Liberal Blogs

• Following California off the Cliff

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Heavy use of citizen initiatives is one of the clearest predictions of states that are in danger of following California to the brink of insolvency, according to an extensive survey of state financial problems by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Oregon, looking toward a critical vote in January, [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 11:23am EST
  

• Following California off the Cliff

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Heavy use of citizen initiatives is one of the clearest predictions of states that are in danger of following California to the brink of insolvency, according to an extensive survey of state financial problems by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Oregon, looking toward a critical vote in January, [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 11:23am EST
  

• Saturday: Crapo Delivers National Address on Health Bill

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Saturday, Idaho Senator Mike Crapo delivered a national address on the health care legislation expected to be considered by the U.S. Senate Saturday evening.  Crapo was chosen by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to offer the Republican response to the President's weekly radio address.  A vote in the Senate on [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 10:16am EST
  

• Saturday: Crapo Delivers National Address on Health Bill

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Idaho Senator Mike Crapo delivered a national address on the health care legislation expected to be considered by the U.S. Senate Saturday evening.  Crapo was chosen by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to offer the Republican response to the President's weekly radio address.  The address airs Saturday on many radio [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 10:16am EST
  

• Young Men and Fire: Timothy Egan's The Big Burn

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & The Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 324 pages, $27 In August of 1910, the largest fire ever to sweep across forests in the United States claimed trees, buildings, and lives across a stretch of three million acres in the Rocky Mountains.  Timothy [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 8:00am EST
  

• Letter from D.C. -- and my response

  —hummingbirdminds

  Letter from Wyo. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, with her comments in red and mine in blue:
  
  Dear Michael:
  
  Thank you for contacting me regarding healthcare reform. It is good to hear from you.
  
  Congressional Democrat leaders are working to create a new government-forced healthcare system that would put [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:17pm EST
  

• CIGNA -- can you hear me now?

  —hummingbirdminds

  This comes from Badtux the Snarky Penguin (via Skippy the Bush Kangaroo), a blog that's new to me. Then again, lots of things are new to me. Oh brave new world that has such blogs in't! And I'm always partial to prog-blogs with animal names.
  
  CIGNA denies [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:46am EST
  

• Resorts Hope Olympics will be Golden for Snow Sports

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Skiing and snowboarding aren't exactly the TV spectacles that baseball and football are in this country, but every four years when the Winter Olympics roll around, they have their moment in the spotlight. Resort operators hope the Olympics will inspire more people to get out on the slopes this winter, and' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 2:12am EST
  

• Dear Rep. Lummis: You'll be known by the company you keep

  —hummingbirdminds

  Rep. Cynthia Lummis toes the Republican National Committee line on most issues. She's consistently voted against health care reform, health insurance coverage for children, climate legislation and equal rights for gays. She loves the Department of Defense yet despises the gubment's role in almost all other things. So odd how [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:52pm EST
  

• Flu Update: H1N1 Cases Down, But is Uptick Ahead?

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  As flu pandemics go, H1N1 sometimes seems hard to compute, given all the information flooding our way. Is it a panic? An impending storm? A party theme? Yes, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that some people are hosting swine flu parties where people who know someone with H1N1 purposely [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 3:01pm EST
  

• Oregon Cat Dies From Swine Flu

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Oregon is home to the country's first reported fatal case of swine flu in a cat. The cat, a 10-year-old male, died Nov. 7 near Portland. The Oregon State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory examined the dead cat and discovered he carried the H1N1 virus. While this is the third confirmed case [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 12:21pm EST
  

• Sen Tester and His Logging Bill Rack-Up Major Endorsement

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 10:54am EST
  

• Moonlight Basin Files for Bankruptcy Protection

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Moonlight Basin, the troubled Big Sky, Montana ski resort, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, just a day before a foreclosure hearing that could have put the property in the hands of its primary lender, Lehman Bros. Moonlight took a loan of $100 million from Lehman Bros. in [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 8:15am EST
  

• Senate Health Care Bill Now on the Table

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Senate Majority Leader Reid released an $849 billion healthcare overhaul bill Wednesday that includes a public option and will extend coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans, though a few Democrats are still on the fence over whether they will vote to proceed to the bill. The bill would extend insurance to [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 7:23am EST
  

• Grizzlies On the Move, Back On to the Wide-Open Prairie

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Montanans living along the winding Teton River, well east of the Rocky Mountain Front were quick to notice their new neighbor this summer. As early as the beginning of July, ranchers and other landowners along the prairie began intermittently spotting a solitary grizzly bear journeying east away from the mountains. [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:47am EST
  

• Kids, Road Rage, Gun Laws, Union Conservationists, and More

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  I used to play basketball, but not too much since the day my coach took me aside, patted me on the head, and said, Bill, you're short, but you're slow, and you really need to follow your shots. Well, that was a long time ago, and I admit to never [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:14am EST
  

• Enzi tours Wyoming to probe minds of voters

  —hummingbirdminds

  Brianna Jones at the WyoDems sends this:
  
  This is a heads up that Senator Enzi’s staff will be holding sessions in the following communities over the next few weeks and starting tomorrow. Please share this information!
  
  Buffalo – Thursday, Dec. 10 – Town Hall – 11 a.m.-12 [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 6:46pm EST
  

• Minnick's Bill on Job Training AMERICA Works Targets Focused Training Goals

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  It can be scary for adults to change careers, but the recession has handed many American workers no choice. Enrollment at trade schools, community colleges and specialized private colleges has increased all over the U.S.  But whether or not graduates of these programs find work in their new area of [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:07pm EST
  

• Optimism Cautiously Creeps in for Ski Season

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  If you're a ski resort operator, it's hard to be optimistic when the country is suffering the effects of a grueling recession and about one in 10 Americans is jobless. But when snow is dumping in the high country and across the room at the Colorado Convention Center people are' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:02pm EST
  

• Intrawest Sells Colorado's Copper Mountain to Park City Company

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Copper Mountain resort, a major ski hill about 75 miles west of Denver, is being sold by troubled ski giant Intrawest to Park City-based Powdr Corp., the owner resorts in Utah, California, Vermont, Oregon and Nevada. The deal is expected to close in December, and both companies say patrons should [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 12:52pm EST
  

• Saving Public Access: the Pend Oreille Bay Trail

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  For years, panhandle residents have been trespassing on a narrow strip of private land along the northwest shore of Lake Pend Oreille, using an old road along the shoreline to bike, run, ski, walk their dogs, and occasionally take a dip in the lake. Although their trips rarely traverse more [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:05am EST
  

• Denver Writer, Formerly an Out-of-Shape Hiker, Wins the National Outdoor Book Award

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  The Denver Post reported this weekend that Denver writer Mark Obmascik's Halfway to Heaven: My White Knuckled and Knuckleheaded-Quest for the Rocky Mountain High won this year's outdoor literature prize from the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation: The book is about climbing Colorado's 14,000-plus foot mountains, all 54 of them, [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 8:00am EST
  

• Learning something new from "WWII in HD"

  —hummingbirdminds

  B-17 Stratofortress, B-24 Liberator, M-1 rifle, dogface, Tarawa, D-Day, Kasserine Pass, Patton, Mt. Suribachi, panzer, blitz...
  
  And so it goes.
  
  Watching "WWII in HD" on the History Channel, I realized that all these terms -- and many more -- are etched permanently into my brain. Chris and I [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:08am EST
  

• Winter's Coming: Bust Out the Spandex!

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Welcome to my Snow Blog! First off I'd like to give you a quick intro on my skiing background. I grew up in the Gallatin Canyon fifteen miles from the Big Sky Ski Resort. Being raised in Big Sky, outdoor sports became my way of life. There weren't many places [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:56am EST
  

• Marijuana, Guns and Oregon

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  It's no secret there are a number of Oregonians who enjoy smoking marijuana. And while that may be the case, there are millions in the West who don't enjoy having their water polluted to produce the plant. An estimated 200,000 marijuana plants were discovered in raids during the Oregon growing' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:22pm EST
  

• Petroleum Industry View: Climate Bill Would Cost Montanans

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  The following opinion piece is from the Montana Petroleum Association. While the U.S. Senate considers a cap-and-trade bill that includes creation of a new federal bureaucracy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Montana Petroleum Association (MPA) is becoming more concerned about the toll such a plan would take on our industry [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 1:51pm EST
  

• Mad Dog and the Pilgrim Booksellers

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Sweetwater Station, Wyo.If you blink once or your attention drifts for an instant on the two-lane highway between Muddy Gap and the Lander, Wyoming, you may miss one of the world's great road signs, a weathered, wooden square flanked by an American flag:  Old Books Fresh Eggs For Sale. And if [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:27am EST
  

• Buying Music I Love At the Store I Hate

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  A friend of mine gave me the new KISS album, Sonic Boom, for my birthday this weekend. We're both fans, and it was a thoughtful gesture of rock 'n roll solidarity as well as friendship. But when I unwrapped the package, my first thought was not, Wow, the cover looks [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 10:20am EST
  

• Cheyenne Zonta Club announces "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence"

  —hummingbirdminds

  Mona Pearl at the Zonta Club of Cheyenne sent out this announcement today:
  
  The Zonta Club of Cheyenne is again participating in 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The campaign formally kicks off on Nov. 25. Proclamation signings by Governor Dave Freudenthal and Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen will [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 10:11pm EST
  

• Montana Children: the Healthy, the Needy, and the Sad

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Every year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation supports an amazingly comprehensive and important look at the well-being of the nation's children, taking into account, state-by-state, the factors that help or hinder children's welfare. The foundation's Kids Counts reports look at leading indicators like poverty rates, the availability of daycare, school [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:02pm EST
  

• Funding for Land Conservation Makes Good Economic Sense

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Many of us will be afield this fall spending time in our favorite hunting and fishing spots. We will be enjoying the tradition of these field sports so important to our lives. But as you head out to the fields, rivers and streams we want you to be aware of [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 2:34pm EST
  

• Montana Wolf Hunt is Over: Quotas Filled Early

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  A half-hour after sunset tonight, Montana's first official wolf huntarguably the most controversial hunting season in recent historywill be over. Montana's Fish, Wildlife and Parks department announced the shut-down after reports came in that 72 wolves had been killed as of Sunday evening, meaning that hunters were fast closing in [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 1:28pm EST
  

• Interior, Forest Service Buy Key Private Land Holdings

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  The Bureau of Land Management announced on Monday it is buying a key piece of private land in the midst of southwest Colorado's Canyon of the Ancients National Monument believed to hold hundreds of undocumented prehistoric sites. The purchase is of one of seven deals to buy 5,026 acres of private [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 12:11pm EST
  

• Through Western Eyes: Washington, D.C.

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Washington, D.C. is a town where an arcane government and a logical street grid are muddled by overlap and diagonal lines. But the reverent preservation and displays of America's history have a clear and tangible path. In a town where the ghosts of American history wait for you to discover them,' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 10:01am EST
  

• Republicans Way Forward is in the West?

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Politicos have been trying to figure out just where the Republican Party plans to get the surge for its resurgence. The Republicans have done their damndest to shed independent and Libertarian voters since 2001, 'and what do they aim to replace them with?' I ask you. Do the Neoconservatives represent [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:00am EST
  

• Spanish-English Kids Books from Cinco Puntos Press

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Thanks to television shows such as Dora the Explorer, Maya and Miguel, and the trusty Sesame Street, many kids growing up in English-speaking homes can count to ten and say hello in Spanish. Cinco Puntos Press, based in El Paso, specializes in literature that straddles the U.S./Mexico border, and publishes [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 8:00am EST
  

• Let's Give The New Mexico Auditor Some Teeth

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  So in September, State Auditor Hector Balderas publicly shamed 87 government agencies in New Mexico by releasing to the media a list of agencies that hadn't submitted annual and compliance audits to the state as required by law. It was the first time the auditor publicly released such a list, and' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:56pm EST
  

• Let's Give The New Mexico Auditor Some Teeth

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  So in September, State Auditor Hector Balderas publicly shamed 87 government agencies in New Mexico by releasing to the media a list of agencies that hadn't submitted annual and compliance audits to the state as required by law. It was the first time the auditor publicly released such a list, and' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:56pm EST
  

• An issue of morality -- "Healthcare For All Americans"

  —hummingbirdminds

  [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:10pm EST
  

• Cheney/Palin in 2012? How about Palin/Cheney?

  —hummingbirdminds

  The talking heads were having fun this morning over at Fixed News Sunday. Did I watch it? No. I was working on my own fiction in the form of a new book of short stories. I prefer fiction that comes out of my head (and heart) to that manufactured by [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 2:25pm EST
  

• No Easy Answers in Flathead Truck Traffic Debate

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  At a public meeting following the October crash of a tractor-trailer along the east shore of Flathead Lake, Montana Department of Transportation Director Jim Lynch told the audience a community effort to increase safe driving along Highway 35 would ultimately be more effective than attempts to restrict truck traffic along [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 9:39am EST
  

• Commercial Real Estate Outlook Darkens

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  Like the residential real estate bubble, the commercial real estate boom of 2003-2007 was fed by cheap money and lax lending standards. Institutional investors such as hedge funds and insurance companies - strangely blind to the possibility that real estate values could decline - had an insatiable appetite for any [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 9:37am EST
  

• Montana progressive org hiring director

  —hummingbirdminds

  This comes from the always-alert jhwygirl at 4&20 blackbirds
  
  Forward Montana (FMT), a homegrown organization dedicated to training, mobilizing, and electing a new generation of progressive leaders based in Missoula, Montana, and Forward Montana Foundation, dedicated to engaging young Montanans in civic life, seek an energetic Managing Director [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 1:59pm EST
  

• Timber Falls, But Manufacturing Rises in the Panhandle

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  What stands out from the first annual Economic Outlook Forum that was held in Sandpoint Thursday is the extent to which the panhandle continues to grow away from its roots in the timber industry. This process has been going on for decades, but the current recession and concomitant implosion of [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 7:26am EST
  

• Timber Falls, But Manufacturing Rises in the Panhandle

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  What stands out from the first annual Economic Outlook Forum that was held in Sandpoint Thursday is the extent to which the panhandle continues to grow away from its roots in the timber industry. This process has been going on for decades, but the current recession and concomitant implosion of [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 7:26am EST
  

• Got wood? A modest proposal from Digby

  —hummingbirdminds

  Digby is the Jonathan Swift for our times:
  
  I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:58pm EST
  

• People Need Each Other, Not Just The System

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  You can't rely on the system. Before you mentally check out because of my use of the clich the system, hear me out. I'm talking about any structure we put in place to organize and improve our lives, and that includes government, churches, the medical system and, in this instance, [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 1:38pm EST
  

• A Lesson from the D.C. Sniper Case: People Need Each Other, Not Just The System

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  You can't rely on the system. Before you mentally check out because of my use of the clich the system, hear me out. I'm talking about any structure we put in place to organize and improve our lives, and that includes government, churches, the medical system and, in this instance, [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 1:38pm EST
  

• Battle in Seattle, Ten Years After

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  With the 10th anniversary of the Battle in Seattle coming up Nov. 30, expect a lot of stories about WTO. The Seattle Times, for example, is already asking you to send in your memories of 1999. Coverage will include then-and-now looks at how the world has and hasn't changed. One interesting' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:10pm EST
  

• Parkour: We Ain't Afraid Of No Concrete!

  —NewWest.Net Headlines

  If you see a sweaty young guy sprinting past you downtown or on the University campus, jumping over trash cans and picnic tables and doing flips over concrete barriers or other architectural features, relax. He's not a purse snatcher, he's just practicing parkour. Rusty's latest obsession has Barb and me cringing [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:40am EST