Montana Republicans headed for Helena hand basket

In 2020, because of poor ranching practices the nearly 50,000 acre Huff Fire burned through the white supremacist town of Jordan, known as the home of the Montana Freemen. Today, much of Montana will burn again because it’s overrun with dry invasive cheatgrass but as a Republican stronghold few land managers want responsibility for prescribed burns that escape planned boundaries. 

A wildfire burning on Mount Helena is proving Republicans are poorly equipped to fight blazes even in their own backyards after a blaze began in grass, moved into timber then threatened a neighborhood.

“This has been the hottest August on record so far,” Joe Messina, National Weather Service meteorologist said on Wednesday. "Even without data from the 31st – which I believe we are looking at a potential record for today as well – it's still been the hottest record as far as average temperature. The daily average temperature, the mean temperature for the month of August, is 73.8 degrees, and that beats the old record of 71.5 set in 1971.” [Helena Independent Record]

Yet, the state's Republican dystopiocracy filed an appeal to reverse American Prairie's bison restoration in the most fire prone parts of Montana. Yes, Montana's Earth haters are wielding the power of government to stifle free enterprise in a state where freedom is paramount. Realtors in Montana are even capitalizing on racist paranoia amid Donald Trump’s calls for the End Times. 

American Prairie (APR) near Malta in north-central Montana got its first bison from Wind Cave in occupied South Dakota in 2005 and hopes to have 1,000 animals grazing on some three million acres of federal land owned by the Bureau of Land Management including 63,000 in Phillips County connected with corridors to a half million acres of private ground. A recent decision by the BLM allows for 7,969 animal unit months at $1.35 per AUM of permitted use with a 1:1 conversion from cattle to bison.

Trump's first Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke blames wildfires in the West on those he calls “radical environmentalists” despite most acres burn every year on private ranch land in Republican counties and despite a federal probe after he abused his office to block a tribal casino he's ahead in polls to go to DC again. Zinke is just another political opportunist in the extreme white wing of the Republican Party whose career has been financed on the public dole.

Just a hundred and fifty years ago bison, wapiti, bighorn sheep, pronghorns and deer cleared the grasses driving Montana's fire years. If grasses remained in the fall tribes burned the rest.

Learn more at Montana Free Press.

Visiting @AmericanPrairie in National Discovery Center in Lewistown Montana USA to see @ceres_tag on display that @smithsonian use for the rewilding of bison. #wildlife #rewilding #satelite #tracking #AnimalWelfare #conservation #bison pic.twitter.com/4BkKZ4Diqs

— Ceres Tag (@ceres_tag) August 28, 2022