Allright- since it is a Monday, and I have a stack of articles you may be interested in, I figure’d I would simply throw a few articles together in this political trough post for you:
Great Falls Tribune: Dem Sheriff Speaks Up on Guns (my headline, not their’s)
Edwards (Cascade County Sheriff) wrote he wanted to set the record straight because he has been fielding a lot of questions regarding his opinion on gun laws. Everyday he said he receives phone calls and emails, inquiring into his opinions of President Barack Obama’s executive orders on gun control and the gun debate as a whole.
“Everyone wants to wipe out guns. I’m pro-Second Amendment, and I believe the laws we have in place should curb a lot of this, but there have to be people that enforce them,” he said. “A lot of the laws are not being enforced.”
An Associated Press story published Friday reported that at least five Montana sheriffs are resisting new federal gun regulations. Powell County Sheriff Scott Howard said he won’t enforce any “unconstitutional” federal gun regulations
AP: Some Democrats may stand in Obama’s way on gun measures
“There’s a core group of Democratic senators, most but not all from the West, who represent states with a higher-than-average rate of gun ownership but an equally strong desire to feel their kids are safe,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “They’re having hard but good conversations with people back home to identify the middle-ground solutions that respect the Second Amendment but make it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on guns.” The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
All eyes are on these dozen or so Democrats, some of whom face re-election in 2014. That includes Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
AP: Once GOP stronghold, West veers into Dems’ column
The West has become largely Democratic terrain.
Voters in Washington state in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage. New Mexico was once a tightly contested state, but Republicans ceded it to Democrats in the presidential campaign.
There are, as always, exceptions.
Lightly populated Idaho and Wyoming remain strongly Republican, as does Utah. Democrats are struggling in Arizona, where the immigration debate has given Republicans a lock on statewide offices but may provide Democrats an opening by firming up their support among the state’s growing Hispanic population.
Financial Times story picked up by the Drudge Report: Shale gas boom now visible from space
Oil companies at the heart of the US shale oil boom are burning off enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington combined in a practice causing growing concern about the waste of resources and damage to the environment.
The volume of unwanted gas being flared off in North Dakota, the state leading the shale revolution transforming the outlook for US energy, rose about 50 per cent last year. The surge at the state’s Bakken formation is being replicated in other shale regions with the Texas state regulator issuing 1,963 permits to flare in 2012, more than six times the number of 306 in 2010.
The lights of the flares burning in the Bakken and Texas’ Eagle Ford shale fields can clearly be seen in night-time satellite photography.
The Dickinson Press: Algeria attack could boost Norwegian stake in ND’s Bakken
Last week’s terrorist attack on an Algerian oil facility could divert Norwegian oil giant Statoil to increased oil production in safer regions, including North Dakota’s Bakken and Three Forks formations, where the two-thirds government owned Statoil already has made a heavy investment.
Five Statoil employees are among the missing after terrorists took hostages and Algerian forces stormed the facility. At least 23 hostages died.