he Montana Department of Commerce announced today that 26 rural safety agencies will receive more than $1.4 million in grant funding to enhance emergency service capabilities in areas experiencing increased tourism. The funding, allocated through the Montana Emergency Tourism Assistance Grant Program (METAP), aims to strengthen public safety across rural communities. “Emergency services are critical Read More…
President-elect Donald Trump has begun appointing officials to top positions in his incoming administration, signaling a departure from the internal strife that marked his first term. This time, Trump is leaning heavily on loyalists to shape his government, even as some of his selections face the prospect of contentious Senate confirmation battles. Cabinet Appointments Treasury Read More…
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as his pick to head the U.S. Department of Justice. Bondi, a longtime ally of Trump, has been selected for the high-profile role after Representative Matt Gaetz, who was initially chosen for the position, stepped aside. The nomination of Bondi, a well-known figure in Read More…
BOZEMAN — The Montana Board of Regents today approved Montana State University’s proposal to establish a new institute to help address the nation’s security needs through applied research, technology development and education for the next generation of leaders. The Institute for National Security Research and Education, or INSRE, will serve as a hub at MSU, Read More…
As many Democrats and activists worked to stop Gina Haspel from becoming CIA director this spring, Sen. Joe Manchin derailed them with one move: blurting out his support for the controversial pick in a TV interview, effectively clinching her confirmation for President Donald Trump. Now Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer faces the monumental task of Read More…
New York billionaire George Soros said former President Barack Obama was his “greatest disappointment,” during a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times published on Tuesday, while also appearing to distance himself from partisan politics. The wealthy liberal donor, who was an early supporter of Obama’s 2008 presidential run, told The Times that Obama was Read More…
On Tuesday night in New York, a 28-year-old political newcomer and self-described socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeated one of the most powerful and entrenched Democrats in Congress in a shocking primary win for the progressive wing of the party. Ocasio-Cortez is likely to be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress come November. READ THE FULL Read More…
HELENA, Mont.—Jerry Swick, an Army veteran who currently resides in this mountainous capital city, plans to vote this fall to keep Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Congress. He just doesn’t know how he would tell that to President Donald Trump, for whom Mr. Swick voted in 2016. Mr. Trump will host a campaign rally in Read More…
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is tapping additional Justice Department resources for help with new legal battles as his year-old investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 election continues to expand. As Mueller pursues his probe, he’s making more use of career prosecutors from the offices of U.S. attorneys and from Justice Department headquarters, as well Read More…
A giant balloon dubbed “Trump baby” has been given the green light to fly near parliament during the president’s UK visit. London mayor Sadiq Khan’s Greater London Authority has approved a request for the flight after thousands signed a petition and a crowdfunding campaign raised more than £16,000 to get the six-metre inflatable off the Read More…
For the first time since President Donald Trump took office, the CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows more than half the public approving his handling of the economy, and it appears to be having some impact on his overall job approval rating. The president’s economic approval rating surged 6 points to 51 percent with just 36 Read More…
NEW YORK (CNN) — The Trump administration took the final step Tuesday in its plan aimed at making health insurance policies cheaper for some small businesses. The administration released its final rule governing association health plans, which allow small businesses and the self-employed to band together based on their industry or location and buy health Read More…
BILLINGS – Montana State University Billings has named Ed Garding as the Interim Dean of the College of Business. Garding served as the president and CEO of First Interstate BancSystem from 2012 to 2015. He is still involved at First Interstate as the corporate and government relations officer. He began his career with First Interstate Read More…
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee has invited FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok to appear before the panel. Strzok has faced a barrage of attacks from President Trump and conservatives after an internal investigation revealed he had been sending messages critical of the then-Republican candidate during the 2016 presidential race to FBI lawyer Read More…
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said in an interview last week that not enough of her fellow Senate Democrats were willing to “take on the billionaire class.” Warren has been critical of Senate Democrats for their support of the Dodd-Frank rollback, which President Donald Trump signed in May. The new legislation scaled back regulations imposed Read More…
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., used a private plane to travel between some stops on a three-day RV tour of her state, McCaskill confirmed Tuesday. “I added some stops with the use of the plane, but I was on the RV so much that the broken door drove me crazy,” McCaskill said Tuesday, according to Politico. Read More…
(CNN) – A government watchdog has cleared Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from improper political activity when he spoke to a professional hockey team owned by one of his campaign donors. The Office of Special Counsel found “no evidence or allegation” that Zinke “gave a political speech or otherwise engaged in political activity during this event” Read More…
At least two advertisers say they’re suspending ads from comedian Samantha Bee’s television show. The backlash follows the latest episode of TBS’s “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” in which Bee called first daughter Ivanka Trump a vulgar name. Autotrader said in its statement that Bee’s comments were “offensive and unacceptable.” “As a result, Autotrader has Read More…
When a small group of alarmed White House aides caught wind that Sen. Heidi Heitkamp — one of the most endangered Democrats up for reelection in 2018 — would be attending President Donald Trump’s bill signing last week, they raced to stop it. Word eventually reached Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has made unseating Read More…
California’s primary elections on June 5 will be one of the most consequential — and bizarre — contests of the entire primary season. The Golden State is crucial to Democrats’ effort to retake the House — Republicans currently hold a whopping seven districts Hillary Clinton won, and Democrats are eager to pry them away. The Read More…
Democrats are quietly fighting their biggest political battle in a decade for state legislative races as they aim to flip control of up to a dozen chambers. The effort could position the party to play a bigger role in redrawing U.S. House districts after the 2020 census and could help boost turnout for candidates running Read More…
A South Carolina Democrat who has admitted to physically abusing his former wife in the 1970s has refused to drop out of next month’s congressional primary despite a call from his state’s Democratic Party to do so and the resignation of his campaign manager. The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Monday that Archie Parnell, Read More…
Seonki Jo, who was brought to America from South Korea at age 3, has lived in Duluth, Georgia, nearly all his life. When it came time for him to begin his college search, he wanted to stick close to home. But, he found, he couldn’t. Georgia not only banned undocumented immigrants like Jo, who in Read More…
Democrat House candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher is projected to win the Texas primary runoff, giving national Democrats their preferred candidate in the race to unseat Rep. John CulbersonJohn Abney CulbersonFive races to watch in the Texas runoffs Democrats are geared up for primary runoff D-Day in Texas The Hill’s Morning Report — Sponsored by CVS Read More…
Jon Tester was on his farm in rural Montana when his phone rang with the news: It was his chief of staff, informing him that the president of the United States had just called for his resignation on Twitter. The Montana Democrat briefly considered President Donald Trump’s latest attack on him, then fired up his Read More…
MIAMI — The elections supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke state and federal law by unlawfully destroying ballots cast in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 2016 Democratic primary, a judge ruled Friday in a case brought by the congresswoman’s challenger who wanted to check for voting irregularities. In light of the ruling, Gov. Rick Scott’s Read More…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two Montanans, Jon Tester and Ryan Zinke, faced off Thursday in the U.S. Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee over funding to support public lands. Zinke, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, has proposed deep cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and Tester, a Democratic senator, wanted to know why. In March, Read More…
Comey, who just released his book A Higher Loyalty, also discussed the email scandal that dogged Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Trump. Former FBI director James Comey likened U.S. President Donald Trump to a self-serving Mafia boss Thursday during a talk in which he defended the decision to reopen the Read More…
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — President Trump’s unrelenting attacks on this state’s Democratic senator have landed with a boom, drawing the attention of voters and those fighting to keep GOP control of the Senate. Trump’s fierce criticism — calling Sen. Jon Tester “dishonest and sick,” saying he knows things about the senator that would make him Read More…
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana still doesn’t know who his Republican opponent will be in the November midterm elections. But the Democratic lawmaker is already under fire from President Donald Trump and other GOP critics who blame him for scuttling Ronny Jackson’s bid to become the secretary of Veterans Affairs. Now, conservative politicians and Read More…
(CNN)Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, will campaign in Montana for a Republican Senate candidate “very soon,” the candidate has announced. Troy Downing, an Air Force veteran and one of the four Republicans vying to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in November, announced the news Friday. “It is time to stand Read More…
Democrats and some in the mainstream media have been desperately trying to attack Ryan Zinke over his travel spending as US Secretary of Interior. However, new data shows that Zinke is spending less than his predecessors who served as Interior Secretary under former President Obama. As The Daily Signal reports: “The Daily Signal’s examination of Read More…
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he may “hold up” a major trade deal the U.S. recently made with South Korea, in order to use the agreement as leverage in any upcoming negotiations with North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “I may hold it up until after a deal is made with North Korea,” Trump Read More…
Government officials ratcheted up pressure Monday on Facebook Inc. over its handling of user data, with federal regulators saying they are investigating the social-media giant’s privacy policies and 37 state attorneys general demanding explanations for its practices. The Federal Trade Commission, in a statement, signaled that its probe of Facebook is broad. Tom Pahl, a Read More…
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in an op-ed Tuesday that the Second Amendment should be repealed, citing the protests in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as an impetus for the change. Stevens, who retired from the high court in 2010 as one of the longest-serving justices in history, Read More…
Nearly a year before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a “lack of candor,” McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly accused Read More…
The longtime spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was physically assaulted by a Democratic operative on Capitol Hill Thursday. Politico, The Daily Caller, and other outlets are now reporting that a man who works for the liberal group known as American Bridge was arrested following the incident. Here’s a compilation of coverage from various outlets Read More…
At a hearing on Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Washington Senator Maria Cantwell asked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to explain since he is advocating higher admission prices at national parks, why he chose to take a private jet home from Las Vegas. “First, insults and innuendoes are misleading,” Zinke said. Read More…
President Donald Trump said Monday his commerce secretary will talk to the European Union about tariffs Trump argues have been unfair to the United States. Trump wrote on Twitter: “Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross will be speaking with representatives of the European Union about eliminating the large Tariffs and Barriers they use against the U.S.A. Read More…
WASHINGTON — Despite unrelenting criticism from the White House on the course of the investigation into Russia’s election interference, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Monday offered unqualified support for special counsel Robert Mueller. “The special counsel is not an unguided missile,” Rosenstein said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. “I don’t believe there is Read More…
President Donald Trump said again Monday he wants a “phase two” of tax cuts on top of the law Republicans passed in December. Speaking as the World Series champion Houston Astros visited the White House, Trump asked Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, whether he planned to cut taxes further. Brady and GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Read More…
Conservative economist Larry Kudlow is the front-runner to replace Gary Cohn as President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, CNBC’s Jim Cramer reports. “I have it pretty good … that Larry Kudlow is now the leading contender for the job to replace Gary Cohn. I think if he was offered it, he would take it. This Read More…
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that stripped out a tax break proposal highly coveted by Delta Air Lines — the most stinging punishment that America’s pro-gun forces have leveled so far on one of the many corporations recalibrating their positions on firearms after the Florida high school massacre. The $50 million Read More…
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A pro-Second Amendment section of John Kasich’s website was removed Sunday, after the Republican governor appeared on CNN and said reasonable gun control measures should be enacted following last week’s deadly Florida school shooting. JohnKasich.com, his political website that is separate from his governor’s site, had previously contained text and photos illustrating Read More…