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The Montana Legislature is pushing through two house bills, both co-sponsored by area representative John Fitzpatrick, that fundamentally alter the way marijuana tax monies are allocated in direct opposition to the will of the voters.

HB 462 and HB 669 steal $15.8 million from wildlife habitat acquisition that Montana voters overwhelmingly approved when they passed I-190 in 2020.

Montana's libertarian lean is under attack by well-meaning but ultimately destructive politicos claiming to know what's best for Montanans and willing to take away our rights to push their agenda. As the saying goes, "God protect us from people who mean well."

Rep. Fitzpatrick and others bring out tired tropes in their advocacy, falsely linking recreational marijuana use to crime and addiction to more deadly drugs. They widely ignore the benefits to our economy.

Multiple studies show legal marijuana tied to significant reductions in deaths from opiate overdose.

But advocates of 462 and 669 falsely link rising hard drug use in Montana to legal marijuana rather than addressing the actual causes, economic disparity, and an underfunded border patrol.

Raiding Montana's wildlife habitat funds may be within the rights of our legislators. Still, hardly three years out from Montanans expressing their desire to fund that program with marijuana tax dollars specifically, it's a gross misuse of their power.

Montanans love our public lands. We love the freedoms granted to us in our federal and state constitutions. Continued efforts by the state legislature to centralize control in Helena and nanny Montanans are neither wanted nor needed.

Perhaps the next time Helena decides to raid voter-approved funds for ulterior purposes, they should think back to their $1 billion handout that decimated the state surplus.

Jesse Mullen is the co-owner of Ponderosa Publications and the Seeley Swan Pathfinder

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Op-Ed: Nanny politics are a bad excuse to raid habitat funds - Seeley Swan Pathfinder

Frustrated by college diversity initiatives he says are fomenting radical and toxic divisions, Texas state Rep. Carl Tepper set out to put an end to diversity, equity and inclusion offices in higher education.

The freshman Republican lawmaker filed a bill to ban such offices. Three months later, he filed a new version of the legislation doing the same thing. The difference? Tepper switchedthe wording to alignwitha new model billdeveloped by the Manhattan Institute and Goldwater Institute, a pair of conservative think tanks based in New York and Arizona, respectively.

Republican lawmakers in at least a dozen states have proposed more than 30 bills this year targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education, an Associated Press analysis found using the bill-tracking software Plural. The measures have become the latest flashpoint in a cultural battle involving race, ethnicity and gender that has been amplified by prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, potential rivals for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Many of the proposals root in one of a half-dozen conservative or libertarian organizations offering recommendations for limiting consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion in employment decisions, training and student admissions. Some measures mirror the model bills nearly exactly. Others copy key definitions or phrases while adapting the concepts to their particular states.

Theres a tremendous appetite on the right to deal with this issue, said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which in February addedits own model billto the swelling ranks of proposals.

The bills are an outgrowth of recent Republican attempts to limit critical race theory, a viewpoint that racism is historically systemic in the nations institutions and continues today to maintain the dominance of white people in society. Christopher Rufo, who now is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, helped propel conservative outrage in 2020 against what he has described as critical-race-theory concepts infiltrating governments and educational institutions.

Trump responded byissuing an orderin September 2020banning traininginvolving divisive concepts about race for government employees and contractors. Similar wording began cropping up in state-level legislation the following year.

Floridas so-called Stop WOKE law, which DeSantis signed last year, is among the most prominent measures. It bars businesses, colleges and K-12 schools from giving training on certain racial concepts, such as the theory that people of a particular race are inherently racist, privileged or oppressed. Courts have currently blocked the law's enforcement in colleges, universities and businesses.

DeSantis has continued to press the issue.He proposed legislation this yearto ban diversity, equity and inclusion offices as part of a broader agenda to reshape higher education. He also appointed Rufo and other conservatives to theNew College of Florida's oversight board, which then abolished the liberal arts colleges office that handles diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

DeSantis has been so vocal about the changes he wants to make in universities that it has probably spurred activity in other states, said Jenna Robinson, president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, a conservative nonprofit based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On their face, diversity, equity and inclusion may seem uncontentious. Higher education institutions, along with many businesses, have devoted resources to inclusivity for years.

"DEI is woven into the fabric of good universities, said Karma Chavez, chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and co-chair of the College of Liberal Arts diversity committee at the University of Texas.

Campus DEI offices often spearhead services tailored to students of various races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures and abilities. Some college administrators also consider diversity and equity when admitting students, providing scholarships or deciding which faculty to hire and promote. Applicants may be asked not only for resumes and references, but also for statements about how they would advance DEI efforts.

Tepper contends DEI initiatives are ideologically driven" on a Marxist foundation." Republican lawmakers in other states have used similar arguments.

Duringa recent Missouri House debate,Republican Rep. Doug Richey put forth a series of budget amendments prohibiting state funding for DEI initiatives in government agencies and higher education. He asserted the offices espouse "racist policies and Marxist ideology that is trying to strip away from us the concepts of the nuclear family, of merit, of character and of being judged by what you are capable of.

Provisions blocking spending on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts also have been added to budget bills in Kansas and Texas. Separate bills banning spending for DEI offices in higher education have been proposed in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia, though some of those already have failed.

Other bills, such asin Ohioand South Carolina, would allow such offices but ban mandatory DEI training and forbid administrators from requesting DEI statements from staff and students.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts administration warned state entities in February not to use DEI factors in employment decisions. That prompted the state's largest university systems to pause such practices and led students at the University of Texas to organize in defense of DEI efforts.

It feels like an attack on my identity, said Sameeha Rizvi, a university senior who said she has benefitted from DEI initiatives as a Muslim woman of color with a disability. It is exceptionally hurtful and tiring to see this very hateful rhetoric being employed by legislators."

The American Association of University Professors, which has about 45,000 members nationwide, said the bills mischaracterize DEI initiatives.

"Theyre dog whistling that DEI initiatives are something sinister and subversive that people should be afraid of, and thats not true at all, association President Irene Mulvey said.

The Martin Center and Goldwater Institute releasedmodel legislationlast year describing mandatory DEI statements from students and staff as a prohibited political test. Lawmakers in Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma andTexas all filed billsthis year using the suggested wording.

Cicero Action, an advocacy group based in Austin, Texas, and the newly formed Do No Harm organization, based in Richmond, Virginia, also have provided guidance to state lawmakers drafting bills against diversity, equity and inclusion requirements in higher education. Similar bills in Missouri and Tennessee both follow Do No Harm's outline of barring mandatory DEI instruction for medical students and health care providers.

University of Missouri medical students have lobbied against the legislation, asserting it could jeopardize the school's accreditation and prevent doctors from learning about unique circumstances affecting the health of people from various ethnic, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds.

Were not just hurting ourselves, were hurting patients if these bills get passed, medical student Jay Devineni said.

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GOP states targeting diversity, equity efforts in higher ed - Spectrum News NY1

Wisconsins rich history of multi-party politics goes back to the 1849 gubernatorial contest between Democrat Nelson Dewey, Whig Alexander Collins and abolitionist Warren Chase.

In those days, the Democrats and the Whigs were the major parties. But Chase, a member of the socialist Ceresco community who had been a delegate to the 1847 Constitutional Convention and won election to the first state Senate in 1848, made a credible showing for the Free Soil Party, which had been formed a year earlier, and which would eventually give way to the Republican Party.

Since the Republicans got started in Ripon in 1854, the competition has generally been between the Grand Old Party and the Democrats. But they've rarely been the only parties on the ballot. The Progressive Party, which briefly merged left-wing Republicans and Socialist Party activists into the most viable third party in the state's history, actually won three gubernatorial elections and two U.S. Senate races in the 1930s and 1940s. The Socialist Party never won a statewide race, but it was the second largest party in the state Legislature during the 1920s (displacing the Democrats) and sent Victor Berger to the U.S. House as the representative from Milwaukee through much of that decade.

For the past 50 years, the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin presented itself as an alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans. One of the oldest affiliates of the national Libertarian Party, the state party is holding its convention in Milwaukee this weekend, and its members had a half-century of history to celebrate. That history merits attention, even from those of us who may differ with the Libertarians on particular issues. You dont have to agree with the partys small government agenda to recognize that its healthy to have a diversity of opinions on the debate stage, and a diversity of parties on the ballot.

While the Libertarians have not won statewide elections in Wisconsin, they have elected a number of members to county and municipal posts over the years. And, at several turns, they have influenced the politics of the state.

In 2016, for instance, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson won more than 100,000 votes, for 3.58% of the total far more than the margin that separated Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. That year, exit polls suggested that the Libertarians attracted votes from substantial numbers of Republicans and Democrats who were unsatisfied with the nominees of their own parties just as Green Party nominee Ralph Nader did when he won almost 100,000 votes in 2000. In 2020, Libertarian presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen got 38,491 votes almost double Democrat Joe Biden's winning margin in Wisconsin.

The most historic Wisconsin Libertarian finish came in 2002, when Tomah Mayor Ed Thompson, the brother of former Gov. Tommy Thompson, was the partys gubernatorial nominee. Running on a ticket with Democratic state Rep. Marty Reynolds, Thompson advocated for decriminalization of marijuana, lowering the drinking age to 18 and reducing prison populations by releasing nonviolent offenders.

Thompson's freewheeling campaign struck a chord, especially with young voters. He won 185,455 votes statewide and carried Monroe and Juneau counties. Thompson's double-digit finish won the Libertarians a place on the old Wisconsin State Elections Board, where its representative advocated for smart election reforms

The Libertarians have remained active in recent years as have the Greens and their candidates have won a fair number of votes in state and local elections. In so doing, they have lived up to their promise to offer voters an alternative to the broken two party system in America.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.jnichols@captimes.comand @NicholsUprising.

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Opinion | Libertarians have produced 50 years of alternatives for Wisconsin - The Capital Times

A few days ago, I arrived in Los Angeles for a three-month sabbatical from Harvard. Im renting an apartment in a gorgeous downtown building complete with rooftop pool, hot tub, gym and yoga studio. But across the street is Pershing Plaza, where every night dozens of homeless people sleep rough. In the mornings, my dog is perplexed by the sight of humans, like dogs, peeing on the streets. If she could speak, I imagine her saying: LA is a rich city, California is a rich state and America is a rich country. Cant you humans fix this?

Meanwhile, I read in the Harvard Gazette about the new $300 million gift by hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin to the universitys faculty of arts and sciences, which will see its graduate school renamed in his honour. Tax-deductible it may be, but its still a generous gift, especially because graduate programmes are often orphans in the philanthropic portfolio. I may even personally benefit if Griffin funds end up supporting graduate students in my department.

The Griffin gift is also laudable for being unrestricted. This distinguishes it from most other philanthropic gifts, whose attached strings tend to support programmes aligned with the wealthy donors values and belief system.

In our new book, The Big Myth, Erik Conway and I show how the post-war rise to power and influence of the Chicago School of Economics was in part the product of libertarian philanthropists who funded specific research programmes, hand-picked likeminded researchers, and funded them generously. The likes of George Stigler and Milton Friedman were part of an explicit Free Market Project to create a blueprint for an effective competitive system of free enterprise (but without competition from colleagues who held opposing views.)

One element was called the Antitrust Project, although in reality it was the opposite. Both classical and neoclassical economics saw competition as central to the workings of markets, but members of the Antitrust Project constructed an economic analogy to Darwins theory of natural selection to argue that monopolies were the natural outcome of competition in which the fittest company survived. Hence, government attempts to break up monopolies were undoing the markets good work.

The projects most famous product was Robert Bork, Richard Nixons failed nominee for the Supreme Court. Bork insisted that what mattered was not competition but price. So long as prices were low, it didnt matter how they were achieved. This became known as the Consumer Welfare Standard. The term is misleading since prices are not the only thing that matters to consumers, but Bork was a brilliant jurist and his arguments fuelled the case not only for deregulating monopolies, such as airlines and telecommunications, in the 1970s and 80s, but for undermining antitrust enforcement for more than 40 years.

This contributed to the rise of politically, socially and environmentally damaging monopolies in telecommunications, agriculture, retailing and more. And, in a noxious feedback loop, the concentration of wealth, enabled the owners of these monopolies to further influence academia. Law professor Herbert Hovenkamp has recently concluded that what kept the Chicago School alive was less the strength of its arguments and more the financial support of firms and others who stood to profit from less intervention.

This is one example among many. Historian Nancy MacLean has documented how the Koch brothers have donated huge sums intended to influence academic programs in a libertarian direction. This includes nearly $50 million given since 2005 to the George Mason University Foundation, a big slice of which has supported the universitys market-fundamentalist Mercatus Center, infamous among climate scientists for its many years spent denying climate science.

Researchers at Brown University have shown how many universities Brown included have accepted fossil fuel money that may be skewing climate research. At Harvard, for many years convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein funded programmes focused on the genetic origins of human behaviour with a creepy eugenic bent. More recently, Bill Gates has funded a climate programmededicated to advancing geo-engineering.

Some people will agree with the politics and ideologies behind these donations; that is their right. The problem is that philanthropic donations distort the marketplace of ideas, because they tilt the agenda of universities towards views and solutions favoured by the wealthy at the expense of open inquiry and a more capacious research agenda that focuses not just on technical and commercial approaches to market failures but also social and political ones.

After all, where is the libertarian billionaire prepared to fund a serious effort to understand and end homelessness? Griffin, a Republican mega-donor, is certainly not that billionaire. Nor is he doing anything for equality in US higher education; as our research also underlined, he is typical of philanthropists in favouring private universities, many of which, like Harvard, are already super-rich (McKenzie Scotts recent $2.7 billion gift to institutions serving under-represented students was as notable as it was rare).

But if it makes good use of Griffins unrestricted donation, Harvards faculty of arts and sciences may at least be able to make some progress towards understanding and addressing the causes of homelessness and ending the obscenity of people being forced to live like dogs.

Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea professor of the history of science at Harvard University and a visiting fellow at the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles. Her new book, with Erik M. Conway, is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, published by Bloomsbury Press.

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Big university donors distort research agendas - Times Higher Education

By Insider Staff - Apr 17, 2023 |

If It Sounds Like a Quack

On April 20, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear) visits Gibsons Bookstore, on 45 S Main St, in Concord to present a bizarre, rollicking trip through the world of fringe medicine, filled with leeches, baking soda IVs, and, according to at least one person, zombies, with his new book If It Sounds Like a Quack: A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine! Its no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you cant afford doctors, or dont trust them? In this book, Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments.

CYPN Earth Day Hike

Join Concord Young Professionals Network (CYPN) and Five Rivers Conservation Trust for an Earth Day hike and trail clean up, on April 22, from 1 to 3 p.m. This is a great opportunity to build professional connections and community friendships while doing our part for Earth Day. Enjoy the company of fellow YPs for an easy and educational walk to explore the Armstrong Forest Preserve in Concord. Our goal is to collect debris, trash and recycling as we enjoy Earth Day together!

Suggested Items To Bring: Trash bag, gloves, hand sanitizer, bug spray, snacks, waters and any required medication for an outdoor activity.

Location: The Armstrong Forest Preserve is located on Stickney Hill Rd in Concord directly across from the Exit 3 ramp from I-89 North. This ramp is only accessible to northbound traffic.

History of farming as told by barns

Barns can tell us a great deal about the history of agriculture in New Hampshire. In the colonial period, New Hampshire was a rural, agrarian state and small subsistence farms dotted the landscape. An important part of these farmsteads was the barn, which housed animals and stored crops. Early barns used traditional building methods and followed the English barn style, with a low pitched roof and doors under the eaves. As time went on, the farms expanded to accommodate changes in agriculture.

This presentation will follow the progression of barn styles that evolved to handle the increased productivity required to meet the needs of a growing population and respond to changes in society caused by the railroad and the Industrial Revolution. Join John C. Porter, author of Preserving Old Barns: Preventing the Loss of a Valuable Resource, on April 20, at 7 p.m. at the Pembroke Town Library, 313 Pembroke St., as he will demonstrate how these majestic barn structures represent Yankee ingenuity, hard work, and skilled craftsmanship, as well as providing a link to our past that adds to the states scenic beauty. This event is hosted by the Pembroke Historical Society, and for more information, contact Sarah Hyland, at 603-566-1031.

Brewing in New Hampshire

Glenn Knoblock explores the fascinating history of New Hampshires beer and ale brewing industry from Colonial days, when it was home- and tavern-based, to todays modern breweries and brew pubs. Unusual and rare photos and advertisements document this changing industry and the states earliest brewers, including the renowned Frank Jones. A number of lesser-known brewers and breweries that operated in the state are also discussed, including the only brewery owned and operated by a woman before the modern era. Illustrations present evidence of societys changing attitudes towards beer and alcohol consumption over the years. Whether youre a beer connoisseur or a tea-totaler, this lecture will be enjoyed by adults of all ages. The event will be held at the Epsom Public Library, 1606 Dover Rd., on April 24, at 6:30p.m. For more information, contact the Epsom Public Library at 603-763-9920.

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Bulletin board for the week of April 20, 2023 - The Concord Insider