Archives Index, 2018 July;
31 July 2018 — 1243 mdt
Creston tower dustup reminds us that good intentions do not nullify
the need for school boards to seek public comment on projects
Creston’s school board thought it had a winner. In exchange for letting Montana Sky build a 36-meter-high monopole tower on school property, the school would receive broadband internet free of charge. In June, the board — evidently learning nothing from the donnybrook over a proposed cell phone tower atop Flathead High School — quietly approved the deal without seeking public comment.
30 July 2018 — 1027 mdt
Candidates should not claim they’re leaders or that they’re courageous
Candidates who assert “I’m a leader,” or “I have courage,” or “I’m strong,” risk being judged by the voters as having none of these qualities. The assertions are evidence of self-doubt.
29 July 2018 — 1518 mdt
Two graphs, and two books, on immigration
Growing up in the fifties and early sixties, I didn’t realize I was living in an era of low immigration rates. I was taught that the Americanization of immigrants through their generations was akin to a melting pot. Intuitively, I understood that immigration is neither an unalloyed blessing nor an unmitigable curse; that a nation can absorb only so many immigrants without undergoing unacceptable change. But I didn’t give much thought to how and where limits should be set.
Now, thanks to President Trump’s cynical nativist attacks on immigrants, and his administration’s callous policies toward immigrants, including but certainly not limited to, separating the children of asylum seeking Latin Americans from their parents as the families cross the border, I’m spending part of my summer improving my understanding of the issue.
27 July 2018 — 1438 mdt
Montana Democratic Party issues edgy internet video to refute
Rosendale’s claim that Tester never works with President Trump
I don’t know whether this two-minute attack video (internet only) by Montana’s Democratic Party will be effective. It makes valid points, using political jujitsu to cudgel Matt Rosendale with his own hyperbole. But it makes those points with a jarring heavy metal throb that I found so annoying that at one point I ripped off my headphones before I suffered a seizure. I’m not in the audience the ad’s targeting.
Apart from rebutting Rosendale — “State Frauditor Matt Rosendale,” to quote the ad; the MDP loves insulting Republicans with nasty nicknames — the ad advances Tester’s argument that there’s no need to elect a real Republican because he’s so good at working with the President. At some point, that argument invites a counter-ad featuring Trump arguing that sure, sometimes Tester agrees with him by accident, but that Rosendale always will agree with him by design. Expect that to happen in mid-September.
24–25 July 2018 — 1410 mdt
The dismal history of Democratic fundraising for
Montana’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives
Updated. Pat Williams retired after the 1995–1997 session. Since then, no Democrat has been elected to serve as Montana’s lone representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Nancy Keenan, in 2000, came the closest with 47.3 percent of the 2-party vote. She also came the closest to fundraising parity with her Republican opponent, Dennis Rehberg, raising 89.6 percent as much money as Rehberg raised.
Although Denise Juneau raised slightly more money in 2016, in 2018 dollars, than Keenan, she raised only 48.7 percent as much money as her Republican opponent, Ryan Zinke, and received only 41.9 percent of the 2-party vote. As the graphs below reveal, the closer Democratic candidates for the U.S. House seat approach fundraising parity with their Republican opponents, the greater their share of the 2-party vote.
21 July 2018 — 0356 mdt
Pistol packin’ teacher, lay that pistol down
School supplies are on sale in the big box stores, where underpaid teachers use their own money to buy school supplies their schools are too cheap to buy. But while some teachers are stocking up on notebooks and Crayons, others are stocking up on bullets for the sidearms they’ll be carrying when classes begin, and spending their summer at private training ranges learning how to shoot and kill people. Their training will instill in them confidence, probably overconfidence, that they’re proficient in a skill that’s perishable and best left to law enforcement officers who train constantly. What could possibly go wrong? For starters, the scenario in the lyrics below.
The school board wanted big iron,
On every teacher’s hip,
So students would be safer,
And not give teachers lip.
18 July 2018 — 1714 mdt
Green Party ballot access case heads to Montana Supreme Court
A few days after district court judge James Reynolds ordered the Green Party stricken from the 2018 Montana general election ballot, MT SecST Corey Stapleton announced he’s appealing Reynolds’ decision to the Montana Supreme Court. That’s his right — and his obligation if he believes the district court’s decision was wrong. Whether he has a strong case on appeal is another question.
My interpretation of the decision is that the evidence supports Reynolds’ order to remove the Green Party’s candidates from the ballot. The people gathering signatures made foolish errors, thereby invalidating enough signatures that the Green Party fell short of the minimums in several legislative districts.
16 July 2018 — 1621 mdt
There’s a high probability that Tester is leading Rosendale
President Trump spoke in Great Falls on 5 July, denouncing Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and praising Republican senatorial candidate Matt Rosendale, who currently serves as Montana’s auditor. Three days later, the Remington Research Group began a massive robopoll that ended on 10 July. The result? Tester had a three-point lead, down from an eight-point lead a month ago.
13 July 2018 — 0922 mdt
Will Montana’s Democrats decide that healthcare is a right?
Montana’s Democrats are holding their platform convention today and tomorrow in Great Falls. Whether the party’s platform should explicitly state that healthcare is a right one of many issues on the platform convention’s agenda, but it’s probably the most important one. The MDP’s current platform, adopted in 2016, supports “Affordable and accessible healthcare for all Montanans,” but, with one exception, omits any statement that healthcare is a right.
11 July 2018 — 1047 mdt
An electoral history of Montana’s university levy
On 5 November, voters will decided whether to extend Montana’s 6-mil university levy for another ten years. As Pete Talbot notes at The Montana Post, approval is not a slam dunk. There’s actually an active campaign against the levy. Should the levy fail, tuition may be increased.
The first 6-mil levy was put to, and approved by, the voters in 1948, but a statewide university levy was put to the voters in 1914, when only men could vote. In 1920, women voted and the university levy passed. So did all subsequent university levies.
6 July 2018 — 1425 mdt
They were proud to have been snookered
Airlines overbook flights to compensate for no-shows. And politicians overbook rallies to ensure there’s a full house and long lines of people who are turned away by the fire marshall. That’s what happened in Great Falls yesterday for President Trump’s anti-Tester rally. His operation was unrepentant about overbooking the rally — and, according to several news reports, people who had driven six hours or more to attend, only to be turned away, forgave his deceiving them.
That’s not surprising. Partisans who attend such affairs do not suffer from voters remorse. In fact, they’re kind of proud they were unwittingly conscripted into a scheme to produce an overflow crowd. They’re willing to endure the ignominy of having been snookered and turned away from the event, willing to have suffered the indignities imposed by the security measures that convert the community into a police state while the Great Man is present, because they can tell their friends and family they were part of a historic event.
So can the President’s critics who were penned up like cattle in the designated protest area.
As for Trump, he spent an hour praising Matt Rosendale, denouncing Sen. Jon Tester, and vowing to make American great again. No one was surprised by his remarks. And I’ll bet thousands of Great Falls residents were relieved when Air Force One took off for Washington, D.C., and the Electric City began returning to normal.
5 July 2018 — 1947 mdt
How much should we trust Kalispell Regional Healthcare?
That’s a fair question, an important question, and the question on many minds in the Flathead. On 3 July, both the Daily InterLake and the Flathead Beacon published stories reporting the details of accusations that KRH overpaid some physicians. The 91-page complaint, which had been under seal for a year, was released and can be downloaded from the Beacon’s website.
Thus far, the alleged improprieties are financial, not medical. There are no reports that the case has compromised the hospital’s quality of care. But as tensions mount, and as stress builds on on the physicians named in the complaint, common sense tells us that the probability that stress induced medical mistakes could be made increases. That does not build trust.
5 July 2018 — 1527 mdt
Crowdsourcing opposition research
Over at The Montana Post, our state’s leading political blog, Nathan Kosted has two posts (3 July, 4 July) asking his readers for information on Rep. Greg Gianforte’s interactions with other people. Gianforte’s interaction with the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs last year is well known, but Kosted is wondering whether that incident was an aberration or part of a pattern of high handed conduct.
Crowdsourcing opposition research has risks, as it may encourage dirty tricksters to manufacture damning stories that if published would be exposed as frauds, earning Kosted and The Montana Post opprobrium and possibly the opportunity to defend a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Kosted has safeguards in place that should thwart such mischief, so the probability he could be taken down like Dan Rather was seems low.
Independence Day, 2018
Flathead Memo wishes everyone a sparkling Fourth of July
3 July 2018 — 1005 mdt
Political briefs
Today, a look at a parade in Kalispell, a speech in Great Falls, and the proposal to hold a special legislative session in July to tamper with two citizens initiatives.
How many people will watch Kalispell’s Independence Day parade tomorrow?
A friend active in politics put that question to me last week, knowing I have experience counting crowds and photographing parades. After measuring the parade route and sidewalk space via Google Earth, and counting a couple of blocks of spectators in my photographs of the 2016 parade, I estimated 1,600 to 2,000 along the entire route..
The beginning of Kalispell’s 2016 Independence Day parade, taken near the southeast corner of Main and Center. This is not the image I used for my count, but it provides a good look at the crowd. Larger image.
2 July 2018 — 0810 mdt
Incivility is not a virtue, and civility is not a vice
In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy, seeking to thaw the Cold War, said, “So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.” Today, many Democrats, glowing hot with anger at President Trump and the Americans who elected him, do consider civility a weakness, a vice, and believe that winning requires incivility — shaming, shunning, shouting, shoving, spitting, slinging rocks and mud — which they consider a virtue. After all, it worked for Donald Trump, didn’t it?
It’s tempting to conclude from the 2016 campaign that incivility was a winner. Trump was coarse, demagogic, rough as a cob, mean as a snake. At his rallies, he incited violence, reminding me of George Wallace's 1968 campaign. But Trump, as the Wesleyan Media Project’s analysis of advertising in the 2016 campaign revealed, campaigned on the issues far more than Hillary Clinton, who practiced the politics of personal destruction, denouncing the white working class, once a major and valued Democratic constituency, as deplorable homophobes and racists.
2 July 2018 — 0624 mdt
Democrats and progressives must put Americans first
Two days ago, thousands of Democrats and progressives held rallies protesting President Trump’s treatment of immigrant families who tried illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico. Some immigrants were political refugees, others were fleeing Central America’s lawlessness and vicious gangs, yet others simply sought more economic opportunity. Their treatment by our government has been heartbreaking and appalling. The rallies protesting it called attention to both the violation of fundamental human rights, and the danger that Trump’s immigration policies are making our nation a less compassionate place for immigrants and citizens alike.
2 July 2018 — 0504 mdt
Justice Kennedy’s retirement is not good news
for Sen. Tester’s re-election campaign
Until last week, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Matt Rosendale didn’t have a big issue that could motivate an extraordinary turnout from his deeply conservative base. Now he does, thanks to the retirement of 81-year-old Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. With President Trump certain to nominate an Antonin Scalia genre conservative as Kennedy’s replacement, and the possibility that Trump may have an opportunity to replace 85-year-old Ruth Ginsburg, a liberal justice, movement conservatives will be motivated to preserve and expand the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.