Free Republic

A new interview with Mitch McConnell this week showed the first cracks in the wall of his optimism about the midterms. While not going down a path of gloom and doom, he no longer sounds positive of breaking a long-standing trend of the party in power losing ground in such scenarios. He’s not coming out and saying the GOP’s majorities in both chambers are toast, but he seems to think they’ll be losing seats. (The Hill) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says in a new interview that he expects to see GOP majorities in the House and Senate shrink...

Todd Orr is the survivor of a double mauling by a grizzly bear on 1 October, 2016.  When the bear charged him, he used bear spray in an attempt to stop the attack. It did not work. Todd was taught that bear spray was superior to pistols for stopping charging bears. He took the use of bear spray seriously, kept an up to date can of spray in a holster, and had practiced quick drawing the spray and using it. He had used bear spray on a black bear twelve years previously. In that instance he surprised the sleeping...

A new study says that Montana State Auditor Matt Rosendale, the conservative in the race for the United States Senate, has an advantage in the primary contest because of name recognition. Nearly eight out of ten (78%) likely Republican primary voters have heard of him, and among those who have an image of Rosendale, forty-three percent (43%) have a favorable impression.

Rancher and state auditor Matt Rosendale leads his Montana Senate Republican primary opponents by double digits, according to a poll released Thursday. “Montanans elected me to reduce spending, reduce regulations and defend our freedoms–and I did. The voters of our state support me because they know I mean business and have always served the way I said I would,” Rosendale said in a press release. Rosendale has a two-to-one advantage over fellow GOP competitors; 28 percent of Republican primary voters would vote for him, compared to 12 percent for Troy Downing, while 11 percent would vote for Russell Fagg.

New Jersey on Monday became the latest state to implement its own net neutrality rules following the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the Obama-era consumer protections. Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed an executive order prohibiting all internet service providers that do business with the state from blocking, throttling or favoring web content. “We may not agree with everything we see online, but that does not give us a justifiable reason to block the free, uninterrupted, and indiscriminate flow of information,” Murphy said in a statement. “And, it certainly doesn’t give certain companies or individuals a right to pay their way...

...in December, the FCC rolled back Obama-era legislation aimed at regulating Internet service providers, meaning providers don't have to treat all online sites equally. ...On Monday, Montana Governor Steve Bullock went a step further and became the first state official to sign an executive order imposing net neutrality in Montana.... ...Governor Bullock is here with me now to talk more... ...tell us about your thought process in deciding to issue this executive order? And I'd particularly like to know why you think this is an important issue... BULLOCK: Well, I think it's an important issue for Montana and, indeed, our...

A West Virginia bill that would end taxpayer funding for abortions in the state is slated for a public hearing Monday in the state House. West Virginia is one of 17 states that funds elective abortions for low-income women through Medicaid. State House Bill 4012 would end taxpayer funding for abortions except when medically necessary to save the mother’s life, the AP reports. Since 1977, state taxpayers have been forced to pay millions of dollars for tens of thousands unborn babies’ abortion deaths, according to West Virginians for Life. “The federal government limits tax funding of abortions to cases of...

Though federal employees won’t get a paycheck during the governmment shutdown, members of Congress will — unless they specify otherwise. Ten Democratic senators on Friday introduced a bill that would withhold pay for members of Congress during the government shutdown. The legislation comes from Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), along with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “It’s wrong that members of Congress would still get paid in...

Sen. Jon Tester’s tweet about the passage of the Tax Reconciliation Act has gone viral, with more than 42,000 retweets, The Great Falls Tribune reported Saturday.... “I was just handed a 479-page tax bill a few hours before the vote,” Tester said in the video. “One page literally has hand-scribbled policy changes on it that can’t be read.” “I want you to take a look at this, folks. This is your government at work,” Tester said as he brought the page with the side notations....

Senate Republicans were confident that they had the votes needed Friday to pass their tax plan as last-minute changes brought more GOP lawmakers on board. Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., earlier Friday said they would back the bill after securing further tax relief for pass-through businesses. Then, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., committed to supporting the plan, leaving Republican leaders confident that they had the support. On Friday morning, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, called holdout Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the last two senators who need to get on board. The GOP can...

A hunter who was tracking a wounded elk was attacked by a grizzly. The bear chomped on his hand, then retreated. The hunter had a rifle, but chose to use bear spray instead. He got ready for the bear with the bear spray. The bear came back.The hunter sprayed the bear and himself. The bear retreated. The bear came back. The bear spray was empty. They hunter threw the empty can at the bear.  The bear retreated.Having expended the potential for bear spray defense, the hunter readied his rifle.They bear did not come back. From krtv.com: He put up...

From Mississippi to Ontario, adults and children alike are being fed the most grotesque of lies. It's happening all over North America – including places you might think were too remote to even conceive of such activities. Take Missoula, Montana, where the local newspaper, the Missoula Current, reported last April on a group called Standing Alongside America's Muslims (SALAM), formed a year earlier “to push back against a rising tide of Islamophobia.” The Current report on SALAM, as it happened, appeared two weeks to the day after the deadly suicide bombing in the St. Petersburg, Russia, Metro, by an affiliate...

11 year old Elliot Clark killed this charging grizzly with a shotgun in Alaska in July of 2017.  He used a 12 gauge shotgun. The first shot was ineffective, with bird shot. The second shot was a perfectly placed slug in middle of the nose. The third shot was to the shoulder. It is likely both would have been fatal. There were powder burns on the bears mouth from the third shot. The fourth shot was an insurance shot after the bear was down.In Montana, a few days ago, in early November, 2017, a 60-year-old pheasant hunter shot and...

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has asked Roy Moore's team to stop using his image on their campaign fundraising materials, per The Hill. After four women accused Moore of sexual assault and misconduct (when they were teenagers), his campaign blasted fundraising ads featuring images of some of the Republican senators who endorsed him — Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul specifically. Why it matters: Multiple Republican senators and lawmakers have said Moore should step down from the Alabama Senate race if the allegations are true, and now some of them (like Lee) are trying to completely remove themselves from his...

One of Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore's most prominent backers pulled his support Friday evening in the wake of sexual assault allegations against the former state Supreme Court chief justice. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted on Twitter that "having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the U.S. Senate."

A GOP lawmaker is calling for the Senate to refuse to swear in Roy Moore (R) if the Alabama Senate candidate defeats Doug Jones (D) in a December special election.

Two Republican senators have unendorsed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) following reported allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Both announced they would no longer endorse Moore for Senate on Friday night.

On the morning of 24 September, 2017, David Buckallew, 63, and his son, Rory, 35, were hunting black bear. David was along as an observer. Only Rory carried a rifle, a Remington model 700, semi-customized in the wildcat 6.5mm-06 caliber. Dave carried a Taurus Tracker stainless steel 4 inch .44 magnum in a Montana Holster shoulder rig made by Norm Schertenleib. Rory carried a Glock model 20 in 10mm.The morning was cool with a light frost in low spots at Kalispell, Montana.  There was little wind. Sunrise was at 7:28 local.  Before 9 am, the men had spotted a...

A controversial author and professor claims that he has been barred from speaking at a public university because of his conservative views. “I’ve been banned from speaking at [the University] of Montana because I do not share their values of being ‘tolerant’ and ‘welcoming,'” Mike Adams, a professor at the University of North Carolina, tweeted early this morning. “A Dean said that.”

Sam Krop’s characterization of catastrophic wildfire on public and privately owned forest lands (guest viewpoint, Oct. 4) doesn’t match the reality of what Oregon experienced this summer. But I can see why Cascadia Wildlands and other special interest groups oppose solutions such as the Resilient Federal Forests Act. These bills untie the hands of our federal land managers, and provide them with more tools and resources to restore the health of our public forests, before and after a fire. Has “hands-off” forest management reduced the size and severity of forest fires? Are we choking on less wildfire smoke every summer?...