Up first on The Western Word (TWW) blog today is the story about water.
It looks like the White House and Congressman Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., are coming through with some money for Montana water projects according to a STORY in the Great Falls Tribune today.

They plan to fund $800,000 to the Rocky Boy’s/North Central project, $7 million for the Fort Peck MR&I/Dry Prairie Rural Water Project, and $500,000 for the St. Mary Canal rehabilitation project.

Although he is now in the minority, Congressman Rehberg has fought off the earmark attacks from the democrats to keep these projects afloat that he and former Senator Conrad Burns, R-Mont., had provided funding for in the past.

Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., applauded the funding (which is about all they can do) but according to the story, “Both senators said they’d continue to lobby for the water projects.”

Lobby? Huh?

The second story on TWW today is the love affair with a schedule.
There’s been a lot of attention made that U.S. Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., places his schedule on his website. A few other elected officials have followed his campaign promise to let the public know his schedule.

After reading some of these stories, I have been checking his schedule. It seems his staff waits a few days before putting it up. For example, today is March 16. The schedule posted on his website is for March 14. I’m sure that as one of only 100 Senators, Mr. Tester knows what he’s doing each morning and has his schedule in hand. But, for some reason it does not get posted on his website for days. Maybe this is just smoke and mirrors and his schedule is vetted by a number of people to take off some of the appointments he has with people that he or his staff does not want to disclose? But maybe they are just too busy.

And finally on TWW today is the story about the U.S. Senate, particularly the U.S. Senate democrats and the war in Iraq.
The U.S. Senate did not even get a majority of votes for the “United States Policy in Iraq Resolution of 2007.”

The resolution only received 48 votes. Basically, the resolution said that almost all troops would be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Montana’s Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., voted for the resolution. They also co-sponsored it.

I think resolutions like this one do harm to our troops and to our nation as a whole. Let’s divide Iraq into about three states or areas along the same way as it was done in Bosnia. Bring the groups to the table, tell them the plan and let them make the decision.