Would it surprise you to find out that each of the five members of the Montana Public Service Commission makes more than the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State and the State Auditor? These are the current salaries of Montana elected officials. Governor— $111,570 Lieutenant Governor—$86,362 Attorney General—$123,499 Secretary of State— $95,695 Superintendent of Public Read More…
The flames of the Ferguson Fire in California have become the latest symbols of a seemingly perennial challenge of fighting fires in the West. I just returned from the Ferguson Fire camp, where I met with firefighters who are working to combat the fire as it bears down on Yosemite National Park and its visitors, Read More…
Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) took an unprecedented step last month in its efforts to block the opening of the Rock Creek and Montanore mines in Sanders and Lincoln counties, projects that would create hundreds of jobs for Montana workers. Bullock’s DEQ has opposed Hecla Mining Company’s attempt to open these Read More…
Direct primary care agreements are a fee-for-service contract between health care providers and patients, and are meant to cover preventive, routine or preliminary office visits. Primary care clinics are independent doctors’ offices that do not accept insurance or bill third parties. There have been several of these arrangements made available to consumers in Montana during Read More…
Conservative: GOP Needs To Start Acting Like a Majority The daily continuation of the “twisted, never-ending saga” of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process has Kimberly Ross at the Washington Examiner urging Senate Republicans to “act like the majority party.” Meaning GOP leaders should “usher the way through the swamp” and stop “entertaining claims and treating the Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Confronting the dangers of North Korea’s nuclear threat, President Donald Trump arrived at the United Nations on Monday striking a far less ominous tone than a year ago, announcing he likely will hold a second summit with Kim Jong Un “quite soon.” Twelve months after Trump Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles WASHINGTON — The Economist magazine is marking its 175th birthday with a special issue that looks back on its history and speculates about the future. It is a sobering exercise, highlighting the present breakdown in the world’s political order, a collapse made worse by Donald Trump but not caused by Read More…
COMMENTARY X Story Stream recent articles They’ll tell you they’re moderates, but they’re not. They’ll tell you they want to work with President Trump for the American people, but they won’t, and they haven’t. No matter what the Democrats say, they refuse to cut deals with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Ultimately, the Democrats Read More…
NEW YORK — Four out of five people at that alleged drinking party in 1982 dispute Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s “rape attempt” claims. The fifth is Ford herself. Her memory of that gathering, at the eye of the cyclone that encircles Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, clashes with those of everyone else whom she Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles Good morning. It’s Monday, September 24, 2018, another dreary and rainy day in the nation’s capital. If the weather has you a little blue, think how residents of Flatbush felt 61 years ago today. That’s when the Brooklyn Dodgers forsook New York for the sunny climes of California. On September Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiators reached a tentative agreement Saturday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear testimony Thursday from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault from decades ago, according to two people briefed on the matter. Lawyers for Ford and bipartisan representatives Read More…
This past weekend my comments expressing support for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and my disgust at how the far left will stop at nothing to derail his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court were included in an article in the New York Times. Now I’m receiving emails from women who say they are rape victims, and Read More…
The Texas Attorney General’s office is warning the Austin Independent School District not to ban churches from renting facilities because their views might conflict with LGBT groups. “The District should not make any changes to its facilities use policy that would prevent churches from renting those facilities on the same terms as other community organizations, Read More…
| Posted: Sep 24, 2018 11:32 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. American democrats are not containing their MeToo mobs to the United States. The attacks are now spreading across the globe. Socialist democrat Julia Salazar announced that she is a victim of sexual Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles What should we make of the New York Times’ shocking story that Rod Rosenstein, the second highest official in the Department of Justice, wanted to “wear a wire,” secretly record President Trump, and gather evidence to oust the president via the 25th Amendment? Rosenstein has effectively admitted that he did Read More…
We all know that President Trump’s four favorite words are “I told you so.” This week, he has undoubtedly earned the right to mutter that phrase, signature smirk and all, no matter how much it grinds the gears of the mainstream media. Partisan extremists laughed when the president announced his intent to create a Space Read More…
| Posted: Sep 24, 2018 9:11 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. The only crimes Brett Kavanaugh is guilty of is being a white male who is religious, conservative and pro-life. The left could care less whether he’s guilty or not of the crime Read More…
Kerry Kennedy and her Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights outfit still have time to rethink their “bail them all out” initiative — and plainly should. The city’s police commissioner, mayor and all five DAs warn that the RFK drive risks releasing some very hard cases. “What about the victims? What about witness intimidation? What about Read More…
We’ve just entered the 21st month of Donald Trump’s presidency. While the president is ending his predecessor’s war on coal at home, American taxpayers are still funding Barack Obama’s war on coal abroad. That’s bad news for US taxpayers, trade — and national security. In 2013, President Obama ordered the Treasury Department to use its Read More…
The current era of scorched-earth politics began five years after there was, according to Christine Blasey Ford, in 1982, an alcohol-soaked party in a suburban Washington home. There her 15-year-old self was, she says, assaulted by 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh, who categorically denies this accusation. On July 1, 1987, just 45 minutes after Ronald Reagan announced Read More…
The #MeToo movement’s search for demons to slay has expanded well beyond just those accused of sexual misbehavior. Now, if you’ve done anything to disseminate the accused’s side of the story, they’re coming for #YouToo. Last week, Ian Buruma not-so-quietly left his position as editor of The New York Review of Books. The mob had Read More…
Legal file: Polygraphs Are a Joke Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has taken a polygraph test. At City Journal, Claire Berlinski offers the appropriate response: Who cares? “Polygraphs are voodoo. Junk science” and, for good reason, “inadmissible in court,” she writes. “A polygraph measures your heart rate, breathing, and galvanic skin response. There is Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles WASHINGTON — Anita Hill’s truthfulness was brutally questioned. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., accused her of “flat-out perjury.” So was her sanity. I recall a fevered phone call from a White House adviser peddling the notion that Hill suffered from “erotomania,” a psychiatric disorder involving romantic delusions. So was her character. Read More…
In a big win for the little people, Philadelphia last week agreed to rein in its civil-forfeiture program and pay $3 million to innocents whose property it wrongly confiscated. Attorneys with the Institute for Justice sued in 2014 over policies that let law enforcement take property “suspected” of being tied to crime — even when Read More…
City Councilman Rory Lancman filed suit last week to make the NYPD comply with a law he authored — and post online reports showing the number of arrests and summons for subway fare evasion, including data on the perps’ race. Are Police Commissioner James O’Neill and Mayor de Blasio hiding something? Lancman (D-Queens), who’s joined Read More…
| Posted: Sep 24, 2018 12:01 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. I grew up in a small town in rural New England, which has long been a stronghold for Democrats. My grandfather was a carpenter, and for many years as a boy, my Read More…
No matter what happens this week, we’ll likely never truly know what exactly, if anything, happened between Christina Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh that night in 1982, or even between the judge and his latest accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who after “carefully assessing her memories” from a drunken college party 35 years ago, has finally decided Read More…
| Posted: Sep 24, 2018 12:01 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. One of the most frequently repeated mantras of President Trump’s 2016 campaign was “drain the swamp,” and perhaps no federal agency better epitomizes the swamp these days than the Department of Veterans Read More…
If this outrageous 36-year-old claim by a leftist, anti-Trump marching, California psychology professor against Judge Kavanaugh is treated like truth, the p*ssy hat posse will begin a reign of terror that will destroy the careers, families, and futures of many innocent men. No male will be safe if this travesty is allowed to stand. All Read More…
To date, not a single alleged witness provided by Prof. Christine Blasey Ford has corroborated her charges. And until Sunday night, not another woman came forward with any charge of any kind against Judge Kavanaugh. Now, however, that another woman has emerged, also claiming improper behavior from Kavanaugh when he was in college. How do Read More…
As I write this, the “I really, really wanna testify, but…” goalpost has moved west right past my house and out over the Pacific Ocean. You get the distinct impression that Christine Ford’s handlers are making it up as they go along – “She can’t testify on Monday because, I dunno, she’s afraid of airplanes. Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, like others in her party, apparently has forgotten that in America, the burden of proof falls on an accuser, not the accused. Thus Feinstein played a starring role in her party’s efforts to slime the reputation of Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: President Trump has made several less than stellar Cabinet appointments. Scott Pruitt was an expert deregulator who did good work at the Environmental Protection Agency, but he splurged government money on travel and other expenses, and was eventually compelled to resign. Tom Price seemed a smart choice to head the Department of Health and Read More…
Socialism is the most discredited ideology in the history of political thought. That’s assuming you don’t count cannibalism as an ideology. During the last century, socialist ideologues killed, tortured and starved innocent people on a heretofore unimaginable scale. R.J. Rummel estimates that almost 170 million people were killed in the 20th century by their own Read More…
X Story Stream recent articles In 1994, at a time I was covering the White House for the Baltimore Sun, early November seemed like a good time to play in an adult baseball league tournament in Arizona. I mean, what could go wrong? Sure, President Clinton would take a few lumps. The new president’s party Read More…
There is a widespread belief that immigrants and their offspring have poverty-defying superpowers that natives do not. That is certainly the impression you’d get from pundits and lobbyists who celebrate all the Silicon Valley technology entrepreneurs who were born abroad or the fact that immigrant scientists seem to have a presumptive lock on every year’s Read More…
It’s just nuts that the city might have to cough up billions for supposedly racist teacher-certification exams it stopped using long ago. But don’t count on Mayor de Blasio to fight it. To be clear: No one has ever had to show that the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, aka LAST, was actually discriminatory. “Disparate Read More…
Now that the state’s bungling of the Hoosick Falls water-contamination nightmare has faded from the headlines, Gov. Cuomo’s office has forgotten all about it. That’s the obvious conclusion once you know that the gov’s Drinking Water Quality Council hasn’t met in six months — though it’s supposed to report by Oct. 2. Cuomo set up Read More…
President Trump is not generally given to understatement, but he soft-pedaled problems at the Department of Justice. There is, he said Friday, a “lingering stench” there. A “stench” doesn’t describe the situation. A snake pit is more like it. The report by The New York Times that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein plotted to remove Read More…
It was a week of pure political theater, a disgrace to everything this country used to stand for, and Democrats loved every minute of what they’d created. Between the faux outrage and the pearl-clutching across liberal Washington, there wasn’t a fainting couch that wasn’t engaged. It was all garbage. We will never know happened to Read More…
On Saturday Bloomberg broke the story that the White House has prepared a draft executive order that would have the federal government begin the process of investigating anti-competitive business practices and political censorship content moderation bias by Internet services companies such as Facebook, Google, and others. If this moves forward, it appears to be the Read More…
When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently opined that America “was never that great,” presumably he wasn’t thinking of the stunning achievements of the Apollo space program, which pushed humankind beyond low Earth orbit for the first (and thus far only) time, and landed twelve Americans on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Apollo’s success Read More…
| Posted: Sep 23, 2018 12:01 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. It has been 17 years since the Islamic jihadists conducted their terrorist attack on America, 11 September, 2001, killing almost 3,000 innocent Americans who were doing nothing more than going to work. Read More…
Elizabeth F. Loftus is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, a cognitive psychologist, and a preeminent expert on human memory whose work on the subject in criminal cases has been a crucial key to establishing a stricter standard for “recovered memories” and a greater requirement for corroborating evidence in criminal trials. She is Read More…