Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/blog/page/17/)
This is the weblog page of Last Best News. Here you will find some news, perhaps, but also lots of commentary, opinion and satire. Just so you know.
The Gary Johnson presidential campaign has opened a statewide office at 2624 Minnesota Ave. in Billings. Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, has been running at about 9 percent to 15 percent in recent polls. With the two least popular candidates ever nominated by the major parties, Libertarians think this might be their year. Johnson must run at 15 percent in the polls to be included in presidential debates. Continue Reading →
Dear Billings Gazette,
You’ve probably figured this out by now, but just in case: On the guest column you ran this morning, written by former Montana secretary of state and governor candidate Bob Brown, you attached a mug of some other chap. I know it’s difficult, there being so many Bob Browns in the world. I’ve talked about this with several other Bob Browns I know. But the Bob Brown who wrote the guest editorial is the most famous Bob Brown in Montana, I venture to say, and he deserves to have the right mugshot attached to his column. He also deserves recognition because he represents the kind of Republican who is quickly disappearing from the world. Continue Reading →
I wasn’t sure the world needed yet another rapturous homage to Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It,” but I read this New York Times story anyway. It was written by Jon Gluck, a managing editor at Vogue magazine, who says he was a boy in Upstate New York when he fell under the sway of Robert Redford’s film version of the novella, and then went on to read the book itself. He was even more enraptured. “It wasn’t just the fishing,” he writes. “If there is a smarter, more affecting meditation on the themes of fathers and sons, brothers, the pleasures of the natural world, love, loss and the haunting power of water, I have yet to come across it.” Continue Reading →
Last Best News contributor Pete Tolton was on the scene of the Duck Creek Fire tonight and came back with some greta great footage, which you can watch here:
Revenue losses from Montana tax cuts passed in 2003 are approaching $1 billion, a new report says. “The Montana We Could Be: Tax Cuts, Aimed at the Rich, Take a Toll,” a report by the nonprofit Montana Budget and Policy Center in Helena, estimates that the tax cuts will have cost $976 million by the end of 2016. That’s enough to pay the deferred maintenance costs for all of the school districts in the state, the report says. The tax cuts, which took effect in 2005, reduced the number of tax brackets from 10 to six and cut the top income tax rate in Montana from 11 percent to 6.9 percent. The legislation also, among other changes, gave a 2 percent tax credit on capital gains. Continue Reading →
Jennifer Lawrence is moving to Billings! It’s true. The “Hunger Games” star said she’s had it with Hollywood and she wants to live in a town where people know their neighbors, where a celebrity can go to the 7-Eleven in her pajamas at 1 a.m. for a pack of smokes without a gang of paparazzi dogging her every step of the way. (more…) Continue Reading →
In North Texas the temperatures are a degree or two cooler—Sunday topped out at 97—and the humidity is a couple of percentage points lower. Still, an hour’s walk through the Prairie Point Cemetery left us drenched in sweat, exhausted and almost queasy. (more…) Continue Reading →
I couldn’t get past this sports headline in the June 25 Billings Gazette: “Three-time NFR qualifier Bill Parker passes at 62.”
I didn’t know Bill Parker and mean him no disrespect. But “passes”? A quarterback passes. A point guard passes. Even an offensive lineman with a C-minus average passes. Continue Reading →
Got a notice last month saying that the cost of my Billings Gazette subscription was rising to $33.60 a month. No surprise there. Rates go up. But I was confused, because I had been reading in the masthead this sentence: “Home delivery subscribers of Premium Day papers will see a slight reduction in their subscription length to offset all premium day charges.”
Question 1: Why do I read the masthead? It started long ago when I became the editor of a central Texas daily. Continue Reading →
This story includes an important update. See below. The Missoulian recently reported that a house for sale on Shelter Island on Flathead Lake is the “largest and most expensive private home in Montana.” (more…) Continue Reading →
