When a news publication’s critics are not
satisfied to just write a letter-to-the-editor

Irreducible risks attend reporting, writing commentary, penning novels, publishing photographs.

Half a century ago, as editor of my college’s student newspaper, I came close to getting slugged in my snoot by a jock who took umbrage at my opinion that his sacred sport should be a line item in the drama department’s budget. Eventually, he calmed down, but he never submitted a letter-to-the-editor complaining of my heresy, and I took care not to encounter him alone in a dark alley lest he indulge his preference for direct action.

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Jennifer Allen withdraws as Democratic candidate for Senate District 5

Jennifer Allen today withdrew as the Democratic candidate for Senate District 5 (map). She was challenging incumbent Republican Bob Keenan. In a statement (below) published on her campaign’s Facebook page, she explained she must devote all of her time to dealing with unexpected health issues affecting her husband.

Allen is one of many women who responded to Donald Trump’s election as President by becoming involved in politics and community affairs. She’s friendly, intelligent, a natural for politics and community activities, and fun to be around. Although she won’t be on the ballot in November, I’m confident we’ll still see her and hear from her on many important issues.

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Murders at the Annapolis Capital Gazette

Earlier today, Jarrod Ramos, a man who didn’t like a story about his adventures in court, (allegedly) walked into the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, MD, with a shotgun. He killed at least five, wounded several more, then was captured, alive and apparently not injured. Thus far, it appears he acted alone, and that his motive was personal, not political.

Statistically, the revenge murder of an editor or reporter is a rare event. It is almost always an independent event, not part of a conspiracy or a movement. That it’s rare and random, with little or no predictive value, does not make it less awful, but it’s awfulness is of little use for inferring profound lessons from the event.

I urge my fellow online commentators to remember that only the shooter, (allegedly) Mr. Ramos, has blood on his hands. No one else is to blame.

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“Maryland Matt” is all over the internet and social media—
but Farmer Jon Tester from Big Sandy is not

Why are Democrats spending so much time and money on internet ads calling attention to “Maryland Matt” Rosendale, and so little promoting Sen. Jon Tester? What is the point of using Democratic money to help Rosendale improve his name recognition?

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Joe Crowley loses to Alex Cortez in racially charged campaign

Rewritten. Rep. Joe Crowley, the fourth ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a 10-term member of Congress, lost the Democratic primary for his seat by a 3:2 margin yesterday — and lost it to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old local organizer and Democratic Socialist. Only 13 percent of registered Democrats voted.

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Madder than a Red Hen’s owner — commentary deferred

Twitter and Facebook were alive yesterday with outrage over my criticism of the ouster of Sarah Sanders from the Lexington, VA, Red Hen restaurant. I thought it was an open and shut case of unjust discrimination, and counter-productive political tactics, and still do, but most of my friends and followers disagreed, and disagreed in language that left no doubt how angry they are at Trump and his hierlings.

I’m deferring further comment on this incident, and the breakdown in civil and political norms it represents, for at least a few days while the debate develops. In the meantime, readers might consider reviewing vigilante and escrache.

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The Red Hen restaurant’s owner is a left wing social vigilante
who should not have denied service to Sarah Sanders

Despite being a preacher’s kid, White House Press Secretary Sarah Saunders effortlessly bears false witness in the service of her President, Donald Trump, a man for whom the truth is an option, not an obligation. Her defense of Trump has earned her many friends on the political right, and many enemies on the political left.

On Friday, Sanders and friends chose to dine at the Red Hen, in Lexington, VA. That, reports the Washington Post’s Mary Jordan, didn’t go well:

For a more detailed account of how and why Sanders was politely kicked out of the Red Hen, see The owner of the Red Hen explains why she asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, by WP reporters Avi Selk and Sarah Murray. Axios also has part of the backstory.

Sanders and her friends were not raising a ruckus. They weren’t being rowdy. They weren’t standing on chairs haranguing the other customers with quotes from Chairman Trump. They weren’t denouncing the staff as perverts. They were, by all accounts, simply there for a quiet meal and not misbehaving.

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The last of the Last Best News

Ed Kemmick announced last night that his Billings based online newspaper, The Last Best News, will suspend operations at the end of June. He’ll keep the LBN online in a read-only mode through the end of August.

What led to his decision to step away from an online news publication that, along with the Missoula Current, and the Flathead Beacon (also a print publication), proved that news reporting can survive without splashing law enforcement booking photos over the home page as click bait? A recognition that one should move along while one can still do so on one’s own terms.

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Whites will not be a minority in the United States for decades

Once again, the “Non-Hispanic White” statistic is being used to minimize the size of the nation’s white population.

At the Brookings Institute, a center-left think tank, there’s a new study by William Frey, US white population declines and Generation “Z-Plus” is minority white, census shows, that will scare the devil out of some of Trump’s partisans, and gladden the hearts of those who believe the U.S. is becoming, and should become, a minority majority nation in which whites are less than half of the population.

Frey correctly reports that the nation’s white population is declining, but his allegation that whites already are a minority of “Generation Z” depends on counting Hispanics as not white. That’s intellectual fraud. As the Census Bureau reports, “Hispanic” refers to ethnicity, not race:

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Effects of income and tobacco taxes on smoking rates

Back in March, when it became clear that Montana’s hospitals and Montana’s Democrats favored raising tobacco taxes to pay for extending expanded Medicaid, I pulled together some data on smoking from the Centers for Disease Control to construct the following graph displaying the rough relationship between smoking rates and income, and smoking rates and state cigarette taxes.

PDF for printing

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Keep immigrant families together honk-n-wave image gallery

Approximately 120 Flathead residents assembled at Kalispell’s Depot Park at the cocktail hour Wednesday to show their support for keeping together the families of immigrants who entered the U.S. without proper documents. Love Lives Here in the Flathead organized the event on short notice.

My photographs of the demonstration introduce a new large image gallery format for Flathead Memo.

The view from the highway, made while crossing the road under the stoplight’s protection.

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Melania Trump’s “I really don’t care” raincoat was a
dog whistle to rabid anti-immigration groups

Not all of America’s first ladies have been gold diggers who bash the down and out. Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, did not wear a raincoat bearing the words “I don’t care. Do U?” when she visited the Bonus Army outside Washington, D.C., in 1933. Nor would have Laura Bush had she visited a Texas government camp where immigrant children are imprisoned away from their parents.

But gold digger Melania Trump did wear that awful raincoat, in hot weather, when she boarded the jet flying her to Texas to visit the children her husband, rich Donald Trump, our President, first ordered separated from their parents who crossed the border without proper documentation, and then ordered imprisoned with their parents as a way of keeping families together — together behind bars in what amount to American concentration camps.

Melania’s wearing an FU raincoat should surprise no one. And no one should suppose her message was aimed at her husband, as some apologists who want to find a reason to love Melania are trying to argue. Her raincoat dog whistled to anti-immigration zealots that her visit was damage control PR, not a change of heart by her husband’s black-hearted administration. Lady MacBeth would have approved.

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Signatures for two statutory initiatives submitted for verification

The Lee newspapers are reporting that supporters of initiatives 185 (tobacco tax increase/expanded Medicaid desunsetting) and 186 (stricter controls on mining) have submitted to elections officials the petitions to place the issues on Montana’s 6 November general election ballot. Each initiative campaign reportedly submitted approximately 40,000 signatures; 25,468 valid signatures are required.

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Immigration honk and wave, Zinke, Gravis poll

Immigration honk and wave. If you disapprove of tearing immigrant children away from their parents who crossed the border illegally, you can make your displeasure known publicly this afternoon at 1700 at Depot Park in Kalispell. Love Lives Here in the Flathead is sponsoring the event, and everyone is welcome. A large crowd would send the right message to our blessing in Congress. Come if you can. It will be fun and you’ll meet some nice people.

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Sick finances at Kalispell Regional Healthcare
won’t be cured by a damage control PR blitz

A couple of weeks ago I began receiving reports that Kalispell Regional Healthcare, in a cash crunch, borrowed money to make the payroll, and that people were being laid off. Whether a loan was needed to meet the payroll remains unconfirmed, but recent reports in the Daily Interlake and the Flathead Beacon confirm the layoffs — and reveal much more serious news:

• KRH’s building binge produced a powerful cash squeeze;
• Medicaid cutbacks forced by Republican legislators in the 2017 legislative sessions are producing a $6.6 million shortfall;
• A failure to extend expanded Medicaid, which sunsets in January, 2019, could produce a $13–14 million shortfall;
• KRH has had to set aside $21 million to cover a potential adverse outcome of a federal investigation of Medicare payments (KRH denies any wrongdoing).

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The fundamental premise of the Beveridge Report

In November, 1942, Russia was fighting the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Allies, commanded by Eisenhower, were in Northwest Africa, beginning to push back the Afrika Korps. And in London, 63-year-old William Beveridge, the Master of University College, Oxford, doing wartime service chairing the committee on social insurance and allied services, released the Report to the Parliament on Social Insurance and Allied Services, popularly known as the Beveridge Report, that laid the foundation for the United Kingdom’s single-payer National Health Service.

Beveridge’s belief that “Restoration of a sick person to health is a duty of the State…” was widely accepted and supported, although action was deferred until the war was won.

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As Trump’s popularity in Montana tumbles,
Rosendale attacks Tester for not loving Trump enough

Appearing gaunt, fevered, and deeply agitated, in a just released television ad, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Matt Rosendale, currently Montana’s state auditor, excoriates Sen. Jon Tester for not supporting President Trump’s efforts to save American from hordes of Latin Americans seeking jobs and a better life. A small group of people in a barn, mostly white and older, nod in agreement. One older man clenches his fist in solidarity as Rosendale concludes his harangue with “Build that wall!”

At The Montana Post, Josh Manning has an outstanding analysis of the ad’s demagogic attempt to appeal to xenophobia.

But the ad is more than an appeal to xenophobia. It’s also an argument that by not blindly supporting Trump and what he does, Tester is not supporting his country and therefore is failing a test of patriotism. Disagreement with the President, assert Rosendale and his supporter, is disloyalty to the nation and a threat to national security. By the end of the campaign, Tester’s thinking for himself will be cited as the functional equivalent of treason, if not as treason itself, and sycophancy will be cited as a virtue instead of a vice.

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Most any day, Matt will debate ol’ Test,
Any day’s okay, ‘cept Daddy’s day of rest

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The tyranny of those damn Democrats demanding “Unity”

I have yet to meet a person who responds well to someone who tells him “You can’t have the dinner you wanted. Get over it. Now eat this plate of cold shit, smile, smack your lips, and swear on the Holy Bible and Julia Child’s grave that it smells like roses and tastes like strawberries and cream.”

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Weak plurality wins undermine democracy

There were several close elections on 5 June, a normal outcome. There were also several elections decided by narrow pluralities, also a normal outcome. And there were several elections in which the winning candidate received less than 40 percent of the vote, also a normal outcome — but not an outcome that strengthens democracy.

The table below displays the outcomes of several statewide, regional, legislative, and countywide, elections in which there were three or more candidates.

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Flathead Memo endorses Kathleen Williams for the U.S. House

Kathleen Williams is the Democratic nominee for Montana’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. On 6 November, I’ll vote for her. Compared to our current blessing in the U.S. House, Rep. Greg Gianforte, she’s a much better choice to represent the 99 Percent. Any Democrat would be a better choice.

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Montana’s Democrats reject healthcare as a right,
embrace identity politics, nominate Williams for Congress

Kathleen Williams, the former state legislator from Bozeman, won the Democratic nomination for Montana’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, defeating John Heenan 33.5 to 31.7 percent (the margin was 1,990 votes). Grant Kier ran a distant third — and one of 20 Democratic ballots was cast for Lynda Moss, who had suspended her campaign and endorsed Kier.

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Will there be above average turnout for Montana’s 2018 primary?

Montana State University political scientist David Parker thinks so:

Given the interest in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, and the Democratic primary for the U.S. House, turnout could be higher than usual. A registered voter turnout of 45 percent would not surprise me. Here are the numbers as of 2245 MDT yesterday:

Data for table (Excel)
MT Primary & General Turnout 1920–2017

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Registered voter turnout for Montana’s primary now at 25.5%

With two days of voting left, 25.5 percent of Montana’s registered voters have cast ballots, all absentee, in the primary election that ends on 5 June. Here’s the statewide summary table, followed by a link to the spreadsheet with the data for the summary table, and for each county. After the election, I’ll post an analysis of the turnout.

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