Free Republic

As of this week- Stimulus Spending is at: $20,726,309,285.22 At the link on the upper right will be a listing: *American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Report* Updated as of 9/4/2009. New contracts signed this week are for design and construction of 10 land port of entry buildings for customs and border protection. 6 In North Dakota,1 in Vermont, New Mexico and Montana (The one in Vermont isn't even near the border, in Killingly.)

After months of deliberations, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has distributed a plan to overhaul the health system that would cost less than $900 billion over a decade and expand insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans. Mr. Baucus's plan requires most Americans to carry health insurance and gives tax credits to low- and middle-income people to help them buy it. But as expected, the proposal wouldn't create the type of government-run health-insurance plan that President Barack Obama has pushed for. Instead, it would create new nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives to compete with private insurers, a compromise aimed at...

In a last effort to give the Senate a bipartisan health care bill, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee circulated a comprehensive proposal on Sunday to overhaul the health care system and proposed a new fee on insurance companies to help pay for coverage of the uninsured. ... The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want. ... It remains to be seen how Mr. Baucus’s plan might mesh with any proposals Mr. Obama lays out as he tries to pump up support...

Parents Not Welcome at President's School Speech By: Michael Noyes | 2009-09-04 BOZEMAN – Parents of students in Bozeman schools may not be welcome if they want to watch the President’s address to students on Tuesday morning with their child. Bozeman Public Schools Superintendent Kirk Miller said the president’s address falls under the school’s policies on guest speakers. That policy states that, “Unless the principal approves otherwise, the teacher will not allow non-class members to hear the speaker.” The rest of the story is here: http://www.montanapolicy.org/main/story.php?story_id=15 Please take a look and pass along as you feel appropriate. And have a...

Bozeman police officer resigns over Facebook comments Reporting from Z7 in Bozeman A Bozeman police officer embroiled in controversy over comments he posted on his Facebook page has resigned. Cody Anderson turned in his resignation Wednesday, Bozeman City Manager Chris Kukulski said at Thursday's weekly city press conference. The resignation went into effect Wednesday. Anderson resigned because he thought it was in the best interest of the police department in light of the controversial comments he posted on this Facebook page, Kukulski said, adding that he agreed with Anderson's decision. Anderson's decision to resign was his alone and he was...

Hunters purchased nearly 2,600 wolf licenses Monday, the first day they went on sale in Montana. The sales occurred on the same day U.S. District Judge Mike Molloy of Missoula heard arguments from animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho's hunt started Tuesday as Molloy took the arguments under consideration. the slower sales — compared to the 4,000 sold on the first day licenses were available in Idaho — might have been due to the uncertainty of the court decision. If the hunt is halted before the season starts, holders will be refunded...

MISSOULA, Mont. – Gray wolf hunting was set to begin in the Northern Rockies, even as a federal judge eyed a request to stop the killing of the predators just four months after they were removed from the endangered species list. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said Monday he would rule as quickly as he could on a last-minute injunction sought by environmental and animal welfare groups opposed to the hunts in Idaho and Montana. Hunters were poised to head into the field Tuesday in Idaho, where a quota allowed as many as 220 wolves to be killed. Montana's season...

Here is the gist of a report filed by an American citizen who attempted to attend a Town Hall meeting staged August 14 in Bozeman, Montana, by our country's new Doctor-in-Chief. I say "staged" because, instead of holding it at one of several convenient and available auditoriums or gymnasiums offering easy access from any direction, with plenty of parking, seats, tables, utilities, audio equipment, not to mention a stage and podium, the President's scouts chose the most remote site imaginable ­ the most inaccessible hangar of an airport outside ofBelgrade, a tiny, nearby town, totally secluded from the public. No...

A sleepy Montana checkpoint along the Canadian border that sees about three travelers a day will get $15 million under President Obama’s economic stimulus plan. A government priority list ranked the project as marginal, but two powerful Democratic senators persuaded the administration to make it happen. Discuss COMMENTS (83) Despite Obama’s promises that the stimulus plan would be transparent and free of politics, the government is handing out $720 million for border upgrades under a process that is both secretive and susceptible to political influence. This allowed low-priority projects such as the checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., to skip ahead of...

A state official with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks confirmed Friday morning that Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., and four other individuals were injured Thursday night when their 22-foot motor boat ran aground on Flathead Lake. "There was a serious boating accident near Wayfarers State Park between 10 p.m. and midnight," said Jim Satterfield with FWP. "There were five occupants on the boat, including two public officials." The occupants of the boat included Rehberg and state senator Greg Barkus, a Kalispell Republican. Satterfield said nearby campers heard the crash when the boat hit rocks at Wayfarers State Park near Bigfork. All...

A spokesman for U.S. Congressman Denny Rehberg confirmed that he broke his left ankle in a Thursday night boating accident on Flathead Lake near Bigfork. Erik Iverson told reporters that Rehberg was in surgery to repair his broken ankle on Friday afternoon at about 4 p.m. and that the congressman also sustained cuts and bruises on his face and "quite a bump on the head."The accident took place about 100 yards south of the Wayfarer's State Park boat dock at around 10:20 p.m. Thursday. State Senator Greg Barkus was also injured in the crash.Iverson confirmed that Dustin Frost and Kristin...

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

'This is an issue where the federal government has no business' Montana statehouse Supporters of a first-of-a-kind law in Montana that declared weapons or ammunition made and kept in the state were exempt from federal rules are preparing for a court challenge to the federal government's insistence it will regulate those items. The Montana Shooting Sports Association and the Second Amendment Foundation have formed a strategic alliance with plans to litigate over the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. The bill was passed by the 2009 Montana Legislature and signed into law by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq, Aug. 26, 2009 – While some people join the Army to find adventure for the first time, a deployed soldier here said she joined to add to the adventures she’s already had. Army Sgt. Sierra Harbison, a food service specialist with Echo Company, 1st Battalion, 150th Aviation Regiment, Assault Helicopter Battalion, joined the National Guard to find adventure. She volunteered for her current deployment in Iraq. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Sgt. Sierra Harbison, a food service specialist here with Company E, 1st Battalion, 150th Aviation Regiment, Assault Helicopter Battalion, said...

Poll: Montana Dems down on Baucus By: Jonathan Martin August 21, 2009 08:14 PM EST A new poll aimed at pressuring Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) shows 55 percent of Montana Democrats disapprove of their state's longtime senator's actions on health care, while just 34 percent approve. Thirty-six percent of Democratic voters said they would likely vote against Baucus if he opposed a public plan, while just 12 percent said his opposition would make them more likely to win their support. Fifty-two percent said it would have no impact on their decision. Overall, Montanans were split, with 47 percent saying they...

Obama, Smoke & Mirrors in MontanaAnyone think Obama and Co are for America? Received this email... Hello All, By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you...

The White House booked 400 (FOUR HUNDRED) hotel rooms at the Big Sky Resort for Barack Obama's overnight visit last week for a town hall meeting in nearby Bozeman, Montana. Two floors were completely taken over, including the penthouse suites.While the national news media is ignoring the story, local media let the news slip in their gushing stories of how thrilling it was to have Obama in their midst.The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported on Tuesday on Obama's visit, quoting Big Sky Resort spokesman Dax Schieffer:The First Family stayed in one of the eight penthouses on the tenth floor of Big...

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since we live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on. On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are...

Apparently, Michelle Obama arms can move some water. “Mrs. Obama was an incredible paddler,” said Jaye Gibb, raft guide with Gallatin Gateway-based Geyser Whitewater Expeditions and a kindergarten teacher at Heck/Quaw Elementary School in Belgrade. “She was even better than some of the Secret Service out there.” While President Barack Obama held a town meeting in Belgrade on Friday, Michelle Obama and daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, along with some other relatives went whitewater rafting on the Gallatin River. The group took four rafts in all, also accommodating Secret Service and other White House staff.

The woman went to an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Mont., the other day, prepared to actually listen to President Obama talk about health care reform in America. She has watched, the way the rest of us have watched, as the debate about health care has turned into a sideshow and in some cases even more of a freak show than Glenn Beck's. Now she wanted to see for herself, along with more than 1,000 others, if it would happen this way in Montana. This is what she said about the event when it was over: "Yes, there were a few...

President Obama's lies in Montana were the most egregious falsehoods since Bill Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". The current President was asked how the government is going to pay for the $1 trillion in new health care expenditures under HR 3200. Watch the video here. Part of the President's answer included blaming a previous administration. Oh no, he's not blaming Bush again, is he? Well, as it turns out, the previous administration was Bill ("depends on what the meaning of is is") Clinton's. The current President claims that we can save $60 billion per...

The uproar over healthcare reforms is a symptom of how Americans are falling out of love with the new president-- Arriving in Montana to join battle with his critics on Friday, President Barack Obama stepped from Air Force One, stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Little more than six months after he swept into office with some of the highest approval ratings recorded, he is fighting to save his historic presidency from turning into a one-term wonder.Obama was ready for a vigorous defence of the healthcare reforms that have spawned verbal fisticuffs at public meetings across the...

Obama is about to begin his Town hall in Montana. Post your comments here. Sen. Max Baucus doing the intro now.

Click to view :15-:21 "Im a proud NRA member. (3 people clap...IN MONTANA) :21-:27 "I believe in our constitution" (2 people clap...IN MONTANA) :28-36 "I get my news from the cable networks because I don't like the spin that comes from those other places"( 1 person claps)...IN MONTANA Either Montana is not a big NRA and constitution supporting state...(but loves network news) OR Its pretty obvious the crowd was stacked.

There is no guarantee that President Barack Obama will be able to avoid critics of his healthcare proposal when he hosts a town hall meeting in Belgrade, Mont., on Friday. Local officials in Belgrade and neighboring Bozeman personally oversaw the handing out of passes Thursday in much the same fashion that a venue would dole out tickets to a rock concert. Hundreds of people seeking to attend the president's event began lining up Wednesday afternoon, and camped out overnight in the parking lots of the two local municipal buildings. . Gibbs said he believes the media have been disappointed that...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who introduced President Barack Obama at a town hall in his state Friday, said he is traveling Montana as a “mythbuster” on healthcare reform. Baucus said he has been mimicking the work of the television show “Mythbusters” as he seeks to fight back against what the White House has called a “misinformation” campaign. Baucus said he is targeting anti-reform “myths” like the talk of rationing healthcare and so-called “death panels.” “There is plenty of dishonesty out there about what healthcare reform will and will not do,” Baucus said. He added: “These outrageous myths...

SPREAD THE WORD TO PATRIOTS IN MONTANA ASAP, NOW!!!!! Obama Montana Town Hall Tickets Being Given Out Locally NOW!!!!!! PATRIOTS, GET IN THE FRONT OF THE LINE, CAMP OUT OVERNIGHT, GET THEM NOW. THE RELEASE DOES NOT LIST THE LOCATION SO FIND OUT LOCALLY WHERE THIS IS HAPPENING. IF SOMEONE IN MONTANA KNOWS POST THE LOCATIONS ASAP.

DENVER- First there was President Obama the golfer. And now – President Obama the fisherman? Mr. Obama’s trip out West later this week — to promote his health care plan in states like this one and Montana — is going to include a few hours of trout fishing in Montana. Jim Messina, the president’s deputy chief of staff, who grew up in Montana and Idaho and is a wildlife enthusiast, will be taking him. Mr. Messina disclosed the president’s plan while talking at a conference of Western Democratic leaders here, discussing Democratic gains in the region over the past six...

Protesters plan a big rally Friday at President Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Belgrade. The President is scheduled to focus on a provision that would prevent insurance companies from dropping or limiting insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill. A national group called Patients First is running a campaign against Congressional efforts at healthcare reform, and expects as many as 500 people at its rally outside of the Belgrade airport. Advocates for a government-run health care system who have been protesting Senator Max Baucus' opposition to their ideas are hoping to get inside. And as we told you...

President Barack Obama will be holding a “town hall” meeting in Bozeman Friday to discuss his proposed health-insurance reforms, and the general public can attend by getting tickets, likely through some type of lottery system, White House officials confirmed this morning. The town-hall meeting, one of three the president is planning this week to counter vocal opposition to Democratic health-reform proposals, will focus on the problems of people being dropped by health insurers because of an illness. Reform proposals before Congress would ban this practice, as well as reform health-insurance markets in other areas. Sources have told the Lee Newspapers...

Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Cal Groen sent letters offering up Idaho wolves to any state that wanted to manage them. So far, at least 20 states have rejected Idaho's pitch to trap and export some of its wolves. nobody wants them... In May, the federal government removed more than 1,300 wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. Environmentalists have sued to restore federal oversight.

So here we are in August, time for a little summer vacation. President Barack Obama is taking Michelle and the kids out on a Western swing to see some of America’s most famous national parks. Next Friday, August 14, they will fly out to Bozeman, Montana and the next day will visit Yellowstone National Park, home of the Old Faithful geyser, in nearby Wyoming. Later that day they head to Grand Junction, Colorado. On August 16, it’s on to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They end up in Phoenix for the president to address the convention of Veterans of Foreign...

Obama is coming to Bozeman next week, sources familiar with the event say, but the White House is staying tightlipped about the reported visit. “He’s definitely coming, that much is clear,” Mayor Kaaren Jacobson Josh Holland, with Avis Rent a Car in Belgrade, told the Chronicle that Secret Service had reservations for more than 30 cars for Aug. 13 and 14.

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels. Baucus, who is more conservative than most of the Democratic Conference, has frustrated many of his liberal colleagues by negotiating for weeks with Republicans over healthcare reform without producing a bill or even much detail about the policies he is considering. “Every two years the caucus could have a secret ballot on whether a chairman should continue, yes or no,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the...

Energy: With a media wind at his back, Barack Obama regularly gets away with false and distorted statements. He repeated one Tuesday that seems superficially plausible but should not go unchallenged.ust as he said during the Sept. 26 University of Mississippi debate with John McCain, the Illinois Democrat claimed during the Nashville town hall setting that "we have 3% of the world's oil reserves and we use 25% of the world's oil. So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem." It's disappointing that McCain failed to call out Obama on his figures,...

The Obama administration is raising the stakes in a fight over states' rights and firearm ownership by arguing that new pro-gun laws in Montana and Tennessee are invalid. In the last few months, a grass-roots, federalist revolt against Washington, D.C. has begun to spread through states that are home to politically active gun owners. Montana and Tennessee have enacted state laws saying that federal rules do not apply to firearms manufactured entirely within the state, and similar bills are pending in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and South Carolina. Yet the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives now claims that...

On Friday, we saw the letter ATF sent to FFL dealers in Tennessee telling them the Bureau was overriding the state's Firearms Freedom Act, and would continue to impose federal requirements in disregard of state law.

The Obama administration will make reforming the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers...

For the fifth time in six years, the gray wolf last week was returned to the federal endangered species list after being removed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a number of groups, including The Humane Society of the United States and The Center for Biological Diversity. The organizations successfully argued that the USFWS must provide more opportunity for public comment before it can delist wolves in the Upper Midwest. The groups also contend the government needs to better document the potential effects a possible hunting season might have on...

Gov. Brian Schweitzer is calling on the Obama administration to force General Motors to honor its contract with a Montana mining company instead of going overseas to buy the precious metals used to control vehicle pollution. By failing to shield the platinum and palladium mines, the Democrat said Friday that the administration had shown a bias against his state -- at a time when other U.S. jobs were protected with a "buy American" clause in the $787 billion stimulus act. GM is shedding its contracts with Stillwater Mining Co.'s platinum and palladium mines as part of the automaker's emergence from...

7/10/2009 - MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. (AFNS) -- Two members of the 341st Maintenance Operations Squadron rescued a resident of Belt, Mont., June 26 after his pickup struck a bridge, caught fire, left the road and came to a stop upside down in Belt Creek in Montana. Senior Airmen Christopher Zachary and Kyle Long where driving on Hughsville Road near Monarch when they stopped to tighten their truck's topper that shifted while driving over the dirt road's washboard surface. "We were just finishing up with the topper when he drove past us," Airman Zachary said. "It was a combination...

A United Nations delegation will travel to Glacier National Park and the North Fork to see for itself the threats of mining and coal bed methane development could have on the Park. Meeting in Spain last week the 21-member United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to send a mission to Waterton-Glacier and the Canadian Flathead. American and Canadian interests were in Spain last week to lobby UNESCO to list Glacier as a "World Heritage Site in Danger" — a dubious distinction as Glacier nears its 100th birthday. Will Hammerquist, the Glacier representative of the...

Bozeman Daily Chronicle Poll Six months into his presidency, how would you rate Barack Obama's performance?

HELENA - The Montana Pro Life Coalition on Wednesday submitted three proposed constitutional initiatives for the 2010 ballot defining embryos and fetuses as persons with rights, measures that if passed and upheld in courts would effectively ban abortion in Montana. Each proposal would define a person as a human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human. "The language of the personhood amendment proclaims what most people already know, which is that human life begins at conception and that all human beings are persons," Dr. Annie Bukacek, a Kalispell internist, told a rally of about 50 people...

Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.

Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) -- Although they were not successful in getting their states to sign off on state constitution amendments for personhood for unborn children, pro-life advocates in Colorado and Montana are giving the effort another try. A large majority of Colorado voters rejected one amendment while Montana voters never had a chance to vote on the proposal there.Backers of the amendments will host kickoffs in both states on measures they say will recognize the rights of all citizens, including children who haven't been born. In Montana, pro-life state Rep. Wendy Warburton is working with the Montana Pro Life Coalition...

If you’re planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page. As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said. “Please list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” states a city waiver form applicants are asked to sign. Three lines...

Job applicants with the city of Bozeman are finding that their private Internet discussions and pictures may not be so private after all. The city is asking job seekers for the user names and passwords to Internet social networking or Web groups they belong too. The decision is sparking an outcry from those who say the policy goes way too far. The issue has spawned hundreds of comments on Web forums and sharp criticism from legislators and the ACLU. "I liken it to them saying they want to look at your love letters and your family photos," said Amy Cannata,...

The city of Bozeman, Mt is asking potential employees for any web chat rooms or sites they belong to along with the passwords. Yikes. Bozeman demands Internet passwords By MATT GOURAS Associated Press HELENA - Job applicants with the city of Bozeman are finding that those private Internet discussions and pictures may not be so private after all. The city is asking job seekers for the user names - and passwords - to Internet social networking or Web groups they belong to. The decision is sparking an outcry from those who say the policy goes way too far. “I liken...