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Dem Keystone support creates tougher fight for Reid, ObamaBy Alexander Bolton - 12/16/11 04:08 PM ET Republicans want to jam Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Keystone oil sands pipeline and the Democratic leader will have a tough time resisting, given support within his caucus for the project. GOP leaders have made clear to Reid that they will not approve an extension of the payroll tax holiday unless it includes language to speed up construction of the pipeline. Senate Republicans estimate as many as 14 Senate Democrats support the project. Labor unions have also voiced strong backing, complicating...

Who was the ONLY Member of the US House of Reps to vote NO on WW I and II? And Why?

BILLINGS - Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich holds a substantial lead in Montana according to a new poll of likely voters. The poll shows the former House Speaker leading Mitt Romney by over 25 points in Montana. The new survey from Public Policy Polling out of North Carolina, shows Gingrich favored by 37-percent of the likely voters surveyed in Montana. Texas Congressman Ron Paul is second with 12-percent, while Romney stands at just 11-percent. Michelle Bachmann is tied with Herman Cain with 10-percent, while RIck Perry, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum all polled only single digits. Public Policy Polling says...

A 75-year-old lawyer who fought private property rights battles alongside Idaho U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth and her Nevada rancher husband Wayne Hage in the 1990s is still cultivating the Sagebrush Rebellion's roots. Fred Kelly Grant has been slowed by age and heart surgery, but he's in demand from counties — and tea partyers who attend his $150-per-person seminars — as conservative elements in the West's continue to clash with the federal government. California's Siskiyou County is paying Grant $10,000 to help block removal of four Klamath River dams. Montana and Idaho counties have enlisted him to trim hated wolf populations...

Sen. Jon Tester (D) and his Republican opponent, Rep. Denny Rehberg, have been inundated with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of TV ads, including several just in the past month. The spending is emblematic of the state’s relatively inexpensive media markets and the race’s competitiveness and potential to swing the Senate majority. It also puts the Montana race on track to be among this cycle’s most expensive in terms of spending by outside interest groups. Sources in the state disagree on exactly how much has been spent against each candidate. According to a Republican-compiled breakdown of spending that was...

  Congressman Denny Rehberg meets with Montana State Bureau of Land Management Director Jamie Connell in his office to express his concerns about the draft policy.  Click herefor full-res image.  Image approved for re-printing or broadcast.  WASHINGTON, D.C. – Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Bureau of Land Management Secretary Bob Abbey asking them to revise a draft policy that empowers federal land managers to prohibit “recreational shooting” on public lands.  Yesterday, Rehberg voiced his concerns with this policy at a meeting with Jamie Connell, Montana State Director for the Bureau...

The endorsement of a powerful gun-rights group is up for grabs in a key Senate race. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) decision on whether to endorse Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) or Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg (Mont.) could be the deciding factor in what is expected to be a close contest. Political analysts say that the winner of this election could determine which party will control the Senate in January of 2013. Tester and Rehberg have strong gun rights voting records. The NRA gives Tester an A grade and Rehberg an A+. A Montana State University-Billings poll released earlier...

The endorsement of a powerful gun-rights group is up for grabs in a key Senate race. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) decision on whether to endorse Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) or Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg (Mont.) could be the deciding factor in what is expected to be a close contest. Political analysts say that the winner of this election could determine which party will control the Senate in January of 2013.

A 72-year-old day care owner convicted of repeatedly assaulting a toddler in his care has lost his bid to be classified as a low-risk sex offender. The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Albert Gaub, who with his wife formerly ran the Cuddles and More daycare center from their home in Missoula. Gaub pleaded guilty in 2010 to assaulting the girl, who was not quite 2 when the attacks began, over a period of 18 months. He was sentenced in January to 30 years in prison with 15 suspended, and later classified as a Level 2...

"We need to re-evaluate what is required in our lives, so that we have a sense of satisfaction. What really counts? One friend of mine has reduced it to this: you should get up in the morning and ask 'what do I need,' not just "what do I want?'" -- Tom Brokaw, Morning Joe 11-1-11. "Of course, one of the reasons I bought it was to be able to get away from the frantic life I lead and to have some privacy." -- Tom Brokaw, explaining his purchase of an interest in a 4,000-acre mountain retreat in Montana. Tom Brokaw:...

SEATTLE- The U.S. Border Patrol has quietly stopped its controversial practice of routinely searching buses, trains and airports for illegal immigrants at transportation hubs along the northern border and in the U.S. interior, preventing agents from using what had long been an effective tool for tracking down people here illegally. ... The situation is similar in upstate New York... instead of checking buses or trains, agents have spent shifts sitting in their vehicles gazing out at Lake Erie and Lake Ontario..."They're already bored," the agent said. "You grab the paper every day and you go do the crossword."

Skiers and boarders beware: Ski areas are opening but the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) hopes to tumble one symbolic guardian from your sport's terrain. Anti-religionists aim to remove a statue of Jesus from near the top of Chair 2 at Montana's Whitefish Mountain Resort. Local Knights of Columbus erected the figure in the 1950s. Many members were World War II veterans wanting to replicate sculptures they saw while fighting in the European mountains. The U.S. Forest Service, cowed by false assertions that religious displays on public land are illegal, wants Jesus gone. And the FFRF intelligensia waves its misleading...

1. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. 2. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. 3. Jon Tester, D-Mont. 4. Scott Brown, R-Mass. 5. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah 6. Dick Lugar, R-Ind. 7. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio 8. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. 9. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine 10. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

Drunk 11-Year-Old At Occupy Missoula, Adult ArrestedMISSOULA COUNTY By Kevin Maki UPDATED: 6:59 pm MDT October 20, 2011 MISSOULA, Mont. -- Missoula police say an 11-year-old boy turned up drunk on the courthouse lawn, from the Occupy Missoula encampment early Thursday morning. That's the group protesting corporate greed. Police say one of the camp's occupants bought the youngster alcohol. Twenty-seven year old John Skinner was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. The police report said Skinner encountered the boy and a friend outside a downtown Missoula bar. Police say the friend asked Skinner to buy them alcohol. They...

Norway's Statoil will build more crude shipping capacity in the Williston Basin of North Dakota and Montana as part of its $4.4 billion bid for Austin-based Brigham Exploration a company executive said on Monday. The Norwegian state oil company said it would build more shipping capacity, with a focus on pipelines, but did not commit itself to any specific pipeline project. Analysts said that because of the deal's steep cost, the oil major will have to invest in infrastructure projects to recover some of its investment as it ramps up production. Statoil is looking to enter the Bakken and Three...

Yesterday, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., attacked U.S. companies that do business with Iran, singling out Koch Industries, despite the fact that Tester has taken money from companies that also did business with Iran. "Recently I heard that one of America's largest companies, Koch Industries, was in the business of supporting Iran through energy development. Um ... if they are doing there are probably others that are doing it," Tester said yesterday. Koch Industries issued the following statement in response to Tester's statement: Koch Industries voluntarily decided several years ago to stop sales to Iran,...

So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them… – Barack Obama speaking to San Francisco Chronicle, January 2008 The United States has the world’s largest coal resources. In fact we have 50 percent more coal than Russia, the country with the next largest reserves. But coal use in the United States is under assault. Before becoming President, Barak Obama promised to bankrupt coal companies. As President, he has tried various strategies to force Americans to use less coal. After failing to pass a national energy tax (cap-and-trade), the President vowed...

The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark - from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise, to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat. ... With a Friday deadline to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act... Patrick Parenteau, an environmental lawprofessor at the University of Vermont. "They are moving through this large...

A grizzly bear killed a Michigan man whose body was found by hikers last week in Yellowstone National Park, officials said Monday. The victim was identified Monday as John Wallace of Chassell, Mich.

As late as April of 2011, the Water Management Chief for the Corps of Engineers, Omaha District, expressed an opinion in an e-mail to a concerned citizen that the mountain snow melt this year would "be nothing to write home about." This internal e-mail, among many others recently released through a Freedom of Information Act request by Gannett's Washington Bureau, exposes that assertion as a gross misstatement of known facts. The e-mails reveal that a cadre of hydrologists, engineers, and National Weather Service (NWS) officials had repeatedly warned the chief, Ms. Jody Farhat, beginning in January about the danger posed...