Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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President Trump affirmed to applause, "Farmers always lead the way," at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 99th annual convention meeting this last week in Nashville, Tenn. The American dream is soaring back to life, he continued. It is a dream that we all hope for, the dream that with enough hard work we can obtain a free and financially rewarding life. However, in many rural communities, poverty and abandonment of generational farms is growing. The United States Department of Agriculture conducted a census in 2012 that over 150,000 f...
On Sept. 17, America watched the Hollywood elite pat themselves on the back for their brave, selfless and virtuous work being celebrated at the 69th annual Emmys broadcast. Let me rephrase, no one watched the 69th Emmys. It was the lowest-rated broadcast in Emmy’s history. Spearheaded by the talented Stephen Colbert, lost in the political fog of war, he preferred to compare Trump supporters to Nazis and push skewed political agenda rather than host a genuinely comedic show for all. Recently, conservatives feel like second-class citizens w...
In Northeastern Montana, over 50,000 acres of prairie, farming and ranch land are ablaze. Additionally, throughout the state, hundreds of thousands of acres are combating growing wildfire daily. Stakes are rising and funding is dropping in a race against the clock to halt Montana’s most pre-eminent natural disaster. The perfect kindling was piled up late last year for the current predicament; not for a cozy fire but for an unstoppable, costly blaze. Governor Steve Bullock proposed cutting 25 million dollars from the state’s wildfire fund. Thi...
In 2014, I bought my first “adult” car. It was a beautiful four-door Ford pickup, which, to me, signaled that I had finally made it from adolescence to the age and independent man. Not only was I proud of my freshly acquired vehicle but I also thought it would be funny to make the license plate read, “GBUSH” after one of my political heroes and the president of my youth. Sadly, I recently traded in my pickup for a new vehicle and not to be outdone by my previous purchase, along with a healthy admiration of politics, I opted for another politic...
From a safe distance we were able to witness the distilled truth of how barbarous, fiendish and merciless the world can be. No parent should live to bury their young, and fortunately, for most of us, the closest clash of reality with this ever happening occurs only in a fever-pitched dream. But last week, for Mr. and Mrs. Warmbier of Ohio, their son was delivered from North Korea in a vegetable state and has now passed away. As the story started to trickle into the news, it became apparent that this unfortunate event is a stark prompting that i...
No matter what side of the aisle you come from, an open, honest and curious mind has most likely confronted the ideas of climate change. When it is described on the news as a revelational end times dilemma by Al Gore and other pundits it deserves a fair look. A recent effect of globalization brought the world together in 2015 to implement the Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris climate accord, to revolutionize the regulation of carbon emissions globally. By fulfilling a campaign promise, the President of the United States removed our count...
It’s time to clear the air. Protocol was broken; there are rules for suplexing journalists. It must be done within the bounds of self-defense and even then it must be done using strict caution and measured judgement. Last week, on the eve of the election, our congressman-elect assaulted a reporter from The Guardian, a British daily paper. Allegedly it was unprovoked and no matter how good a man Greg Gianforte is, this type of action is never excusable, legal or stately. He knows this. Contrary to leftist thought, the Republican Party is not t...
On Tuesday, the 9th of May, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, was dismissed without warning by President Trump. The coined phrase, “you’re fired” is back. Forty-three years ago on an October night, the then under investigation President Nixon ordered the firing of the special prosecutor of the Watergate scandal but it was denied by the attorney general, who immediately resigned; and then denied by the deputy attorney general, who also immediately resigned. This short cycle of concurrent events was dubbed the S...
Fake news would love for you to, poetically and with a decent helping of moral superiority, believe that you can forget the party lines separating Greg Gianforte and Rob Quist in this upcoming special election. Supposing a Democrat that endorsed Bernie Sanders and a Republican in support of Trump wouldn’t have any major differences, the idea of bleeding hearts coming together in unity sounds novel. The media has attempted to cast Greg Gianforte’s opponent as center-right in an attempt to win the previously Republican seat in Congress. To aid...
The nation is watching Montana as one of the first weathervanes in a post Trump-coming-to-power world. A special runoff election for the sole congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is the 25th of this month with a kickoff of mail-out ballots hitting your mailbox this week. Competing to replace the respected Ryan Zinke, now our Secretary of the Interior and first Montanan in a cabinet position, will the Democrats be able to generate a pushback to the Trump-style Americana that has taken over the nation or will the Republicans...
Murky waters continue to cloud as information related to simultaneous investigations in the legislature are exposed. There is an ongoing investigation regarding possible Trump collusion with the Russians to influence the election and an investigation into the Obama administration’s monitoring of Trump up to a year before he became the president-elect. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes, recently unveiled the bombshells that not only was Trump right about being monitored at Trump Tower but that fishy busines...
Reagan-era Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died a year ago last month. The Supreme Court vacancy has not been replaced since his demise. In 2016, the Democrats had less than a majority in the Senate and lacked the prowess to confirm Obama’s replacement pick for SCOTUS, or even implement the nuclear option they controversially wrote into senate rules in late 2013. For these reasons, we stand here today with all likelihood that an alternative pick, chosen by President Trump, Neil Gorsuch will be the newly appointed Supreme Court justice. He...
The State of the Montana Budget Side by Side In this ongoing segment, Glasgow-based columnists Michael Burns and Alec Carmichael have agreed to square off on issues of national and international significance. Less a debate format than an opportunity to feature in-depth discussion, "Side by Side" will feature structured analysis of current events complete with fact-checking, editorial support and, when necessary, informal arbitration. To suggest a topic for our duo, write to [email protected]. “You know things are tough when students are a...
The Affordable Care Act: Repeal and Replace In this ongoing segment, Glasgow-based columnists Michael Burns and Alec Carmichael have agreed to square off on issues of national and international significance. Less a debate format than an opportunity to feature in-depth discussion, "Side by Side" will feature structured analysis of current events complete with fact-checking, editorial support and, when necessary, informal arbitration. To suggest a topic for our duo, write to [email protected]. Obamacare has practically existed in an attempted re...
Trump: Military Spending and Infrastructure In this ongoing segment, Glasgow-based columnists Michael Burns and Alec Carmichael have agreed to square off on issues of national and international significance. Less a debate format than an opportunity to feature in-depth discussion, "Side by Side" will feature structured analysis of current events complete with fact-checking, editorial support and, when necessary, informal arbitration. To suggest a topic for our duo, write to [email protected]. This year, the Montana Legislature has been...
Translating Trump: Parsing the President's Comments on the Press Side by Side In this ongoing segment, Glasgow-based columnists Michael Burns and Alec Carmichael have agreed to square off on issues of national and international significance. Less a debate format than an opportunity to feature in-depth discussion, "Side by Side" will feature structured analysis of current events complete with fact-checking, editorial support and, when necessary, informal arbitration. To suggest a topic for our duo, write to [email protected]. The unofficial...
Editor's note: This week, we're introducing a new format from Glasgow-based columnists Michael Burns and Alec Carmichael, who have agreed to square off on issues of national and international significance. Less a debate format than an opportunity to feature in-depth discussion, "Side by Side" will feature structured analysis of current events complete with fact-checking, editorial support and, when necessary, informal arbitration. Eat your heart out social media. To suggest a topic for our duo, write to [email protected]. NATO prevented the...
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Donald Trump’s estranged executive order has been ejected and eulogized without sending it for an appeal to the Supreme Court. The president has said he is considering writing an entirely new draft of the temporary ban. With national security at stake and the importance of striking a balance with our humanitarian national values, expediency is first priority for the administration. The question should be asked whether Islamic ideas from the iron age are compatible with western civilization, but p...
There is a growing amount of people who would rather fight Trump than actual terrorists. Across the internet and mainstream media outlets, commentators and social justice warriors are sharing their knee-jerk reactions to recent events executed by the president. The latest, a temporary ban of refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries, is the newest whipping boy for the Trump administration. When discussed by liberal media there are almost always undertones of hate, xenophobia and racism aimed at Trump in attempts to delegitimize him as...
A conservative is a fellow standing athwart history yelling, ’Stop!’ At least that is how patron saint of the modern conservative movement, William F. Buckley defined it. As I travel across our great district talking to voters, I often try to define the terms liberal and conservative in today’s political climate. Amongst a farrago of definitions for what a conservative is, I think Buckley’s assessment is accurate. This election, cycle conservatives are yelling “stop” to excessive political correctness, federal overreach and unnecessary...
Montana has a rising wave of conservationists from near and far choking the interests of our state’s historical and economical foundation. Squeezing slowly, our governor, the American Prairie Reserve and Bureau of Land Management have tightened their grip, choosing the health of bison population over the well-being of one our state’s most important contributors, our farmers and ranchers. The BLM’s recent prefatory approval given to the APR regarding grazing permits for bison is a scary foreshadowing of further decline of the use of priva...
“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”–James Madison Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson were wary of the ratification on the Constitution in 1788. They feared it would give too much power to a centralized federal government. Rightly so, our founding fathers had profound distr...
