In October 2008, Congress directed Amtrak to study adding more routes to Amtrak’s system. Among those routes were two for the Northwest, the Denver-Boise-Portland Pioneer, and a second Seattle-Chicago line, the North Coast Hiawatha (NCH) through Bismarck, Helena and Missoula on the old Northern Pacific. Amtrak’s 53-page NCH report makes interesting reading. Amtrak’s current long-distance […]

The week before Columbus Day, the White Creativity bunch, all five of them, held a demonstration at Kalispell’s Depot Park. Aw, geez… William and Helen Deutsch, my paternal grandparents, lived in Washington Heights on Manhattan, with a stunning view of the George Washington Bridge. There’s a little park across the street, where I was subjected […]

Last week, Missoula Federal Judge Donald W. Molloy ordered Yellowstone grizzly bears back to “threatened” on the endangered species list. Others will have all the dirty details of his 46-page ruling. The Feds won on two counts, and Molloy’s discussion has me waiting with bated breath for whatever bombshell drops when he rules on delisting […]

Lost deep in Labor Day’s news dead zone was the midnight resignation of Van Jones, President Obama’s “czar” for green jobs. The handsome, articulate, Yale-educated Jones was named by Time magazine as an “Environmental Hero” in 2008, a star. His task: To bring urban minorities into the mostly-rich-and-white Green movement, which has historically ignored ghetto […]

Wolves Hunters are literally lining up for their wolf tags. While bad-state Wyoming won’t get a season, Idaho has set a quota of 220 tags, Montana 75, pretty timid limits. Such a small take from hunting might “educate” wolves regarding humans and livestock, but it won’t slow the eating down of game by wolves. The […]

Because Plum Creek is Montana’s largest forest products company and largest private landowner, whatever the company does matters greatly to Montana. Because Plum Creek is also one of America’s largest forest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), perhaps it is time for a discussion on how REITs “think.” For starters, I recommend two good source items […]

Two weeks ago, to much rhetoric about putting “Montanans back to work in the woods,” Sen. Jon Tester introduced the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” (S-1470). Tester’s 84-page bill mandates that 100,000 acres be treated over a 10-year period under “stewardship” rules established in the Omnibus Public Lands Act Congress passed this spring. In return […]

With Plum Creek Timber laying off hundreds this year, dismantling its Ksanka and perhaps Pablo mills, and closing on the “conservation sale” to taxpayers of one-third of its Montana timberlands since 2001, the question begs: How much longer will Montana’s largest forest products company remain in Montana? To guess the future, it helps to know […]

Remember Jim Jones, the People’s Temple cult leader (and Communist) who convinced 900 of his followers to drink the Kool-Aid way back in 1978? Well, he’s got to be so proud of our new “people’s temple” … Congress. By a vote of 219 to 212, the U.S. House passed the so-called “American Clean Energy and […]

Famed EnviroSue staff attorney Worthington P. Greene IV and his beautiful wife Buffy had just finished the process of filing yet another lawsuit to block removal of the wolf from the endangered species list. To help recharge their passion (renowned as “Greene Fire”) for the upcoming trial, grateful EnviroSue directors awarded the couple an all-expenses […]

With all the junk on television these days, sometimes I like to score some live entertainment. So, on June 1, at 7:10 p.m., I plunked down in the hallowed chambers of the Whitefish City Council. Oh, for a couch, a beer, and some pizza. There was one item on the public agenda. Property management entrepreneurette […]

This week I planned to write about Henry Waxman’s crazy “energy bill.” But then the news hit that the U.S. Senate passed credit card “reform” legislation by a vote of 90-5. Turns out conservative Senator Tom “Earmark Killer” Coburn of Oklahoma (R), with help from Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia), managed to weld an amendment applying […]

The news is that Burlington Northern Santa Fe has been trying to buy property in Whitefish’s “Railway District.” Residents responded by hiring jet-setting tort attorney Cliff Edwards, who has a proven track record of chasing not only ambulances, but locomotives, too. BNSF has been hit with judgments for pollution in Havre and Livingston, which both […]

If you have ever wondered why you never seem to see your tax dollars at work, don’t worry, they’re working, just for somebody else. Remember the big tizzy a couple of years ago about Alaska Congressman Don Young’s “Bridge to Nowhere,” $223 million in federal money? How about the $50 million for Iowa’s indoor rain […]

Does anyone remember the New World Mine/Crown Butte/Yellowstone Park fiasco that dragged out in the 1990s near Cooke City? Well, here’s the rest of the story. Cooke City originated as the mining camp of Shoo Fly. In 1869, prospectors poaching on the Crow Reservation found color. The Indians duly ran them off, but the white […]