22 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
A Montana state legislator seems to be cultivating a signature political tactic: he proposes a piece of legislation, then a nearly identical backup reframed as a veto-proof referendum. Rep. David Howard (R-Park City) bucked tradition in 2011 when he first doubled-up on a piece of immigration legislation....
Read more → 16 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
Rep. Ted Washburn (R-Bozeman) issued a press release Tuesday with the rosy title “Washburn Bill: Free ID for All Voters.” What it didn’t mention was that House Bill 108 would also restrict the ways would-be voters could prove their identity and double from 30 to 60 the number of days someone...
Read more → 11 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
In a hallway after Sen. Max Baucus addressed the Montana House and Senate yesterday, local reporters asked him a couple questions that many who follow Montana politics -- from the right or left -- have been wanting answers to after a recent article called into question some corporate tax breaks that...
Read more → 09 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
A couple days before the January 7 Idle No More demonstration at the capitol, I organized a meeting with one of the event's organizers: Charles Walking Child. Walking Child, a 43-year-old small business owner, identifies himself as Blackfeet on his father's side, Cree/Chippewa on his mother's and an enrolled...
Read more → 09 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
About 120 Native Americans and supporters gathered on the south side of the capitol Monday to speak, drum and dance under the banner of the Idle No More protest movement. In December, Idle No More started in Canada in response to a few controversial pieces of an omnibus budget bill (C-45) that...
Read more → 02 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
A STATEMENT FROM THE EDITOR I decided to run this special feature in what might very well be a vainglorious attempt to spark serious dialogue about how we're to understand and learn from the recent tragedy in Connecticut. There is a reasonable tendency to respond to something so awful by recoiling...
Read more → 02 Jan 2013
Posted by Lacey Middlestead 
Aristotle said, “Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.” But who exactly is responsible for writing laws in the first place and then later amending them when they need to be changed? If you walk eastward on the first floor in the Capitol building and pass...
Read more → 02 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
Not too long ago, only paranoid hermits worried about pilotless flying gizmos spying on them. Welcome to 2013, where it’s a reasonable question of public policy. Rep. Robyn Driscoll (D-Billings), is pushing a bill that would make it illegal for government entities in Montana to use information...
Read more → 02 Jan 2013
Posted by Shane Castle 
In the heart of Ecuador lies a small green patch of jungle accented here and there with the bright skins of indigenous fruits: bananas, plantains, pineapples, papayas. Much of the surrounding countryside has been slashed to the jungle floor and replanted with soil-depleting African palms. But here, at La Alegría...
Read more → 02 Jan 2013
Posted by Paul Kusnierz 
Where I grew up there are no longer mountain lions, at least not officially. Occasionally someone claims they see one cross the road at night or finds a large cat track, but these observations are never substantiated. Pinned on the bulletin board of our town office there was a newspaper clipping and photo...
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