By Tim Baldwin The president’s power is bound by the Constitution, which places all law-making power in Congress. Assuming power is one of the biggest dangers in a Republic. Madison and Hamilton said in Federalist Paper (FP) 20, reflecting on world experience, “Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power … than […]

A bipartisan election commission led by the chief campaign lawyers for President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has made recommendations for making elections run more smoothly across the country. Notably, the report presented by this presidential commission urges state and local election officials to achieve a “modern, efficient and responsive” election system that attends to […]

June Munski-Feenan was a giant. I was a foot and a half taller than her, but she always told me how it was. I felt short next to her. She was one of the most giving people I knew. June was a real leader. Many of my older friends and neighbors have passed. Somehow I […]

A week or so ago, I helped my mom buy an iPad. You would think that my mom, who is in her 70s, would be the one learning the most from this exercise, but you’d be wrong. Going through this with her simply reminded me (again) to discard all assumptions when building a user interface, […]

Now that Sen. Max Baucus has been given the president’s nod to ship off to China as our next ambassador, Montana is in a unique situation and one that does not happen very often. Montana’s soon-to-be placeholder senator will be the 60th senator in history to fill a seat in the upper chamber, without having […]

I empathize with David Tyler’s concerns about the costs of waging war on climate change and the possible impact on low-income earners (Jan. 22 Beacon: “Global Warming: Is It Really That Important?”). However, if we do nothing about climate change and simply kick the can down the road, the costs to us all will be […]

Homeland Security officials recently told Montana that the licenses and identification cards it issues do not comply with a number of federal rules implemented by 2005’s REAL ID Act. Gov. Steve Bullock disagrees. And if this all sounds familiar, it should, since we’ve been waging this battle for several years. If you recall, former Gov. […]

By Tim Baldwin We’re a long way away from June 3, the 2014 primary election date here in Montana, but many political types are already hard at work recruiting candidates and jockeying for leadership roles. The positions and alliances now being forged may well determine much of our state’s future. It’s worth getting involved. In […]

New Year’s always brings guilty thoughts of resolutions we can’t keep. This time, I’m trying reverse psychology: I resolve to get older, uglier and meaner. Of course, all of us have resolutions we’d like others to make, and I’m no exception. Here’s a suggested resolution for our traffic engineering people: Please, think things through before […]

Does your business follow up with your clients and prospects like you should? You should probably consider what “like you should” means, before deciding whether you follow up properly or not. Having done that, let’s define “follow up” as continuing the conversation with that particular prospect or client, in exactly the context they are in […]

Young Belle Winestine described suffragist Jeanette Rankin as “magnetic,” with an “illuminous quality,” and quoted another observer of the charismatic Rankin as like a “young panther ready to spring.” A century ago this year, Montana women won the right to vote. Two years later, in 1916, with ardent support of Winestine and others like her, […]

Is it any wonder many of us are losing faith in government? Some of us are old enough to remember when presidents and congressmen in both parties were statesmen and could work together for the welfare of the nation rather than the Party. Our people are being victimized by dirty back-room politics in Washington, where […]

Will the growing dysfunction of America’s two-party political system destroy our collective future? Can we meet the evolving challenges of today’s economic and social landscape with a system that resembles trench warfare? We begin the 2014 election season bitterly divided by party ideology, while frustrated with government’s failure to develop practical solutions for today’s challenges. […]

On a recent visit, a relative asked why Christmas lights were still hanging over the streets in Whitefish. I explained that they would stay up a while and that the Winter Carnival is approaching. I then explained what that is, which didn’t explain anything at all. It went something like this: “It’s a month-long celebration, […]

By Tim Baldwin Understand first, the tea party is not a party. It is a faction of the Republican Party. It has no organization, platform or leadership. The tea party consists of anarchists and theocrats and everything in between, so their concepts and terminologies are not even consistent. Their commonality: they are extremely dissatisfied. This […]