Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/brucelohof/)
Editor’s note: Occasional correspondent Bruce Lohof typically writes about politics and international affairs. Today he turns his attention to a more mundane but no less maddening subject. (more…) Continue Reading →
Scrolling without intent through the internet recently, I was reintroduced to “junk science.” (more…) Continue Reading →
In the weeks following Donald Trump’s inauguration, I enumerated the first three ways that the then-new president had disappointed his Montana supporters. (more…) Continue Reading →
I wonder if Montana’s congressional delegation knows the difference between spending money and paying bills. Once again – for the second time in a decade – Congress flirts with defaulting on the nation’s debt by failing to raise the federal debt ceiling. Granted, the can was kicked three months down the road when, last week, it was attached to the Harvey hurricane relief package. Don’t rest easy, though; some legislators still want you to believe that defaulting on the debt will reduce government spending. (more…) Continue Reading →
In Vienna, my adopted city, there is a Soviet War Memorial. It occupies 3,000 square feet in central Vienna. It features a white marble colonnade and a 650-foot column capped by a 40-foot figure of a Red Army soldier. He is wearing a golden helmet and bears a Soviet flag and a golden Soviet coat of arms. A plaque at the base of the column reads: “Monument to honor the soldiers of the Soviet Army who fell while freeing Austria from Fascism.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Steve Daines, Montana’s junior U.S. senator, has voted—again—to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He’d voted for repeal on three dozen earlier occasions so I presume that he’s against the ACA. (more…) Continue Reading →
I wonder if, earlier this month, Montana’s congressional delegation was listening when Steve Bannon, disrupter-in-chief in the Trump White House, suggested raising taxes on the wealthy to defray the costs of substantial middle- and working-class tax cuts. Bannon’s balloon was quickly pricked by others in the White House: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he’d “never heard Steve mention that,” adding that, in any case, a higher top tax rate isn’t on the table. (more…) Continue Reading →
Seven years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and more than six months after the election of a repeal-and-replace majority in Washington, the health care quarrel remains unresolved. And now it’s leaking into Montana’s special congressional election. Here’s why. Most Montanans believe in universal health care; many of them don’t want to admit it, though, and most don’t realize that they’re already paying for it. (more…) Continue Reading →
(Caution. Contains satire. Best if taken with food for thought.)
In 1908, the first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line. More than a century later the motor car has been granted the same constitutional guarantees that other technological innovations (cf. handguns) have always enjoyed. Continue Reading →
Like the footfalls of a villain in a thriller movie, Montana’s Real ID imbroglio comes ever closer … and ever more ominous. Another footfall, closer and more ominous than the earlier ones, was heard on Jan. 5 when Washington declared that “Montana is not in compliance with the Real ID Act and Federal agencies will not accept driver’s licenses” issued by Helena. (more…) Continue Reading →
