I’m back from a working “vacation” visiting my Mom on the Washington coast. Basically, while Mom is low-maintenance, her house isn’t. Even after 20 years, the Evergreen People’s Republic still fascinates and amazes me. Between Spokane and Pugetopia, I usually take the back way through the scablands and wheat country, but one thing never changes: […]

Almost lost in the recent blather about shutdowns and Obamacare were several news items about “dark money.” Yep, the guck that slimes our politics, or as Wikipedia explains: “funds used to pay for an election campaign without disclosure before voters go to the polls.” First out of the gate was news that U.S. District Judge […]

Call me miffed at the National Park Service’s ham-handed federal shutdown management. But you can also count me as grateful the Park Service hosted an event on the Washington Mall. With everyone else banned, an immigration rally went forward, complete with stages, lighting and a popular Norteno band. It was classic Animal Farm two-facedness, with […]

Two big and four tiny Green groups have filed an Endangered Species Act petition (yep, another one) with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), seeking to list the northern Rockies fisher, at least the second attempt to do so. But I’ll bet my second-favorite rifle this petition is more about political leverage than it […]

I went to a meeting of local global warming activists recently. Featured was a Web movie, “Do the Math,” starring carbon crusader Bill McKibben. Next was a fellow from Oregon recruiting folks for a Helena “direct action” (get arrested) aimed at getting the Land Board to reject the Otter Creek coal mine. There was also […]

Last time I wrote about forest legislation in the Republican-controlled U.S. House that, if made law, might make a dent in the multi-million-acre monolith of malfunction that is federal public lands management – and is therefore toast in the Democrat-controlled Senate. There’s other forest legislation in the U.S. Senate, which in turn is toast in […]

With fire season under way, I’ve been thinking about federal forest management. The Flathead National Forest (FNF) has restarted its multiple-aborted forest planning process, with a series of field trips for the interested public. The next trip is Aug. 29 to Spotted Bear, just the beginning of a process that is expected to take five […]

Since Diane Smith’s guest column last week stole my Whitefish “doughnut” thunder, I’m free to follow up on another peeve. Thanks, Diane. I wrote earlier about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft grizzly bear delisting plan, suggesting loyal readers take the time to comment. I’ll confess I didn’t comment – without a PhD, a […]

Like many Westerners, I follow water rights issues, usually with the kind of horrified fascination reserved for train wrecks and other disasters. Over the years, combat reports from water war zones (such as the lower Colorado, the Owens Valley, and more recently the Klamath Basin) left me grateful such epic nastiness doesn’t happen in Montana. […]

We’ve all heard the flapdoodle over conservative groups being targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, while liberal groups were not. But nearly lost in the clutter was a recent national Fox Business News segment about two previously unknown federal “nonprofits” that Fox’s David Asman declared were a “political vehicle for Brian Schweitzer.” One was the […]

Eighty-six-hundred bucks! That was the news a couple weeks ago, that fully 24 percent of Flathead County’s per capita income of $35,546 is thanks to 1.3 million acres of “protected public lands” – Glacier National Park and the wildernesses. Yay! We CAN eat the scenery! Um, where’s my check? This was all according to a […]

I’ve always been a sucker for spy novels. Give me some intrepid Brit or American buckling swash (secretly) in some Commie totalitarian cesspool, and I’m good, especially if KGB blood spills. So I was in the library looking for another good spy read when “The Way of the Knife” caught my eye. But it’s nonfiction […]

Environmentalists have filed yet another lawsuit, against the Kootenai National Forest’s “Young Dodge” project on Lake Koocanusa’s west side. News? Naw … same old story. Young Dodge has been in the “paperworks” for a long time. Its first draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was published clear back in February 2006. The Forest Service lost two […]

In April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and cooperating government entities released their 148-page “Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem [NCDE] Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy” draft for public comments. Your comments will be due Aug. 1. Why bother? Two reasons: Officially, a “strategy” (like that for wolves) needs to be approved prior to “de-listing” grizzly bears […]

With Max Baucus announcing his retirement from the United States Senate, it’ll be nice to see the end of all those lame press releases bragging how Max was “fighting for Montana,” to “boost the economy” with “good-paying jobs” funded by his seniority-based position atop the “powerful Senate Finance Committee.” While Max certainly could score infrastructure […]