Commentary

Daines’ high-stakes bet

BY: - January 22, 2021

Politicians, by nature, are calculators, oddsmakers, bettors, bookies. They bet on winning and losing all the time. Montana Sen. Steve Daines bet on President Donald J. Trump. But following the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Daines changed his wager. That day a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, erected a gallows, killed a U.S. […]

Ehrlick: For people who love freedom, these lawmakers have a funny way of showing it

BY: - January 21, 2021

I need the lawmakers to make up their mind. And personally, I am rooting for them. Apparently, the government has more of an interest in my health than I thought, and I think it’s mighty big of them to want to take over. I am in my mid-40s, paunchy, and I’d really like someone else […]

A meteor, aliens or just a magnificent view?

BY: - January 20, 2021

CADOTTE PASS – This is big country up here on the Continental Divide, even bigger if you’re searching for the skid marks of an 1865 UFO. Whether or not James Lumley, “an old Rocky Mountain trapper,” was telling a tall tale when he got back to St. Louis, his story thrust this low crossing over […]

Transgender athletes: Let the kids play

BY: - January 19, 2021

Today, the Montana legislature heard two bills that affect transgender youth. One levies fines against physicians for providing medically appropriate care for transgender kids, even though we do so in accordance with best practice guidelines from our medical societies. Putting that aside for the moment, the other bill, known now as House Bill 112, or […]

Forest Service fails to consider the impacts of illegal motorized used

BY: - January 19, 2021

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies is challenging the Forest Service’s failure to analyze impacts to threatened grizzly bears from widespread illegal motorized use across Helena-Lewis & Clark National Forest, which stretches 2.8-million acres through central and north-central Montana.  Illegal motorized use includes motorized use on “closed” roads by driving around gates or barriers or […]

Ehrlick: A mountaintop still untouched by Montanans

BY: - January 18, 2021

Even as a young man who mostly had only the experiences of Montana to draw upon, I knew what was happening at that moment. We were in the presence of something great, and I was lucky enough to meet Coretta Scott King twice in my life. This isn’t an exercise in shameless name-dropping, though. It’s […]

This impeachment is not about Trump, it’s about the next person

BY: - January 16, 2021

When Donald Trump became the only president in our tangled history to be impeached twice, Americans might well have found themselves asking, “What now?” The better question is “What’s next?” And that goes beyond the prospect of a trial in the U.S Senate that now appears set to unfold in the opening days of the […]

Praise the Lord and pass the pipe bomb

BY: - January 15, 2021

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker singing “Praise the Lord” on the TV was the soundtrack of my childhood. As I’d get ready for school or play, Tammy Faye and her big fake eyelashes, painted-on eyebrows and glowing tan cheeks would grin and sit next to Jim, who looked like he belonged in the principal’s office. […]

It’s the message, not the medium

BY: - January 14, 2021

I agree with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines for all the wrong reasons. Last week, as Twitter and other social media took the nearly unprecedented step of booting President Donald J. Trump from their platforms, Daines took to the traditional media to demand that the leader of the free world be given his 240 characters back. […]

You fooled us once. Let’s make sure there’s not a next time

BY: - January 11, 2021

We have a crisis of credulity in this country. We’ve become a nation of dupes. The inability of far too many Americans to separate fact from fantasy, and the people who are eager to take advantage of that failure, are the root of the rot in our country. The consequences, long evident, should now be […]

O’Loughlin: Montana can’t afford cuts to health and human services

BY: - January 10, 2021

Imagine someone gave you $1 million and told you to spend $1,000 every day and come back when you ran out of money. You would return in less than three years. If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, it would take you 2,740 years before it was gone. […]

Trost: Are nursing homes solutions or problems?

BY: - January 9, 2021

Upon receiving many phone calls from frustrated family members, many of whom blame long-term care with the slowness of vaccinations among residents of senior care facilities, it seems necessary to address this issue publicly. First, it is joyous that more and more people in healthcare are getting vaccinated. It does not matter who you are […]