Welcome to the Montana Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

I call this file "tidbits", updated 08/08/2010
Just my way of saying "Thanks!" (see start.html for details)
If it wasn't for folks like former Montana BLM DSD Janet Singer, Diane Friez, Robin Stoebe ...you probably wouldn't be reading this.

Look for more BLM News here; until the US Department of the Interior puts the Montana Dakotas BLM management back on a moral and ethical track,
whenever available, revealing bits of insider information will continue to become public knowledge.

For all previous entries (such as Ethics violations, Prohibited Personnel Practices,
Funds Diversions, Discrimination, Articles written by former BLM'ers etc.)

click these links...
WhistleBlower 1999/2000
WhistleBlower 2001
WhistleBlower 2002
WhistleBlower 2003
WhistleBlower 2004
WhistleBlower 2005
WhistleBlower 2006
WhistleBlower 2007
WhistleBlower 2008
WhistleBlower 2009

Look below - for 2010 - Current/New entries

Welcome to 2010! Hey Interior & the Montana BLM ... Are we having fun yet?

Read..."The Uncivil Service"...at NewWest.net
The Uncivil Service, Chapters 1 & 2
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 3
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 4
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 5
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 6
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 7
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 8
The Uncivil Service, Chapter 9

BLM surface acres...From 264 million acres of your public lands to 254 million today, this change in total surface acres since 2000,
where are your public lands going? (see public land stat links below)
(BLM says it's mostly the Alaska Native Land Exchange Settlement)

In January 2000, the Montana BLM finished sticking the knife in my back...thus these webpages (from 1999 to 2010) - paybacks are a bitch huh ;>)GF

In the News:
BLM Public Land Stats
S1466, Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act of 2003 (BLM)
Interior Secretary Salazar ends first year with vows of reform
Reaction mixed to BLM’s reforms

ZoomInfo Business People Information - Janet Singer
ZoomInfo: Tim Murphy
ZoomInfo: Diane Friez
ZoomInfo: Robin Stoebe

NEW SCIENCE RULES FOR OFFSHORE DRILLING SEND MIXED MESSAGE (Interior - MMS)
BLM defends its closed meetings (BLM - WY)
Officials critical of BLM’s secrecy (BLM - WY)
BLM Launches Enviromental Assessment of Grazing Allotments (BLM - MT)
Conservation group passes 4,100 acres near Garnet, Ovando to BLM (BLM - MT)
PROBE INTO MISAPPROPRIATION OF DESERT TORTOISE MONEY (BLM - UT)

Western Slope No-Fee Coalition - A Group Working for Fee Free Public Lands (FS & BLM)
A Proposed Plan to Transplant Wolves Nationwide (NPS)
Wilderness in 2010: See which states could gain new protections
Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List
The Washington Independent - National News

Yummy! Ammonia-Treated Pink Slime Now in Most U.S. Ground Beef
Past decade the hottest on record
The Nitrogen Dilemma: Is America Fertilizing Disaster? (synthetic nitrogen)

Welcome to Montana!
Baucus denounces as personal smear video suggesting he was drunk during health reform bill floor debate
Montana Public Wildlife - Initiative 161

(Posted 02/07/2010)

Mountain States Legal Foundation:

A CHANCE, IN HIGHER EDUCATION, TO GET IT RIGHT ON RACE

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been quoted as bemoaning that some of her opinions are being set aside.
When it comes to her disastrous 2003 opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, in which she, aided by the Court’s liberal bloc, authorized colleges
and universities to use racial preferences to grant admission for 25 more years, reversal could not come soon enough.
Like the Court’s pusillanimous 1980 ruling in Fullilove v. Klutznick, which approved the use of race in federal government contracting
and emboldened its use by state and local governments until halted by the Court in City of Richmond v. J.A Croson Company in 1989,
and Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission, which in 1990 allowed the use of race to award broadcast licenses
until ended by the Court’s 1995 ruling in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, Grutter spawned much mischief.
Happily, the Court has a chance to undo O’Connor’s misstep in a case now at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

When the Fifth Circuit ruled the University of Texas Law School’s use of race to grant admission unconstitutional in 1996,
Texas enacted a law granting automatic admission to any of the state’s public colleges or universities to Texas students in the top 10 percent
of their high school class; minority enrollment soared. Nonetheless, after Grutter, the University of Texas reinstituted its use of race
for admission. As a result, Abigail Fisher of Sugar Land and Rachel Michalewicz of Buda were denied admission; in April 2008, they sued.

In August 2009, a Texas federal district court ruled for the University; the Texans appealed.
Although the Fifth Circuit could reverse for factual reasons, e.g., the district court relied improperly on student surveys and the University’s
unsupported judgment of the “critical mass” of minority students it needs, legal experts are focused on whether Grutter squares with the
Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence. In short, it does not!

In her opinion in Adarand, in which the Court overturned Metro Broadcasting—decided five years earlier—Justice O’Connor rejected demands
by the dissenting justices that, under stare decisis et quieta non movere (to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled),
Metro Broadcasting not be overturned.
Although Metro Broadcasting had been decided recently, wrote Justice O’Connor, in it “the Court took a surprising turn” that “undermined important principles
of this Court’s equal protection jurisprudence, established in a line of cases stretching back over 50 years . . . .”

Like Metro Broadcasting, Grutter is a constitutional aberration because it took the same “surprising turn” by “undermin[ing]”
the most “important principle[]” of equal protection jurisprudence—application of “strict scrutiny.” Thus, instead of viewing racial classifications
(“odious to a free people”) with skepticism and demanding that those who use them carry the burden of justifying their use,
Grutter presumed that Michigan Law School’s use of racial preferences to grant admission was constitutional by assuming that the
Law School had a compelling interest and that it had acted in good faith.

That is not “strict scrutiny” as applied by the Court for half a century or as discussed by Justice O’Connor in Adarand.
There she declared that the use of race by governmental entities is “inherently suspect” and “constitutionally suspect” and requires judicial
scrutiny to “smoke out” its use when “motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.”
That is because the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection is for “persons, not groups,” and is a “personal right to equal protection
of the laws [that may not be] infringed.”

In Adarand, in her final rebuke to the dissenting justices, Justice O’Connor declared that, by overturning Metro Broadcasting,
“we do not depart from the fabric of the law, we restore it.” If and when Grutter meets the same fate as Metro Broadcasting,
Sandra Day O’Connor may take solace that the fabric of the law has been restored.

Spring came to the West End in February this year...warmer weather & lots less snow than usual

In the News:
Salazar to Tester: No plans for national monument in Montana (Interior)
States_for_Designation.pdf (National Monument Designations Under the Antiquities Act)- Internal Draft not for Release
Energy groups relieved sage grouse won't be listed (Interior)
Federal Gov't Pledges Up to $16Million for Sage Grouse in West (USDA)
BLM issues sage grouse guidelines (WY)
BLM Sets Sale of Wild Horses in Wyoming
BLM Defends its Closed Meetings (WY)
BLM ponders road to provide hunt access in southern Phillips County (MT)
Grazing fees on public lands unchanged for 2010 (BLM)

IS IT TIME FOR CONGRESS TO ABOLISH THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL? (Yes!)
OBAMA GAG ORDER ON FEDERAL WORKERS LIKE THOSE UNDER BUSH (USFS)
CALL FOR INSPECTOR GENERAL REVIEW OF BISON RANGE OPERATIONS
BISON KILLED IN ANNUAL BISON RANGE ROUNDUP

Left and right united in opposition to controversial Supreme Court Decision
Credit Card reform may shock some

U.S. Sitting on Mother Lode of Rare Tech-Crucial Minerals

The solution is Net Neutrality - Send Your Comments to the FCC
Distributed Solar Generation
Know Your Solar
The Tricky Geopolitics of Nitrogen Fertilizer
Sridhar electrifies the world with magic Bloom box Fuel Cell
Murkowski wants to save Alaska by destroying it (ANWR)


The Vietnam War: Destroying the Village In Order to Save It...
US at War: A History of Shame

Welcome to Montana!

smells like Republican to me...
Montana Policy.Org - Montana Right Wing Think Tank 501c
Western Montana rich in medicinal plant power, expert says
Medical Marijuana reviewer William Breathes: Yes, I do inhale

And we hear Denny is going to chair National Safe Boating Week in Montana this year ;>)...
2nd Rehberg staffer on hunting trip that led to state director's poaching citation

(Posted 03/14/2010)

Spring is here...and spring bear season...a good time to walk in the woods.

If you see someone collecting signatures (like me) to get I-161 on the ballot...sign the petition!

In the News:
Boulder forum aims to help BLM devise conservation plan
GAO Finds Issues With Alaska's MMS (Interior)
Interior Dept to Study AK's Newest Oil,Gas Leases
Interior to Review Foreign Oil & Gas Royalties
BLM OK's Sale of Powder River Basin Coal Reserves
Oil & Gas Leases Put on Hold in MT/Dakotas
Salazar's Policy Changes Will Improve BLM Decisions (Mat Millenbach)
Indian Trust Settlement Defended (Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes)
BLM May Sell Land for Simplot Mine in Southeast Idaho
ID Rancher May Lose Grazing Permit
Rancher Helps Feds Acquire Key Land Parcel (BLM - MT)
BLM Fines Conservationists Over Grazing Permit (BLM - ID)
Officials "Close to Certain" Wolves Killed AK Teacher
Single Payer Action - Everybody In, Nobody Out

Welcome to Montana!
FWP Commissioners OK New State Park Near Alberton
Billings Area Sportsman Challenges Outfitter Set-aside Licenses with Ballot Initiative, I-161
Why Initiative 161
Vote Yes on I-161

(Posted 04/18/2010)

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES FEE FREE DAYS
Here's the schedule of 2010 Fee Free Days:
National Parks: April 17-25
National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and "many" BLM fee sites (check locally):
June 5-6, August 14-15, September 25 (Public Lands Day) and November 11 (Veterans' Day)

S. 868
S. 868: Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2009
EFFECTS Of The Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2009
Interior IG OPENS BISON RANGE INVESTIGATION
Senators Ask BLM to Expedite Oil, Gas Leases
Official: Interior secretary OKs Mass. wind farm
Interior Chief Salazar Faces High Stakes Test with Oil Spill
Haley: Show your teeth, Sheriff Salazar
Minerals, oil agency to be split in two parts, White House says
The federal MMS: a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry
Obama admin overhauls MMS, the agency in charge of offshore drilling
AK MMS Oil regulator apologizes for "drill baby drill" cake
Former officials seek oil and gas leasing reform, balance

Gene Terland BLM chief for Montana, Dakotas retires (BLM - MT)
Groups sue BLM over Oil/Gas Development Plan (BLM - WY)
The Nation's Largest Landlord: The Bureau of Land Management in the American West
BLM Files Settlement Agreement
BLM Seeks Information on Recent Vandalism near Miles City

Officials Close to Certain Wolves Killed Alaska Teacher

Single Payer Action: Everybody In, Nobody Out
Western Slope No Fee - Concessionaire Issues

Welcome to Montana!
I161:Montana Outfitter Sponsored Big Game Licenses in the Crosshairs
Elk Foundation, Pro-Wolf Groups Need to Walk the Talk

(Posted 05/23/2010)

I've been away too long...too much summer (not possible) ...too little time (true)...GF
Government Accountability is a Citizen's (YOUR) Responsibility

WHISTLEBLOWER WATCHDOG? get the osc facts

Tomorrow, Scott Bloch, former head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), is scheduled to be sentenced before Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson.
Bloch has pleaded guilty to one count of criminal contempt of Congress for not disclosing the nature and extent of his instructions
that a private company erase files from his government-issued computer and the computers of two other Office of Special Counsel employees.
As this ominous day approaches, from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel Fiscal year 2008 Annual Report, here are some highlights of Bloch’s
five-year OSC career:

During his tenure, Scott Bloch reduced total matters pending at OSC by 56 percent. Statistical analysis indicates he accomplished this by
having his agency throw out matters without investigating them. In Fiscal Year 2008, of 2,447 Prohibited Personnel Practice (PPP) Complaints,
OSC referred six percent of them to the Complaints Examining Unit (CEU). Of these, only 88 were processed.
Prohibited Personnel Practice Complaints made up 67 percent of total matters, yet only 88 of 2,447, four percent were processed by investigators.

In FY 2008, OSC obtained zero stays from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the quasi-judicial agency tasked with enforcing
federal civil service law. In the same year, OSC filed zero corrective action petitions with MSPB.

On whistleblower disclosure activity, OSC received 530 new disclosures in FY 2008. Of these, 25 were reported to the President
and Congress. That’s less than five percent that were investigated and any determination made on disclosure validity.
Looking at it another way, 95 percent of whistleblower disclosures were not acknowledged by OSC.

That then, explains the record low satisfaction ratings OSC garnered in its survey of customers. Of those that responded to its survey,
only 1 out of every 21 respondents obtained a satisfactory result from OSC.
Moreover, more than half of respondents indicated that their complaint included allegations of whistleblowing.
On a five-point scale, 200 of 220 rated OSC’s results as either dissatisfactory or very dissatisfactory.

As Scott Bloch heads for sentencing tomorrow, he leaves behind innocent victims sentenced to reprisal by his failure to protect those
he was tasked to serve. Additionally, as Special Counsel William E. Reukauf’s message from OSC’s Annual Report reads,
“FY 2008 was a challenging time for this small, but important, agency.
Employees were called upon to respond to and cooperate with two extensive inquiries involving the then-agency head,
including a grand jury investigation, and execution of search warrants on agency premises.”

the good ol' boy network of federal judges doing their thing - with no accountability ...(note the name Shanstrom) in the article...
the only way to get rid of 'em is if they (please) die...
Retired Supreme Court Justice O’Connor and 9th panel to hear cases in Billings (BLM - MT)

BLM promises to resolve its lease backlog
BLM Seeks to Restore Mule Deer Habitat on Pinedale Anticline Lost from Oil & Gas Development (WY)
Ex-BLM chief backs wild-horse preserve
Another sentenced in 4 Corners artifacts case (BLM - UT)
Appeals court sides with BLM in Wyo. gas drilling
Habitat Group Dismayed by Delays at Pumpkin Creek Recreation Area (BLM - MT - MCFO)

MMS gets a makeover, smell lingers 06/25/2010
BUY MMS MEMENTOS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE (Interior)
IS THE U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE THE NEXT MMS?
Great Outdoors Initiative forum held in Helena 06/02/2010

OSHA EXPERT FILES WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT
WHISTLEBLOWER APPEAL TO TEST OBAMA POLICIES

"the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today upheld her status as a whistleblower and threw out the main charge used to justify her removal in 2004"...

Interior is still fighting this decision...
CHAMBERS WINS APPEAL OVER REMOVAL AS U.S. PARK POLICE CHIEF

Paleoclimatologist studies sea levels in a desert
Russia struggles against heat wave and spreading wildfires

Senate rejects $3B Indian trust settlement
Cobell settlement flops...again 07/23/2010
Cobell settlement hangs by a thread 05/28/2010

Florida Beach Access Win A New Twist in Property Battle
2009: Republican Legacy
Idaho will explore wolf hunt, despite relisting

Welcome to Montana!
Montana Cowgirl Blog - Political Gossip, Satire, and Analysis from MT's Capitol City
Rehberg tells firefighters he feels their pain
Reports reconstruct Rehberg Ranch fires now under dispute

(posted 08/08/2010)