Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/from-the-outpost/page/2/)
Driving up North 27th Street on Saturday, I met an oncoming pickup truck with a Confederate battle flag proudly waving from its tailgate. No, wait. Flags can’t wave proudly. Pride, and any other emotion attached to flags, come only from the humans who view them. (more…) Continue Reading →
By weekly newspaper standards, things slow down here a bit in the summer, so I thought I would take a few minutes to solve a pressing national concern. Seriously, no problem, I’m happy to do it. Republicans and Fox News (or do I repeat myself?) are in a bit of a tizzy over how to handle upcoming presidential debates for GOP candidates. The problem is that there are too many candidates to fit on one stage. So Fox plans to let only the top 10 candidates debate, as reflected in current polling. Continue Reading →
The saddest quotation in last week’s Billings Gazette came from Shonn Lehmann, a volunteer weighing names for a new West End middle school. After fellow volunteer Dana Winchell suggested the district avoid naming the school after a human being because of the politics involved, Lehmann said, “I think that’s what we need to avoid, ticking people off.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Well, I screwed that up. Such was the eloquent sentence that I imagined last week might begin this column. I had just written a piece on the closing of Lee Enterprises’ Capitol bureau, and in it I had made what I thought was the original observation that none of the Lee papers in Montana had reported the closing. (more…) Continue Reading →
If you are still an old-fashioned reader of Montana newspapers published by Lee Enterprises, then you missed last week’s most intriguing story. News that Lee was closing its Capitol bureau this week and letting go two of the state’s most respected journalists, Chuck Johnson and Mike Dennison, appeared first on the front page of the Great Falls Tribune. (more…) Continue Reading →
In a routine Sunday column about things the Montana Legislature did right in the recent session, Billings Gazette Editor Darrell Ehrlick wrote this sentence: “Free speech is not the right to say anything to anyone without having to sign your name to it.”
Actually, the right to say anything to anyone without having to sign your name to it is pretty much the definition of free speech. That’s why questions about campaign spending have become so tortured in Montana and in the nation as a whole. (more…) Continue Reading →
Truth can be slippery, as last week’s news showed. Sometimes, the truth comes without relevant facts. In his Sunday column, Billings Gazette editor Darrell Ehrlick noted the decline of press coverage of the federal government in Washington, D.C. It’s a common, and worthy, complaint. (more…) Continue Reading →
Senate Bill 143 appears to be dead. Fortunately, the students it aimed to protect are still alive. After passing the Montana Senate in February, the bill failed, 49-51, on second reading Monday in the House. SB 143, introduced by Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, would allow students at Montana’s public colleges and universities to carry concealed weapons on campus. (more…) Continue Reading →
Sean Hannity knew exactly whom to blame. When two police officers were shot last week during a protest in Ferguson, Missouri, talk radio host Hannity went right after the usual suspects: Al Sharpton, Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama and the protesters themselves. How, Hannity wondered, could Ferguson residents be protesting when a Justice Department report cleared Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson of wrongdoing in the shooting of Michael Brown, whose death last August sparked ugly protests? Outside agitators like the president must be to blame. (more…) Continue Reading →
In January I wrote about Downtown Businesses Against Advertising in the Billings Gazette, a Facebook group organized to protest a Gazette column by Editor Darrell Ehrlick that they perceived as a slam on downtown. “This group is started as a protest to the Gazette and its editorial board,” the page said, “and we encourage all members to transfer their ad dollars to businesses that support downtown, not tear it down.” (more…) Continue Reading →
