Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/president-obama/)
On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress overrode President Obama’s veto of the so-called “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” (JASTA). The act permits 9/11 families to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for any role that it might have played in the tragedy. Sadly, Montana Sens. Steve Daines and Jon Tester and Rep. Ryan Zinke supported the override. (more…) Continue Reading →
Over the past four years, Barrett Kaiser has spent a lot of time at the airport in Bangor, Maine. It was some consolation that it reminded him of the airport in Billings. When you travel a lot, he said, it’s nice to be in an airport where the crowds are smaller, the people are friendlier and fly rods are everywhere. The next time he visits Maine, though, it will be purely for pleasure. His work there is done. Continue Reading →
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is an international trade treaty among 12 Pacific Rim nations (with the notable exception of China). It is an important issue in the coming election, and it is important to know why. The treaty has been put in its final form through largely secret negotiations by the trade representatives of the countries involved and is now waiting to be ratified by the governments of the 12 nations. President Obama wants it, but there is some doubt that the Senate will approve it. (more…) Continue Reading →
Tick, tick, tick. Today we are counting down on the Republican Senate’s days of shame. The GOP-led U.S. Senate is on a summer break. Count them: For 54 days, from July 14 to Sept. 6, both the House and Senate are on the longest summer break since those breaks were first established in the 1960s. (more…) Continue Reading →
On the Sunday when the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden was launched, Jon Darby walked into work thinking that U.S. intelligence knew right where Bin Laden was. But he wouldn’t have bet his salary on it, he said here Wednesday, much less his presidency. President Obama’s decision to launch the raid in the face of uncertainty was typical of the tough calls U.S. policy makers have to make with limited and possibly faulty intelligence. (more…) Continue Reading →
Some 14 years ago I sat in the back of a van along with a group of Little Big Horn College students on their way to pick up Joe Medicine Crow before going across the border to Ucross, Wyo., home of the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery and temporary display area of the Barstow Collection of ledger art. (more…) Continue Reading →
Joseph Medicine Crow, the great Crow Indian historian, author and war hero, often called the last living Plains Indian war chief, reportedly died this morning at the age of 102. His death was reported on the Facebook page of Ben Pease, the artist whose portrait of Medicine Crow is above. In a private message, Pease said Medicine Crow “passed to the ‘Other Side Camp’ Sunday morning.” Among his many honors, Medicine Crow was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—by President Obama in 2009. In Billings, the District 2 School Board voted last year to name a new middle school in the Heights—the first public school built in Billings in 30-some years—after Medicine Crow. Continue Reading →
In April 1864, months before one of the most contentious elections in American history, the New York World accused President Abraham Lincoln of having urged a friend to sing a comic song as they strolled among the dead and wounded two years earlier at Antietam. The World pounded on the false story for five months, eventually adding the fanciful detail that Democratic opponent George McClellan, the general Lincoln had fired for timidity and a fatal case of the “slows,” had pleaded in vain for Lincoln to show respect to the fallen. (more…) Continue Reading →
Ed Kemmick makes me sick. Well, that’s not strictly true, or at least I hope not. But it is true that practically since the day we began our new partnership at Last Best News, I have been tormented by an unrelenting cold that leaves me most days feeling like I have been beaten with a stick. And some days thinking that a beating would be an improvement. (more…) Continue Reading →
In November there was a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic, remember? In Colorado Springs, Colo., where four people died. That incident may have been buried in the slew of other shootings around the country. But let us focus here. As the man fired 20 shots from his semiautomatic rifle, he made remarks about “baby parts.” We can reasonably take these as a reference to a video released by an anti-Planned Parenthood group, which depicts Planned Parenthood workers dealing in the acquisition and exchange of fetal human body parts for profit. Continue Reading →
