Flathead Democrats say Junior Trump’s rally in Kalispell
this evening was a Covid-19 superspreader event

The Flathead County Democratic Party released the following statement on the Republican rally at the Flathead Fairgrounds that commenced at 1800 MDT today.

…read the rest

Will Mr. Covid attend? You betcha he will.

Will the Donald Trump, Jr., Halloween GOTV
rally in Kalispell be a superspreader event?

President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., a notorious shooter of prairie dogs, will speak in Kalispell this evening at an outdoor get out the vote and buck up the spirits of the faithful rally at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. Tristan Scott of the Flathead Beacon has the details.

The fairground’s grandstand, built in 1938, seats 2,700 shoulder-to-shoulder, and approximately 700 with six-foot Covid-19 social distancing.

…read the rest

An anthem of hope

A rare performance of Kumbaya by The Seekers

Karen Knowles sang lead for the Australian folk group The Seekers during a period when Judith Durham, the group’s original lead singer, was pursuing a solo career. Here, in 1990, in Melbourne at the Meyer Music Bowl, at “Caroles by Candlelight,” she leads The Seekers’ soul soothing performance of Kumbaya.

Kumbaya may have originated in the American southeast, perhaps in the Carolinas or Georgia, according to Steven Winick’s article in the Fall, 2020, issue of the Folklife Center News. The Smithsonian has a version of the song on a cylinder recording made in the mid-1920s and listened to in the 1930s by Pete Seeger. In 1959, The Weavers, of which Seeger was a member, released a recording of Kumbaya.

The Seekers helped popularize the song in English speaking countries around the world. This performance uses an arrangement I’ve not heard before. Many folk groups and solo artists, as I noted in a January, 2017 post, have recorded the song. It remains a powerful anthem of hope that I find steadying and uplifting in these troubled Covid times.

Permalink

Hitting the high notes on Covid-19 containment

During a prowl of YouTube last night, I chanced upon a page of songs on contemporary politics and the pandemic. Most were lowbrow attacks on Joe Biden, but amid the muck I found a couple of playful — and well produced — songs on containing the Covid-19 virus. The first inserts new words into the Sound of Music’s Do Re Mi. The second, by Ray Stevens, unmasks Stevens’ legendary wit in an uncharacteristically gentle manner.

Following the Covid song, for a change of pace, an a capella performance of Down by the Riverside by a massed choir at the 2015 Shenandoah Christian Music Camp.

…read the rest

Voters prefer Democrats on health care issues

New poll shows statewide federal
elections tightening in Montana

Public Policy Polling today reported that its 26–27 October poll found Trump leading Biden by two points, and Bullock leading Daines by one point. The elections for governor and the U.S. House were not polled.

Conducted by robocall and text message, the poll sampled 886 “Montana voters,” which I interpret as registered voters not as likely voters, and has a sampling margin of error of ± 3.3 percent. Likely voter screen usually produce results slightly more favorable to Republican candidates than do registered voter screens.

…read the rest

Blame Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s selfishness and the
Democrats’ nomination of Hillary for Amy Coney Barrett

Justice Clarance Thomas administered the oath of office to Amy Cooney Barrett last night. Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the judicial oath to her this morning, after which she will take her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. At 48 years of age, she could be there for thirty years or more.

Unless she demonstrates an astonishing capacity to break out of the right wing bubble in which she’s lived all her life, she may provide a reliable conservative vote to reverse Roe. v. Wade, gut or kill the Affordable Care Act, blur the line between church and state, favor the rich over the poor, and over time, dismantle Ginsburg’s liberal legacy.

…read the rest

Last night’s debate, Trump’s Montana numbers,
Bullock v. Daines, Cooney v. Gianforte

My reaction to the debate. Last night’s debate didn’t leave me feeling unclean for having watched it. Trump maintained a reasonable tone of voice much of the time, but could not resist slinging shovels of mud at Biden. Biden kept his cool, authoritatively counterpunching with clean facts. Who won? According to a CNN snap poll, Biden. But “Who won?” is the wrong question. The right question is “how many voters changed their minds?” I suspect Omar Khayyam provided the answer in the twelfth century:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint,
and heard great argument about it and about:
but evermore came out by the same door as in I went.

…read the rest

“To table a health proposal during a pandemic is unacceptable”

Flathead commissioner candidate Kristen Larson
issues statement on health board’s failure
to approve Covid suppression proposal

Last Thursday, Flathead County’s board of health refused to consider a weak, but better than nothing, proposal for containing the SARS-cov-2 virus, which is running amok in the Flathead. The next day, Kristen Larson, Democratic candidate for Flathead County Commissioner said the board’s conduct was unacceptable. Her full statement, first released on Facebook, is below. Her Republican adversary, Brad Abell, did not, insofar as I can determine, comment on the issue.

Today, the Flathead, with 9.8 percent of Montana’s residents, has 14.5 percent (1,308) of Montana’s 8,999 active Covid-19 cases.

…read the rest

The Flathead’s county commissioners and a majority of the board of health are committing public health malpractice

Had there been a scoreboard at Thursday’s meeting of the Flathead board of health, it would have read “Anti-mask Lunatic Fringe 7, Attempts to Corral Mr. Covid 0.” The health department’s 4-page proposal for controlling the coronavirus was struck from the agenda. Nothing to replace it was proposed.

Why was it struck? Probably because public opinion, as measured by the 267 comments on the proposal, opposed doing more by a three to two margin, which is consistent with the margins by which the current county commissioners won their elections, and with the margins by which prominent statewide candidate won or lost Flathead County.

…read the rest

An effective Flathead crackdown on
Covid-19 containment noncompliance is unlikely

Flathead County’s board of health met earlier this afternoon to consider a proposal for reducing the spread of the SARS-cov-2 coronavirus in the Flathead. Although not without merit, the proposal is weak because it excludes schools and sports.

This morning I produced a histogram of the age distribution of 1606 new Covid-19 cases in Flathead County for September through 13 October.

…read the rest

Guest post

What is HIPAA? 5 questions answered about the medical
privacy law that protects Trump’s test results and yours

By Professor Margaret Riley

Editor’s note. Many health departments and educational institutions, locked into a pre-pandemic mindset, cite HIPPA to justify withholding information the public needs to know to have the best chance of surviving. Here’s an introduction to HIPPA from a law professor who may be too sympathetic to officials who keep the public in the dark.

Two new polls: is either right?

Emerson reports Daines leads Bullock by 9 points —
but Data for Progress reports Bullock leads by a point

Two online polls of likely Montana voters were released last week. One, by Emerson College, reports Republican Sen. Steve Daines has a nine point lead over Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock. The other, by Data for Progress, reports Bullock has a one-point lead.

…read the rest

Notes on Harris v. Pence

After a few minutes, after Kamela Harris used the phrase “here’s the thing” (her annoying variation of Biden’s annoying “here’s the deal”), I turned off the debate. I read the transcript later.

The candidates debated in Utah, sitting at tables four meters apart because of Pence’s recent exposure to the SARS Cov2 virus. Holding it in person was reckless. It should have been held virtually, with the candidates and moderator in separate studios. The third Kennedy-Nixon debate, held 13 October 1960, with Kennedy in New York City, Nixon in Los Angeles.

…read the rest

Montana Dems: this ain’t over yet

If Trump’s support is contracting from a red giant to a white
dwarf, what are the consequences for Daines and Gianforte?

Recent polling reveals President Trump’s support in red states may be shrinking like a giant red star’s collapse into a superhot white dwarf, leaving him with a reduced but superintense base that’s no longer large enough to win the electoral college. According to the Washington Post:

…read the rest

Election month begins Friday: what effect, if any, will
Trump’s bout with Mr. Covid have on Montana’s voters?

On Friday, 9 October, ballots will be mailed to absentee voters, and in 46 of Montana’s 56 counties, to all voters. Many voters, fearful of a slowpoke U.S. Postal Service, will mail back their ballots within a few days of receiving them, effectively moving election day closer to early October than to 3 November.

Early voting helps candidates with polling leads by locking down the votes at the time of the lead. In Montana’s U.S. Senate election Republican Sen. Steve Daines leads Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock by approximately a point. In Montana’s gubernatorial election Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte leads Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney by six points or so. Bullock’s predicament is considerably less fraught than Cooney’s, but neither man may be moving fast enough to grab the lead before the finish line is reached.

…read the rest

Guest post

To Sit; or Not to Sit

By James C. Nelson and James M. Regnier
Retired Montana Supreme Court Justices

The Senate Judiciary Committee is about embark on the important task of determining whether President Trump’s newest nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, is qualified to serve as a Justice.

A Seventh-Circuit, federal appellate court judge and Notre Dame law professor, Judge Barrett is variously described as a tough, originalist conservative cut in the mold of right-wing beacon Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked. She is the mother of seven. She is also a devout Roman Catholic.

In judicial appointments, a person’s religion shouldn’t matter. In fact, the Constitution’s Article VI prohibits any religious test for federal public office. But, in this case, Judge Barrett’s Catholic religion is relevant because she, herself, has made it an issue.

…read the rest

Stand down notice

Flathead Memo is standing down for the weekend. This golden October weather won’t last forever, and not getting out and enjoying it would be madness.

Autumn leaves are starting to fall, but new
Covid-19 cases in Montana continue to rise

As this grim graph shows, more people are doing more things that have adverse Covid-19 consequences. The benefits of social distancing and Gov. Bullock’s mask-up mandate have been more than offset by more risk taking by individuals, and by more group activities, such as school, which is essential, and sports, which are not. A lot of the additional Covid-19 activity is in Indian Country, where poverty and multi-generational homes without enough space for effective distancing are resulting in cluster outbreaks.

     Double size      PDF for printing

Permalink

Montana’s most important election for Democrats

Cooney, falling farther behind Gianforte,
is running out of time to make up the deficit

Democratic candidate for governor Mike Cooney is six points behind Republican Greg Gianforte a week before absentee ballots are mailed to Montanans and widespread voting begins.

     Double size      PDF for printing

…read the rest

Capt. Sullenberger urges Americans to vote Trump out

Remember airline captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenburger, the man who ditched an engines out Airbus in the Hudson River without losing a life? Now an aviation safety consultant, he’s a former Air Force officer and fighter pilot.

Sully knows leadership — and he doesn’t see it in President Donald Trump. Yesterday, under the auspices of Vote Vets, he released this powerful 90-second video urging his fellow veterans and Americans to deny Trump a second term.

Sullenburger’s landing in the river brought him fame. His post ditching career as an aviation safety authority brought him respect. This short, convincing, message will change minds.

Permalink