Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
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Dear Editor, Americans speak plainly. When they wanted a hard limit on the presidency, they wrote the Twenty-Second Amendment: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." A lifetime cap. Clear and decisive. Montana's voters spoke plainly in 1992 with CI-64, now Article IV, Section 8. They did not write a lifetime ban. They wrote a timeout clock: a candidate is barred from the ballot if he or she will have served "8 or more years in any 16-year period," with each...
With the advent of AI in a ransom situation, there is no way to provide proof of life without seeing the person with your own eyes. If you're driving and point at something ahead of you, your fingernail is traveling faster than you are. A saved conversation can stay exactly the same, even as both people remember it differently. If the internet sells our info, why can't I just sell it myself and I make the money instead? Some people claim there were advanced civilizations before ours, but the...
This article was forwarded to members of the Whitehall Indivisible group by one of its members. I thought the larger Whitehall community might finding it interesting and worth the read too. - Ruth Lott For this week’s post, I thought I might reflect on the election and how it panned out. I apologize as it is a doozy! This might be a hard pill to swallow, but it needs to be said, now more than ever. NOBODY OWNS THE TABLE I’ve been thinking a lot about Tuesday. There’s really no way to sugarcoat what happened to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. WyoFi...
GEORGIA, I have a question, I am 36 and have three children (6, 4, and 8 months) with my partner, with whom I have been for nine years. I am their main carer, do most of the household chores, and work part-time outside the home. I feel exhausted. I do not get enough sleep, and the last thing on my mind is sex. My libido is gone. This is causing problems with my partner. What would you suggest? TOO TIRED TO TUSSLE Dear TOO TIRED, The best thing for women to do in this situation is to ask the man’s advice on how she could organize her time ore e...
Dear reader, the resounding question over many years seems to be, “Are we to judge people or refrain from judging them?” One of the most debated and misunderstood Bible passages occurs at the start of the Gospel of Matthew chapter seven. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” When reading the Bible, we must always stay in context. Here, Jesus is warning against hypocritical condemnation of others. He continues, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say...
ARIES - Mar 21/Apr 20 Good vibes are heading your way, Aries. Cosmic energy continues through your sign, showing visions of future ambitions. TAURUS - Apr 21/May 21 Appreciate the world around you, Taurus. It’s easy to get fixated on what isn’t working, but be grateful for all of the things that are going right. GEMINI - May 22/Jun 21 Gemini, light banter is the name of the game for conversation this week. Avoid any topics that can lead to confrontation or confusion. CANCER - Jun 22/Jul 22 You may have a sudden urge to get organized at hom...
Someday someone will break you so badly that you'll become unbreakable. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth when you're quiet, not underneath. The prettiest smiles hide the deepest secrets, and the kindest hearts have felt the most pain. You blink automatically when you look to the side. We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized they are inside us. Your nose alternates between blocked and clear every few hours. Nothing is scarier than avoiding your full potential....
Dear Editor, At two in the morning, an ambulance runs hard for town, with two emergency technicians working on a man having a heart attack. A mechanic had it in the shop last week to be sure it ran. It crosses a bridge an engineer designed and rolls into an emergency room where a doctor and medical team wait. The lights are on because an electrician wired the place; the heat is on because a plumber keeps it running. Every argument about education gets settled in that hallway. We need all of the...
Dear Editor, The will of Montana voters should prevail on term limits. I support term limits. I also agree with the Montana voters’ decision to require them. When I first entered the Montana Legislature, I was surprised to learn of the practice of legislators immediately rotating back and forth between the House of Representatives and Senate multiple times after serving an initial sixteen years in both chambers, with no break in service. It was explained to me that an interpretation by M...
Dear Editor, I am writing on behalf of, and with the help of, a dear friend. It has come to my attention that, since the merger of SCL Health with Intermountain Health in 2022, St. James Hospital in Butte has gone from staffing 9-10 qualified surgeons to only four! Of those no longer at the hospital, three failed to renew their contracts due to a decrease in salary (?), while two others simply retired, according to the Montana Nurses Association. What does this all mean? Must our expected...
A new economic study commissioned by the Meat Institute claims reinstating mandatory country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL) would cost consumers and the meat supply chain over $1 billion annually, with no evidence to support that assertion. Coming from a mouthpiece that has long represented the interests of the nation’s largest meatpackers, this is hardly surprising. For years, the Big 4 meatpackers have been taking advantage of consumers and producers by importing substandard foreign beef and selling it at US prices. What the Meat Institute does n...
Before the Forest Service logs a drainage or the Bureau of Land Management leases a parcel to a driller, the agency must publish what it intends to do, allow the public to respond, and answer the objections. That arrangement is 56 years old and 640 million acres of federal land run on it. But on July 3 of last year, five federal departments filed rules in the Federal Register that gutted their own environmental review regulations. Agriculture. Interior. Energy. Transportation. Defense filed twice. All six took effect the day they were published...
GEORGIA, I have a question. A grown man untied my daughter’s bikini top at a water park while his buddies cheered him on — so I slapped him across the face in front of all of them. Now HE wants to press charges, and my husband says I should have just yelled. My daughter just turned eighteen. She’s beautiful — the kind of beautiful that makes strangers stupid — and Saturday was her last weekend home before she leaves for her freshman year. She was climbing out of the pool when a college guy came up behind her and pulled the strings of her top....
If, like me, you were born between 1965 and 1980, you might recall vividly some scenes from I Dream of Jeannie, which starred Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman. As a comedy half-hour sitcom, Hagman, as a befuddled astronaut, finds a bottle on a beach and, lo and behold, becomes the “master” of the Genie in it, Barbara, who creates all kinds of trouble for him. As reruns go, it is still available on the internet. Has our culture in recent years turned Jesus into a personal genie? One trend has even been given a name: the Prosperity Gospel, whi...
ARIES Mar 21/Apr 20 Make the most of every opportunity that comes your way this week, Aries. You may not get many chances to test your mettle in the weeks to come, so it’s important to act now. TAURUS Apr 21/May 21 Taurus, something that started out as a part-time venture could turn into much more. Figure out whether this is the path you see yourself going, then make your move. GEMINI May 22/Jun 21 Let loose and have fun for a change, Gemini. Don’t delay when others want to invite you out for a night on the town or even a brunch. Say “ye...
This August marks the 91st anniversary of Social Security and for generations of Americans -- and more than 258,600 Montanans today -- it has provided financial security and independence after a lifetime of work. Recently, AARP Montana asked Montanans a simple question: What was your first job, and how old were you when you started working? The responses offered a powerful reminder of something often lost in today’s political debates: Social Security is not a handout. It is earned. The people who responded described lives defined by hard w...
Dear Editor, My name is Amber Williams, and I am a lifelong advocate for abortion access. I have made a career of building custom homes, running chainsaws, and standing up for women's rights. I am a former volunteer at Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Livingston and a co-founder of a local NNAF chapter that provides financial support to women in MT and across the Western US. I was featured by Carhartt in 2017 and Mountain Living in 2020 (pg. 84). In the mid 2000's, I served as a client escort...
Becoming the best version of yourself comes with a lot of goodbyes. The world's oldest known recipe is over 4,000 years old and describes how to prepare an ancient Babylonian stew. The longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to get home. The first oranges were green - they turn orange in cooler climates. Sometimes your value isn't seen until your absence is felt. A "butt load" is an actual historical measurement of 126 gallons of wine. You are what you do, not what you say...
GEORGIA, I have a question. My fiancé (37M) and I (33F) are getting married in six months; just a small destination wedding. His cousin Maddie isn’t close to us. I’ve met her briefly, a handful of times. Last year she had a traumatic birth that nearly killed her. The baby is healthy now, but Maddie spent four months in the hospital and left in a wheelchair. She’s done extensive physical therapy since and has literally had to relearn how to walk. She’s up to short distances with a cane now. Last weekend, we were at a family dinner when her mom...
ARIES - Mar 21/Apr 20 You have been burning the candle at both ends, Aries. You can’t run on caffeine and grit all of the time. Find a day to rest before your body makes that decision for you. TAURUS Apr 21/May 21 Someone is testing your patience this week, Taurus. Before you stick to your guns, ask yourself if this is a battle worth fighting and then proceed. GEMINI May 22/Jun 21 It’s time to mute as much internal noise as possible, Gemini. Focus on one project and make a concerted effort to finish it before jumping to the next thing on you...
Dear Editor, Last year I put up this sign on the freeway about a mile east of town. I was surprised that most people do not understand the meaning. So I'll try to explain. When the founding fathers were hashing out the laws and ideals of the future United States, government overreach was a major concern, as they had just freed the Colonies from the rule of the king. The original intent was to keep the government out of state affairs and citizen freedoms. After pounding out the Constitution,...
Dear Editor, More than a century ago, our state confronted a difficult question: Who should government ultimately answer to, its citizens or concentrated wealth? The influence of the Copper Kings shaped Montana politics so profoundly that generations of Montanans fought to restore a basic principle: government should remain accountable to the people. That struggle eventually led Montana to become a national leader in limiting corporate influence in elections. Today, we find ourselves asking a...
Life is so fragile, yet so abundant. Pee generally gets dirtier when it goes into the toilet. The influencers of the world don't hold the title of influencer. TIP: Snell rubbing alcohol when you're nauseous. Sniffing an alcohol wipe stops sudden upset stomach twice as fast as pill medications. AI is an excellent servant, but a dangerous master. A distant ancestor decided to try sharpening things, and then everything changed. We get mad at dogs for rolling in poo, but wear perfume with...
I found Representative Maness's diatribe suggesting the neglect of Federal management on our public lands published in the July 29 2026 issue of the Ledger to be a misleading ploy. In my opinion, his intended strategy is aimed to support a policy of selling off our public lands to the private sector for a nominal cost at the public's expense. His justifications for ending public land ownership are distorted, deceptive and in one example preposterous. I'm not suggesting that management of our...
I’m the Executive Director of Forward Montana. Every day, my staff and I organize and build political power with other young people across our state. These people are working multiple jobs while struggling to afford rent. They’re wondering if they’ll ever be able to buy a home or even be able to stay here in Montana. They’re worrying about lengthening forest fire seasons and dwindling snow. They’re watching their parents come into retirement with little saved and rising costs. They don’t know how long they can keep barely making ends meet in th...
