News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1899 - 1923 of 3210
Imagine that you were forced to sign a 25 year contract for gas for your car at three to four times the market price. That’s the exact situation NorthWestern Energy customers were facing without the Montana Public Service Commission’s recent action to reduce the contract length and rate available to small renewable projects known as Qualifying Facilities — QFs. As usual with actions that put ratepayers first, those who would have us promote renewables at any cost are hopping mad. The federal law that the Commission must...
Congress is in crisis, and some members of the U.S. Senate suggest fundamental changes that would forever alter the future of that esteemed body. In one dramatic proposal, Montana’s own Sen. Steve Daines has proposed getting rid of the historic Senate filibuster rule: “These are archaic rules from the past that are creating, are going to create barriers for the Senate to act on behalf of the American people. It is time to blow up the filibuster. ... I was pleased to see the president tweet that out,” Daines said July 18. S...
Generations of Montanans have cultivated the land and passed family farms and ranches down to their children. Their work has built Montana’s economy and preserved a way of life that still defines our state today. But with the ground cracking underneath us, we are reminded of how fragile this way of life is. As our number one economic driver, Montana agriculture, has supported our economy through seasons of plenty and seasons of drought, including physical drought and unseasonable rains. In Montana we’ve seen them both and...
Yesterday morning, I thought about options available when solving problems related to eldercare. The more I thought about my reasons for becoming a mediator, the more I thought that the ideas converge. As I see it, there are three doors to resolving a problem. “Door number one” is people solving problems related to seniors and healthcare with the skills that life has taught them. Some people bully/threaten their way into a solution. Some people take on a martyr status and some people give up in frustration. Some people can...
Data analysts say, if you torture the numbers long enough, they’ll tell you anything. I just read that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has compiled the statistics and crunched the numbers, and the official data says more people in the U.S. get killed by cows every year than get killed by sharks. In averages taken from between 2001 and 2013, cows killed 20 people per year and sharks killed only one person per year. In fact, alligators and bears each averaged o...
Ants, those little buggers, are a constant, year-round plague. Mosquitoes don’t irritate me nearly as much. I don’t disdain the power of the mosquito, dastardly carrier of dread diseases, to wreak havoc on people and animals. But after surviving years of Milk River Valley mosquitoes, this inferior breed is a mere inconvenience. Okay, the truth is, I seldom see any. Ants are another beast entirely. A nearly invisible fawn-colored ant likes my house, especially the kitchen and...
Two core values that Montanans share make our state great: a deep respect for private property rights as well as a dedication to public land. Defending both of these values is essential to our way of life. Montana is blessed with 28 million acres of public land that supports hunting, hiking, camping, and countless other outdoor pursuits. However, the majority of Montana’s land is in private ownership. Unlike some Western states that are a majority public land, and Eastern states that are all private, Montana enjoys a mix. T...
I have a response for Greg Jergeson’s Havre Daily News editorial of Tuesday, July 18. Mr. Jergeson’s account of the Highway 2 Association’s mission, “Enhancing Economic Development in the Highway 2 Corridor by Constructing an Adequate Highway, 4 For 2, which is the Prerequisite to Economic Development,” is misleading. Stating it bluntly, in the first place, Greg doesn’t support an adequate highway, which is essential in growing northern Montana’s stagnant economy. Mr. Jergeson is a political appointee by Gov. (Steve) Bullo...
On July 13, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, a political prisoner in China and a champion of democracy, died of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital. The world mourned, but in China his death was barely noted. The Chinese government is responsible for Liu Xiaobo’s death. It imprisoned him unjustly, then withheld proper medical treatment until his cancer was too advanced to treat. At the end it spurned international appeals to allow him to emigrate abroad with his wife so he could die a free man in a free country. This f...
Today I would like to take a departure from my usual frivolous subject matter to touch on the serious topic of people’s worth, specifically, the value of my own life. How much is my life worth? Is it worth, for example, $750? When I was a small child, I was worthless for earning any wages or being productive in any helpful way. I was, as most babies are, a burden. I was not special in this way. Perhaps if I had been a pretty child or one who made people feet compelled to s...
“Like the first morning.” Scrub oaks, verdant from recent rains, reached out branches and clutched passing clouds onto high mountaintops, puffy sombreros heavy with moisture. Mountains held onto the clouds tightly until near noon when clouds, with a mind of their own, lifted off and away. Clouds will return, dark with a new load of water in the late afternoon, tonight’s fresh downpour. Since the season began, about six weeks ago, we’ve averaged half an inch each night....
In February, Governor Steve Bullock appointed me to the Montana Transportation Commission, representing Commission District 3. The three corners of the district are Blaine County in the northeast, Glacier County in the northwest, and Lewis & Clark County in the south. Since my appointment, I have been poring over data related to highway transportation throughout my district, the revenue availability to various kinds of highway projects, and the mounting needs for reconstruction, repair, and maintenance that exceed the...
Any ideas I might have had for this week’s column were immediately erased in the moment I realized my home was not going to burst into flames, burn to the ground and start a wildland fire that obliterated the Hi-Line. I’m sure you can imagine the degree of my elation. This feeling was topped by a jumbled free-for-all kind of emotional brawl as events played out Tuesday. I had some clothes drying in the dryer that morning and I needed to get them swapped out for the last loa...
Have you ever had a day when you feel unutterably sad for no earthly reason except that you are human? On my patio, on this day when my thermometer registers a mid-afternoon temperature in the low 70s, rain still dripping from tree leaves, a lizard lays splayed out, soaking up every iota of warm comfort from the patch of sun-drenched concrete. I know how he feels. My habit, when I get this way, is to work through the mood. But in the last few years I’ve learned to slow d...
With wildfires, earthquakes, drought, grizzly bears invading the prairie and our descent into the heart of bug season, Pamville News brings its readership news and commentary on what’s happening in the man vs. nature struggle across the country. • KHQ News in King County, Washington, reported Tuesday that a GMC Envoy died in a fire after a 14-year-old took his parents’ SUV and a few friends on a joy ride to buy fireworks earlier that morning. Officers reported that the boys...
“I love my night life.” “You don’t have a night life,” my cousin Nancie, in Mexico for a three-week vacation in her house across the road from mine, countered. “You’re in bed when the sun goes down. What do you mean, night life?” “My dreams. I dream marvelous stories. I usually wake up feeling happy and full of energy. Most of the time I don’t remember my dreams once I’m out of bed. Most of my dreams are like playing solitaire with a pinochle deck, but, lately, I feel that i...
Earlier this week, Interior Secretary Zinke offered welcome news to Montanans and all Americans when he announced he would recommend to keep the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument intact as is, an iconic landscape critical to fish and game and cherished by hunters, anglers and others. The importance of America’s public lands, including our national monuments, to our fish and wildlife populations, economic health and hunting and fishing traditions cannot be overstated. The secretary’s willingness to listen to a majo...
Rodeos, barbeques, fireworks, parades — these are what often come to mind when we celebrate the Fourth of July in Montana. In fact, these activities have always come to mind when we think about Independence Day. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence. From the very beginning, people understood the significance of what they had just done. John Adams, our would-be second president, wrote to his wife about his vision for future celebrations of this historic occasion: “I am...
Too often, policy debates in Washington, D.C., devolve into partisan fistfights. Each side becomes so focused on landing a punch that they forget why they climbed into the ring in the first place. Just a few years ago, one in five Montanans did not have access to health insurance, and people couldn’t afford to get sick. When we passed health care reform, we took a big step forward, and today, more Montanans have access to health care than ever before. But the current health care system is not perfect, and there are still folk...
Although the most significant contribution to what has kept my husband and I together for the past 200 years (rounded up) is lack of imagination about what else to with ourselves, we have a few other gimmicky tricks, too. One of the biggies is this: Sometimes you have to rise up to the occasion, leave your happy place and do something beyond the normal for your spouse. May all the saints and dragon-slayers help us, but this weekend I have to be the trophy wife. John’s class r...
Obamacare has been burdensome for small business. This week, the Senate has a chance to do something about it. Year after year, when the National Federation of Independent Business surveys its members, they say their No. 1 priority is healthcare, but the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, has made things more difficult for them. Its onerous taxes and mandates have increased costs and reduced choices. Repealing Obamacare shouldn’t be a partisan issue. The law has failed in its central promise, which is to make h...
After more than a year of effort, comments from people in nearly every county in Montana and careful evaluation of Montana’s transportation needs and priorities, we are ready to publish our draft long-range transportation plan update, TranPlanMT. The update process for this 20-year policy plan provides MDT the opportunity to assess Montana’s transportation system and effectively plan for our transportation future. We’ve identified goals and strategies to address trends, issues, needs, priorities and funding sources and outli...
For the past three weeks it has, indeed, been greener on the far side of the hills surrounding our parched valley. Rains come in June, the local people tell me. And the rains surrounded us, in Ahualulco, San Marcos, Magdalena, Ameca. We in Etzatlan sat high and dry. Our last rain fell in October. Every day I scoop sand dunes off my floors. I worry. Is this a drought? June is nearly done and gone. What will we do for water? I grew up worrying about weather. I learned from my...
On Wednesday, June 28, I will host my 17th Telephone Townhall to get your input on the health care draft proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare. The draft bill was released on Thursday, June 22, and I immediately posted the text on my website for all Montanans to read. I am digging into this legislation myself and look forward to hearing the thoughts of Montanans as we consider this important issue together. While there is an effort to move legislation out of the Senate next week, I’ve been urging my colleagues to get t...
Senate Republicans have crafted a plan that will unhinge our nation’s health care system and leave Montana families and the people who care for them scrambling to pick up the pieces. To make matters worse, they’ll vote on the bill next week without public input. This commitment to secrecy is more than concerning. It has clouded what should have been a transparent and collaborative process of strengthening America’s health. And it has set an unnerving tone for future congressional action. GOP leaders rejected the House plan...
