Free Republic

Long before Jim Messina became a trusted aide to President Barack Obama and one of the most powerful men in Washington, he was just a simple boy from Boise. Now, after working in politics for just over a decade, he lives in a lavish D.C. estate. How this happened is a classic Washington Cinderella story. Raised in Idaho by a single mother, Messina moved to Washington in 1995, in his mid-20s, to take a job as a legislative aide for Max Baucus, the conservative Democratic senator from Montana (now ambassador to China). Baucus supported George W. Bush-era personal and corporate...

The very same crew which recently dumped three million gallons of toxic sludge out of an abandoned mine and turned the Animas River in Colorado the color of a yellow banded poison dart frog for roughly a week has just issued a whole new set of rules to “protect” small pools of water. They would also like you to know that these rules are going into effect even though a federal judge put them on hold in 13 states, too. This new batch of regulations is going to “protect” bodies of water which may include the ditch in front...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against a the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Judge Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect....

A Florence man charged with setting a series of fires nine years ago in Ravalli and Missoula counties that cost millions of dollars to fight was back in a Ravalli County court Wednesday. Jonah Mica Warr, 28, was recently released on probation after serving seven years of a 10-year federal prison sentence for setting the fires in 2006. Warr’s court troubles in Ravalli County date back to 2004 when he pleaded guilty before District Judge Jeffery Langton to a number of felony charges for possession of explosives and criminal mischief for blowing up mailboxes in the Florence and Stevensville areas....

Gone are the flashing green neon lights advertising $200 ounces of pot. Gone are the caravans of cannabis doctors who signed up hundreds of people in a single day. The medical marijuana business in Montana boomed after voters legalized it in 2004. At one time, this state of only a million people had almost 30,000 patients and 4,900 providers. But the industry has been crippled by state legislators and a determined grass-roots opposition. And a state Supreme Court decision coming as early as October could all but wipe it out. Elizabeth Pincolini is a medical marijuana user and advocate, who...

(CNSNews.com) - A group of government researchers working for a National Institutes of Health laboratory in Montana made “humanized mice” by implanting the mice with tissues cut from human livers and thymuses taken from babies at 17 to 22 weeks gestational age. The researchers then published a paper describing how they constructed this particular type of “humanized” mouse, saying they hoped their description of the process would help other researchers seeking to make such mice in the future. The same government researchers had collaborated on another journal article about the “humanized” mouse with an NIH-funded researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital--which...

The sage grouse population has exploded in the last two years, growing by nearly two-thirds from more than 49,000 males in 2013 to more than 80,000 this year. ... This is encouraging news for the bird, and for the people whose lives would be turned upside down by the federal government if it still insists on listing the critter as an endangered species on the brink of extinction. The report considered the population across the bird’s 11-state habitat, with specific news on the growth in Colorado numbers ... The report falls on the heels of a gloom and doom forecast...

WASHINGTON — An 18-year old Mexican national who admitted to killing a Montana couple and seriously injuring their 24-year old daughter last week may have entered the United States illegally years before he was given legal residency in May of 2013, sources tell The Daily Caller. According to The Billings Gazette, Jesus Deniz admitted to fatally shooting Jason Shane, 51, and his wife Tana Shane, 47, on an Indian reservation last Wednesday in the town of Pryor, Montana. The couple and their 24-year-old daughter Jorah Shane pulled their car over to help Deniz, when it appeared he had run out...

The world's glaciers are losing ice at a faster pace so far this century than at any time since record-keeping began more than 120 years ago, according to a new study that says glacial melt is a worldwide phenomenon and will continue even if the world stopped warming any further than it already has. In the study, published last month in the Journal of Glaciology and conducted by the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich, scientists compared observations of tens of thousands of glaciers around the world with all other data available on the world's glaciers. They...

According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 18-year-old Jesus Yeizon Deniz-Mendoza, from Mexico, was legally admitted to enter the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry May 31, 2013. The following is an official statement from ICE, regarding what could happen if Deniz is convicted of a crime: This individual does not have any criminal convictions, and, as a permanent resident, is not currently removable. Thus, an ICE detainer cannot be placed on the individual at this time. However, ICE is closely monitoring this case and coordinating with local authorities. If he is convicted for a...

A man who was stopped along a road on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation gunned down a family who tried to help him Wednesday, killing the couple and wounding their daughter. Tana Shane, 50, and her husband Jason, 52, who have seven children, were killed, and daughter, Jora, 24, was shot in the head and back, after they assisted 18-year-old suspect Jesus Deniz Mendoza in Pyror, Montana. Jorah survived and managed to run to a local school to get help before returning to the scene. She was then taken to hospital and is said to be 'incoherent'. Mrs Shane drove past...

Boise, Idaho. Did the citizens of Boise “provoke” Fazliddin Kurbanov? Did they draw cartoons of Muhammad? Did they “poke Muslims in the eye”? “Informant: Terrorism suspect named Boise as possible attack target,” by Katie Terhune, KTVB, July 27, 2015: BOISE –A confidential FBI source testified Monday that Boise may have been among the intended targets of terrorism suspect Fazliddin Kurbanov. The informant met Kurbanov in January 2013 at a truck-driving school in Salt Lake City, Utah. The suspect had gone there in hopes of getting a job, while the informant had been planted in the class by the FBI. The...

In Whitefish, Montana, the spectacular view from anywhere on Big Mountain up to its summit over 6,800 feet overlooks placid Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, and the Valley below, while its slopes have attracted skiers for decades. Near Glacier National Park, this hardly seems a place where a battle goes on over a statue called “Big Mountain Jesus.” The statue has stood on a tiny 25-foot-by-25-foot piece of leased land high up on the mountain for over 60 years as a memorial honoring soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division who lost their lives fighting...

In a way, Rachel Dolezal is a living embodiment of racial progress. In the 1961 book, Black Like Me, white journalist John Howard Griffin pretended to be black in order to show the indignities blacks endure. This year, we learned that Rachel Dolezal pretended to be black in order to obtain affirmative action benefits. Writer Dan Flynn, my predecessor at Accuracy in Academia, summarizes the Dolezal story nicely: “Before re-emerging as an Africana studies adjunct professor, NAACP chapter leader, Historically Black College graduate, and all-around Nubian princess, Dolezal grew up as a blue-eyed blonde on the mean streets of Troy,...

Attorneys general from thirteen states filed a lawsuit Monday challenging EPA's new rule defining the waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), asserting that the rule expands the scope of clean water regulations to lands that are dry much of the year and increases the federal government's authority over land use. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, who joined in the lawsuit, noted that 35 states have filed comments in opposition to the rule and several other attorneys general are considering filing challenges. The EPA is overstepping...

I wonder what took them so long. Three business days after the Obergefell decision that recognized same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, Nathan Collier decided to demand that the Montana state government recognize that love is love … is love. And if they don’t issue a marriage license to formally recognize his plural arrangement, Collier says he intends to sue: A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife.Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria...

HELENA, Mont. - A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife. Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy - holding multiple marriage licenses - but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied. "It's about marriage equality," Collier told The Associated Press Wednesday. "You can't...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife. Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy — holding multiple marriage licenses — but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied. “It’s about marriage equality,” Collier told The Associated Press Wednesday. “You...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)BILLINGS - Given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, a Lockwood family is now looking to solidify rights of its own. We first told you about the Colliers in January of 2015 when the polygamist family appeared on an episode of the TLC show, "Sister Wives."The polyamorous movement is a national push to allow marriage between multiple partners. Nathan Collier and his two wives, Vicki and Christine, said Tuesday that they are simply looking for equality. Nathan is legally married to Vicki, but also wants to legally wed Christine. On Tuesday,...

I just love it when someone slips up, and tells us country folk what’s really being planned for us. Rural cleansing is the purposeful removal of rural citizens from the countryside and the relocation of rural populations into urban areas. Many public officials and media pundits scoff at the mere suggestion that rural cleansing is taking place, but the problem, you see, is that there are people who have inadvertently left tell-tale clues we can use to piece together things for ourselves. One of the most startling clues I’ve run across lately comes from a July 1, 1998 newspaper article...