In all my years of penning columns I’ve never encountered a tsunami of significant news events like what’s transpired in recent days. Which makes the already difficult task of choosing a worthy topic to write about all the more frustrating, if not impractical.
Consider this month’s Inauguration Day spectacle of outgoing President Joe Biden issuing family members eleventh-hour pardons within minutes of incoming President Donald Trump making another stab at upholding the Constitution beneath the same U.S. Capitol dome where the late President Jimmy Carter had lain in state.
Trump, of course, wouldn’t be outdone by Uncle Joe’s craftiness, immediately ordering pardons and commutations for the misdeeds and punishments of 1,500-plus Jan. 6 rioters and other assorted rascals, prominent among them Oath Keepers founder and convicted seditionist Stewart Rhodes, who once hung his barrister’s shingle in Kalispell.
“You, sir, present an ongoing threat and peril to this country … and to the very fabric of our democracy,” U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, appointed to the bench by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, had admonished Rhodes when sentencing him to 18 years in prison.
If those potential column themes weren’t enough to contemplate, the much-ballyhooed blackout of TikTok lasted all of 14 hours (Montana, the first state to officially ban the communist Chinese-owned video-hosting service, isn’t pleased with Trump’s directive to pause a nationwide TikTok blackout); the Montana Legislature’s 2025 session gaveled to order (kudos to the 51 women lawmakers currently serving in Helena, surpassing the previous high of 48); while serving in the U.S. Congress is now rated by Americans as among the most dishonest and unethical professions in this country (which makes the outrageous sum of $255 million to install a Montana senator on Capitol Hill this month all the more baffling).
Meanwhile, during this first full month of winter the bare streets of Whitefish have required fewer snowplows than Florida’s panhandle (so much for La Niña); the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service mercifully rejected petitions to delist Montana’s majestic state animal, the grizzly bear; and hats off to the two Flathead Valley fire detachments that sped to Los Angeles to help keep deadly wildfires at bay.
Each in itself deserving of a column.
Of course nobody can overlook our new president signing a record (read head-spinning) number of executive orders in his first days back at the White House. Possibly impacting Montanans the most is this week’s freeze on all federal grants and loans, which while vague could potentially impact upwards of $3 trillion in state grants for everything from child care and school breakfast and lunch programs to suicide help lines. As this column went to press a federal judge blocked Trump’s order pending a review.
I considered writing an appreciation column for the aforementioned President Carter, who high interest rates and long gasoline lines aside was foremost the Middle East peacemaker. His state funeral, in fact, appropriately coincided with the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage-prisoner swap.
As co-host of the America’s Morning News program a decade ago I was astonished when the former president told me that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is much more eager to go to war” than Islamists in the region.
Carter’s remarks made headlines—and eager or not, Netanyahu has certainly been waging war—and relentlessly so—sparked though it was by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Speaking of international headlines, The Guardian, a global news organization dating to 1821, recently came to our valley and opined this week that “sharp” rhetoric by Flathead County’s government leaders has turned Kalispell “into a lightning rod in the national debate on homelessness.”
“A Montana town is waging war on its unhoused citizens,” blared the newspaper’s headline, referring to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Flathead Warming Center, which for now continues to shelter as many as 50 people a night.
I was beyond saddened to hear of the passing this month of G. George Ostrom, for 60-plus years the Flathead Valley’s unsurpassed storyteller, and who kindly gave me my start in journalism. The Flathead Beacon just published a fitting tribute to the legendary newsman I encourage you to read.
Finally, there are the overhead shoppers at my local supermarket who are anxious to know when grocery prices will start coming down, especially for everyday staples like eggs and chicken (whichever came first).
While rising inflation certainly plays a major part in grocery and food production costs, there are other culprits to bear in mind. Take the high price for eggs, one of the bigger hot-button issues during the 2024 presidential campaign. Instead of politics, blame the Avian flu and it’s toll on tens of millions of egg-laying hens (when the disease is detected in one hen every bird on the farm gets killed).
President Trump, by the way, is now acknowledging that his promise to lower grocery costs is easier said than done. So this past week he signed an unprecedented order requiring that all federal departments and agencies “deliver emergency price relief” to Americans.
How this might be accomplished remains to be seen, but rest assured we taxpayers will eventually foot the bill.
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author. He lives in Bigfork.