Free Republic

A Finnish cabinet minister saying all indications are that a Chinese ship deliberately damaged... South Korea proclaiming the launch of its first spy satellite... The Israeli Air Force extending its bombing campaign into the southern portions of Gaza... A Pro-Palestinian protester torching herself in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta... A federal judge ruling that President Trump has no immunity... The Turkish military striking 16 targets in northern Iraq. The targets linked to Kurdish groups... A former federal prison guard sentenced to more than five years in prison for sexually abusing inmates... A US base in northeastern Syria attacked......

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials improperly downplayed the climate change effects from burning coal when they approved a large expansion of an underground Montana coal mine that would release an estimated 190 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, a court ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling that Interior Department officials “hid the ball” during the Trump administration, by failing to fully account for emissions from burning the fuel in a 2018 environmental analysis. A judge previously ruled against the disputed expansion of Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountain mine in 2017,...

Recordings and summaries of emergency calls show Washington wildlife officials at first objected to an air rescue of a woman treed by wolves, or help from the Okanogan County sheriff. Washington wildlife managers initially opposed sending a helicopter or a search-and-rescue team to save a woman treed by wolves in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, according to recordings and summaries of emergency calls. ... Notes from a call between DNR dispatcher Jill Jones and a wildlife officer summarized WDFW’s position, and her position, shortly before the helicopter launched. “No helicopter. Federally listed species. 3 WDFW personnel saying so,” according to DNR’s...

MISSOULA – U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ... Putnam said he’s attended several Oath Keepers rallies in the past, including three in Portland, Oregon and several at a memorial on the highway outside Burns, Oregon where LaVoy Finicum was killed by law enforcement in a standoff following the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge. ... Jason Van Tatenhove, a Eureka-area man who serves as the national media director for the Oath Keepers, said he had doubts about the performance of Robertson’s federal public defense attorney, Michael Donahoe, saying he had refused, for example, to push to get an...

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

Wildlife advocates want a federal judge to order faster action on a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx. ... Officials also say that lynx face a relatively low degree of threat compared to other protected species. The Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to come up with a timeline on the recovery document when Molloy last month expressed frustration with the government's progress. The judge said the "stutter-step" approach by federal officials necessitated court intervention. The lawsuit pending before Molloy was brought by Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the San Juan Citizens Alliance....

The U.S. Forest Service has re-examined the effects of a logging project on lynx habitat in an attempt to lift a judge's block of the Lolo National Forest project. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled in June that the Forest Service did not properly analyze the cumulative effects of the 2,038-acre Colt-Summit project on lynx habitat.

Two wilderness groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow an irrigation company to use a helicopter to fly in materials needed to repair a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Clearwater filed suit in U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s court in Missoula last week. The groups say the agency’s decision to allow the irrigation company up to two helicopter flights to the Fred Burr Dam site violates the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws. The irrigation company wants to replace a deteriorating catwalk and log boom on the nearly century-old...

A couple of dozen men from the anti-wolf brigade were gathered by noon on East Broadway outside the Russell Smith Federal Courthouse, where U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is hearing details of a recent settlement hammered out between the Obama administration and 10 conservation groups. The hearing began at 1:30 p.m. "We'll be here all afternoon until it's over," said Toby Bridges of Missoula, who organized the rally through Lobo Watch and expected dozens more to join in as the day went on. Some were in Helena in the morning for a hearing on Senate Bill 414, the Montana Wolf...

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy is telling attorneys for environmental groups and wildlife management agencies to gather their data and help resolve whether gray wolves should still be an "experimental species" in the Northern Rockies. When wolves were re-introduced in Central Idaho and Yellowstone Park in the mid-90s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had them designated as an "experimental, non-essential" species. That allowed scientists to work on re-building wolf populations and gauging their survival, but also answered ranchers' concerns by allowing wolves that preyed on livestock to be killed. The question over whether the wolves are still "experimental"...

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, author of some of the most controversial rulings in recent Montana history, announced Wednesday that he will be taking senior status in August 2011. "Senior status" means retirement from active service. Senior judges continue to hear cases, usually with a reduced case load. He blocked removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list and dismissed a lawsuit filed by Montana and other states that wanted out from under federal gun laws. He declared a U.S. Forest Service plan for dropping retardant on fires illegal and said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arbitrarily excluded parts...

MISSOULA -- A remorseful former Flathead Valley woman tied to the Project 7 paramilitary group will spend 27 months in prison for federal weapons violations. Tracy Brockway, 34, became a key figure in authorities' investigation into the group. "I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I am sorry I played a role in this conspiracy," Brockway told Chief U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula. In a plea bargain with the federal government, Brockway had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess illegal firearms. Molloy's sentence of 27 months was the minimum term he could order under sentencing guidelines....