Pointing Out the Stupidity from This Week’s Montana News

Montana's Sun River

Lots of stupid stuff to report on this week.
 
I’ll mainly focus on the governor’s race. We have tax plans, ad buys (and lack thereof), as well as the people behind the scenes (kind of).
 
Confused yet?
 
Politics is a confusing sport and political season is a confusing time.
 
Let’s try to shine a bit of sun on it today, shall we?
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​Gianforte’s 406 Tax Plan

Lots of news on Gianforte’s Facebook ‘gaffe’ this week, though from what I’ve heard, if there was a Facebook employee talking about this stuff…what’s the problem?
 
There is no problem, aside from Democrats trying to make an issue out of something, anything that will keep the attention off of Bullock’s lack of ideas.
 
So they talk about Facebook when perhaps they should talk more about the tax plan.
 
I had a Republican ask me this week when I was going to profile the plan, and perhaps tear it apart, so we’ll do that now.
 
Here’s what that tax plan looks like:
 

Gianforte 406 tax plan

 
Montana Public Radio has a bit of news on it and you can read more on the Gianforte website about it.
 
Gianforte’s rationale behind this tax plan is that businesses are “hiring less people, facing a lower bottom line.”
 
He says that “with falling commodities prices, there are storm clouds overhead” for Montana.
 
To Gianforte’s way of thinking, “lower taxes will leave more money in Montanans pockets.”
 
So that’s why we need to pay less taxes, “simplify the tax code,” and get more private sector jobs. “State operating costs will go down” as well, he claims.
 
Gianforte says that we can “have tax relief and maintain enough surplus to keep our bond rating.”
 
He also points out that Bullock “vetoed 3 tax reduction bills last year.”
 
That was all from the Gianforte press conference that was held in Clancy on Monday.
 
Now, what can we make of this?
 
Personally, I don’t think lowering a tax rate from 6.9% to 6.0% is going to screw the state over.
 
Democrats are nearly dying of shock, however, for that 0.9% reduction will mean about $81 million less in taxes.
 
Democrats are also angry about the business equipment tax as this will cut out about $33 million from schools.
 
Personally, I find these arguments demeaning.
 
Didn’t we have a $450 million surplus after last session?
 
We chose not to use that money and for the past year it’s been sitting in a bank account.
 
Now you’re telling me that you need to keep collecting as much tax money each year…even when you had nearly half a billion dollars worth?
 
What is my money being used for now?
 
Nothing.
 
It’s being used for nothing.
 
And Democrats want nothing to change.
 
Boy, that’s silly.
 
That argument isn’t going to win over any swing voters. Know why? It’s not sexy.
 
Now, cutting taxes for all…that’s sexy.
 
Maintaining our bond rating, however, is not.
 
Montana Democrats don’t understand sexy issues, however, so instead of repackaging this in a way that makes sense to common people, they’ll keep bashing you over the head with the same arguments.
 
Good luck with that.
 

​Bullock’s Two Idiots

How about those two idiots that National recruited to ‘guide’ Bullock’s campaign?
 
These are of course the clowns Jason Pitt and Eric Hyers.
 
God, I saw them online the other night at around 8 PM doing a bunch of Twitter messages about Gianforte and Facebook.
 
Who are you talking to?
 
I mean, yeah…maybe there’s a lot of political types on #mtpol at 8 PM on a Thursday night.
 
I doubt it, though, and there sure as shit aren’t any swing voters or others that you can convince to come over to your cause.
 

Bullock's staffers discussing the issues

 
So mainly, it’s just a couple of nitwits wasting time and money. Since that money comes from National and Bullock just has to rent those staffers, maybe it doesn’t matter.
 
To think that those two will convince anyone to vote for Bullock, however, well…good luck with that.
 

Montana Cowturd Spies on You

JC over at Reptile Dysfunction revealed on Thursday that Democratic mouthpiece blog MT Cowturd is actually spying on it’s users.
 
Yeah, no shit! This is the kind of skuzzy stuff you’d expect from Republicans.
 
Alas, when a site pretends that the GOP attacked it to try and stop it from reporting “the news” then you know things are pretty screwy.
 
Yeah, Demo operatives in the state actually want us to believe there was some tell-all story or something that caused the moneyed interests to unleash their cyber attack dogs to take the site down.
 
Oh, that’s rich.
 
What Cowturd won’t mention, however, is that they’re spying on their users using canvas fingerprinting software.
 
What the hell is that?
 
I went ahead and looked up canvas fingerprinting to get an idea of what it is. There was a good article in 2014 called Canvas fingerprinting is tracking you, and you don’t even know what it is. Here are some excerpts:
 

“Popular, heavily trafficked websites are increasingly turning to “canvas fingerprinting” in order to track your online movements. Canvas fingerprinting is extremely hard to block, hard to detect, and has become a unique identifier that logs your ‘Net history as you jump from site to site without you knowing about it — on desktop and mobile devices.
 
The shocker for the researchers is that while standard cookies, primarily on desktop, have long tracked your movements, with users being able to opt out with ad-blocking software, canvas fingerprinting actually takes control away from the users and is virtually impossible to detect.
 
In fact, Adblock and other programs designed to thwart attempts to follow you from website to website don’t traditionally work with canvas fingerprinting, according to Kujawa.
 
Not having an opt-out switch, or ad block software downloaded on your machine that can successfully eliminate the ability to track you, means that the amount of data AddThis is collecting is vast. And that’s exactly the kind of data sought by advertisers, insurance companies, or mortgage brokers sizing you up as potential clients — or law enforcement.”

 
So the website is spying on you. That makes it really easy to block you if you get out of line or say something against one of the Democratic politicians in the state.
 
You’ll also notice that Cowturd did away with the hit counter for how many people visit or read an article.
 
Many have said that the counter was fake and I’ve always wondered if they were right. By taking it down, I wonder if they just got tired of living the lie.

​After all, we see them spying on users and now, with the “fake” Gianforte Facebook news, it’s probably best to stop lying about visitors when you charge someone else with lying too.
 
Of course, there’ll never be any mention of the removal of the hit counters or their spying through the fingerprinting software. They’ll ignore those charges or, if they grow too loud, they’ll attack the person making them.
 
Montana Democratic strategy 101.
 
Please take a moment to look at the research I’ve done on Cowturd.
 

• Montana Cowgirl: Protecting the Montana Status Quo (April 29, 2014)

 

• What is Wrong with Montana Cowgirl? (April 19, 2015)

 

• Dissecting MT Cowgirl’s BS This Evening (December 2, 2015)

 

• An Anonymous Troll Guides Montana Democrats (December 19, 2015)

 
That last one’s all about New York millionaire Eric Stern.
 
We know that Cowturd relies on a lot more guest posters today, and I feel that’s because we did a good job running Eric Stern out.
 
God, if it wasn’t for that man I’d actually vote for Monica Lindeen this year. Alas, I know another Democrat in the Secretary of State’s Office will just keep Stern there.
 
So I won’t vote for Lindeen and I hope she loses.
 
Getting rid of Eric Stern is more than worth it.
 

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Bullock Ad Buys?

You might remember my analysis of Gianforte’s TV ad buy a couple weeks ago.
 
I’ve been looking at those FCC folders related to the state TV stations. So far, Bullock hasn’t bought any ads to match what Gianforte is doing.
 
Besides that, the Republican Governor’s Association is running an ad touting Bullock’s state plane usage.
 
MTN News had the story and they tell us that $93,000 was spent to make this ad.
 
Personally, I don’t think a lot of people really care about the governor’s plane usage. If the GOP wants to discuss it all the way to the election I feel that Bullock will have an easy time winning.
 
Honestly, $93,000 for that shit-shingle of an ad? If that’s the economic sanity that Gianforte will bring to the state then I’ll just leave that race blank on the ballot.
 
The question still remains…when will Bullock buy some ads?
 
I don’t think he has the money for ‘em, myself. If he were to buy 10 ad spots at $100,000 a pop he’d be out of money…or close to it.
 
It’s why he’s constantly raising money at private residences, though I see tonight he’ll be doing a MTPIRG benefit in Missoula.
 
The point is – he needs money and he needs money bad. That makes people desperate.
 
More, it shows that his only real strategy is to drown the airwaves with messages of how good he is and how bad Gianforte is.
 
If you’re one of the 5% of households that doesn’t watch TV you’ll be spared. For the rest of you, well…I’m sorry.
 
It’s propaganda pure and simple, and saves candidates from actually having to go around and meet people individually or at rallies.
 
That’s politics today and most people are sick of it.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Bernie losing to Hillary, I'm sick of the feeling that another four years of nothing is coming my way.

I say that because I'm sure people's lives will not get better, just the 1%'s. 

I do have some hope that things will get better eventually. Too many people are pissed off and demanding change.

It might not come this year, but come it will.