Former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea to negotiate the release of two American journalists who were arrested and sentenced to 10-12 years of hard labor–North Korean style… whatever that means.

Fmr. President Bill Clinton, during his visit to North Korea to negotiate the release of two jailed journalists. (Photo Courtesy: NY Times)

As announced in today’s New York Times, here, Kim Jong-il agreed to their release.

Clinton, a former U.S. President and husband of our current Secretary of State, is both a historically unique and unusually effective rendition of the Track II diplomat. While we’ve tended to label them as self-serving anti-patriots, Clinton’s work today proves the opposite. 

We stand corrected… Sometimes Track II diplomacy works.

The federal government, via supreme court rulings, must give American Indians water access and foot the bill for maintaining water infrastructure on reservations. Beside this requirement, numerous tribes, including the Crow, still have in hand treaties signed by the feds with more specific guarantees to their water sovereignty.

According to the Associated Press, the settlement would send the Crow tribe $40 million for economic development, $160 million for irrigation, and $200 million for municipal and industrial water infrastructure.

[IMAGE REMOVED FOR TECHNICAL REASONS AT REQUEST OF OWNER]

The Crow reservation sits along Montana’s southeastern border with Wyoming. It draws its water from the Bighorn River, which begins in Wyoming, and runs north until reaching Montana.

Unfortunately, water sovereignty isn’t a big issue with Republican U.S. Senator from Wyoming, John Barrasso. He killed the last settlement attempt and appears to be stalling this one. Even though he sits on the foreign relations committee, and aught to understand the concept of sovereignty and treaties, he’s more interested in being stingy with Wyoming’s water and keeping it from the crow tribe.

That’s why Barrasso’s being stingy. He doesn’t care about honoring past agreements, and neither do his consituents, at least if it involves Indians.

After all, his constituents are all white, so why worry about anybody else?

Well today’s L.A. Times ran a piece on the U.S. Army’s first “agri-business development team,” currently deployed to nine of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. As the story outlines, their role is a mix between those played by the U.S. Special Forces and the Peace Corps. They’re befriending locals, and instead of training them in counter-insurgency and small-group ambush tactics, they’re working on irrigation techniques, fertilizing and new crop development, and long-term food storage.

As we’ve discussed in other posts, we believe the endgame in Afghanistan is agricultural in nature. Roads. Electricity. Transportation infrastructure. Water. And so on…

Many kudos to the LA Times.

Rio Tinto, an Australian mining company with deep ties to Montana’s landscape and politics, had four of its employees thrown into a Chinese jail for supposed industrial espionage.

China threw four Rio Tinto employees in jail for stealing state secrets following a folded $19 billion deal. (Image courtesy: Economist)

Here’s the latest take from CNN. And here’s a startling piece of bullshit from the Chinese Commerce Ministry urging western countries that this whole debacle won’t hamper China’s international trade environment at all. Right.

As one reads more closely, it becomes clear that China reacted quite harshly when Rio Tinto backed out of a major $19 billion deal. China then accused company employees of bribing officials at 16 different steel mills for industry information, ie state secrets.

Surely, China is pursuing the noble path here.

We all know how serious Beijing is about following the rule of law. We also know the government’s absolute insistence on due process for the accused. And everybody knows that China takes a hard stand against corruption.

So it must be a solid case that Beijing is building against the Rio Tinto folks, and not a case of strong arm, Machiavellian intimidation tactics.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd, former diplomat to China, left the G-8 summit to figure out how to respond to China's hard-ball maneuver. (Photo Courtesy: Telegraph)

As we’ve posted about here, we’re no fans of Rio Tinto because the company treats Montana politicians like cash-thirsty prostitutes and our landscape like a giant portable shitter.

But, as we’ve also posted about in too many places to list here, we’re no fans of the Chinese government either. In short: environment, Tibet, the Uyghurs, South China Sea, stealing land from poor farmers, shipping away little girls into poverty, and the quashing of freedoms in general.

They also have cyber spies.

But despite our loathing of Rio Tinto, and the way they do business in Montana, the idea that a company could be bullied by a country like China simply to punish them for a failed business deal just doesn’t jive with any notion of functional free markets. It’s also a move that undermines any sense of legitimacy and good will in diplomatic circles.

Chinese and American markets are simply too intertwined for this kind of example to mark the Chinese alternative to a negotiated agreement.

We’ll stop short there, knowing our comments have probably alerted the likes of Chinese cyber-securitas.

ACTUALLY, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THESE FALSE AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS. CHINA IS A GREAT BEACON OF PROGRESS TO THE BARBARIC WESTERN WORLD AND THEIR IMPRISONMENT OF RIO TINTO INDUSTRIAL SPIES IS A BIG STEP TOWARD A FLOWERING ECONOMIC FUTURE. WE WROTE THE ALLEGATIONS ABOVE OUT OF OUR INDIGNANCE TO CHINESE DOMINANCE AND OUR IGNORANCE OF HOW GREAT AND WONDERFUL THE CHINESE NATION TRULY IS. WE ARE SORRY. ALSO THE DALAI LAMA IS A FOOL.

However, in the interest of balance, we have to encourage a major surprise in U.S.-Russian relations. As the New York Times’ Peter Baker reports today, after years of undermining U.S. support to troops in Afghanistan, Russia announced they’ll let us use their airspace as a supply route.

This is a huge development, and not one we ever saw coming.

First, Russia considers Central Asia its sphere of influence–the premise for their trying to use diplomatic muscle against U.S. basing and troop supply agreements with countries like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Secondly, their posturing against U.S. interests has coincided with a multi-polarity strategy in which China, Russia, and other major Asian players act in concert with their own regional interests in an attempt to box-out U.S. Hegemony. Russia’s conceding its sovereign air space to support an American incursion in Central Asia turns this whole thing on its head.

So… we reluctantly applaud.

They both have also been naughty with the honesty, as each in their own special way, has gained publicity by lying or trying to take credit for things they either had nothing to do with, or opposed altogether.

We’re not sure exactly who’s worse: the Dennis who’s been doing it for eight years, or the Dennis who wants to take his place.

You be the judge of who’s more dishonest…

Dennis #1: Rehberg

This last week, our lone Congressman, Republican Dennis Rehberg, got caught in one of his typical dishonest claims.

As Missoula political blog 4and20blackbirds pointed out, he took credit for sending $500k in federal funding to a Missoula children’s shelter… after he voted against the funding.

Montana Republican Congressman Dennis Rehberg. After voting to cut funding for a children's shelter, he went on a photo op to take credit for securing the funding when it passed despite his vote.

Yes.

You read that right.

House Resolution 2847 sent the money to the Watson Children’s Shelter, and according to the record, Rehberg voted against it.

But that didn’t keep him from lying about it in a press relase headlined, “REHBERG SECURES $500,000 FOR WATSON CHILDREN’S SHELTER.”

It gets worse well beyond the headline…

“The Watson Children’s Shelter fills a critical need in Western Montana,” Rehberg said in the press release. “I’m pleased I was able to secure this critical funding to help make a real difference in the lives of Montana children.”

Heart-warming. Simply heart-warming.

Was it enough that Rehberg voted to cut the funding for western Montana’s only emergency children’s shelter? Or do you also need the sting that he lied to the press seeking credit for the funding when it went through?

Doubly dishonest.

Another head-scratcher is why the shelter’s Executive Director, Fran Albrecht went along with this. She was, “Deeply grateful that Congressman Rehberg is responding on behalf of Montana Children by helping secure funds that will allow us to double our capacity and give every child the safety and support they so desperately require.”

As notoriously-snarky celebrity blogger Angie Tempura would say, “Biiiiiiiiiitch pleeze.”

Dennis #2: McDonald

Dueling Dennis Rehberg, both for dishonesty and for his Congressional seat, is one of two Democratic challengers, Dennis McDonald. He’s an experienced defense attorney from California who retired to a Montana ranch in Melville, and is now running against a tax attorney from Missoula named Tyler Gernant in the Democratic primary (which we’ve posted about here, and here).

Democrat Dennis McDonald, attempting to replace double-talking Rehberg by doing some of his own double-talk: taking credit for international trade agreements that haven't even been signed.

McDonald raised quizzical eyebrows last week with a press release touting a diplomatic visit to Taiwan that would make both Hillary Clinton and Mike Mansfield’s heads spin.

In the announcement, he makes the bizarre move of taking credit for a trade deal that he had absolutely nothing to do with–one that hasn’t even happened yet.

Calling himself the former Montana Cattlemen’s Association President, McDonald’s press release claims a major ag victory with a headline reading: “TAIWAN SOON TO ACCEPT USA BEEF.”

Yes. You read that right. Taiwan has decided to fold on a major economic trade policy all because a congressional candidate from Montana showed up and had a couple meetings. Right.

It goes on about McDonald’s scheduling meetings with two Taiwanese officials, urging them to do the right thing and accept our beef–again, something that hasn’t actually happened yet.

A couple things it neglects mentioning…

One is that Congressional candidates don’t negotiate trade relations with foreign nations. The U.S. Department of State, along with spearheading from the Senate Finance Committee handles this stuff.

The other… as we’ve posted about here, is that our Senator and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus got out front on this issue months ago. His extensive diplomatic outreach urged pacific-rim nations to accept Montana beef.

Apparently, the Billings media isn’t too aware of this reality.

Former Democratic Senator from Montana, Mike Mansfield [Much Respect], would be pissed about this. A major proponent of stable trade relations with Asian states, Mansfield recognized this is hard enough to pull-off without political candidates undermining traditional foreign policy channels for short-term publicity stunts.

Track II diplomats always serve their own interests, not their country’s. Kissinger. Baker. Philby.

McDonald?

Put differently, McDonald’s stunt is a little like the Montana Militia declaring war on Afghanistan, sending a small band of renegades to the Kunar province to fire off a couple rounds before running away, and then returning home to take credit for everything the U.S. military has done there by issuing a snazzy press release.

Think this headline: “MONTANA MILITIA MAKES MAJOR GAINS AGAINST INSURGENTS DURING RECENT AFGHAN INCURSION.”

Or, if McDonald was behind the keyboard: “INSURGENTS SOON TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN.“

Not exactly honest eh?

The Bighorn and Powder River Basins beginning upstream in Wyoming and drain down into Montana's southeastern ag lands. (Image Courtesy: water-is-life.blogspot.com)

Just this past week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Wyoming’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Montana over Wyoming’s stinginess with up-stream water.

Great news for Montana because the case will now move forward.

Farmers and ranchers in eastern Montana desperately need this water, a drum they’ve been banging since the 1950 Yellowstone River Compact was signed. The Bighorn and Powder River basins both begin upstream in Wyoming, and continue down-slope to the north into Montana’s dry, southeastern ag land.

Folks out there have had a hard enough time making ends meet without Wyoming squeezing them dry. The past half century has brought them shrinking tax bases, crumbling infrastructure, declining population, periodic drought, and increased competition from large farming corporations.

Things are pretty bleak.

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, Executive Water Hog. If this were the old days, we'd let the Freemen handle this.

If this were Central Asia, farmers would be taking up arms for cross-border raids. But, alas, we’re fighting our war in the courts.

The funny thing is that with all our society’s technology, and “highly evolved” common law system grounded in property rights, we’re still wrapped ’round the axle of the same fights ethnic tribes across the globe have been fighting for a couple thousand years.

From our view, if Governor Schweitzer won’t call-out Freudenthal over the next couple days, we suggest he make a slightly different call…

His cousin LeRoy, a Montana Freemen militia leader, would be a great guy to pick up the phone and ham with. If these wanna be militia types really want to prove their worth, then get down to Wyoming and step-up for our state’s most valuable resource.

Track-II diplomacy meets armed insurgency, and we think the Governor’s cousin is the perfect guy for the job.

You folks in Jordan listening here?

Oil rigs are beginning to move again, especially in Daniels County, Montana.

Crescent Point Energy Trust is a major oil and gas financier active in Western Canada. Back in May, they made news for major expansions in southwest Saskatchewan. Talisman–also Canada-based–is an operations firm with global reach, including projects in southeast Asia, central/south America, and eastern Montana. The firm made major headlines in the business world last month for their discovery of oil reserves in the North Sea that produced over 1200 barrels a day. Not bad.

Easy to see why Crescent would move into acquisition mode…

But the bump in activity is no news to folks in eastern Montana.

John Manzoni, President and CEO of Talisman Energy, discusses major expansions at the company's 2008 shareholders meeting. Folks in Daniels County saw the outcome. (Photo Courtesy: Talisman Energy.)

Talisman has done quite a bit of work in far-flung Daniels County, up at the north-eastern corner of the state. Montana owns most of the County’s western half, where the Department of Natural Resources collects revenue on over 175,000 acres of active oil and gas leases administered through the Board of Oil and Gas.

Folks in Scobey know.

With Crescent Point Energy moving to vertically integrate the assets and operations of a firm like Talisman, all signs point to expanded production in Daniels County.

Good for growth. Good for jobs.

And depending on the extent of state-owned production lease revenue, even better for Montana’s public schools, who see the revenue return to their general budget.

With a new coalition hoping to steer national energy policy toward more state-federal partnerships, times are looking good for Montana. (Image Courtesy: mt.gov)

The coalition, which includes our Governor Brian Schweitzer, will focus on cultivating a national energy and climate change strategy. It’s a great thing for energy policy, and even better for Montana.

We remember the closed-door policy making style our former Vice President Dick Cheney brought to energy strategy. Remember the fantastic Washington Post expose? Now, even the appearance of transparency is an improvement.

Our state having a seat at the table isn’t bad either.

Montana continues to struggle with unemployment (despite a recent dip in jobless rates), layoffs from major employers, and a congressional delegation whose attention has been preoccupied with the health care debate and the unfolding financial crisis. At the same time, the belated trickle-down of federal stimulus money for infrastructure and energy development will eventually funnel through many state-connected programs.

The coalition will attempt to steer federal policies toward more of these state-level partnerships–a model that has worked well in Montana. In the past, state agencies like the Montana DNRC have played an effective role in funneling millions in federal grant money to assist local conservation and resource development projects. Most of those dealt with water and infrastructure, but if the model is copied and used for energy development, we’re all for it.

Montana's potential for wind power development: one of many forms of energy growth--both traditional and alternative--that will bring growth and jobs. (Map courtesy: Montanagreenpower.com)

Plus, the state-federal partnership model won’t step on the toes of the anti-federalist crowd, which includes our governor.

[Folks cleaning guns in garages cluttered with the ever-recyclable Stan Jones campaign signs stomp their feet in agreement as author types. They know they're the future of the guns-n-greens anti-federalist alliance. There's a genius behind Stan we're just not seeing.]

When we talk jobs and growth, the money’s good too.

Energy development–both alternative and traditional–holds vast jobs and revenue for Montana. Although folks will wrestle over the specifics of environmental regulation, permitting, and the scope, scale, and timing of particular projects, the overall trend is the future of our state’s financial stability.

Although wind, coal, and carbon sequestration have been the hot topics in recent months, pipeline routes, biomass, and ethanol have also been major prospects for Montana producers. The idea of combining raw extraction and production with in-state value-added processing has spiced up lucrative opportunities for folks across the state.

Sorry there’s not really much analysis to all this… we give the new coalition some easy thumbs up.