There are presently 2 million incarcerated in U.S. prisons. This is 1/4 of the entire world’s incarcerated. Most of the incarcerated in the U.S. are serving terms for crimes that are drug related. It is odd that laws prohibiting the use and sale of “illegal” drugs were enacted considering the utter failure of the prohibition […]

By John Fuller Republicans in Congress are trying to pass legislation that would permit the private sector to allow employers to grant comp time instead of paying overtime as the public sector has done for many years. Just think about that statement for a minute. How ludicrous is the concept that private sector employers are […]

There’s a story I like to tell about my colleague Myers Reece. It involves how I “discovered” him after he had spent months backpacking through the jungles of South America. How I set him on the straight and narrow by making him my first hire at the Flathead Beacon. Of course, this story is largely […]

Young moms like Sylvia Malaga of Whitefish are organizing an educational day of action called the “March against Monsanto.” These events are planned in 200 places worldwide. One hundred and sixty are in the U.S with four rallies in Montana. The Kalispell event is Saturday, May 25 from noon to 5 p.m. at Depot Park. […]

Gun control ads are hitting Montana’s airwaves and Vice President Joe Biden is lobbying around the country for gun control. As a U.S. Senate candidate, I feel compelled to respond. The Second Amendment is not about hunting, period. I believe most Montanans realize that more restrictions on our right to bear arms will do nothing […]

One of the first questions I ask business owners when we start working on their company is “What will it take to transform your business?” I’m asking for several reasons – each of which are critical to knowing where you are with your business. I want to find out what is top of mind – […]

Last month the City of Whitefish formally asked Flathead County to participate in a joint corridor plan for doughnut property along U.S. Highway 93 south of the city limits. Seriously? This is the same Whitefish that has sued Flathead County twice to tie up our doughnut properties for the past five years in ongoing litigation. […]

Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks has met with public opposition over their plan to suppress illegal walleye in Noxon Reservoir. In response, Region 1 said they “will most likely respond by drafting a new EA and providing more public inclusion.” Let’s make one thing perfectly clear; the population of invasive walleye in Noxon Reservoir is […]

By John Fuller Ever since John Maynard Keynes published his “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” liberals have been enamored with the concept that governments can deficit-spend to stimulate aggregate demand and thus spend an economy into prosperity. FDR used Keynes’ theory to justify most of the New Deal, spending in the name of […]

Montana exports had a record year in 2012. Led by grain, Montana exported over $2.48 billion in high-value grain last year. We’re producing products and commodities that the world wants, and all our communities benefit from the resulting jobs, economic growth and tax revenue.?But to continue to thrive in the highly competitive global marketplace, Montana’s […]

It’s difficult to understand the actions of the Flathead County commissioners in regard to the Agency on Aging, which also makes it easy to speculate. And that speculation has run rampant following two recent tense commission meetings. At the first, Commissioners Pam Holmquist and Gary Krueger voted to halt a grant process for a new […]

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 […]

This past weekend, I took one of my favorite drives of the year – that first drive after removing studded snow tires. I enjoy the feel of a performance tire in a tight turn and that’s something studded tires just don’t offer. As I waited for my tires to be swapped and munched on Les […]

An article in the newsletter “Quarterly” was shown to me that highlights yet another wilderness bill. This one is HR 1187, introduced in 1992 and presently sponsored by New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney. The bill (Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act) calls for an additional 24 million acres of federal land in Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and […]

Looking around at the audience of the National Geographic Magazine global warming film documentary showing of “Chasing Ice” in Whitefish, one could see the usual crowd of environmentalists and Democrats, but not a Republican or Tea Party member was to be seen as they must have done their typical covering of eyes and ears, along […]