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Culture Of Corruption Firebrand Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer bragged to a convention of trial lawyers to have rigged the 2006 Montana’s elections in favor of the Democrat Party.

John McCain has opened a double digit lead over Barack Obama in Montana. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Treasure State finds McCain leading by eleven, 53% to 42%

Obama in Billings Wednesday Presidential candidate Barack Obama will be in Billings next Wednesday on his way to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, state Democratic Party officials confirmed Thursday. The trip will mark Obama’s fifth trip to the state during the campaign this year, an unprecedented amount of attention for a state with less than a million people and only three electoral votes. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has not yet visited the state. Art Noonan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, said no details of Obama’s Montana visit are yet available. He said he didn’t know if...

A couple of pictures of the White Cliffs of the Missouri Breaks. There aren't very many! Click the bottom one for full-size, but it actually looks better at this size.

AUGUST 12--Imprisoned Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is upset that his former Montana cabin is on display at a Washington, D.C. museum, contending that the FBI's decision to allow its "public exhibition" runs counter to his victims's desire to limit further publicity about the deadly terror spree. Kaczynski, housed in the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado, learned of the cabin's display via a June 19 ad in the Washington Post, according to a handwritten letter he recently sent to a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel. A copy of the letter can be found below. Referring to "publicity created by the...

EMIGRANT, Mont. -- Pouwel Gelderloos' house in Emigrant is eco-friendly, but you're not going to find straw bales in the walls or composting toilets. Solar panels and a small wind machine whirling in the front yard are the only obvious signs that this house is something different. A closer look reveals a house that works with everything in nature. The sun, the wind, the rain and snow and even the earth all heat, cool or hydrate the house in one way or another. "Instead of just shelter, we can design a house to harvest the elements," Gelderloos said. The result...

Barack Obama is leading John McCain by five percentage points in Montana. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Obama attracting 48% of the vote while McCain earns 43%.

There are no utilities and no public transportation in this unincorporated town of a couple hundred people along a narrow road that winds through the mountains 314 miles north of Sacramento. Many people here buy gas for their vehicles and gas or diesel for generators that power their homes. "I'm scared to death" of rising fuel prices, Hanley says. At the store, the hub for visiting whitewater rafters and residents of other isolated towns, gas cost $5.30 a gallon on a recent day when the national average was $4.07. This community may be an extreme example of how rising gas...

HELENA, Mont. - Here's some very good news about oil that the manipulators on Wall Street don't want you to know: there could be as much as 40 billion barrels of crude lying untouched in eastern Montana. That's billion with a "b" - as in a ball-breaking amount for those speculators who are purposely pushing oil higher for their own selfish reasons.

The idea is to keep it as close as possible. If she keeps it close in both states she wins the popular vote nationwide. Then when the left brings up 2000 we can say 2008 and you did it to your own party voters.

Obama: Actually, I can quit you Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito WASHINGTON -- After the second Academy Award-winning performance by a pastor at his family's church, Trinity United in Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama quit his parish. Robert Gibbs, Obama's campaign communications director said Obama had resigned from the church "over the last few days."

HUGE Oil Field in Montana is Good News for Consumers --Which Makes it Unpalatable for the Mainstream MediaWhile Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, fears for the future of oil supplies after 2015--maybe he's confusing Shell's oil supply with the rest of the world's--Newsmax has just released information on the HUGE oil discovery in Montana: the Williston Basin or "Bakken" field. About 470 miles outside the state capitol of Helena - in a place called Richland County, Montana - more millionaires are being created per capita than anywhere else in America. It's the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's...

In Montana if one wants to loose in an election, all they need to do is even hint that they are in favor of gun control of any sort. More people own guns in this state than any than other state in the union, and this issue is not even up for discussion in this part of the world. Most of us feel a basic right of an American, guaranteed by the Second Amendment, is a right to own and bear arms. Actually that right has been nibbled away at and redefined a number of times, and probably will be...

LIVINGSTON - Bob Johnson, the mountain man mauled by a grizzly bear last week, has decided to tell the rest of the story. He shot the bear dead, he said Wednesday, plugging it with a .41-caliber Magnum pistol after it had mauled him once and was returning for a second attack. Johnson, 55, maintained last week that the details of the attack were hazy. On Wednesday, he said he had been reluctant to tell the whole story because of legal concerns. He was convicted of a federal poaching charge in the early 1980s and was unsure if carrying a handgun...

A Montana man was mauled and severely injured in a run-in with a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park's Hayden Valley Wednesday, park officials confirmed Wednesday evening. The man, in his late 50s, was apparently taking photographs of a female grizzly and her cub along Trout Creek when he was attacked, park spokesman Al Nash said. Despite “severe facial injuries,” he was able to walk two or three miles to the Grand Loop Road, where visitors found him and alerted rangers. The man, whose name and hometown were not released pending notification of relatives, was taken by ambulance to West...

When we founded Huck PAC we did so with the idea that we would support Republican candidates who are passionate advocates for tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government and individual liberty. This week I am headed to Montana to campaign for Roy Brown and Steve Daines, candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor respectively. House Majority Leader Brown is an able legislator who is known for his strong advocacy of tax reform, education, energy development and the strong importance of government supporting and empowering the Family. I met Steve Daines when he agreed...

Your Turn: Obama’s stance on guns is wrong for Montana By Erik Iverson - Your Turn - 04/17/08 When it comes to gun rights, Barack Obama isn’t shooting straight with Montana. I’ll be the first one to admit, Barack Obama is one of the finest political orators I’ve ever heard. But he can’t talk his way out of this simple fact: his views on the Second Amendment are simply out of step with the values of a vast majority of Montanans. Through both his words and his deeds, Barack Obama has shown that if elected President, he will try...

Associated Press HELENA n The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services says a Big Horn County man has died of hantavirus. The agency says it was the first death this year due to hantavirus. The name of the 64-year-old man was not released Friday. He died earlier this week. Montana has had eight reported hantavirus deaths since 1993. The last was in January 2007. In total, the state has had 29 reported infections since 1993. Hantavirus is contracted by inhaling airborne particles from the droppings of deer mice. Symptoms may include fever, vomiting, muscle and body aches and...

When the news broke 12 years ago that the FBI had arrested that paranoid, bomb-mailing nut the Unabomber near Lincoln, Montana, my reaction was “Montana? It figures.” When the news broke two weeks ago that a hate-spewing, paranoid, bomb-thrower of a preacher was Sen. Barack Obama’s lifelong pastor and counselor at a Chicago church, I had the exact same reaction. The insanity hasn’t changed. Only the geography has. America has always had its share of conspiracy theorists, political paranoids and all-around nut jobs. In fact, during our nation’s first days as a Republic, rumors swirled that a Jacobin conspiracy was...

In the continuing saga of District of Columbia v. Heller, 39 of Montana’s elected officials have signed a resolution declaring that a Supreme Court ruling against the individual right of gun ownership would give their state grounds for leaving the union. It seems that when Montana’s settlers signed a statehood contract in 1889, one of the conditions was that the federal government agreed that individuals had the right to keep and bear arms. If the Supreme Court rules that firearm ownership is merely a state or “collective” right, Montana officials say that the statehood contract will have been breeched. “The...

Montana officials are warning that if the Supreme Court rules in the D.C. gun ban case that the right to keep and bear arms protects only state-run militias like the National Guard, then the federal government will have breached Montana's statehood contract. Nobody is raising flags for the Republic of Montana, but nobody is kidding, either. So far, 39 elected Montana officials have signed a resolution declaring that a court ruling of the Second Amendment is a right of states and not of individuals would violate Montana's compact. "The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promise to the...

McGrath probing service preventing identity theft By ERIN MADISON Tribune Staff Writer The Montana Attorney General's office is investigating LifeLock, a company profiled in Sunday's Tribune. LifeLock is an identity theft prevention service. Customers pay $10 per month to have a fraud alert placed on their credit reports and be opted out of pre-approved credit card offers. If one of LifeLock's members has their identity stolen, the company covers any losses up to $1 million. LifeLock previously ran a full-page ad in the Tribune, which included the Social Security number of the company CEO Todd Davis. That ad piqued the...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 200,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Romney ahead in Montana Caucus

HELENA - Republicans say John McCain now has a better chance in Montana's unique GOP caucus - open to only about 2,000 party volunteers and officeholders - after getting rid of a state chairman many in that group saw as a traitor. McCain dumped Montana's maverick lieutenant governor recently in favor of former U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, much more popular with GOP insiders despite losing his re-election bid in 2006 amid suspicions over connections to a Washington, D.C., lobbying scandal. The move comes as McCain has spent time and money nailing down his conservative credentials in other states. In Montana,...

Report: Detained Teen Allegedly Intended to Hijack Plane, Crash Into 'Hannah Montana' Concert Friday, January 25, 2008 NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A teenage passenger from California was arrested in Nashville for plotting to hijack a plane from Los Angeles to Nashville, the FBI said Friday. FBI spokesman George Bolds told The Associated Press the 16-year-old boy was removed from Southwest Airlines Flight 284 Tuesday night by authorities at Nashville International Airport and found with "suspicious" items. Bolds said the teen had handcuffs, rope and duct tape in his bag and was believed to be traveling alone. The juvenile's name has not...

Excerpt- HELENA, Mont.: Supporters of long-shot presidential hopeful Ron Paul say the Montana Republican Party's quirky caucus rules could create an opening for their candidate that other states don't offer. Under the "closed caucus" system recently adopted by the Montana GOP, voting in the Feb. 5 caucus will be limited to about 3,000 Republicans who hold party posts, such as members of Congress, statewide officeholders and precinct captains. That includes hundreds of volunteer precinct posts that have long been vacant and that some candidates are now scrambling to fill with supporters. At least three presidential candidates — former Massachusetts Gov....

The oil industry has known for decades that there was oil in North Dakota's Bakken Formation. But until recently, few thought it was worth chasing. The Bakken, an immense blanket of rock that covers about 200,000 square miles, stretching from Saskatchewan to straddle western North Dakota and eastern Montana, has long frustrated efforts to extract its oil. The oil was two miles down and trapped in tightly packed horizontal layers of shale that were easy to miss with conventional drilling. By 1999, when oil prices were low, the industry had largely given up on North Dakota, recalls Ron Ness, president...

HELENA - Despite having already raised more than $775,000 for his re-election campaign, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer is now turning to Republicans for money. In a highly unusual move, Schweitzer is soliciting money for his 2008 re-election campaign from individuals who donated to Republicans running for governor in 2004. The solicitation tells exactly how much the recipient gave to a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2004 and asks for an identical amount to be given to Schweitzer and Republican Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger's re-election campaign. "We've been reaching out to people," Schweitzer said in a phone interview. "We only received 51...

ENNIS - More than a century ago, a wolf-like creature prowled the Madison Valley, killing livestock and letting out screams that one account said would leave a person's hair standing on end. A bullet from a Mormon settler's rifle ended the animal's life and triggered stories of the creature that were passed along through generations of family history and local folklore. The only evidence of the creature's existence was a missing taxidermy mount and a grainy black-and-white photograph of that mount - which fueled strange speculation about what kind of animal it really was. Now after 121 years, the taxidermy...

A hunter was attacked by a mountain lion Sunday near Kalispell. The hunter told officials he was several miles in on a trail when he heard what sounded like the scream of a mountain lion. A short time later, he heard a growl and turned to see a lion about 10 to 15 feet away. The man dropped his rifle and rushed to get behind a tree. The lion pounced on his back and knocked him into the tree. The collision made the lion lose its grip and the hunter reached his pistol and fired a shot... He met several...

Advice from FWP not always applicable. If you're on a sight-seeing trip through the mountains while carrying your hunting rifle, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' advice regarding grizzly bears is great. But if you ever hope to actually fill a tag with an elk or deer, the advice has some problems. Making noise For example, one piece of advice to avoid bears is to make plenty of noise as you hike through bear country. Another is to hunt in pairs or groups. Yet another is to avoid cover that might hide a bear. Unfortunately, most hunters would agree that the...

Nick Dole has set up a hunting camp in the same area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest every year since 1982 and stayed there for up to five weeks at a time, so it bothers him that the U.S. Forest Service stands to break his tradition by enforcing a 16-day limit on camping. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., also finds the decision disturbing and wants the regional head of the Forest Service to intervene. "Our personal camp has been -- what, a 20-some-year situation -- and they want to change it," Dole said Monday from the camp he and...

State Sen. Roy Brown, R-Billings, said Monday he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2008. He is the first GOP candidate to announce a challenge to Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who has announced a re-election bid next year. Brown will formally announce his candidacy on Thursday with a six-city fly-about and a 50-towns-in-10-days ground tour beginning Monday. Elected to the Montana Senate in 2006 after serving four, two-year terms in the Montana House, Brown has held several GOP legislative leadership posts. He said he was "compelled to run because state spending is completely out of control."...

HELENA - A Billings Republican said he is getting closer to announcing plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus. Kirk Bushman, who works at an engineering firm and has not previously run for office, set up a campaign committee earlier this month and filed an initial fundraising report that shows he has raised about $11,000, much of it from family. He also has a Web site announcing "Kirk Bushman for U.S. Senate." But Bushman said he is not yet positive he will run. He wants to talk to more Republicans and go to...

Border Patrol agents arrest 11 By LANCE BENZEL Of The Gazette Staff U.S. Border Patrol agents in Billings on Thursday netted 11 Mexican nationals suspected of working illegally in Montana, federal officials said. The group was arrested about 2 p.m. outside Golden Corral, 570 S. 24th St. W., as agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Billings station were on patrol, said Alex Harrington, a spokesman for the agency based in Havre. The men - ranging in age from 18 to 33 - are being held at the county jail pending deportation. The agents stopped to investigate after seeing...

The Hardliner did a nice job of summarizing Montana Supreme Court Justice Pat Cotter's record of voting overwhelmingly with the desires of the Montana Trial Lawyer's Association and the ACLU. Also pointed out is that the MTLA's PAC spent over $100,000 getting her elected in 2000 -- and as noted, that has been money well-spent.

" McDonald's in Sidney, Mont., said he tried advertising in the local newspaper and even offered up to $10 an hour to compete with higher-paying oil field jobs. Yet the only calls were from other business owners upset they would have to raise wages, too. Of course, Francis' current employees also wanted a pay hike." " "The only economic development we used to get was the creation of more economic development offices." "And workers have benefited. Utah workers saw a 5.4 percent average wage increase in 2006,Knold said. "

.... "There was no room at any other Canadian neonatal intensive care unit, forcing CHR officials to look south of the border. Jepp was transported to Benefis hospital in Great Falls last Friday -- making her the fifth Alberta woman to be transferred south of the border this year because of neonatal shortages in Calgary."

FRENCHTOWN, Mont. - Residents who fled a fast-burning wildfire that threatened more than 200 homes are trying to determine whether theirs are still standing. In the early Friday darkness, Mike Rutter watched as the lights of fire engines intermingled with flames on a distant hillside near his home. "I'm definitely worried," he said, sitting in a church parking lot with his two children after midnight. "We're just hoping these guys are successful. I know they are trying." Officials did not have a firm count on the number of homes that burned, although the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that at...

Bruce Hemphill has nothing against a midnight snack, he just doesn’t want to become one. Last weekend, Bruce and his wife, Pat, believed they almost became a snack as a large black bear tried to claw its way into their camper. “It was probably the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” Hemphill said. Their entire camper started violently shaking... The bear had climbed up the hood of his truck on top of his camper. He saw the animal through the roof vent, which he had left open before going to bed. He quickly tried to reel the vent...

HELENA - For months, the rumor mill had Paul Edwards, a screenwriter from Helena and chairman of the new Progressive Democrats of Montana, challenging U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., from the party's left next year. Edwards made it clear he's not planning to take on Baucus in the Democratic primary and is unaware of anyone else who is.

HELENA - The state Republican chairman wants to hold a party presidential caucus in February, which would give them a say in picking a preferred GOP candidate far in advance of the state's scheduled June primary. Montana, which has never had much say come presidential primary season, could have even less say next year. The state is one of only two that will not have made primary picks come June, when it is scheduled to hold its primary. Montana Republican Party Chairman Erik Iverson said he wants to change that for the GOP with a February caucus. ............ Only state...

A city police officer was awarded $1.3 million in damages this afternoon by a District Court jury that found merit in all claims by him that supervisors retaliated against him when he reported alleged misconduct within the Billings Police Department. The verdict was announced at 4:35 p.m. after 11 hours of deliberations over two days. The trial that spanned eight days and included testimony from numerous witnesses, including Mayor Ron Tussing, City Administrator Tina Volek and top officers in the Police Department. In the lawsuit filed last year, Officer Steve Feuerstein claimed his career was stalled when and his supervisors...

HELENA - The state's top campaign cop has dismissed a Republican Party complaint that said Gov. Brian Schweitzer accepted an illegal corporate contribution by attending political events at the Kentucky Derby this spring. Schweitzer, a Democrat, traveled to the Derby in Louisville, Ky., the weekend of May 5 at the expense of the Democratic Governors Association. Schweitzer is finance chairman for the association, a private organization that raises money and otherwise assists Democratic candidates running for governor in states across the nation. The Montana Republican Party alleged that association activities could help promote Schweitzer's re-election in 2008, and therefore corporate...

HELENA - Former state legislator Bob Keenan said Tuesday that he's evaluating a recruiting pitch from national Republicans urging him to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Baucus next year. The Bigfork resident said he's asking Montanans if they think Baucus can be beat. Keenan, 55, served 12 years in the Montana House and then the Senate, including two years as Senate president, before term limits ended his tenure after 2006. Keenan lost a 2006 primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, 72 percent to 22 percent, with minor candidates splitting the rest. He said officials from the National Republican Senatorial...

During its May special session, the Montana Legislature approved a one-time tax rebate of $400 for Montana homeowners proposed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Great. Everyone likes money. But unlike the famous Bush administration rebate of 2001, this rebate is not an automatic process, which raises the question: How do I get paid? The reason the process is not so simple is the manner in which Montana property taxes are collected. The law specifies that only primary residences in which the owner lived for at least seven months during 2006 are eligible for the rebate, and according to Montana Department of...

Ordinarily, a roundup on the Morgan ranch would happen in the fall. Jim and Sandy Morgan, along with Sandy's parents, Connie and Bruce Malcolm, and perhaps a few neighbors, would head into the hills behind the red butte south of Bridger and bring in the cows and their calves. They would trail behind the cows and check out the bulky calves, admiring the traits for which their Black Angus herd is known. But this week, the roundup came early, at the end of a two-month ordeal that began with the discovery that seven of the Morgans' cows had brucellosis, a...

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., told law enforcement officials Friday in Billings that he will continue to use "mongooselike tenacity" to secure funding for drug enforcement in Montana. Baucus, who was honored at a luncheon attended by about 30 area drug enforcement officers and agents, said he heard their message that they need more personnel and continued full federal funding. The tenacity, Baucus said, requires him to keep after leaders of various federal agencies and "just grab ahold of 'em until they say, 'Hey, let's do it and get this guy off our back.' "

HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer has raised slightly more than $600,000 for his 2008 re-election campaign and reported having about a record $500,000 left in the bank on June 30, a report filed Thursday showed.... As of June 30, Schweitzer's campaign showed an ending fund balance of $506,505, which his campaign claimed to be a record amount of cash on hand for a candidate for governor at this stage.