Free Republic

For decades, gun control advocates constantly claim that Right-to-Carry laws would lead to disaster. But when disasters don’t occur they move on to the next prediction of disaster. We have to keep track of these predictions if only to judge how much weight to give to their erroneous predictions. Montana is the latest state to let people carry concealed handguns on college campuses, and the state Board of Regents for the university system demanded an emergency stay from the state Supreme Court because “serious harm is threatened” if the law goes into effect on June 1. The Regents took a...

Eight years ago I wrote a post titled: Can A Nation Built By Giants Survive Nanny State Paternalism? The Numbers Don't Look Good... In it I wrote: “ Were the Americans who carved a nation out of a continent, who crisscrossed that continent with railroads, telephone lines and highways and who won two world wars so different from Americans today… Not based on DNA they weren’t. But that doesn’t mean they were the same. While the DNA of the American people today is no different from that of the people who invented the elevator or the light bulb, the American...

More than 2 million workers could see their jobless benefits slashed or eliminated altogether next month as more states opt out of federal unemployment programs. Some of the hardest hit will be out-of-work Black Americans. “The states are giving them 30 days to find a job,” Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told Yahoo Money. “Most of those workers won’t find a job within those 30 days. Most of them are going to have zero in unemployment benefits.” Those workers stand to collectively lose $10.9 billion, averaging out to potentially thousands of dollars...

In case we needed more proof that the US labor market is in a supply-demand mismatch crisis, a few hours after the latest NFIB showed that it has never been more difficult for small business to fill job openings, moments ago the BLS confirmed what we expected: that the number of job openings in March (recall JOLTS is one month delayed) soared by a massive 597K to 8.123MM in March from an upward revised 7.5MM in February, and the highest on record!The actual number was a 6-sigma beat to already lofty expectations of a 7.5 million print.Looking at the details,...

GOP Governors Slash Unemployment Benefits as Businesses Plead for Workers By Updated: May 10, 2021 biggersmaller Print Expanded federal unemployment benefits that were implemented during last year’s pandemic relief efforts are ending earlier than scheduled in Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina—and Florida is expected to follow suit as Republican governors nationwide respond to pleas from businesses to encourage Americans to return to work. “We absolutely can put more people to work,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters during a press conference Wednesday, announcing that Floridians receiving the $300 weekly extra payments will soon have to provide proof that they’re...

On April 22, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed SB215, the Montana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (full text). It provides in part: State action may not substantially burden a person's right to the exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless it is demonstrated that applying the burden to that person's exercise of religion: (a) is essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and (b) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.Christianity Today reports on the new law.

A group of University of Wyoming professors and students has identified an unusual belt of igneous rocks that stretches for over 2,000 miles from British Columbia, Canada, through Idaho, Montana, Nevada, southeast California and Arizona to Sonora, Mexico. “Geoscientists usually associate long belts of igneous rocks with chains of volcanoes at subduction zones, like Mount Shasta, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainer,” says Jay Chapman, an assistant professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics. “What makes this finding so interesting and mysterious is that this belt of igneous rocks is located much farther inland, away from the...

Previously overlooked real-estate markets brace for the ‘New American Consumer’Home prices are rising across the country as Americans rush to purchase houses, driven in part by a newfound ability to work remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But where are they set to rise the most? Not in the Sun Belt, by and large, according to a new index. The Emerging Housing Markets Index from the Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com analyzed the 300 largest metropolitan areas across the country. Each housing market was evaluated based on a range of factors related to real estate, economic vitality and...

Texas, Florida and North Carolina are among the states that will gain congressional seats based on new population data from the U.S. census, a shift that will boost Republican chances of recapturing the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats in next year’s midterm elections. Blue states losing a seat = California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania. Red states losing a seat = Ohio, West Virginia. Blue states gaining a seat = Oregon, Colorado. Red states gaining seats = Montana, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas is gaining two seats. Summary = Net gain of +3 seats for red states.

The unending COVID regime isn't a nightmare scenario, it's an existential threat to our liberties, a possible and unexamined risk to our health, and right here among us.A plastic recycler in Louisville, Kentucky. A guide at a hiking camp in Alaska. A waitress at a restaurant in Houston, Texas. What do these companies have in common, besides being featured in a Monday Wall Street Journal story? Two things, both of which should worry anyone skeptical of injecting a novel vaccine with little-to-no long-term testing for possibly serious negative effects. For one, all three of these businesses require all of their...

Biden’s new climate plan will strip Montana of a vital industry and bankrupt our ranchesSenator Jon Tester (D) wears his agricultural credentials on his sleeve, eagerly relaying to Montana’s farmers and ranchers each campaign how much he supports ag producers, considering he is one. Tester’s family runs an organic farm near Big Sandy, where he pops in to take campaign photos every half-decade or so. But with Biden’s new climate orders in place, the days of Montana’s cattle ranchers being able to conscientiously vote Democrat may soon be over.Montana’s farming and ranching industry accounts for more than 3.6 billion dollars...

President Biden has nominated Montana environmental activist and Democrat operative Tracy Stone-Manning of Montana to head the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management. Stone-Manning got her start in environmental activism as the spokesperson for the mother of all radical organizations — Earth First. Only after entering politics did Stone-Manning claim she left the job because the monkey wrenchers were just too darn angry. Who knew that ecoterrorism and arson had a dark side? PeakNation™ will recall the monkey wrenching of Aspen’s natural gas pumping station over the Christmas holiday that left the resort in the cold for days. The culprit...

The Montana Supreme Court is a liberal wasteland. But that wasteland of progressive hell is about to be dismantled, thanks to a bombshell email scandal that is rocking the court. It's so serious, that there is actual talk of the likely impeachment of progressive justices and even some possible arrests of Supreme Court staff by the Seargent-at-Arms.It all centers around a bill called SB140. What is SB140? Well, it's a law that was signed by Republican Governor Greg Gianforte that states the governor has the power to appoint justices and district judges to fill vacancies, effectively ending the Judicial Nomination...

This news story will be the most explosive in decades, and it could turn the tide of Montana state government Various press outlets have reported, but largely under-reported, a developing scandal regarding the Montana Supreme Court and their refusal to abide by information requests for their email correspondence on publicly-owned servers. But what lies under the surface of the scandal – and what is currently developing – will likely lead to the biggest news story in Montana politics in decades. Ultimately, as this saga continues, the scandal might lead to the impeachment of Supreme Court Justices and the arrest of...

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has issued an executive order banning the development or use of vaccine passports in Montana. Vaccine passports are documents that could be used to verify COVID-19 immunization status and allow inoculated people to more freely travel, shop, and dine. The move by Gianforte on Tuesday comes as vaccine passports have drawn criticism as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices. Gianforte says in a statement that he encourages all Montana residents to get vaccinated but that it is “entirely voluntary.” Vaccine passports have been implemented in New York but the White House has...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Iowa has become the 18th state to restore Constitutional Carry. Vermont has always had Constitutional Carry, so Iowa becomes the 19th member of the Constitutional Carry club. Three members, Utah, Montana, and Iowa, have been added in 2021, so far. Tennessee is expected to join shortly.On Friday, 2 April, 202. Governor Kim Reynolds (R) of Iowa, signed bill HF 756 into law. The bill was delivered to Governor Reynolds earlier in the day. Realistically, she could not have signed it any earlier. Governor Reynolds released this gracious statement with the signing of the bill:“Today I signed legislation that...

... We constantly hear that there is no evidence of absentee ballot fraud in the 2020 election. But one state—Montana—has been reckoning with new evidence of how well its 2020 mail-in election went. If the results from Missoula County are any indication, it didn't go well. State representative Brad Tschida conducted an audit of Missoula County votes with the assistance of the county's elections office. He found that 4,592 out of all 72,491 mail-in ballots—6.33 percent of the total—did not have envelopes. That is a real problem. It is against the law to count such ballots, as there would be...

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed legislation outlawing sanctuary cities in the state. “We are a nation of laws, and immigration laws will be enforced in Montana. Criminal, illegal aliens who pose public safety threats to our communities have no sanctuary in Montana,” Gianforte said before signing the bill. The legislation, HB200, prohibits local jurisdictions in the state from adopting sanctuary city policies and outlines penalties for cities that do not comply with the law. The state’s legislature had passed similar legislation in 2019, but that effort was vetoed by Democratic former Gov. Steve Bullock. The move comes as a growing...

In Kelly v. Montana Department of Transportation, (D MT, March 23, 2021), a Montana federal district court adopted a magistrate's recommendations, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55046 (D MT, March 9, 2021). The magistrate recommended dismissing 1st Amendment objections to the removal of a "spiritual cross" that plaintiff had erected along side of a highway in memory of his stepson. Rejecting free speech claims, the magistrate held that "a spiritual cross erected on public land adjacent to a highway constitutes government speech." Rejecting free exercise claims, the magistrate said in part: Kelly does not allege that the Defendants prohibited him from...

MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont. — A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers — on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past. The Biden administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Democratic National Committee are collectively pressing to both nationalize, and make permanent, many of the extraordinary pandemic-driven voting measures implemented during the 2020 election —particularly mass mail-in voting.