Years from now, historians may not agree on whether the federal stimulus plan was effective in reigniting the country’s flailing economy. What should be settled, however, is that the taxpayer-funded program – like others before it – is heavy on waste. This isn’t a referendum on the broader effectiveness of the so-called “American Recovery and […]

Last week I spoke with business owners in Columbia Falls about the impact of mobile technology on their businesses. Tourists have lots of resources: the Internet, stuff they were mailed, travel guides, etc. Once they get here, many of them use their phone. Canyon Campground owner Dee Brown told me that not long ago, many […]

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 […]

We spent a good bit of time studying Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s bill. While not perfect, this bill will provide support and direction to the wood products industry and the Forest Service while protecting critical wildlands in three nationals forests of Montana. Tester’s bill would affect national forest lands on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, Lolo, and Kootenai […]

As a citizen of the United States, I cannot help but be concerned by the current health care situation. Every citizen of this country deserves good benefits without the fear of bankruptcy. The Baucus Framework does not provide a guarantee of good, affordable coverage, but could make health care worse for many people. It doesn’t […]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes to see it “modified.” Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi says it “spends too much, and it does too little to cut health care costs.” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller claims that it follows a model that has “largely failed.” Even the White House’s response to Montana Sen. Max Baucus’ […]

A few folks have asked me why the Department of Homeland Security has decided to rebuild Montana’s Port of Whitetail – a 45-year old, asbestos-contaminated facility that doesn’t see as much traffic as America’s southern border. My response is simple: Our borders are only as strong as their weakest link. And as a member of […]

Last week, I was on Amazon to pick up a copy of “Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions: A Tactical Playbook for Managers and Executives“. I’m always looking for another edge and this one sounded worthwhile for a number of reasons. Anyhow, like a successful salesperson would, Amazon’s shopping cart tried to upsell me. It said […]

Montana’s Sen. Max Baucus ought to be ashamed for submitting a health care reform bill that does nothing to remedy many of the most serious flaws in our broken system: no coverage at all for millions; totally inadequate preventive care; the exclusion of pre-existing conditions; and skyrocketing medical costs and insurance premiums that leave many […]

Just days after Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer issued his “Labor Day Report” that was cautiously optimistic about the state’s economy, the Federal Reserve struck the same tone in its regular government survey of the national one. But how this will trickle down into jobs for the hundreds of under- and unemployed in the Flathead is, […]

I am writing to say how upset and disappointed I am that the Whitefish City Council has voted to award the “streetscaping” contract before the test period ran out. While everyone agrees the basic infrastructure downtown is in need of repair, to re-make Whitefish in the image of the latest and trendiest urban design is […]

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called the individual American states the “Laboratories of Democracy.” Changes in government policy do not come about because a light bulb went off in some Federal bureaucrat’s head; they begin much further down the food chain and occur because there is both a need and a group of citizens […]

While the debate about health care rages on, many people who are without proper coverage are in that position because of being out of a job. We absolutely need to be making smart decisions about reforming health care, but we cannot forget about fixing our economy on a fundamental level so that a crisis like […]

Those of you who know my backstory know that I was trained as a programmer and that I worked in the software industry for 17 years before coming to my senses. IE: before owning my own software company. A real one, not those other ones. So much for that coming to my senses thing. This […]

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 […]