora had a serious look on his face, as if he was thinking deeply about something far more important than the indigo-blue hat with the red feather sitting on his head. But whatever less-than-cheerful thought had been preoccupying him (the gathering clouds? The declining stock market? His expanding waistline?), it was whisked away when I complimented his dapper...
Montana lost nearly a dozen nursing homes in 2022. The reality is that dozens more assisted living and long-term care facilities are hanging by a thread. They are waiting to see if our governor and state Legislature will take the critical steps necessary to keep essential elder services available across this vast state. Now is the time to make your voice heard on this essential concern. While the governor says Montanans would prefer to age in their homes, and no one would disagree, the reality is that a beloved father or...
