Commentary
It’s a big damn dam … brought to the state by a federal work project
Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale visited Fort Peck Dam recently. We know this because the very conservative Republican posted photos of his visit on his Twitter feed. One photo featured the congressman and another fellow standing above the spillway of the massive dam, pointing to the horizon with the brown rolling hills of northeastern Montana in […]
Montana doctors: Keep kids in school safely with masks
As Montana families are preparing to send children back to school, we are confronting the uncomfortable fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, much as all of us dearly wish it were. Late spring brought big reductions in COVID-19 case rates from the circulating Alpha variant. But what we’re dealing with now, the Delta […]
With all the fish dying statewide, why is killing more trout a top priority for the state?
Apparently The American Fisheries Society doesn’t approve of citizens criticizing the plan by Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use rotenone to poison all the fish in 67 miles of streams and lakes in and flowing out of the Scapegoat Wilderness Area. But considering those lakes and streams are just upstream of federally-designated […]
We’re all all-full: The limits of our growing population
When Europeans first landed on the North American continent, it was “ripe for the picking,” lush with forests, rivers, wildlife, fish and land as far as the eye could see. As for those already inhabiting those lands and waters, well, they were considered “savages,” and their removal by whatever means necessary was a foregone conclusion. […]
The anti-vaxxer death wish for the community
If I were to say, “I hope you get COVID and die,” such a greeting may get my teeth and face rearranged by whomever I uttered those words to; in Montana, those may be my last (fighting) words. Even writing such a phrase on electronic paper causes me to cringe. It’s cruel, mean, spiteful, shocking […]
The now revealed pathway to the election coup
On Dec. 28, a top official in the Trump Department of Justice circulated an extraordinary, potentially history-altering letter to his colleagues, writing that “I see no valid downsides” to issuing the letter and proposing that they “get it out as soon as possible.” In that letter, reported this last week by ABC News, Jeffrey Clark […]
COVID exposes fault lines between individual rights and the public good
It seems that getting control of the coronavirus has brought front and center the question: When should an individual’s right become more important than what is in the best health and welfare of the people, the country? The Bill of Rights places high priority on individual freedoms — the bedrock of our democracy that we […]
I was an evangelical and an anti-vaxxer, but here’s what changed
As hospitals again fill up with COVID-19 cases, the vaccinated are getting angrier at the unvaccinated. I get the anger. I also get what it feels like to be on the other side. Being an anti-vaxxer is a lot like being an evangelical Christian, and I’ve been both. In the evangelical church of my adolescence, […]
We can’t log our way out of global warming
Late last week President Biden met with Western governors to discuss the wildfires that continue to scorch their states. Montana’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, said he plans to tell Biden we need to log more of our forests — only of course he’ll use the latest timber industry gobbledygook of “active forest management” instead of speaking plainly and […]
GOP should demand all members get vaccinated (and show proof…something like a …what’s the word?.. passport)
As Republicans in Congress turned red faced demanding to know why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have the audacity to change messaging last week, COVID-19 continued its upward trend in Montana. Instead of insisting on masking up and more vaccinations, state and local leaders kept reading from the gospel of personal responsibility […]
The military wasn’t a way out of poverty for me
I grew up on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in southern Virginia. We lived in a sewage-ravaged, bug-infested trailer park. I didn’t realize we were poor at first — I thought that’s just how things were. But it was a difficult place to grow up, and as I got older, I wanted to […]
It’s essential to find the truth of Jan. 6 and let the people decide
This was the opening statement made by Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who, along with Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, agreed to serve on the House Special Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. These were the remarks as prepared by him, and distributed through his Washington, D.C., office. The Daily Montana […]