fbpx

Closing Range

Closing Range

Got Warrant?

Ever noticed how Montana makes the news only when stupid stuff happens? Our latest claim to national fame comes courtesy of Columbia Falls High School. CFHS junior Demari DeReu forgot her hunting rifle in her car trunk after the last weekend of hunting season. She remembered it when a school lockdown/sniffdown was announced, and immediately […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

The Republican Mandate

Now that Democrat Kendall Van Dyk has bested Republican incumbent Roy Brown by four votes in Montana’s spendiest State Senate race ever ($234,000 for 6,208 ballots cast), the Republicans hold the state Senate 28-21 and the House by a whomping 68-32 majority. So what does this “mandate” call for? Many observers, including Flathead Democrats, have […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Rules for Radicals

With the election guttersniping over (for a few days anyhow) I took some time to read and ponder an item from the library: “Rules for Radicals, A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals,” written by Saul David Alinsky, published in 1971 by Random House. Now, why would I, an upstanding capitalist pig, read an old book […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Nature’s Bailout

Our latest election had millions of Americans voting at least partly because of worries over our national debt. Government runs deficits because too many politicians are willing and happy to rob Peter (and Peter’s grandchildren) to pay Paul. To score Paul’s vote, they approve objectively stupid expenditures (on Peter’s dime) for projects and programs that […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Don’t Feed The Trolls

Trolls, trolls everywhere, trash-typing from behind their anonymizers, polluting the Web with execrations that would get them flushed in the real world. Besides viruses, trolls are the worst part of the Internet. While most trolls spew mindless insults for the sake of insult, there’s an especially toxic undercurrent in the sewage: Those anonymous or pseudonymous […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Wolf Rhetoric

Federal judge Donald W. Molloy’s egregious ruling to keep those adorable wolves on the endangered list seems to have gotten some attention. Montana’s stalwarts in Congress are finally taking steps to change the law – or at least their press releases claim they are…. Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) has drafted a two-page bill which, as […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Doughnut Debate a Microcosm of National Politics

Two weeks ago, I attended a session of the Whitefish/Flathead County interlocal agreement negotiations. Someone should have brought doughnuts, or at least popcorn. It appears that Flathead County will have 12 months to review the 65 land-use ordinances imposed upon the doughnut (and the city itself) since 2005 when the interlocal was implemented, and request […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Brainstorming Rural Cleansing

Bureau of Land Management director Robert Abbey will be visiting Malta on Thursday, Sept. 17. The idea of a 2.5 million-acre, $30- to $300-million “Buffalo Commons” national monument (a proposal that became public knowledge only when part of a secret Department of Interior memo leaked in February) has the natives a little restless. Abbey has […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Power Tripping

Things have been pretty interesting on the energy front the past month – as you would expect when energy gets mixed with politics. Most folks know that Flathead Electric Cooperative has been installing a partial “smart grid” here, in hopes of efficiency gains and better cost allocation. But will things pan out? Consider this bit […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Glacier National Park: Our Ticket to the Third World?

In this centennial year of Glacier National Park, it’s been a busy time for the Crown of the Continent, hasn’t it? The excitement started with British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell’s declaration that B.C. was banning minerals production in the Canadian part of the North Fork Flathead. Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus responded by introducing […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

New Monument is a Rotten Idea

So my friend Wild Bill Schneider is calling on President Barack Obama to throw a “few local ranchers” under the bus “to pay back the millions of environmentalists who voted for him” by declaring a “Grasslands National Monument” in northeast Montana? Wow. If Bill ever tries to introduce himself to one of those ranchers, I’d […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Firing Blanks

I like the Bill of Rights. Not just the First, the Second, or the Fourteenth, but the whole darn American civil-liberties arsenal. Unlike many of my media colleagues, the Second is my fave over the First. After all, bad people with guns can shut up good people with keyboards pretty darn quick. So, I’ve been […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Advice for FWP

Over Independence Day weekend, the news hit that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) has decided to “fast track” buying the so-called Spotted Dog ranch near Deer Lodge and turning it into a 38,000-acre Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The money for the buy ($16.6 million) is sourced from Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program (NRDP), funded […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Crudely Slick

Who watched President Barack Obama’s speech on British Petroleum’s oil spill? I did. Obama got a couple things right, or almost right. He called the Deepwater Horizon blowout the “worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” It will certainly be the worst in terms of dollars spent. The president spoke of 30,000 cleanup personnel, along […]

By Dave Skinner
Closing Range

Another Bad Land Deal

On May 17, the Montana Land Board voted to give “preliminary approval” to a so-called “Montana Working Forests Acquisition.” This is former Plum Creek ground that the Nature Conservancy bought with the intent of selling it off to Montana as state trust lands. On offer: 54,170 acres in four chunks, for $41 million ($757 per […]

By Dave Skinner