Free Republic

Your daily routine -- switching on a light, cooking a meal, driving down the street -- would generate less greenhouse gases under a first-of-its-kind regional strategy to curb global warming unveiled Wednesday at the state Capitol in Salem. The strategy emerged from the Western Climate Initiative, an alliance of Western states -- including Oregon and Washington -- and Canadian provinces trying to jump ahead of any federal move to regulate greenhouse gases. Large utility companies and factory owners would feel the effects first, followed by fuel distributors, as they face limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. Individual Oregonians would not...

WASHINGTON - Homeland security officials on Friday hinted at a possible face-saving deal to end their standoff with a handful of states over new driver's license rules — a dispute that, left unresolved, could cause big air travel headaches. For weeks, the Homeland Security Department has been headed toward a showdown with some states over a law called Real ID, which would require new security measures for state-issued driver's licenses. Yet a late Good Friday letter from a top DHS official suggested Washington may be backing away from a messy fight. South Carolina, Maine and Montana are the only states...

Letter: Burns greatest senator in Montana's history Montanans have a great opportunity to keep Sen. Conrad Burns. Burns has done more for Montana than any other senator in the history of the state. He has funded veterans' clinics, well staffed with local MDs, and rural medical facilities throughout Montana. Burns is a passionate advocate for the citizens of Montana. He has common sense; is not afraid to say what is on his mind; and when he is wrong, he will admit it. Do Democrats do that? He is a true advocate for agriculture, small and large business, free markets, our...

A vandal or vandals spray-painted words from "The Da Vinci Code" on the front doors of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church on Main Street late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.A groundskeeper at the church discovered the graffiti around 11 a.m. Wednesday and was visibly disheartened.A funeral was scheduled to take place at the church in the afternoon.The message sprayed in black paint read, "So DARK the con of man." That same message is a clue in the plot of "The Da Vinci Code," the best-selling novel by Dan Brown that has been made into a movie.The grafitti also included...

WASHINGTON - Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday. By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later. While the crime rate has fallen over...

Put info and links about Montana here.

Hot Issues Go Directly to State Voters Gay Marriage Among Initiative Questions By David S. Broder Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 18, 2004; Page A01 Eleven states have responded to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision allowing same-sex marriage by proposing to alter their constitutions or statutes to require that the partners be one man and one woman. Missouri voters approved such a measure on the August primary ballot by a 71 percent majority. Sponsors are hoping for similar results in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Oregon -- with a petition drive pending...

South Carolina's GOP Senate Primary Forces Beasley Into Runoff NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, June 9, 2004 Hoping for a political comeback, former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley found himself unable to clinch a primary victory and was forced into a runoff in his bid to win the Republican nomination for one of the nation's most closely watched Senate seats. Tuesday's primary put Beasley up against three-term Rep. Jim DeMint in the GOP's effort to grab the longtime Democrat seat held by retiring Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings. Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum won the Democrats' nomination. Beasley got 37 percent of the vote,...

Act Now in Five States! See Below! What Are You Doing to Stop Same-sex "Marriage?” Have you done all you can to stop same-sex "marriage" from entering your town? Many excellent initiatives are underway to uphold traditional marriage. You can now participate in these efforts!As part of its Traditional Marriage Crusade, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) is working to get state marriage amendments on ballots across the country. The TFP is also setting up a page on its web site that will list many of the efforts to defend traditional marriage.In addition, the...

National politics could impact state races By ROBERT TANNER AP National Writer Presidential politics and economic turmoil will have a major impact on the 11 gubernatorial races this fall, with the interplay between national and state politics most critical in four states where the 2000 race was dramatically close Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and West Virginia. Tuesday’s primary, the first this year for a gubernatorial race, puts President Bush’s former budget director into the running in Indiana. Mitch Daniels is relying on the president’s term of affection “My Man Mitch” as his slogan for the GOP nomination. He’s up against...

MOSCOW - The Moscow Times published an editorial Friday editorial, which could only have been written by Judas Iscariot. The editorial is a wholesale denunciation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, demonizing the man as he faces a likely prison sentence if the charges brought against him by Russian prosecutors are proven to be true. Talk about hitting a man when he is down. The editorial comes in the wake of a decade-long relationship between Khodorkovsky's Menatep and Yukos companies and Moscow Times. Moscow Times is published by a former Dutch communist Derk Sauer who came to Russia as a reporter back in...

SACRAMENTO - For almost a quarter century, the future of a 250-acre piece of property called Marblehead overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Orange County bedeviled developers, community activists and the California Coastal Commission, all of whom collectively rejected 10 proposals to build there. But the 11th attempt proved a charm for its developers, MT No. I, LLC, a division of Lusk Development, which won the state coastal commission's go-ahead in April 2003 to build a residential and shopping complex where former President Nixon once hoped to build his presidential library. Months later, Jim Johnson, the grateful CEO behind the project...

A church dividing? By LAURA TODE - IR Staff Writer - 01/29/04 The ordination of an openly gay Episcopal bishop forced a wedge in the Episcopal Church as more conservative members denounced the decision and moved to create what they call a church within a church. While the course of events has unfolded more on a national level, The Right Rev. C. Franklin Brookhart, Episcopal Bishop of Montana, said the state diocese and local Episcopal churches are feeling a ripple effect as attendance drops and local parishioners look to their clergy for help in sorting through the controversy. According to...

Looking for love - in many places Cheyenne native travels country to meet women he met through Web site By Allison Fashek rep8@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - Like most people who use Internet dating services, Kevin McMindes was a little leery about the idea at first. An outdoorsy guy who wears his stubble well, the 30-year-old McMindes was talked into the venture in June by a good friend from his days at Montana State, Kristen LaRue. "I'd heard that on a lot of sites, guys are married but still looking for somebody, or they say they're 6...

STATEHOUSE UPDATE To the surprise of few, two governors who have been mired in controversy announced last week that they would not seek re-election in ’04. Democrat Robert Wise of West Virginia and Republican Judy Martz of Montana both cited their need to deal with personal troubles as the chief reason for standing down. Wise had recently admitted an extramarital affair. Martz conceded she had cared for and washed the clothes of her top policy adviser after he crashed a car, killing the state house majority leader. She harbored him overnight without calling the police. Montana’s first woman governor, however,...

<p>HELENA, Mont. — Gov. Judy Martz, whose first term has been besieged by missteps and dismal popularity among voters, said Wednesday she will not run for re-election next year.</p> <p>At a news conference, Martz said she wanted to spend more time with her family and insisted that her sagging popularity was not a factor in her decision. Recent polls have shown her approval rating at about 20 percent.</p>

HELENA, Mont. Gov. Judy Martz, saying she has done what she promised and that she wants to spend more time with her family, announced Wednesday she will not seek a second term. At a news conference in her Capitol office, the Republican ticked off a list of achievements dealing with economic development, health care and tax changes and then concluded, “I have accomplished what I set out to do. I have enacted my vision.” The surprise announcement is expected to entice Lt. Gov. Karl Ohs into the GOP primary race already crowded with three candidates. Ohs, who attended the news...

PORTLAND - The skeletal remains discovered last weekend on Mount Hood belong to somebody nobody knew was missing on the mountain, Clackamas County Sheriff's detectives said Tuesday. The person's identity will not be released until the state Medical Examiner's Office completes a full exam and family members are notified, a process that could take up to a week. Search crews found the skeletal remains on Saturday, during a large-scale search for missing Portland snowshoer Fred Frauens. The Sheriff’s Office at first identified the body as that of Frauens, who disappeared during a solo climb in March. A medical examiner later...

SIGNS OF THE TIMES IN MONTANA In one of the hardest-fought party convention battles in Montana history, John Rabenberg was elected Republican state chairman last week. Rabenberg, a veteran party volunteer and Fort Peck farmer, won 102 to 74 over former State Rep. Gilda Clancy. He succeeds outgoing Chairman Ken Miller (who is relinquishing the party helm to ponder a bid for governor amidst growing rumors that Republican incumbent Judy Martz will not seek re-election). Although numerous publications tried to portray the fight between Rabenberg and Clancy, a lobbyist for the Montana Eagle Forum, as an ideological battle, party sources...

Indians finally recognized at battlesite By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press writer Monday, June 23, 2003 LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. -- The words were angry, ugly. But to Tim Lame Woman, they were truth, and they nagged at him to be spoken whenever he passed the grassy battlefield where Lt. Col. George Custer became a legend. On a June day in 1988, Lame Woman marched with other members of the American Indian Movement to the monument to the 7th Cavalry atop Last Stand Hill. They placed at its base a crudely engraved plaque honoring the "Indian patriots who fought...

Medicaid budget knife cuts circumcisions The Billings Gazette December 21, 2002 By JENNIFER McKEE Gazette State Bureau HELENA - People with Medicaid, a federal-state insurance plan for the poor and elderly, will no longer be able to get prosthetic limbs, dental care, circumcisions and some other services, state officials announced Friday. Despite numerous cuts to programs, the state estimated its Medicaid budget would run $3.6 million into the red by June 30, according to a letter Friday to doctors, hospitals and other medical personnel who treat Medicaid patients. To avoid busting its budget, the state's Medicaid Assistance Bureau decided to...

<p>BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana is again a national leader in alcohol-related traffic deaths, no surprise for a state that just will not get tough enough on drunks, according to anti-drinking activists.</p> <p>In a report released Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Louisiana ranked only below Montana and South Carolina in the rate of people killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents per 100 million miles driven.</p>

Go to Dick Morris's site -- www.vote.vom -- and vote in the poll on the front page: Which Party Should Control Congress. And tomorrow... GET PSYCHED!!! VOTE!!! Don't forget to get all your friends and family to vote, and to tell THEIR friends and family to vote. Let's roll!