Free Republic

Jim Geragthy, acclaimed author and National Review’s chief campaign analyst, has been grousing about the lack of quality polling in key Senate races this year. His frustration is well-founded. So yesterday must have felt like Christmas in September for Jim and political junkies everywhere, as two pollsters released a deluge of surveys covering the most contested races in the country. In light of the results, I’d expect that national Republicans are kicking off the week with an extra spring in their step, as well. We were leaked an advance copy of last week’s much-anticipated Politico/GWU Battleground poll, which was packed...

In the chambers of the Nebraska Supreme Court in Omaha, a hearing was held Friday about the decision by Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie F. Stacy claiming that the law under which the state’s governor had approved the route of the Keystone XL pipeline was unconstitutional. The judge, in a case brought by three landowners, decided that LB1161, the law passed by the state’s legislature at the end of its session in 2011 that shifted the approval of the pipeline route from the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) to the governor, was unconstitutional, and as such the judge instituted a...

District Judge Ed McLean has denied a motion to change the trial venue for Markus Kaarma, the Missoula man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage last April. In a 208-page motion to move the trial, Kaarma’s attorneys argued that local media reports have tainted Missoula’s jury pool by painting Kaarma as a “cold-blooded killer.” Katie Lacny, who filed the motion, argued her 30-year-old client has been held captive in his Grant Creek home and received death threats as the media “aroused sympathies and created a community outcry against” him. “The pretrial publicity has stirred up...

<p>Montana's attorney general plans to appeal a judge's ruling that a voter-approved law requiring immigration checks of anybody applying for state services goes against federal immigration laws.</p> <p>The 2011 Republican-led Legislature wrote the proposal meant to deny government jobs and assistance to people who are in the U.S. illegally. Legislators sent the plan to the 2012 ballot, where the referendum passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote.</p>

Just how far kooky left does a Democrat candidate have to go before ABC News will cease hyping him or her? Apparently so far left that we can't even imagine. Writing articles for a far left socialist website or posting a profile photo of a former chairwoman of the Communist Party USA on your Facebook page is still not kooky enough to deter Benjamin Siegel of ABC News from writing an adulatory article about just such a person, the Montana Moonbat herself, Democrat Senate candidate Amanda Curtis. Here is Siegel gushing over her in a way that you just know...

Montana State Senator Amanda Curtis (D-76 Dist.) is running for U.S. Senate and will no doubt be trying to run away from her past statements mocking guns, Christianity, the Bible, and the family. She just stepped into the race in place of John Walsh, the Democrat candidate who had to step down amid a plagiarism scandal.

Curtis last summer attended a Mayors Against Illegal Guns rally, which aimed to pressure then-Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to support expanded background checks. Curtis's brother killed himself playing Russian roulette when he was 16. "If Montana has 2.5 times the suicide rate of states with comprehensive background checks, maybe we should try that out,” she told the Montana Standard at the time. A year later, the Montana Standard wrote an article mentioning that newly christened candidate Curtis had attended the rally. She told them, “I haven’t said anything that average Montanans wouldn’t agree with. I have simply stated that guns...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is simply living in an alternate universe. While yelling into the clouds over the Koch Brothers’ evil plot to destroy America, he said today that Democrats “are doing really well in Montana.” And is optimistic that they'll maintain control of the Senate (via the Hill): Reid predicted Democrats would lose a seat in South Dakota, but was optimistic about Montana despite Sen. John Walsh's (D-Mt.) recent decision to drop out of the race after a plagiarism scandal. We are doing really well in Montana," Reid told reporters on Monday. … If the election were held today, we'd...

What does it say about the Montana Democrat Party that they nominated a flat out moonbat to be their Senate nominee? Perhaps they knew that since they were going to lose that seat anyways, they would entertain us with a laughable candidate. Just by reading the Associated Press description of the new Senate nominee, Amanda Curtis, hastily chosen in the wake of the John Walsh plagiarism scandal, you would have no idea that she has issued statements that are both bizarre and offensive. According to AP she is a fresh face with "blue-collar roots." However, a video of Amanda Curtis...

Video at link

Democrats in Montana on Saturday nominated a one-term state representative, Amanda Curtis, as their candidate for U.S. Senate to replace incumbent Senator John Walsh who quit the race following a controversy over his suspected plagiarism. Delegates at a special convention chose Curtis, 34, a teacher in Butte, over rancher Dirk Adams, according to a Twitter posting by the Montana Democratic Party . The state party did not respond to an email and phone call about the nomination. Curtis will face U.S. Representative Steve Daines, a Republican, and Libertarian Roger Roots in the mid-term election this November. Walsh had been appointed...

1 minute, 49 seconds - offered without comment on my part, other than to add she is a 34 yr old teacher who is anti-gun in a state like Montana. Wonder how much that will be discussed in the 90 days before the election.

Montana Democrats have chosen a new candidate for the U.S. Senate race after Sen. John Walsh dropped out amid plagiarism allegations over his thesis at the U.S. Army War College, the Associated Press reported. The new candidate is a little-known state lawmaker named Amanda Curtis, who is a first-term representative from Butte. She has less than three months to make her case to voters over her Republican opponent Rep. Steve Daines. "If we win here in Montana, outspent and outgunned in a race where we were left for dead, it will send a message to Washington, D.C., that we want...

Brigham argues that a significant contributing factor to Baucus’s decision to bow out was the threat of a primary challenger from the left. “If the Left wants to make a stink and veto somebody, we have the power to do that,” he said. “For local progressives, they saw, ‘Hey, when we stand up and complain, we got Baucus off the ballot. We can do that again,’ ” he added. He argued that progressives now have a chance to get their own candidate at the Aug. 16 special nominating convention. Grassroots organizers often have more success getting their candidates elected at...

Should have done it a week ago, frankly. Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., announced Thursday that he is dropping out of the Senate race after it became clear that he could not overcome the fallout from a plagiarism scandal. “The 2007 research paper from my time at the U.S. Army War College has become a distraction from the debate you expect and deserve,” Walsh said in a statement. “Distraction.” Yes, I imagine that plagiarism and academic fraud probably would qualify as such. As to the plagiarist’s replacement, well… I don’t know what’s more depressing for Democrats: that their best hope to...

HELENA — Sen. John Walsh said Thursday he is pulling out of the Senate race because his campaign was distracted by the controversy over allegations that he plagiarized a U.S. Army War College research paper. Walsh, a Democrat, said he decided to drop out of the race. He had canceled campaign events this week as he and his family discussed what he would do. The New York Times reported July 23 that Walsh had plagiarized large portions of the research paper in 2007. Walsh will serve out the rest of his Senate term, which ends in early January 2015. “I...

"Having repeatedly said that he wants to do the honorable thing, Walsh should stop campaigning and do his utmost to serve Montanans well in the remainder of his brief Senate appointment. That is the honorable course," writes the Gazette's editorial board. "We call on Walsh to devote all his time to serving as U.S. senator and bag the campaigning." The Missoulian went a step farther, suggesting that he could also immediately resign. "Walsh could resign his Senate seat immediately. [Gov. Steve] Bullock could then appoint a temporary replacement who isn’t running for election, as many Montanans had hoped he would...

Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) was basking in the national spotlight of delivering the GOP’s response to President Obama’s weekly radio and internet address July 27, while the man whose job he wants, Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.), was reeling from charges of plagiarizing a healthy portion of his U.S. Army War College master’s thesis. The contest has never been a contest, although Walsh did pull closer to Daines just before the plagiarism scandal broke July 23. Daines is slaughtering Walsh in the polls. The latest survey of likely Montana voters from Public Policy Polling, which leans toward Democrats, has the Republican...

The time has come to remove the words “halfbreed” and “breed” from the names of creeks, lakes and other places around Montana, according to leaders of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Nicholas Vrooman, who works with the tribe, presented a bill draft to that effect during a recent meeting with the State-Tribal Relations Legislative Committee. The words are racist terms that demean American Indians, he said. […] The bill would require state and other agencies to identify places with the terms and remove them from maps, signs and markers when age or vandalism calls for an update. It...

Formation of district and imposition of assessments 'invalidated' by ruling . Boulder County commissioners didn't have the legal authority to establish a Local Improvement District created to charge rural residential subdivision property owners the bulk of the costs of rehabilitating those subdivisions' paved county roads, according to a Friday Boulder County District Court ruling. The Board of County Commissioners "exceeded its jurisdiction and abused its discretion in authorizing and forming the Subdivision Paving Local Improvement District and imposing assessments on properties within the District," Senior District Court Judge J. Robert Lowenbach wrote. ... The judge further ordered Boulder County to...