George Ochenski, Daily Montanan

“Winter? What winter?” asked the email from an old friend and life-long Montanan.

Indeed, right now it’s still in the 50s here in Helena, in mid-January. At night, the temperatures are not even making it down to freezing, often remaining in the 40s. New high temperature records are being set across the state every week.

“Winter? What winter?” is a dang good question. ...

There are many good reasons our government is based on three “separate but equal branches.” The men who wrote our Constitution 250 years ago had just fought a bloody war against an incredibly powerful monarch whose empire was based on extracting wealth in all its forms from merciless colonial exploitation of weaker nations.

Few expected the victory of those brave men and women that gave birth to a new nation. A nation of people free from the dictates of a monarch — and designed to preserve that freedom through carefully crafted “checks and balances” that would assure no one branch of government could trample the people or their Constitution underfoot.

Yet now those checks and balances have been abandoned in favor of so-called “loyalty” to one political party over the long-standing mandate to ensure the branches of government remain separate and diligent in their primary function to serve the people and govern true to the Constitution. ...

It’s almost impossible to fathom the extent of the fall of democracy in our nation in one year — but 2025 indeed saw an assault on our freedoms across the board from the most authoritarian president and administration in recent history. Unfortunately, those same tendencies have trickled down through various state governments as well, and Montana is no exception.

But take heart, fellow citizens, while we were numbed by the shock and awe attack on our institutions, laws, policies, and liberties, there are significant signs that the people and the courts are realizing we must fight back and demand adherence to the law, the Constitution, and the tenets of humane treatment for our people and the environment.

In that regard, the new year opens with a tremendous court victory here in Montana that found the Department of Environmental Quality illegally approved a Big Sky area subdivision. The state’s approval of septic systems for eight lots in the Quarry 1 subdivision was challenged by Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, which contended the agency failed to fully analyze the likely impacts to the already impaired Gallatin River....

Those of us who came of age during the ’60s well remember the Vietnam War, its horrific toll of human life, its cost, the division it caused, and its long-term effects upon those who served and survived.

We also remember the phony incidents and propaganda that threw our young men and women into combat in what became our nation’s longest war … which we lost.

As noted in 2008 by the U.S. Naval Institute in reference to the Gulf of Tonkin incident: “Once-classified documents and tapes released in the past several years, combined with previously uncovered facts, make clear that high government officials distorted facts and deceived the American public about events that led to full U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.” ...

Last week’s column noted the dismal approval ratings for Trump and even worse for Montana’s all-Republican Congressional delegation. Indeed, with one in three (or fewer) Montanans approving the delegation and the record low national approval of the president, it seemed like the propaganda about how great everything is was, well, running into the hard wall of reality.

Then came Tuesday’s elections and the reality-TV president and his gobbling MAGA sycophants nationwide went down hard as the voters “just said no” to the anger, lies, and aggression spinning out of the White House.

Chief among Tuesday’s most decisive rejection of the president and his unending threats of retribution was the election of 34-year old Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s next mayor. He was vilified as a “lunatic Communist” by Trump, who threatened to cut off federal funding for the city if he was elected....