Here’s a letter making the rounds on social media. I don’t know the person that wrote it, or how true it is. Thought you might be interested.
School Funding Woes
There was an article in RD today about an article in the Daily Montanana (a site I don’t read).
I guess a former editor with Lee Enterprises penned a piece about Montana tearing itself apart over covid and masks and vaccines. At one point, he bemoans Gianforte for having “stoked the division by issuing a needless and pointless proclamation about parents having the choice to opt out of public schools, a right and choice they’ve always had.”
This is the real issue for Democrats, who rely so much on schools for support and teachers, typically former, for candidates to office. What happens if enough parents take their kids out of the public schools? Those schools lose enrollment numbers, and the funding that corresponds to it.
7,000 students were lost to our K-12 system statewide by October 2020, a 1.8% drop. By March 2021, it’d dropped another 0.6%, for a total year-to-year drop of 2.4%.
At that point, 70% of parents were homeschooling. The year before, 3% had.
The school districts, the unions, and the Montana Democratic Party are deathly afraid that many of that 70% won’t come back to the public schools. In the Flathead, they figure 40-50% will return. That means 20% more people will be homeschooling. In that district alone, they could lose 20% of their funding.
This is disastrous for the left, and I believe that’s what the Daily Montanan article was really about.
These numbers play into the legislature’s hands, a body that’s wanted to increase home school budgeting for years, while decreasing public school funding. Now they have the justification, and the legal right to do so.
Or do they? Many school districts will be able to use a 3-year average of numbers when submitting enrollment data. But what years can be used for the 2023 legislature? Seems to me that at least two years will show decreases, resulting in some funding loss.
How will that funding be made up? In some areas, with new mill levies or taxes or bonds. In others, budget cuts and layoffs.
In a strange twist, it’s Democrats that should now be chomping at the bit to see schools stay open at all costs, while Republicans might want to use caution, and let them shutdown.
This will be a fun game to watch in the 16 months leading up to the legislature’s next session.
Abortions/Vacinnes
Folks, we’ve found the hot-button issue that will take our minds off Afghanistan and Biden’s shoddy presidency - abortion!
In Texas, a woman’s right to choose has pretty much been taken away. You can still get an abortion before six weeks, but most women probably won’t know they’re pregnant by then anyways.
Oh well. It doesn't matter to me (they can always drive to another state, after all).
What good’s a right to choose, or the ability to say what you can and can’t do with your body? In the atmosphere of the vaccine, that kind of logic no longer applies.
I don’t feel sorry for these women at all. I know how they feel, when you see your rights taken away, when you can’t decide to do with your body as you please, when others tell you what you have to do.
It’s alright when we apply that logic to the vaccine, and those that don’t want to take it. But if we dare take away a recently-pregnant-woman’s body autonomy away, watch out!
Will this abortion/vacinne double-standard lead to any meaningful change in either arena?
I wouldn’t count on it.
MOR ‘Debate’
Here in Missoula, two of the four mayoral candidates are bitching and moaning that they MOR didn’t endorse them.
As if anyone cares who the Missoula Organization of Realtors endorses. Hell, most voters don’t even know what that is.
The contention is that Jacob Elder’s candidate questionnaire didn’t reach him, but instead went to his spam email folder.
Knopp claims he never got an email at all.
In the case of Elder, he found the ‘junk’ email on July 9...well past the June 30 deadline. They said, ‘Alright...send it back by July 30.’
So Elder did...at 4:45 PM on July 30, which just happened to be a Friday.
According to the MOR, no one saw the email at that time, and by the time they did see it, the deadline was over.
Elder is bitching because he had about 3 weeks to fill the damn thing out - after he knew it was already late - but waited until the last minute, like some middle school kid doing a book report.
Now he’s playing the victim. What a case of sad-fuckin’-sauce! This man needs to grow up, and I think we’ve seen that quite clearly over this past week. At this point, I think Knopp will probably beat Elder and advance to the general with Engen. Elder has dug his own grave and he keeps on digging. Can’t anyone on his campaign take that shovel away?!?
So how about me? The Missoulian story never mentions me once.
I was sent the MOR candidate questionnaire right on filing day, June 22. I never bothered replying to it.
Then on July 13 - well past the MOR’s own deadline - I was sent a follow-up email, wondering if I was going to do the questionnaire, which the interview and endorsement were dependent upon.
At that point I replied. I said something like, ‘I’m not going to do that. You’re just going to endorse one of my opponents anyways, likely Engen.’
And sure enough, they endorsed Engen. I don’t for one second think they would have even considered me if I had done their interview. These are realtors, and many are donating to the mayor’s campaign.
I think the current Missoulian story just makes Elder look childish and weak.
Dog Days
It’s figured there are 900 million dogs in the world.
Around 50 were left behind in Afghanistan as the Americans pulled out, highly-trained service dogs that were themselves considered soldiers.
According to the Pentagon, the number of dogs left behind is zero.
Do you believe that? Do you believe anything your government is telling you these days, like that just 150 Americans are still in that country?
I don’t. I don’t for one second.
Some reports put the number of dogs left at 150+. The truth is, we have no idea what’s going on in that country anymore, and probably won’t for some time.
What a disgrace.
God, Global Warming...or Both?
Is it God’s wrath we see playing out on the world stage today, or is it global warming, climate change...whatever you want to call it?
Because seeing those images coming out of New York and Pennsylvania...it sure seems Biblical.
Long ago, we would have said it was God doing this, casting His judgement upon us, and we’d believe it without question. Anyone who doubted such would be ridiculed, shunned, perhaps burned at the stake.
But today we’re rational, and let science guide us. God has nothing to do with it. It’s nature and evolution and, more and more, the hand of man. It’s the people that are to blame! But just the little people, not those in high places flying charter. Anyone who doubts the science of this will be ridiculed, browbeaten, canceled, deplatformed, and perhaps prohibited from seeing your family (unless you get the vaccine).
I think science was reigning supreme, and doing quite well...until recently. Now many are skeptical of the science. Also, with so much death and misery lately, many are turning away from science and back to God.
In the coming years, I think we’ll see great debates on these two issues, of God vs. science.
Municipal Fundraising
If you raise money a few weeks before an election, you have to report it within 24 or 48 hours.
So who’s raising money in the final 12 days of the two main campaigns that have a primary?
Despite the dismal news about Elder lately, he’s managed to raise $610 since the last campaign finance report was due on August 20.
He’s also spent another $8,000 to run TV ads from 8/31 to 9/6, as well as $500 for Google ads, $7,500 to California’s Mad Mac for a TV production shoot, and $333 for two weeks worth of consulting on Elder’s social media exposure.
How about Engen?
He’s raised a shit-ton over the past week or so. It’s hard to add up because they don’t give you totals in these reports.
I figure it’s $10,000 or more. He’s taking in over $1,000 on some days. He’s spending a lot, too.
In the past week or so he’s spent about $2,000 with a California firm for pro-Engen text messaging. The Missoula Current got $990 to run the sidebar ad for Engen from 8/28 to 9/14.
Engen doesn’t waste time with just yard signs. He’s spent over $2,300 for 24 large highway signs. Nearly $1,500 was spent for digital ads. Over $7,000 was spent with a D.C. firm for 11,716 direct mailers.
Neither Knopp nor I have raised or spent money since the last report.
What about Ward 1?
Kevin Hunt used a Florida firm to print 6,000 postcard mailers at a cost of $689. He also spent nearly $1,600 for postage for those mailers.
VanFossen brought in about $600 from a few donors. She went with a Missouri firm to print and mail about 1,600 postcards for $3,500.
Winterer brought in another $360 and spent nothing.
Savage brought in about $1,200. She spent $1,100 for 3,500 campaign cards. She then spent $875 for another 2,500 mailers.
It’s hard to say who’s going to win this race.