Independently owned since 1905
Independently owned since 1905
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An article in the October 2018 Atlantic (“Is Democracy Dying?”) points out that one of the checks and balances the creators of the Constitution employed was the use of time. The writers of the Constitution were highly educated men for whom the importance of rational thought was paramount. They feared that the irrationality that is born of inflamed passions of an aroused public would be the chief danger to the nation’s success, and so they developed a document that would require a slow, delib...
It’s Labor Day, but organized labor doesn’t seem to be doing so well. Since 2012 six state legislatures have passed “right-to-work” laws, bringing the right-to-work total to 28 states, and the Supreme Court has recently decided a major case (Janus vs. AFSCME) by holding that government employees do not have to pay union dues if they don’t want to, thus disregarding the fact that those employees are entitled to all the benefits that the union negotiators have won. Once you get away from the...
The word “socialism” is getting tossed around a lot these days without much thought for what it actually means. It seems to fall either into the category of very good things or the category of very bad things. On the left it seems to be seen as a panacea for curing all things bad in America, and on the right as something to fear and close to treasonous. The truth — as always — is elusive. Here’s a definition from an online dictionary: “…a political and economic theory of social organization...
As November elections loom in America different forces are at work in both major political parties to find a theme common to the political compartmentalization of their respective constituencies. With the forces of Trump loyalists against traditional conservative Republicans the establishment Republicans seem to be losing the ability to control their own party. The Democrats, thankfully, do not have that worry because they seem to never have been in control of their party in the first place....
As I think of America’s current political impasse(es) there are two quotes that come to mind. Charley Russell wrote a story about a teamster who harnessed up his mules, then picked up a two-by-four and whacked the lead mule in the head. “First, you’ve got to get the mule’s attention,” he explained to a startled bystander. And the other expression my very own mother’s, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” wrote former slave and abolition...
Now is a good time — a very important time — for Americans to remember the saga of “Tail Gunner Joe.” Only Joe was never a tail gunner who flew numerous combat missions in World War II — he made up that story all by himself. He was a desk jockey. He was, however, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, and as such (and being a bully and a liar) ruined the lives of thousands of Americans in a reign of political and psychological terror that lasted five years, 1950 to 1954. Senator Joseph Mc...
The proposed Republican budget for 2019 is being formulated and there are some serious cuts that should disturb many Americans. Slowly but surely those government programs that help people in very real ways are being decimated by Republicans running the country: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Make no mistake about my feelings. I know that they have every right to do this; it is a part of their philosophy, it has been their stated objective for years, and they are in charge. They have...
Remember that quaint little notion called usury? If you’ve ever borrowed money or used a credit card you might want to refresh your memory. Basically, usury is the practice of charging interest on a loan, but over the centuries the meaning morphed to charging excessive interest on a loan. People actually used to worry about stuff like that. Of course, the concept of “excessive” might vary, but originally excessive was defined as anything above zero. That’s going back a while, maybe 3000 years....
Last week I visited the site of the Battle of Rosebud Creek on the Crow Reservation in Big Horn County and was reminded of the role that Native Americans have played in the U.S. military. Perhaps that seems a strange statement considering that they also had, perhaps, a more significant role fighting against the United States military, but since the Revolutionary War Native Americans have also fought with distinction for the U.S. General George Crook, in command at the Rosebud, was unusual for...
Last week was Public Service Recognition Week, an event that seems to have largely gone unnoticed despite a proclamation from President Trump saying, in part; “Members of our Federal, State, and local workforces bring incredible skills, tireless dedication, and selfless service to a broad range of career fields. Our Nation’s civil servants include teachers, mail carriers, first responders, transit workers, and law enforcement officers. Our Federal employees underpin nearly all the ope...
Buildings have a way of disappearing where I live. They rot, burn, atomize and move. I have an aerial photo of the ranch from 1950 or so. On the part of the ranch I call the Fox place, there is the cabin that housed Mr. Fox in one end and his horse in the other. There is a barn at least 200 yards from the cabin, and what looks like a summer kitchen underneath some cottonwoods, which were large even then. On what I call the home place, there was a substantial cedar cabin and outbuildings,...
Often, when I sit down to write, I have to search for a topic. It’s common for me to write three or more articles and then decide which one I want to run that week. For the record, this is version four. I figure if I’m going to write something I at least ought to be interested in it. I write a lot about politics because I was involved in it for a long time, but today’s politics is not a joyous subject. In fact, it’s downright depressing as far as I’m concerned. So, on occasions like this I tr...
Political wisdom; “Never put in writing what you can communicate by speaking, and never speak when you can make your point with a wink and a nod.” Which is worse, Russian interference in American elections or secret American special interest groups doing the same? Well, of course it’s the Russians because the special interest groups are at least American not to mention bread and butter to the politicians of one political party or another. The reason why the latter are not the subject of congr...
I have been giving some thought to the beliefs of some—such as the Bundy clan of the aptly named town of Bunkerville, Nevada— that the federal government cannot own property and therefore whatever Bureau of Land Management land the Bundy’s are using as grazing land actually belongs to the county, in this case, Clark County Nevada. If I follow the logic, because the BLM, as a branch of the federal government, cannot manage land the government cannot own, the Bundy’s need no BLM permit or permissi...
As a fourth grader, when the siren heralded the air raid drill I dutifully crawled under my desk and put my hands over my head and didn’t move until the all clear sounded. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 I was as scared as anybody that the Russians were going to bomb us to oblivion and vice-versa but figured that putting my hands over my head wouldn’t cut it. Now, with North Korea, Russia and the U.S. bragging about their nuclear capacity, I mostly just hope for the best because the...
They were dumb and dirty drunkards, they did not love America, they worshipped a foreign god, they took jobs from native born Americans, they were illiterate and terrorists to boot, and it looked like they would soon outnumber the American populations in many cities. And, in fact, like a nightmare come true, in a few short years they were indeed running some of the biggest cities in America. They were the Irish and they were not loved. Help wanted notices were qualified by stating, “No Irish n...
In Australia the name of Keith Murdoch is revered as the man who had Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops (known collectively as “Anzac”) saved from further annihilation in the World War I bloodbath which was the battle for Gallipoli. The Gallipoli campaign was the ill-advised British attempt to defeat Germany’s Turkish allies at the Dardanelles which was the route to Constantinople (now Istanbul) and the Black Sea. A victory there would not only defeat the Turks, but would open the s...
When I read the news that the United States government had shut down, my first thought was, “How can they tell?” Then I read that there was some worry that the National Parks would be shut down during the shut down, but since I thought we were going to close the National Parks anyway, that hardly seemed like news. It seems like the individual and collective minds of our elected officials in Congress and the President’s office had shut down, too, but that’s not really news, either. What was new...
Democrats constantly wonder why so many working people vote “against their own economic self-interests.” Their current head-scratcher is the recent tax cut bill, which hands out billions of dollars to the wealthy and big business and peanuts to middle-class working people. And not just peanuts but, according to independent analysts, eventual tax increases and higher health insurance costs. The Democrats’ error is that they believe most people make rational decisions about their lives, when...
This has nothing to do with Christmas (which I hope was wonderful) or New Year's, (which I hope is great), but often at this time of year folks could stand a good laugh, which I hope this delivers. Whenever I am faced with a daunting task and wonder how I will get it done, I think back 35 or so years ago when I had to face what was then, and may still be, the most dauntingest task in my life. I had been away on a two-week trip to visit family and had left the ranch in charge of my hired man-it...
Do the political parties serve the people they claim to represent, or do they use the people as a tool to advance the agendas of the party power brokers? That’s kind of a chicken or the egg question I guess. It seems to me that while the parties do have basic lofty tenets about how to legislate for the greater benefit of mankind it feels more and more those beliefs are just window dressing and that the party bosses know what they want and do their best to convince the voters that what is good f...
If you ran a multistate business and had just over one billion dollars in sales in Montana, I bet you would expect to pay something in Montana corporate taxes. And, indeed you would; you would have to dig deep down into your corporate pocket to come up with the 50 bucks to cover your tax bill. Let me repeat those figures; one billion dollars in Montana sales and 50 bucks in taxes. Oh, and for five years in a row. We are not allowed to know its name, but this is a real company. This is a true...
If there was ever anything that the right and the left could make common cause over, it would be the corporate control of America. It may be the only thing they agree upon, but since they disagree on almost everything else they won’t join hands to accomplish something they both want. They don’t trust each other, either, which doesn’t help. And just what is this corporate control? Essentially, you have a group of corporate titans getting government to make policy that favors their own inter...
In a world where financial markets are booming and corporate executive salaries rival the incomes of small nations, the corporate tax collections of the United States Government have been falling for years. This is because, some say, that the corporate tax rate is so high in the United States that companies have moved their headquarters, and thereby their taxes, to sunnier tax climates. They can just not afford to pay a 35% tax on profits, they say. And I am here to tell you that any U. S....
