There’s nothing worse than being labeled a land-grabber. Just ask President Barack Obama’s administration. When a Department of the Interior memo surfaced that listed 14 sites, including 2.5 million acres in Montana, under consideration for new national monuments, the outcry was immediate. Land-grabber! Interior Secretary Ken Salazar tried to squash the controversy. He said nothing […]

It is said that “facts are stubborn things.” So are the figures on which facts are based. The following example didn’t originate with me, but in revising and verifying it, I consulted the highly respected, bipartisan Concord Coalition. It is headed up by former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire and former Democratic Sen. […]

A little more than seventy-five percent of the calendar year is behind you. Can the same be said for the year’s goals, income expectations, etc? Will you wait until the end of the year to plan your next six, twelve, eighteen months or are you doing it now? How often do you review the results […]

Some in our firearms paradise of Montana are upset about a memo from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), reminding dealers that pot users can’t own guns. Users of federal “Schedule One” controlled substances, with no “currently accepted medical use” in the U.S., are prima facie felons. While angel-dusters, meth-heads, and legal […]

The federal government says it will deny Second Amendment rights to about 26,000 Montanans. Some people are upset about it, but that probably won’t last long. After all, these lost freedoms only apply to medical marijuana cardholders. Last week, one of our readers, a volunteer on several local boards, stopped by our office in Kalispell. […]

In a recent column (Sept. 21 Beacon: “Revenue Shell Game Hurts Schools”), leaders of two Montana education associations questioned the accuracy of statements by Department of Natural Resources and Conservations officials regarding how state trust revenues support K-12 education. While it may serve their purpose to vilify a state agency in an attempt to provide […]

Last week I was talking with a friend who was celebrating, or at the very least – remembering, the fact that a certain day that week marked his 10th year on the job. A decade or two ago, it was commonplace to have the same job for 10 years. In the decades of my parents’ […]

There were political lessons that Montana voters learned after watching legislators debate laws in Helena during the first part of this year. In five weeks the Flathead will see how that debacle translates for city voters on Election Day. Most of us get the “taxed enough already” motto preached during the campaigns. But the balance […]

When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, campaigning in Iowa last month, was pressed by a heckler to raise corporate tax rates, he responded that “corporations are people, my friend.” The crowd of supporters cheered. Whether you agree with him, the high court already essentially did. In early 2010, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled […]

Ever walk out of a store or ended a phone call with a business and thought “Man, what a hassle. Why do they make it so hard for me to give them my money?” For example, I mostly read the news online but I like an old school Sunday paper. Problem is, I can’t get […]

Is the Solyndra fiasco a “scandal?” Well, a half-billion is chump change compared to the expected $14 billion hit taxpayers will get from the auto bailout – or gosh-knows-what for “saving” Wall Street. Even here in Montana just a few years ago, Sen. Max Baucus gifted the tax-exempt Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Land […]

In a recent column (Sept. 14 Beacon: “Choose Wisely, Whitefish”) David Skinner inaccurately “reported” on the upcoming Whitefish referendum. It was reported in his column that the referendum to repeal a city council decision, which changes the interlocal planning agreement between the city of Whitefish and Flathead County got the required signatures for placing this […]

The Kalispell Center Mall turned 25 recently and, considering the times, that’s quite an accomplishment. Recent years have been rough on malls coast to coast, as consumers’ buying habits have changed and developers and merchants have increasingly embraced “lifestyle centers,” code words for open-air malls often set in the suburbs. We almost had one of […]

The state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is once again trying to lead the public into believing that an increase in state land revenues results in increased funding for Montana’s public schools. And unfortunately, when the department goes fishing for news coverage of this incorrect assertion, the media often accepts the assertion with little […]

If you’ve been reading about the economy, it seems like a fair percentage of the new jobs being created out there are going to technical people. Even today, the number of applicants in the Silicon Valley job pool for a specific technical skill are roughly equal to the number of open jobs in that niche. […]