Montana Articles

Weekend Comp

1/15/2017

Clark Fork River

I would have gone to the Missoula Public Library today at 1 to see Rob Quist, take photos, and give you a full report.

I would have done that if there’d been any sort of advance planning for this event, but as far as I can tell, there was not.

Instead I’ll be going to Helena so the grandparents can have some quality time with their grandkid.

I don’t really feel too bad about this – now I won’t have to listen to 7 people talk before I hear Rob Quist talk.

Yeah, Quist will be at the event, one that talks about saving our healthcare.

Personally, I’d rather we let our healthcare fail.

It’s done that already.

Sure, a few million people got healthcare and perhaps are alive because of that.

But tens of millions have seen their insurance prices go up, and because of that we now have Trump in the White House.

This all could have been avoided if our corrupt senators had voted for single payer.

I’ve tried to spend this week telling you that, but since many of you are Democrats or Republicans, you don’t want to hear it.

You know deep down that our system is corrupt, but for some reason you think your team is still walking around with clean hands.

They’re not.

Anyways, I won’t be going to that rally. Maybe Pete Talbot will go down, but I doubt it – he’s in the Amanda Curtis camp and won’t give media attention to anyone that could challenge her.

We know Reptile Dysfunction doesn’t do any kind of on the ground reporting.

Maybe Missoula Current will go down there, in which case we should get a biased report later, perhaps even one with an image or two.

I’m not sure it matters anyways – Gianforte seems to have this race locked up.

Hey, D…R…no matter who ends up winning Zinke’s seat, it ain’t gonna change my life one bit.

I’ve put up a lot more articles on this site this month than I thought I would.

This site now has more than 625 articles about Montana, its history and its politics.

I thought I’d run through a few of the articles that you might have missed.

Tom Stout: A True Montanan

A Look at Montana’s K. Ross Toole

The Gallery of Outstanding Montanans

The Sad State of Montana Historians

Historical Montana Campaign Literature #3

Montana Indian Tribes in the 1850s and 1860s

New Montana UFO Sightings

5 Great Montana History Books

Montana Business and Tourism Stats for 2014

Let’s Talk About Mining in Montana

A Renewable Energy Windfall in Montana

Early European Explorers in Montana

Tales from the Benton Avenue Cemetery

The Democratic Hold of Montana’s U.S. Senate Seats

The Rise of Big Oil in the Middle East

Montana’s WWII Internment Camps

Blaming Chet Blaylock

Who are Montana’s Best Orators?

Will the University of Montana’s Sports Fields Give You Cancer?

Why is Healthcare Killing Us?

Quality Montana Reporters

Thanks for reading!

1 Comment

Who is Montana’s Zeno Baucus?

1/14/2017

5 Comments

Melodee, Max, Zeno and Stephanie in 2011

Finding details on Max Baucus’ son is very difficult.

Max Baucus was first married in 1975, to Ann Geracimos. They divorced in 1982.

Baucus had one child with her, a son named Zeno in 1976.

Zeno’s parents would divorce when he was only about 7-years-old. Geracimos would go on to work for the Washington Times.

I’m guessing that Zeno probably did most of his schooling in D.C. and not Montana, but I don’t know.

If you go by the age range, Zeno probably graduated from high school in 1994.

We do know that he followed the tradition of his grandmother and his father by going to Stanford.

He graduated and headed to Georgetown Law School. His father’s name and connections likely helped.

Again going with the age range, Zeno probably finished up his schooling in 7 years, or around 2001. He would have been around 25-years-old.

After that it was a job as a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney in Helena, a job likely secured by Zeno’s last name and the fact that his dad was still in the Senate.

Zeno Baucus was a Managing Associate at the Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe Law Firm in Washington, DC, “just a stone’s throw away from where daddy works,” Breitbart mentioned in 2009.

The site goes on to tell us that Zeno specialized in “complex civil litigation, regulatory investigations, securities enforcement and litigation, antitrust matters, and corporate criminal defense.”

All of that while daddy was heading up the Senate Finance Committee.

In 2014 Zeno worked as a prosecutor on the case of Jordan Graham, the Montana woman that pushed her newlywed husband off a cliff in Glacier National Park.

Zeno married Stephanie Denton in June 2008 on the family ranch north of Helena.

The Tennessean grew up an “Air Force brat,” graduated from Emory College and then Harvard Law School, then became a D.C. lawyer with the “boutique firm” Kirstein and Young.

Here she is on Twitter.

A year after marrying Zeno, however, she’d moved up in the world, to Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison with the U.S. Department of Justice. She later got into public relations.

Yep, nepotism in action.

Kinda like the same nepotism that Max worked for his old girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, when he got her a job in the Justice Department’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Program.

The Justice Department was quick to note that Hanes had been hired “for her qualifications,” and not just because Max was fucking her (by 2011 they were married, Max’s third attempt at the practice).

I assume that’s why Zeno’s wife was hired at Justice too – because of her qualifications, not because it was part of her father-in-law’s dowry.

Zeno has been handed things his whole life, whether he knows it or not.

His last name is Baucus, and in Montana that counts for something. Counts for something in D.C. too, the town that Max learned the bribery and corruption game in.

So how far has the apple fallen from the tree?

To me, Zeno would make a fine addition to the ranks of the country’s Wall Street Democrats.

That’s why I think Zeno would be a great candidate for establishment Montana Democrats to support if they want to further destroy the Party.

What do we need progressives for?

Why worry about Bernie supporters?

Who cares about those that aren’t fond of corruption?

Nope, they’re not really important. The cities will carry the Dems through. Everything is peaches ‘n cream.

That’s about the only takeaway I’d have if Dems actually chose Zeno for the upcoming special election.

I’d just assume not choose Zeno for anything.

Let him rise of his own accord and where that happens – in the MT Legislature.

Let him run for office like all the rest of us.

At 40-years-old, Zeno had the same idea.

“Zeno Baucus was considering a run for attorney general last year,” someone said to me via email recently. They also mentioned that Zeno “does not have a good reputation at the US attorney’s office in Billings.”

I called up the Billings Office to ask about that, but I was referred to the Helena office.

I called them up, got the right woman, and left a message on her machine.

So far I’ve received no response, nor am I expecting one.

And that’s all I was able to find out.

Yeah…not a whole lot.

You’d think someone that wants to be in politics would get more information about themselves out there.

I dunno…to a family like the Baucuses, that might be a liability.

To me, who Zeno’s daddy was is certainly a liability, not a benefit.

I think I’ll just come out and say right now, I’ll never vote for Zeno Baucus because of who his daddy was.

Max Baucus was a terrible man for Montana.

The Legacy

Sure, Max Baucus had his successes.

In 1982 he stood against the move to strip federal courts over much of their authority.

He helped strengthen federal drinking water standards in 1986.

The next year he started raising concerns about the ozone.

During the 2000s he got CHIP reauthorized.

In 2003 he got a $400 million drug benefit plan attached to Medicare.

That 2003 vote is one Max might regret. It caused him a lot of problems, mainly with South Dakota’s Tom Daschle.

Daschle was majority leader and took just as much from the same corporate groups as Baucus did. To his thinking, Max’s vote was a no-no, especially considering how much they were indebted to that industry.

In the end Baucus came out on top, as Daschle was defeated by John Thune in 2004.

Harry Reid took over as Senate Majority Leader after that and he and Baucus got on well. Reid actually gave Baucus the job of fighting Social Security privatization, something they won.

“I remember President Bush came to Great Falls, Montana, and I set up a meeting with seniors at the same time, just across town, just right in his face,” Baucus remembered. “I relished the opportunity to beat down privatization flatly and squarely.”

The problem with Max was always the money.

The Money

You see, Max Baucus was big on corporate campaign donations. He was very good at getting them.

Much of the cash Baucus used to get reelected in later years “comes from the industries most affected by his committee’s legislation.”

In 2008, for instance, Baucus raised “$800,000 from securities and investment firms, $565,000 from the insurance industry, and $462,000 from the pharmaceutical industry.” All told, 90% of his funding comes from out of state.

Baucus had always been good at campaign fundraising. According to Open Secrets, a site that tracks candidate fundraising and spending, Baucus raised from the following from 1989 to 2014:

New York Life Insurance: $113,925
Goldman Sachs: $93,750
Wells Fargo: $93,150
American International Group: $86,000
Ernst & Young: $83,811

When it came to industries, these were who Baucus raised the most from during those years:

Lawyers/Law Firms: $1.8 million
Securities & Investment: $1.7 million
Insurance: $1.5 million
Health Professionals: $1.2 million
Lobbyists: $1 million

In total, $15.4 million of Baucus’ fundraising came from individual donors, or 51% of his total, and $13.6 million came from PACs, or 45% of his total.

The Splits

Max has a tendency to get on people’s bad sides, much like he did with Schweitzer.

It was the same when he was a congressman in the 70s and Tom Judge was governor.

Judge didn’t like Baucus, and that goes back to more than just some August 1977 public forum in Butte where Max’s first wife Ann poked fun at Judge.

Max didn’t show up for that meeting, mainly because he and Judge were both viewed as rivals for Metcalf’s Senate seat when it would be up again the next year.

There were rumors that Metcalf wouldn’t run, but it never came to that. In January 1978 the 67-year-old Metcalf’s heart gave out and he died at his Bitterroot home.

The seat was now wide open, but before Max could get his campaign up and running for it, Judge one-upped him by appointing Paul Hatfield to the seat.

Hatfield was a good man, but not a good politician. He had no chance against Baucus in the primary that year, as was proven the case.

Judge never ran for the seat, mainly because he had his heart set on a third term as governor. That third term never came about because Ted Schwinden defeated Judge for the job.

By then, Max was firmly ensconced in the Senate and would stay there for another 34 years.

It’s no secret that Max Baucus and Brian Schweitzer don’t have the best of relationships.

Why is this?

I wonder if it has something to do with Schweitzer’s decision in 2000 to take Montana seniors up to Canada to get cheaper drugs.

Even as late as 2010 Schweitzer was advocating getting our drugs from Canada, something that could wipe out 40% of the state’s $100 million prescription drug bill.

This was not something Max liked, for the main reason that those giving him money didn’t like it. Same is true of our other corrupt Senator today, Jon Tester.

That’s why Max threw America under the bus by getting rid of the single payer option for healthcare.

With that one move, Max did more to pave the way for Trump than anyone did.

With that one move, Max allowed for the creation of the mess that would become Obamacare.

Like Racicot and deregulation, future Montanans must never forget this.

What’s even worse is that Baucus knew how much he’d fucked the country over. He even had the audacity to say as much.

Baucus got in hot water in 2013 when he started speaking out against Obamacare, a plan he’d help draft. He called it a “train wreck” and his party pounced.

“Max Baucus was a major roadblock to popular progressive reform,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee wrote, a group trying to launch a “Draft Schweitzer” campaign to defeat Baucus in 2014.

Co-founder of the group, Adam Green, went further, saying that “Baucus has a history of taking millions from Wall Street, insurance companies, and lobbyists – and then turning his back on the people of Montana.”

Baucus was up to $5 million in his 2014 reelection war chest when he suddenly announced his retirement.

Conclusion

Is Zeno any different from his father?

I doubt it.

I know a lot of people like to point to Max’s days, and that’s fine.

To me, that’s like pointing at all the accomplishments a killer or child molester made before they were caught.

And what caught Max?

Obamacare, and his refusal to give us the single payer option that would have prevented the previous few years of cluster-fucks over Obamacare.

But Max had to stay cozy with Big Pharma and all the insurance companies that donated tens of thousands of dollars to him over the years.

Why’d he have to do that?

So Zeno would have a future in politics.

It’s pathetic. Here’s a sad, washed-up old man coming back from China that thinks his years of corruption will somehow pave the way for his son.

And why shouldn’t he think that?

For years in this country we’ve turned a blind eye to the corruption, the money grubbing, and the downright lies that our politicians subject us to.

We do this for the sake of the Party, whether that Party might be Dems or Republicans.

It’s easy to understand why President Washington warned us against these vile associations.

These politicians are more dangerous than murderers or child molesters for the simple reason that they hurt more people, ruin more lives.

Max Baucus was a wildly corrupt politician. Just follow the money.

And now we think the best route forward is to elect the offspring of that corrupt class?

Shame on us.

We should be looking elsewhere for talent.

How about using office talent to cultivate rural connections? Throwing some shiny-shoed D.C. lawyer like Zeno at rural Montanans is not a winning strategy.

I can understand why on the Zeno Baucus front – it’s like James Conner said, securing the empire.

But why are we doing it this way?

Why aren’t we cultivating talent in our regional offices, talent that can later be used to win important offices?

For instance, why aren’t Senator Tester’s staffers going out into rural areas, meeting people, taking issues, and making connections?

They’d be getting their names out there, and in a few years they could run for a legislative seat or even a statewide.

Are we doing this?

I remember researching Baucus and reading that he didn’t allow any of his staffers to run for office themselves.

That was something that sidelined Mike Cooney’s career.

Perhaps this is the wrong approach, one that we’re still on and all because it was ingrained into us by people like Max Baucus.

Right now the Dems in Montana are on the ropes and they need to try all kinds of new approaches.

I like the idea of using congressional staffers as a way to cultivate connections and build name recognition in the rural areas.

I don’t like the idea of stuffing cronies into those staffing positions, cronies that will follow the same kind of corrupt Washington pay-to-play and business as usual environment there.

Alas, that’s what it’d probably come to.

I hope it doesn’t come to Zeno Baucus vs. the GOP candidate in the upcoming special election.

I’ll either vote Republican or just stay home if that’s the case.

To me, Max Baucus’ style of politics points to everything that’s wrong with this country.

His son would be no different.

Zeno Baucus has no political future in Montana.

Montana Democrats should see that quite clearly.

5 Comments

Why Tester Voted for Big Pharma and Against Montanans

1/13/2017

6 Comments

A MT Villain

I have no respect for Jon Tester.

None.

Perhaps I had a modicum of respect for him earlier this week.

That’s gone now.

The reason is simple – Jon Tester hates Americans.

Why else would you vote to keep their prescription drug prices high?

He could have voted to lower those prices, something that 72% of Americans support.

Bernie Sanders put the bill forward in the U.S. Senate and lots of people voted for it.

Hell, even Ted Cruz voted for it!

But 13 Democrats did not.

I think the reason why is simple to understand – money.

As you can see, Tester likes taking money from Big Pharma.

In exchange for that money, Big Pharma only asks one thing: that Tester throw Americans under the bus.

That’s what a ‘no’ vote on lowering prescription drug prices is – a vote against Americans.

Why’d you do it, Jon?

James Conner at Flathead Memo was asking that yesterday in a post called Why did Jon Tester vote against an amendment to lower drug prices?

“Perhaps the answer lies in their campaign contributions,” Conner suggested about the 13 Democrats that voted against Americans.

While the money is a clear reason why, I feel there are a few more.

For instance, what about this crazy idea from disgruntled Democratic voters that their Democratic representatives now need to block whatever agenda Trump might have?

Yeah, some feel that this Bernie Sanders-sponsored bill was Trump’s idea.

Perhaps Bernie and Trump are in agreement that our prescription drug prices are too high. I bet they think all medical costs in this country are too high, which they are.

Despite them agreeing on an issue, Trump is a Republican. That means some knee-jerk, crazy-in-the-head Democrats feel they have to block whatever he does.

This shouldn’t be surprising – Republicans did about the same thing to Obama for the past 6 or so years.

And that justifies it, spite.

Because Republicans did it, Democrats are going to do it too.

So perhaps that’s a reason that Tester voted against Americans the other day.

Now we have the money and we have the spite for Trump.

Those are two very good reasons.

What I can’t understand is what reason Montana Democratic voters think they have to vote for Tester in 2018.

What is he doing for you?

Sure, he just went on a healthcare listening tour that had him make 8 stops.

"We still have a lot of work to do to make it [Obamacare] more affordable for working families and to hold insurance and drug companies accountable," Tester said of the tour.

I guess Tester's idea of holding drug companies accountable is to allow them to keep their prices high.

Do you think that the Montanans he spoke to on that tour urged him to keep prescription drug prices high?

I doubt it.

But you know, maybe the issue never came up.

Maybe Montana voters never explicitly said to Tester, “our drug prices are too high, please do something.”

And since that was never said, Tester felt he had the green light to keep those prices high even though he could have lowered them.

Not his problem, not what voters told him to do.

Wow.

Do you really believe that?

I don’t.

I think a senator would jump at the chance to make life easier for his constituents, which lower drug prices would surely do.

But Tester didn’t do that. He did the opposite. He voted to keep prices high.

Why, Jon, why?

It’s corruption, pure and simple.

You’ll remember my September post called How Citizens United Corrupted the Montana Democratic Party.

Tester’s vote the other day is a symptom of that corruption.

So, how do we get rid of this guy?

I’ll be voting for the Republican in 2018 if Tester is the candidate.

I’d much rather vote for a Democrat, but we know the Democrats will destroy anyone that tries to primary Tester.

That’s a shame.

The Montana Democratic Party shouldn’t do that. They should let things happen naturally, which means allowing people to run in a primary without interference.

Interference can mean money donated by the Party or it can mean endorsements it bestows.

Of course, Democrats in Montana will line up to vote for Tester.

They actually think he’s helping them!

I have no idea why.

Tester’s failed our veterans time and time again. Just this week the VA center in Helena was downgraded from a 2-star facility to a 1-star facility.

Don’t worry, when it comes to veterans issues, Jon always has an excuse.

The only Republican that had a chance against Tester was Gianforte and now it sounds like he’s going to be going to the U.S. House.

I dunno, maybe he’ll use that to try and challenge Tester in ’18.

I’d be one of the first ones to signal my support for Gianforte in ’18.

Anyone but Tester.

I don’t give a shit if it’s Art Wittich – he’ll be getting my vote.

Tester’s no good for me, my family, or Montana.

I mean...a vote to keep drug prices high?

How does that benefit Montanans?

And my, what a shame it is that our corporate media in this state doesn’t even report on it. The liberal blogs are silent. And those fools in Dem HQ in Helena won’t utter a word about it either.

They just expect us to ignore this, erase it from our memory, and get in line behind Tester for his 2018 run.

And that’s why I shake my head at Montana Democrats.

Here’s a Party that should care about common Montanans. Instead their most powerful member just voted against Montanans’ best interests.

Jon, you’ve turned into a terrible senator.

He's turned into a horrible human being. Maybe he’s always been like that.

After the news reports of Tester’s nephew beating his underage girlfriend surfaced a week ago, I really have to wonder about his whole family.

Are these good people?

How’d Jon Tester turn out so bad?

Of course, some of us knew what he was like long ago, back when he was serving in the Montana Senate.

I still remember the day I testified before his agricultural committee in 2001 and he got up while I was speaking so he could get a drink of water.

I felt that was rude, and to me, it was a good look into that man’s character.

We got another good look into his character the other night when he voted against Americans.

That’s what a vote to keep drug prices high is.

Sure, it helps Big Pharma, but how does that help you or your family?

It doesn’t.

It helps Jon’s campaign war chest, though. He’ll need it in 2018.

Democrats like me – those with open eyes and common sense – won’t be supporting him.

We’ll be opposing him, and telling that to anyone that’ll listen.

Jon Tester is a horrible senator for Montana.

It’s a shame he represents ‘us.’

Who Benefits from the Jon Tester Billboard West of Helena? (Nov 2014)

Is Tester a Wheeler or a Murray? (February 2015)

Why is Jon Tester Cozying Up to Wall Street? (Nov 2015)

Why Does Jon Tester Hate Honest Democrats? (April 2016)

Tracking Jon’s Lies to Veterans (May 2016)

Discussing the Split in the Montana Democratic Party (June 2016)

6 Comments

Continued Fun with Images

1/12/2017

0 Comments

We haven’t put up an image/meme post since October 26.

Well, let’s do another one!

0 Comments

Montana Special Election: Reds

1/12/2017

2 Comments

Yellowstone River

If you want to blame someone, blame Max Baucus.

For his entire career he took and he took from insurance and healthcare companies.

When the time came to provide Americans with health insurance, Baucus threw them under the bus in favor of his big donors.

The single-payer option was removed from the table and that eventually led us to what we have now, an idea spawned by the right-leaning Heritage Center: Obamacare.

Because Obamacare was so monumentally unpopular, Baucus lost his job and had to flee to China.

That opened his seat, which led to Montana’s good ol’ boys network choosing an equally incompetent man to replace Baucus, which in turn led to Steve Daines winning that 100-year seat.

On top of this, one of Baucus’ cronies was chosen as a candidate for the U.S. House shortly after Baucus’ banishment, and he lost terribly.

The man he lost to is now going to Washington to serve under Trump.

Baucus’ banishment didn’t fix things, however.

Instead Obamacare continued to drive up insurance costs for tens of millions of Americans while giving a few million people free healthcare.

This led to anger and resentment, and coupled with one of the most incompetent Democratic presidential candidates in generations, Trump stormed into the White House.

Now Montana Republicans are trying to figure out who to replace Trump’s handpicked Montanan with.

The good ol’ boys network of Democrats actually wants to replace him with Baucus’ son.

No, you just can’t fix stupid.

You can only show it the door and hope it never comes back.

But we’re not talking about Democrats today, just the situation they created.

Will Montana Republicans capitalize on it, keeping the seat they’ve had for more than 20 years?

Or will Democrats somehow get over their own trip-ups to actually help the state instead of helping themselves?

Let’s discuss.

Right now we have 5 Republicans going for Zinke’s seat.

Who’s the most prominent?

That’s hard to say.

If you want to go by Facebook, like we did when we looked at the Dems yesterday, then you’ll get the following results:

Daniel Zolnikov: This soon-to-be 30-year-old has a Wikipedia page, more than 6,000 followers on Twitter, and more than 4,300 likes on Facebook. He also has a website.

Scott Sales: This 56-year-old doesn’t have a social media presence. There is a Wikipedia page for him, however.

Ed Buttrey: This 51-year-old just has a personal Facebook page, one that hasn’t been updated since 2014.

Eugene Graf IV: This builder from Bozeman has a personal Facebook page and little else. I can’t even find the most basic of biographies to determine his age.

Gary Carlson: Gary Carlson is 74-years-old and has the most experience running for the U.S. House, having done so in 1984. He lost to Pat Williams 66% to 32%, with Libertarian Royer Warren taking about 2% that year. Carlson served in President Reagan’s Department of Defense, is active in the Ravalli County GOP, and ran for Montana GOP chair in 2013. Media Trackers has the most info on him.

Judge Russell Fagg: This candidate took himself out of the running, saying it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to campaign for one branch of government while serving in another.

So those are our candidates…so far.

The big question continues to be what Gianforte will do.

Another one is who the GOP delegates are.

I have no idea on either of those.

Many people don’t. Many are wondering. And they’re waiting.

A big problem for our legislative Republicans is that they hate old people.

How are you going to win a special election in an aging state like Montana when it’s clear you hate old people?

Oh, and I’m sorry…but is cutting $93 million out of the Department of Public Health and Human Services budget not hating old people?

$52 million is the exact number that will be cut from the senior and long-term care budget.

These are old people that have “spent their assets down to $2,000, or those who are physically disabled.”

So not only do our GOP legislators hate old people, they hate old cripples even more.

That’s a helluva platform to run on.

I can’t wait until our Democrat points that out in TV ads, social media posts, newspaper articles, and mailers.

“Daniel Zolnikov hates old people and while I don't want to say he wants them to die in the street, he certainly doesn't care if they do or not.”

“Scott Sales would rather cut taxes for rich people than help 3rd- and 4th-generation Montanans that are dying in nursing homes.”

“Ed Buttrey doesn’t think taking care of Montana seniors is important. He thinks stealing their money and giving it to the rich is, however.”

Oh, I can’t wait until we see those ads.

In fact, I decided to make up a few models of what they might look like:

I love that most of the GOP candidates are legislators and that you can use their cruddy records against them.

You can also use their colleagues’ records and dialogue against them as well, using it to paint them the same way, as someone that doesn’t care about old people, kids, animals, working people, poor people, and just about anyone else that’s not rich or from an out-of-state corporation.

So…who’ll be running ads like this?

I’m pretty sure it won’t be Rob Quist.

He’s taking the ‘nice guy approach’ to this campaign, and that’s a smart move.

He hasn’t attacked anyone, he hasn’t made any enemies, and there’s nothing people can really say against him.

Why change that?

Curtis, however…well, she might want to get a bit more physical.

Or is this not going to be a campaign where we pummel and beat and knock our opponent senseless?

Because if it’s not then we won’t need ads like this, we’ll just need to focus on the issues and what’s ailing America and how Montana can come out better than she is now.

Boring!

I’d much rather see a knock-down, drag-out fight that leaves both candidates bruised and bloodied and Montanans with a bit more real dialogue about our problems.

Because I’m sorry, when you’ve got things like legal marijuana and ending our overseas wars staring you right in the face as obvious solutions for the state’s and the feds’ monetary woes, you should talk about them.

It’s a helluva better approach than signaling that you’ll cut funding for old people living in homes, you know…the kind of people that are so senile with dementia that they’re drooling on themselves, pissing themselves, and wondering why they still don’t have the car keys.

We should be looking out for those people.

Instead Montana Republicans have made it perfectly clear that those people aren’t important.

If Democrats don’t make that an issue in this special election campaign then I have to wonder if they have any sense at all.

Where’s the hunger to win?

Where’s the passion to better people’s lives?

Where’s the courage to say what needs to be said?

It’s not on the GOP side of this race, that’s obvious.

And that’s why they have a damn good chance of losing their 20-year seat.

I hope they do.

2 Comments

Montana Special Election: Blues

1/11/2017

2 Comments

Lake McDonald

I see that the Facebook page Rob Quist for Congress has 1,416 likes.

Amanda Curtis doesn’t have a U.S. House campaign website or Facebook page.

She does have a Representative Amanda Curtis page, and it has 11,982 likes.

Curtis is vlogging again this session, though it doesn’t look like she’s making the videos from the House floor this time.

As I scroll down the Facebook page I get a feeling for what many people are probably talking about – Curtis won’t appeal to the wider electorate.

We know this from last time, when she energized the base and got them out.

That’s admirable, especially for an off-year like 2014.

Despite that accomplishment – one made even more impressive because of the tight time frame – Curtis failed to garner a large portion of swing voters, Independents, and especially Republicans.

How is she going to change that in 2017?

That’s the big question, though one that’s being drowned out by the MEA-MFT-sponsored Facebook ads in favor of Curtis.

There was good analysis of Rob Quist’s problems in regard to MEA-MFT in today’s Logicosity post.

One sentence in particular caught my attention:

“Exactly how much longer the D’s will look the other way while Eric [Feaver] calls the shots on these maters is open to question.”

That spurred quite the round of comments, the last one being the most interesting.

I’ve been speaking out against Feaver and his undue influence for about two years now.

I’m glad others are beginning to come around.

Let’s face it – Logicosity is one of the best political blogs in the state, if not the best.

The site’s anonymous writers suggest that Quist “might just be the new face the D’s need but don’t know they’ve been looking for.”

We know that Zinke’s confirmation hearing will be on January 17.

It’s safe to assume that things will move quickly after January 20 and that Zinke could be Interior Secretary the following week.

Dems and GOPers both say they’ll nominate a candidate as quickly as possible after that happens and Bullock calls the special election.

So…who’s it gonna be?

It comes down to the delegates and who they choose.

Logicosity things there might be as many as 135 of them.

Wow, that’s a lot!

Right now if you’re a candidate it’s all about keeping your name in the media.

“It’s becoming clear none of the mainstream D’s…are generating much of a buzz,” Logicosity said today.

That’s not surprising – none of them are interesting.

That’s one peril of being a public official – people get used to you and they get bored of you.

Even Amanda Curtis isn’t getting as much excitement as she perhaps should in this race.

Perhaps it comes down to the money people, the ‘Bullock bubble,’ and the leftovers from the Montana for Hillary campaign.

We know Jenny Eck has a very prominent spot in the Democrats’ legislative team.

She was one of the main people for Hillary in Montana.

I wonder what kind of pull people like her have, as well as her counterpart, Carol Williams.

Both pushed for Hillary, both came up short.

For Eck she has the legislature to keep her busy, but what about Carol?

Where will she turn her energies and attention to next…Curtis, a young woman that she can perhaps mold and shape into what she’d like and someone that will carry forth the agenda she agrees to?

I guess what I’m getting at is…who controls the Montana Democratic Party, and if no one does, what are the main factions and who has the most influence within them?

I sure wish there was a political manual that had all this information. Maybe someday.

Until then, we wonder. We wonder who’s going to shape the agenda and craft the candidate that we’ll be expected to vote for come late-spring.

Right now candidates are scrambling for attention, especially those not named Curtis or Quist.

It’ll be hard for them.

For instance, Casey Schreiner has 509 likes on his Facebook page.

Kelly McCarthy has 540 on his, though it’s still his legislative campaign website.

Mostly, it’s gonna be tough for these guys. It’ll be tough for just about everyone…and we’re not even talking about the general yet.

So, here are my suggestions to those that are running. I call it my 6-point nominating plan.

Twitter Campaign

10 to 20 crafted tweets
A ‘No Reply’ policy
Clear posting schedule driven by content calendar

Facebook Campaign

Paid Advertising
Links to Website
Links to Act Blue
Collection of relevant statewide links about you

Press Release Campaign

Weekly/daily events emailed to newspapers and TV stations

Legislative Campaign

Testify on key issues
Keep your name in the press

Blogging Campaign

Guest posts on MT Cowgirl, Last Best News, and Missoula Current

Website

Pre-planned content calendar
Issues Page, or what could be called a blog
Detailed event calendar
Event photos
More personal experience stories (could be blog posts)
More ‘regular Joe’ stories
Donations page/links

Those are just some ideas for those that might want to do this on their own.

I know people like Casey Schreiner are doing it on their own – sending out their own tweets, doing their own mail, posting to Facebook…and that’s while he’s in the legislature.

Logicosity is right that those not serving in the legislature have an edge right now.

We’ll see how it goes.

I think Quist is an affable fellow that doesn’t have any baggage or people wanting to grind an axe.

I can’t think of any real negatives when it comes to Quist.

Perhaps one of the biggest positives right now is how much in disarray the GOP side of things is.

There doesn’t seem to be a front-runner there.

I guess it’s because Gianforte hasn’t said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ yet to the rumors and speculation that he might run.

Mainly, everyone’s waiting.

We’re waiting for Trump to get in, for things to get rolling.

It won’t be long now.

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Quist vs. Curtis

1/8/2017

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Let’s get our thoughts out there.

One of the most recent articles I’ve seen on the issue is What to expect in Montana’s special election, put up on January 6 by NBC Montana.

Lee Banville mentions that “voter turnout is expected to be lower than ever before, making the results of the election highly unpredictable.”

He also suggests that all the candidates will be “largely unknown” at the statewide level.

I thought about profiling both Casey Schreiner of Great Falls and Kelly McCarthy of Billings in this post.

I decided not to, for two reasons:

First, I already wrote several pages on Quist vs. Curtis before coming back to do this introduction.

Second, in writing those pages I convinced myself that neither Schreiner nor McCarthy have a chance against those two.

I could be wrong about that.

I could be wrong about all that follows.

I don’t think I am, however.

Quist’s biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is going to be MEA-MFT.

Eric Feaver’s already commanded his organization to begin Facebook advertising for Curtis.

That’s one of the things I don’t like about Curtis, or any teacher/retired teacher that’s running for office – the hooks that Feaver and his organization have in those candidates.

Now, MEA-MFT isn’t a bad organization.

For the most part they’re good teachers that are just doing their job.

It’s the top of the organization that I worry about: all the people that play the political games, make a lot of money doing it, and when it’s all said and done our teachers are still making the lowest starting wage in the nation.

That’s why I’m sometimes called anti-union – because I feel unions should be benefiting those doing the most work before those at the top.

Anyways, going against an MEA-MFT-sponsored candidate is tough.

I’ve done it twice. The first time I even went to the MEA-MFT interview.

Yeah, I was still pretty naïve in early-2014…going to a meeting when my opponent was a retired teacher, and thus a dues-paying MEA-MFT member for years.

In 2016 I didn’t even bother, considering my opponent that year was an MEA-MFT fundraiser at one point.

The point is, when you’re going against a union-backed candidate it closes a lot of doors for you, both with voters and with fundraisers.

Money will become critically important after the nominating convention, though it’ll play an important role before as well.

If you can go into that convention with tens of thousands of dollars in donations already built up, it’ll be hard for delegates to ignore that.

Curtis has a fundraising network built up from 2014.

Quist will have to rely on what Brian Schweitzer can help him with and what other, high-ranking, “elite-level” Democrats around the state can help him with.

But…do they want to help him?

One of the most pertinent comments I've heard was by UM political science professor Rob Saldin on Friday’s Capitol Talk.

“...in his statement, Schweitzer emphasized Quist's role as an outsider. The problem with that is that it's going to be the party insiders who'll be picking the nominee...

This is going to be something like the modern-day equivalent of the old smoke-filled rooms...

So running as an outsider when it's the insiders who are in charge, I think probably will be something of a liability.

And beyond that, I'm not sure that Quist has any significant history of engagement with the Democratic Party, so it'd kinda be surprising if the state's elite-level Democrats tap an outsider like Quist unless they're really underwhelmed by the other candidates and decide that their best chance is some kind of desperation, shoot the moon strategy.”

Ouch.

“Shoot the moon strategy.”

That doesn’t sound too good. Doesn’t sound like Saldin has a lot of faith in Quist.

Maybe he’s right.

And maybe Quist needs to do some sort of desperate, ‘shoot the moon strategy’ type of campaign.

How else is he supposed to convince those “elite-level” Democrats?

And do they want to be convinced?

Yes, it all gets back to the delegates.

Boy – it’s tough reading their minds. I don’t even know who they are!

While I’d tempted to identify all NUMBER of them and send them cards and flowers and whatever, I’m not sure that strategy will work.

To convince the delegates you have to sway the media to you, which can then sway public opinion to you.

This can prove beneficial if any of the state newspapers do a poll the week or so before the convention.

Let’s say it’s Quist coming in at 40% and Curtis around 35%.

Many delegates could begin having second thoughts about Curtis, the delegates that MEA-MFT or some other organization/fundraiser could have leaned on them to support.

Now let’s say Curtis is coming in at 40% support and Quist is right behind her with 35%.

Delegates may play it safe and go with a known-factor, which is Curtis.

It’s all really hard to say, and I don’t want to step on any toes…though in the hypothetical newspaper poll I only see Schreiner/McCarthy getting around 10% each.

Mostly it’s an uphill battle for Quist, who’s the only one who has a shot at beating out Curtis, and that mainly because Schweitzer supported him.

Hell, the guy’s only got about a month until the nominating convention takes place!

Is there any point in even thinking about the ‘general election’ yet, which the fundraising is supposed to be for?

Let’s not forget that it’s only going to be a 3 to 4 month campaign for the general in the first place, probably timed to coincide with the school elections in May to save the counties some costs.

The real challenge for all these Dems is convincing the delegates that they can either beat out the GOP candidate or build-up significant name recognition for a serious bid at a statewide office in 2020, if not another run at the House in 2018.

Another key determining factor in any candidate will be whether they intend to stay in the House for a certain period, or use it as a stepping stone to go after Daines in 2020 or perhaps jump down (up?) to governor that same year.

I feel Quist has the edge here.

He’s 69-years-old.

He’s ending a career more than he’s starting one.

He could be a damn good person to carry Montana Dems into the mid-2020s with the state’s sole U.S. House seat under their belt.

You’ll remember my analysis of Dems chances for the U.S. House all the way up to 2022 when we’ll probably get back to two seats.

I can see someone like Quist stepping down in 2022 or 2024 after several years of service, and a good Democratic bench candidate ready to fill his shoes.

With Curtis that’s not going to happen.

Now, it’s true that she could stay in the House for the next 20 years or longer.

I just have a feeling that she’d jump to a senate or governor’s race long before that, and one she might not win.

Boom – the seat is back under GOP control, and we know that control can last two decades or longer.

That’s assuming Curtis even wins this nominating convention and then wins against whoever the GOP opponent is.

Then she’d have to keep her seat in 2018, when voter turnout will be higher, perhaps favoring Republicans…if that’s not already the case this year, an off-off-year when Dem turnout will be even lower than usual.

Nope, it’s not looking good.

Quist is sure working hard, however. In fact, I haven’t seen someone work this hard this fast since Gianforte was going around in December 2015.

I expect we’ll see Quist going around soon as well. I expect this will help him a great deal.

Let me just say, I like Amanda Curtis.

I’m sure I’ll like Rob Quist when I eventually meet him.

I’m sure both of them will support the other if they happen to lose out in this race.

Until then, it’ll get rough.

It’s not a regular campaign, one where you convince voters.

It’s a campaign to convince top-level Democrats around the state, many of whom could have wildly separate agendas from both you and I and their own fellow delegates.

It’ll be a media campaign, one relying on the TV stations and newspapers, perhaps the blogs to a lesser extent.

Social media advertising will be a very large factor, with Facebook taking up hundreds if not thousands of dollars even before the convention.

Why?

In the hope that it’ll convince regular Montanans to somehow voice their support for that particular candidate.

Then maybe, just maybe, that support will get back to one of these delegates…none of whom we really know in the first place.

Well, that might not be quite true. Back in 2014 it was the central committee of the Montana Democratic Party that selected Curtis as Walsh’s replacement.

So who is the central committee today?

That’s hard to say – when Dems redesigned their website they took that information down.

I’m sure some important people know, but I’m not one of ‘em.

In fact, for years now I’ve tried to discern the inner workings and machinations of the Montana Democratic Party, who the players are, how they got there, and what their agendas are…all to no avail.

Maybe Lynn Stanley and Dave Fern would be two for Quist to talk to, considering they head up the Flathead County central committee of the Montana Democratic Party.

I’m sure he’s done that, although I don’t know if they support him or not.

Perhaps an appearance at the Flathead Democrats’ Martin Luther King Day Dinner would help.

Hey, it ain’t easy.

Suddenly you have to go out and figure out who all the important people are.

And now candidates have to convince these important people that they’re the right one for the job.

Damn, how do you run a campaign like that?

I really don’t know.

But in about a month I will…we all will.

Trump’s inauguration is less than two weeks away and the nominating convention will be a short time after that.

Boy, this is gonna be exciting!

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Digging Into Montana’s Spending Woes

1/6/2017

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Near Anaconda

You might have heard about the Bozeman man that hit his wife over the head with a frying pan on New Year’s Eve and killed her.

The couple’s three children were sleeping in the living room at the time.

Then there’s the real piece of work from Deer Lodge that stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the neck several times until she was dead.

He used a butcher knife.

Those two will be going into our prison system for a long time, probably for the rest of their lives.

Let’s say that’s around 50 years.

We know it costs about $31,000 a year to house a man in Montana’s prisons.

That means each of these men will cost taxpayers $1,550,000.

Those men are just two reasons why we see nearly $83 million going to the Department of Corrections’ secure custody facilities in 2018, according to HB 2.

Another $69 million is going to probation and parole programs for the 8,500 individuals that need them.

Another $14 million is going to our youth services division to deal with troubled youth and $24 million goes to our critical services division.

I don’t even know what that last one does, but altogether and with a few more things thrown in, we’re spending $209 million on corrections next year.

The vast majority of that money is required simply to clean up the problems that our society produces.

Murders, thefts, drugs…you name it.

It costs a lot to clean up those messes, and then to house the people that created them.

Sure, we could kill more of these folks, but we’d still be spending tens of millions of dollars each year on the same issues.

Back in 2001 the Department of Corrections had 1,025 employees and was only getting $93.7 million.

Today it’s 1,400 employees and $209 million.

My how our problems have grown

Bullock proposed $74 million in state agency spending cuts even before the legislative session started.

At the same time the legislature expects state agencies to cut their budgets, the legislature’s own budget has jumped by 14%.

This is the $11.5 million HB 1, and it breaks down like so:

Senate: $3.8 million
House: $6.1 million
Legislative Services Division: $1.1 million

Why is it costing so much for these legislators to meet?

“Higher salaries for new staff” as well as offsetting “non-session costs of serving in the Legislature,” MTN News tells us.

We already know that legislative costs in 2019 will be 9% higher than they were in 2015.

And please do not forget that all 150 legislators get 2 years worth of healthcare even though they only work for 90 days during that time.

None of them are required to pay the high Obamacare premiums, none of them are required to pay the high Obamacare deductibles.

So don’t be fooled by their cries over people losing coverage – our legislators aren’t losing shit.

Of all the people in state government, our legislators have it the cushiest and the coziest and give us little to show for it.

We still have the issue of the legislature demanding more cuts from state agencies.

This at a time when no one has enough money, and many agencies are asking for more already.

The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education is asking for another $385,000 for its budget, for instance.

The reason is simple – they need that money to cover the STEM scholarships that students have already been promised for spring semester.

Why the money isn’t there is a bit more difficult, but ultimately comes down to the Montana Lottery, accounting mistakes, its director, and the fact that it “did not generate enough revenue to pay the scholarships.”

The Montana Lottery will be getting $5.4 million in their budget for 2018.

That’d be a great place to get the money for the scholarships that lots of Montana families are counting on.

But what are the other state agencies supposed to do…and is demanding these cuts really in the state’s long-term best interests?

Remember, if we cut spending at the state level it often means our cities or counties will raise taxes to make up for the budget shortfalls that they inevitably experience.

One way or the other, you’re paying for this.

And is that such a bad thing?

Take the story about the 14 dead kids.

The only one we really hear about is the young baby that died in the crib in winter weather when the window was open.

A big problem is that the legislature stopped budgeting the money for the agencies to even keep track of this kind of stuff.

Currently protecting kids falls under the authority of the Child and Family Services Division.

They’re getting $83.3 million in 2018, according to HB 2.

They fall under the purview of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, which is getting $1.9 billion in 2018.

That’s a lot of money.

The Senior and Long Term Care Division of DPHHS, for example, gets $309 million for 2018.

The Developmental Services Division gets $308 million.

The Health Resources Division gets $802 million.

I can understand why the GOP committees want to talk with those various divisions – they want to figure out why things cost so much.

I hope those agencies have the answer.

One final issue before I leave you today involves the courts, the county jails, and the rising costs associated with them.

If the state isn’t going to fund those things then your local taxes will go up.

It sucks, but what other option is there…let DUI offenders just drive away because there’s no where to put them?

I still believe we’ll have to have a conversation about legalizing marijuana.

We need the money, badly.

What other options are there?

Sales taxes…more taxes on the rich…sin taxes…medical marijuana taxes?

There aren’t a whole lot of good options that'll carry us through long-term.

Perhaps we’ll hear legislators talk more about this as the next few weeks progress.

Maybe we'll hear some ideas. Maybe some new faces will make a name for themselves.

Most of them have been silent. It’s mainly been party-approved spokespeople so far.

Maybe that’ll change as the work of government picks up.

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A Fiery Start to the Political New Year

1/6/2017

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Billings

Montana legislators are already disagreeing with one another.

Congressmen are already disagreeing with the president elect.

The intelligence community’s bullshit is falling on deaf ears.

And it’s cold as hell outside.

In Chicago it might well be hell.

Obama’s Hell Hole

The city of Chicago's been put on the national radar once again, this time in a kind of reverse-racism story about 4 black people beating the hell out of some white disabled person.

Hate crimes have been filed and I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more about it.

What’s with that city?

I mean, here in Montana we don’t see this stuff…unless it’s on an Indian reservation.

Even white-nationalist-lure Whitefish doesn’t have stories about people kidnapping other people and beating the shit out of them while lambasting the president elect.

What’s with that city?

In 2015 Chicago saw 2,900 people get shot and 468 of them died.

This is the city where our failed community organizer turned president is from.

It’s where his pal Rahm Emanuel is mayor.

It’s a city with 6.5% unemployment.

The city’s poorest residents are making about $18,000 a year when the average for the state is close to $50,000.

In other words, this place is failing and it’s failing bad.

Glad I don’t live in that shithole. I feel sorry for those that do.

But you know what?

It’s not my problem.

Just like those kids dying in Syria aren’t my problem and those kidnapped girls in Nigeria aren’t my problem.

It’s Chicago’s problem and they can fix it.

When enough black kids are shot and enough white retards are beat up, they’ll fix it.

Or the political elite will just strengthen their grip and nothing will change.

Either way, don’t much matter to me. Most Americans feel exactly the same way – it’s not our problem.

Economic Talk

So…the new jobs report is out today.

Isn’t that nice?

We always get our knickers in a knot over these jobs reports, like that somehow tells us how strong or weak our economy is.

They really tell us nothing, in my humble opinion.

CNN tells us that the report reveals that we had 75 months of job growth under Obama.

Wow, that is news to me!

We added 156,000 jobs in December, saw wages go up by 2.9% in December, and saw our December unemployment rate go to 4.7%.

The underemployment rate is at 9.2%.

Last year we added 2 million new jobs to the American economy and during Obama’s presidency we added 11.3 million.

Despite all those new jobs, the American economy is only expected to grow by a little over 2% next year.

That’s not very good.

Trump has promised that we’ll see growth around the 4% range.

News flash – that ain’t gonna happen.

He gave us the 4% number around September and then at the end of December he even suggested we could see growth around 6%.

Talk about clueless.

Monetary stimulus simply isn’t working.

We’ve been on quantitative easing for 8 years now. That’s the fancy name for printing money, and it’s not sustainable.

We won’t see growth, and Trump isn’t going to create it by switching from a monetary to a fiscal stimulus.

There’s just no way Trump is going to get us up to 4% growth each year.

Trump’s idea to come in like Ronald Reagan and do fiscal stimulus with infrastructure spending isn’t going to work.

The main problem is the demographic picture, with the American population getting older and older.

We know that 14.4% of Americans are 65-years-old or older.

If you break it down more you find that 46% of Americans are 40-years-old or older.

That means that just 26.8% are between the ages of 20 and 40 and another 26.9% are under the age of 20.

As a nation, we’re simply too old for the kind of economic growth that Trump thinks he can bring.

Old people are less productive, they use infrastructure less, they don’t buy homes, they pay down their cars, and they save money.

That’s not going to create an economic boost.

We’re not even going to be growing 2% as there’s just not enough workers to hire.

Montana’s been seeing this problem for some time now – employers can’t fill the jobs they need.

Sure, they won’t pay as much as neighboring areas, but let’s not get into that.

We know from a June 2015 Montana Department of Labor & Industry report that over the next decade the state expects to add 716 people each year that are between the ages of 16 and 64.

And this at a time when we’ll have 6,500 job openings each year.

In other words, we’ve got problems. They’re below the surface right now so we don’t worry about them much, but at some point they’ll hurt us.

Besides the dreary demographics picture, another big problem are the bubbles everywhere.

Here in Missoula we have a huge housing bubble, with the average house going for $236,000.

I recently saw an article that we’re in the Top 3 of metro areas in the US for housing prices.

Besides that we have bubbles in Europe, a huge bubble in China, and the stock market is nothing but a bubble.

China went down 45% last year, a real shock to them. It was their stocks, which just reflect the overall strength of an economy.

China peaked in 2011. It’s been downhill since then.

You don’t have to work hard for extraordinary stock and real estate gains.

They’re unsustainable.

At some point the bubbles will burst, the market will collapse, and most people will lose money.

Some people will make money, however.

Consider investing in nursing homes, pharmaceuticals that target old people, and commodities.

I’d hate to be in commercial real estate, tech stocks, or treasury bonds.

Your 10-year treasury bonds might get up to 3% but I expect they’ll quickly fall back to 1% and stay there for some time when things go south, as they will.

Don’t be surprised to see the Dow reach 22,000. Then don’t be surprised to see it fall back down to 5,000 or 6,000 and stay there for years.

The dollar will rise against the Euro, with the former seeing 120 and the latter probably the 0.85 range.

Gold will drop to the $600 level or lower as its 30-year commodity cycle comes to an end.

I expect we’ll see $60 a barrel oil prices before things slump later in the year. In a couple years the stuff will only trade for $10 a barrel or so.

But what do I know?

I’m not economist. I don’t own stocks. I barely have any money in the bank at all.

But maybe you do. So do some research like I did, and don’t just listen to the talking heads.

Good luck.

Talking the Special Election

Boy, was I wrong on Ron Quist.

In one fell swoop Brian Schweitzer both took himself out of the running for the U.S. House seat special election and gave about the biggest boost possible to Quist.

Besides that, Quist has a decent website up and running, one with issues, a bio, photos, and a place to donate.

So I think he’s the clear front-runner.

That seemed to send a few shockwaves through the Missoula wing of the Montana Democratic Party, which may have been going for Amanda Curtis.

I pretty much think this because of the way Martin Kidston wrote his Quist story on the Missoula Current.

“We’ve talked to (Quist) and like him a lot, but we’re sitting this one out,” Carol Williams said of her and her husband Pat – “often referred to as the silent leaders of the Montana Democratic Party” – and their decision not to endorse anyone like Schweitzer has.

Now would be a great time to get into the terrible penchant of the Democrats to endorse before the primary, but I guess we’re in a special situation.

I’d like to say, if the Williams’ are the “silent leaders of the Montana Democratic Party” then I feel we need to get some new silent leaders.

Dems aren’t doing too well in the state, in case you haven’t noticed.

This is the first time I’ve heard the “silent leaders” nonsense as well.

Makes me think twice about the Montana GOP membership fundraiser letter I got in the mail this week.

Heck, maybe I should have sent that in.

Democrats don’t even bother to send me anything anymore, so great is their hate for me.

I guess that happens when you continually point out their hypocrisy and their corruption.

No, Democrats in Montana have no one to blame but themselves for their problem.

As usual, I have no problem taking their ire – if they think blaming me will solve their problems, they can go right ahead.

Anyways, I noticed that I screwed up on my earlier assessment that the Quist candidacy was a joke.

Clearly it’s not.

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or more of the legislative Democrats to announce that their candidacy is now finished, mainly due to the unexpected workload of their legislative duties…of course.

Amanda Curtis will stay in it, and she has a good shot of beating Quist.

“Many of the Democratic state committee members who selected Curtis to replace Walsh will also sit on the committee that chooses a nominee for the special election,” Dan Brooks told us yesterday at the Missoula Independent.

So Quist might have the momentum and seem like the favorite, but Curtis could prove the top competitor.

She has the experience, she has the relationship with the committee members, and she has more name recognition.

Besides that she’s a known quantity when it comes to fundraising – she can do it, we don’t know if Quist can.

It remains to be seen when we’ll see fundraising report due dates for this special election, and I hope Corey Stapleton gets on that soon.

Still, smart candidates will ‘leak’ that information to the press around the time of Zinke’s departure, and definitely before the nominating convention.

Or were they not supposed to raise money to get a leg-up? The toughest race might not be against the GOP candidate but the other Dems vying for the nomination.

Regardless, we’ll have 5 to 6 Democrats that now have more statewide name recognition, and just because they’ve declared.

And what does declare mean? It seems like just about anyone can do it, as we saw with the Whitefish Spencer nonsense late last month.

The GOP has their own hills to climb, and we’ll see how that goes. Gianforte might want this, though some of the legislative Republicans do too.

I’ll tell you right now…if it’s Quist vs. Zolnikov I’d be tempted to vote for Zolnikov.

He’s young and has similar ideas to my own. Quist represents more of the old guard of the state, though I feel Quist will do a much better job at drawing crossover votes than Curtis will.

That might decide it – with Quist we know it’s truly up in the air; with Curtis we know it could be a loss just like it was before.

Hey, putting yourself out there also means you might earn a black mark too.

Mostly, I’m not that excited about Quist and I’m not sure why I should be.

I’m not really excited about anyone the Dems are throwing at us, to be honest.

That’s to be expected – the Party is dying.

It’ll be interesting to see how it all shapes up.

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Our Globalist System at Work

1/5/2017

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I wouldn’t say Obama was the worst president we’ve had.

James Buchanan usually tops my list, mainly because he stood by and pretty much let the Civil War happen.

Herbert Hoover is pretty far up there, again, because he sat by and let a terrible situation become worse, this time the lead-up and beginning of the Great Depression.

Many consider Richard Nixon to be one of our worst, but I’m not in that camp. Hell, the guy ended the Vietnam War!

Obama was supposed to end a war as well, this one in Iraq. Instead he just lied to us about that.

He lied to us about closing Guantanamo, and he lied to us about ending income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000.

He lied to us about reigning in CEO pay by closing loopholes, he lied to us about a $60 billion account to fund roads and bridges, and he lied to us about forbidding companies in bankruptcy from giving their CEO’s bonuses.

Yes, Obama lied to us about a lot of things.

Most politicians are exactly the same way.

And really…I can’t blame Obama too much.

He has very little power.

The Globalists

The real power is of course behind the scenes, on the other end of the puppet strings.

Most people in the world know that there’s a hidden hand that truly directs things, and it’s one of the reasons I get thousands of views on my Illuminati article each month.

People know that our president isn’t the greatest power in the land, they know the buck no longer stops there.

So where does it stop?

That’s harder to put our finger on, though signaling out the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements is good place to start.

The Catalyst

To me it’s painfully obvious how much of a pre-planned game everything is based on just one country – North Korea.

I mean, open your eyes.

Here’s a country that’s repeatedly said they want to wipe America off the map, they admit they're developing nuclear weapons to do that, and they continually test them as if to drive the point home further.

And we just sit back and let that happen.

Sometimes we chuckle to ourselves.

Oh, those silly North Koreans! Oh that silly man and his silly haircut! Aren’t they jokes? Ha!

Meanwhile we continue to slap sanctions on Iran, a country that isn’t going around saying they want to blow us off the map (though they do say that about Israel from time to time).

So…why are we sanctioning a country that means us no harm but we pretty much ignore a country hell-bent on destroying us?

Yeah, we have sanctions against North Korea – Obama put some in place in both 2009 and 2013.

They have no teeth, they have no effect.

In March 2016 China put tougher sanctions on the country, ones that limited coal imports.

Then a short time later China turned around and ignored its own sanctions, using a loophole to continue coal shipments to the country.

And really, I think we know by now that no matter what you do, North Korea doesn’t care.

The country has no money, the people there have no skills, and when you look at it like that, they have nothing to lose.

So when I open my eyes I see the powers behind the scenes using North Korea as the catalyst for the eventual world changes that have been on the drawing board for years, if not for a century or more.

Whoa…a century or more? Get out of town!

The Dialectic

Look, we know that communism in Russia was started by capitalists.

Jacob Schiff with New York investment banking firm Kuhn, Loeb and Company gave Leon Trotsky $10,000 to get things started off in May 1917, and eventually the banker gave $20 million to the Bolshevik cause.

Weird thing for a capitalist to do, huh?

Well, it was necessary to build up the world Hegelian dialectic of a thesis, antithesis and eventual resolution.

So we have capitalism needing a stronger enemy, so it creates communism, and now after a monumental battle between the two we’ll get to our globalist one-world government.

I think that’s what our failed community organizer turned failed president, Obama, will be doing soon – a lot of work in Europe with the UN, EU, and other globalist entities to make that one-world dream come about sooner.

That kind of world in no way benefits you or your family, just the rich bankers and their hanger-on’s.

What benefits regular people is nationalism, or strong nations that can work and trade together to enrich themselves and their people.

The Funnel

For about a hundred years in this country there hasn’t been a lot of enrichment.

Sure, there’s money…but most of that finds its way back into the vast network of Federal Reserve banks, and eventually ends up in Europe.

It’s why we have $20 trillion in national debt.

Even as long ago as 1995 we knew that up to $250 billion of the $375 billion American dollars in circulation were not in America but overseas.

You might remember how we profiled Confessions of an Economic Hitman a few months ago. It’s a good book that profiles the large corporations that go into third-world countries, prey on them, steal their resources, then lead them heavily in debt to multinational banks.

That’s how the globalist system operates– just as it did in colonial days when places like Africa and Asia were swallowed up and spit out again.

Most are still trying to come to grips with the spiritual, economic, and cultural setbacks they suffered 150 years ago or more. It’s why they’re in poverty.

It’s why so many of those old colonizers – now in the guise of international banks – go back into those countries and make them false promises so they can trick the people, get them to sign on the dotted line, then slam them with more debt, more payments they’ll never be able to make.

That’s how the world operates

In Other News

Yesterday I got into a huff about not finding a source for the $293 million number that Montana Democrats and Montana newspaper reporters gave us.

I asked Matt Volz, the Associated Press reporter that gave us that number.

He never replied to me, and that goes for the Montana Standard as well.

No one really cares about this.

No one really cares that there are numbers floating around out there with nothing to back them up.

And why should they care?

It’s not like any of this is important.

No, I’m serious – this is state government spending for 2018 and 2019.

For the most part, it won’t have much effect on you. We already know the GOP won’t be raising taxes, and we know they’ll cut spending way down from what Bullock wants.

There’s nothing Bullock or legislative Democrats can do about this, besides whine.

Moving on…I see that we have a new entry for the special election.

It’s Rob Quist!

Yeah, I don’t know who the fuck that is either.

I guess he’s some old musician.

Now, if you’re of a certain age – and you remember what the Aber Day keggers were – then you might know who this person is.

He was in some band called the Mission Mountain Wood Band that I guess had a few hits.

I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t think I’ve heard their music.

Again, if you’re not of a certain age all this stuff will go right over your head.

Anyways, I guess Quist is a Democrat.

Pretty much anyone can call themselves a Democrat. There’s no blood test or pissing in cups or anything…we just take your word for it.

This can cause problems later when candidates speak their mind a bit more, but then Montana Democrats just take the approach they took with me in 2016 – they ignore your phone calls and emails publicly while behind closed doors they create fake social media accounts to mock you.

Yes, it is just like high school.

To me, the Quist ‘candidacy’ is nothing more than a joke.

This man has no chance, let’s not kid ourselves.

The candidate will probably be Amanda Curtis, maybe some other legislative type that’s been thumbed by the Party as having a viable, long-term future.

In other words, it’ll be someone the Party knows will play ball and do as their told…and occasionally roll over (on the issues), go fetch (the corporate donations) and play dead (when the votes come in).

That last is of course the easiest, and what most of us expect to see happen come May or June or whenever this damn thing will be.

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Weekend Comp

Who is Montana’s Zeno Baucus?

The Legacy

The Money

The Splits

Conclusion

Why Tester Voted for Big Pharma and Against Montanans

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Continued Fun with Images

Montana Special Election: Reds

Montana Special Election: Blues

Quist vs. Curtis

Digging Into Montana’s Spending Woes

A Fiery Start to the Political New Year

Obama’s Hell Hole

Economic Talk

Talking the Special Election

Our Globalist System at Work

The Globalists

The Catalyst

The Dialectic

The Funnel

In Other News

MT Book 7

Montana Blog

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives

My MT History Books

My Montana Novels

My Montana Short Fiction

​The Legacy

​The Money

​The Splits

​Conclusion

​You Might Also Like

​Obama’s Hell Hole

​Economic Talk

​Talking the Special Election

​The Globalists

​The Catalyst

​The Dialectic

​The Funnel

​In Other News

MT Book 7

​Montana Blog

​Popular Posts

Categories

Archives

​My MT History Books

My Montana Novels

My Montana Short Fiction

The Legacy

The Money

The Splits

Conclusion

You Might Also Like

Obama’s Hell Hole

Economic Talk

Talking the Special Election

The Globalists

The Catalyst

The Dialectic

The Funnel

In Other News

Montana Blog

Popular Posts

My MT History Books