Even staunch supporters of President Barack Obama are at a loss to explain his ill-advised trade of five Taliban generals for one U.S. Army deserter.

There are a lot of great things happening in Montana.

President Barack Obama’s historic decision to act on carbon emissions will undoubtedly emit years of ideological political rhetoric. The proposal is several hundred pages but calls for a state-based solution to reducing 2005 carbon emissions by 30 percent from coal plants over the next 16 years.

Congress ignores carbon pollution but routinely doles out hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds for weather-related mitigation like super-storm disaster relief, fierce forest fires and selective crop insurance.

How good is your business at pricing custom work?

Often, at least in news reports, drones, or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), are affiliated with government overreach or targeting terrorists in far off lands.

We’ve made some choices, but we have more to make. In doing so let’s consider the concept of “civic attitude.”

Policy makers in Washington State obviously want to make it virtually impossible to mine coal in Montana.

When you have hunted, hiked, worked and snowmobiled – you name it – on Forest Service land for decades, you can begin to feel as if you had an entitlement to that land.

I’m disappointed by the recent decision by Republicans in Congress to block a bipartisan bill to protect the North Fork.

Does your guarantee provide value and eliminate risk for the prospect, or does it simply give their money back?

While giving their money back is often seen as an ideal guarantee, the fact is that while it’s the easiest effective guarantee you can make, it’s also the least common denominator.

Does your business reputation depend on least common denominator service? I suspect it doesn’t.

Last week I went on an East Side writing trip, to the front of the mountains between Rogers Pass and Swift Dam.

If you’re like me, you’ve already planned most of your summer. You’ve marked each weekend on your calendar from now until the middle of September. There are festivals, camping trips and weddings that must be squeezed into the fleeting sunny months. It flies by, but luckily has only begun.

The beginning of the summer and winter seasons are the best of each. The possibilities seem, even if they aren’t, endless. Jamming it all in is impossible. Something always interferes, like rain, sunburns and unexpected visitors. You must have a plan, then a backup plan.

Montana’s Constitution provides that we consider amending the Constitution at least once every 20 years (Art. 9, Sec. 3) and review the local forms once every 10 years (Art. 6, Sec. 9). This year, we must consider reviewing our form of local governments.

Unlike Montana’s Constitution, the United States Constitution makes it very difficult (some say impossible) for the states to amend the constitution under Article V. This is why Patrick Henry opposed the Constitution. He argued the Constitution would empower the federal government, and the states would have no way to correct what experience proved needed fixing.

Recent reports by the Associated Press and other news organizations depict a bleak future for American energy consumers. Electricity prices are on the rise, and your wallet will soon know it. Frustratingly, the reason those prices are going up have nothing to do with normal economics.

The problem isn’t that demand has been increasing – in fact, even as the U.S. population has grown, our energy consumption has leveled off over the past 15 years due to increased efficiency and conservation.

Recently, Gov. Steve Bullock received a letter signed by more than 50 Montana health professionals from across the state. The letter asks Bullock and his administration to strongly support proposed limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

The reasons are simple: Discharge of toxins and carbon from coal burning plants are causing health problems and climate change, which also carries serious health impacts.