When I was growing up the National Rifle Association was gun safety and hunting organization. Now it's nothing more than to try to divide people.

The opportunity I had growing up in Montana isn't the opportunities for a whole lot of people.

I remember a humorous episode from Bill Clinton's presidency in which his advisers prevailed upon him, one summer before his re-election campaign, to spend his vacation in Montana and Wyoming instead of the usual Martha's Vineyard. The theory was that he'd benefit from hanging out someplace a little more down to earth.

If you're not geographically diverse, it's hard to even speak a language that makes sense to folks in faraway places. That's especially a problem in the West, where voters have always mistrusted the federal government.

I grew up in a home where animals were ever-present and often dominated our lives. There were always horses, dogs, and cats, as well as a revolving infirmary of injured wildlife being nursed by my sister the aspiring vet.

Climate change is a global crisis - one the international community and private sector must tackle together if we have any hope of averting the worst impacts on our health, our economies, and our communities.

Without international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require few, if any, environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy.

Whether it is clamping down on tax avoidance by multinationals, setting ambitious targets for tackling climate change, or reforming the posted workers' directive to better protect migrant workers, European countries are working together to get things done.