Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/supreme-court/page/2/)
Susan Balter-Reitz, an assistant professor at Montana State University Billings, set my mind at ease last week about the laws governing journalism. But she said nothing to make me feel better about the future of the profession. Balter-Reitz was giving one of a series of talks on political cartooning developed by MSU Billings professors. She was speaking in the Community Lecture Series at the Billings Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. (more…) Continue Reading →
Three experts on the role of money in politics painted a dire picture of American democracy at a forum in Billings Thursday night. But they also offered up some fairly simple solutions to the problems posed by “dark money”—the kind that now flows by the tens of millions from anonymous sources to influence politicians and shape public policy. (more…) Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Just three months ago, the Billings City Council voted down a nondiscrimination ordinance that would have expanded civil rights protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The vote came at 3 a.m., following a very long meeting. Later that day, Councilman Brent Cromley, who supported the NDO, said the setback would not halt the steady progress being made on LGBT rights. (more…) Continue Reading →
Jonathan Gruber got himself—and the Obama administration—into trouble last week when a tape surfaced in which he referred to the “stupidity of the American voter.”
The context made it worse. Mr. Gruber, an economist at MIT who had a hand in writing the Affordable Care Act, praised lack of transparency about the bill and said that it was written in a “tortured way” so the Congressional Budget Office would not score the individual mandate as a tax. (more…) Continue Reading →
By DAVID CRISP
BILLINGS OUTPOST
Billings Gazette Editor Darrell Ehrlick began his May 18 column with the phrase “God Bless America,” then quickly added that he meant it literally, not “as some obligatory phrase tacked onto the end of a speech.” (more…) Continue Reading →
