Posts under ‘State Politics’

Violent rioting in Berkeley (where have I heard that before?).

Heh, the mom and pop bars are fighting back.
More than four months after a smoking ban in Montana’s bars went into effect, on any good night a cloud of cigarette smoke wafts through the Turah Pines Bar.
Sometimes, said Peggy Bjornberg, a bar owner has to do what a bar owner has to do.
“We’ve been in [...]

Doug in comments reminded me that Missoulapolis has not blogged the latest REIC story in the Missoulian Monday.
A few factors this year seem to be leading some new buyers into the local market despite the inventory. The economy has pushed down prices, and the homebuyer tax credit coupled with low interest rates are drawing some [...]

Continued from yesterday.  So I signed the petition to recall Sen. Max Baucus - it’s the thought that counts! - but I have my doubts. It seems the campaign to recall US senators is being promoted by these expert networkers. They deserve MoveOn points for chutzpah, but I’m afraid it won’t fly.
The Montana Recall [...]

The Missoulian editorial writer rises in defense of Max Baucus.
…contrary to the video headline’s assertion, Baucus was probably not drunk when he spoke on the Senate floor last week and he certainly did not shout down Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. There is no evidence at all that he had been drinking.
Baucus may have been angry [...]

Seems I missed this story from the AP last December 3 (related to this).
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Very few of the growing number of Montana lawmakers taking state jobs appear to be complying with a largely forgotten ethics law requiring proof that such arrangements don’t lead to double-dipping, a survey by The Associated Press has [...]

Electric City’s Travis Kavulla, writing in the National Review Online.
If the Missoulian had run the story and not allowed itself to be bullied, I think it safe to say the scandal, unmassaged by press flacks, would have been greater…
This conflict-of-interest story might have sent Baucus to new depths had not Team Baucus so thoroughly manipulated [...]

YES! To answer Gregg’s question, the local papers are covering Max Baucus’s nomination of an old squeeze to be Montana’s new US Attorney.   At least the Missoulian is.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was romantically involved with a former staffer when he recommended her earlier this year to become the next U.S. attorney for Montana, [...]

The Helena Independent Record today brings up the Climategate scandal in its Science section.
The e-mails from a British university’s climate center, were obtained by computer hackers and released last month. Climate change skeptics contend the messages reveal that researchers manipulated and suppressed data and stifled dissent.
In the first Capitol Hill airing of the issue, [...]

So, I hear that homeowners in some of our tonier neighborhoods are being told by local busybodies that they can’t put up political signs because it’s against their HOA covenants.
Well just FYI, HB 546, carried by a Democrat legislator and passed in the last session, makes such covenants null and void.
Section 1.  Certain restrictions on [...]