Smith got the Mine — Schneiders got the Shaft

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

PDF for printing

Even after sentencing, the Rodney Robert Smith case doesn’t pass the smell test.

There isn’t room to repeat the details of the case here. Holly K. Michels for the Independent Record(1) and KXLH’s Mike Dennison(2) have done a thorough job of reporting the facts surrounding the case and Smith’s sentencing hearing on December 9, before District Court Judge Kathy Seeley.

From those reports and preceding coverage, I offer three observations.

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Rep. Derek Skees did not violate his oath of office
when he called Montana’s constitution a “socialist rag”

State Rep. Derek Skees (R Kalispell, HD-11) was angry and exasperated. Yellowstone district judge Michael Moses had issued a preliminary injunction against enforcing three anti-abortion bills (HB-136, HB-140, HB-171) passed by the Republican controlled 2021 Montana Legislature. Speaking to the Flathead Beacon’s Maggie Dresser, he minced no words:

I knew the moment I read Dresser’s story that Skees’ comment, which he later admitted “was perhaps too aggressive,” would go neither unnoticed nor unremarked.

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Women: Collateral Damage in the Abortion War

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

On December 1st, The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. We likely won’t know the result of the Court’s decision until sometime early next summer. But from the Justices questions and comments during the argument, it appears that the Court will, basically, gut Roe v. Wade, and allow the states to impose whatever abortion restrictions their legislatures can come up with.

It goes without saying that Judges should be immune from partisan and sectarian pressures when deciding cases involving a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and her private reproductive choices free from government interference. Notwithstanding, however, it appears that a majority of the Court has adopted Republican and religious right conservative ideology; and that will likely result in a decision against these women’s rights.

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Marching alone to promote freedom from mandates

Meet Sharon, an unvaccinated resident of Kalispell who has strong concerns about vaccine, and presumably mask, mandates, and about teaching critical race theory in K–12 schools. After discussing those subjects with family and friends, she decided to take action — to march for what she thought was right — instead of just bellyaching. Not knowing like-minded groups in the Flathead, she placed an ad in The Mountain Trader.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

There’s Precedent for That

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Lawyers know about precedent — defined as, something that precedes or comes before: for example, a court decision that serves as authority for deciding subsequent cases involving similar facts or legal issues, or other precedents which serve as guides for administrative conduct and decisions. Precedents provide consistency; they are the rules of the rule of law.

That is why it is so frightening when we are witness to lawless conduct that goes unpunished or, worse, is rewarded. Sadly, this serves as precedent for more lawless conduct of the same sort.

Case in point. In August, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, age 17, left his home in Illinois, traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin where he armed himself with an assault rifle purportedly to “protect businesses” from those lawfully protesting the shooting of a black man by police. That night Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters and injured another. He was charged with homicide and tried. But the jury apparently believed his claim that he was “defending himself” and acquitted him.

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Why I’m much madder at Alec Baldwin
than I am at Kyle Rittenhouse

Acting in self-defense, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two men, and seriously wounded a third. Acting in a rehearsal, 62-year-old Alec Baldwin shot and killed the woman photographing the movie in which he was starring.

The deaths leave stains on the souls of both men, but by my reckoning, the stain on Baldwin’s soul is much deeper, and will — and should — last much longer.

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Can affordable housing be provided in the Flathead
without a significant transfer of wealth from rich to poor?

I doubt that it can — and I doubt that question will arise during this evening’s panel discussion on affordable housing this evening up in Whitefish (when, where).

“Affordable housing” is a catch all phrase for housing that workers with incomes low relative to housing costs in their communities can afford. It’s hard and getting harder to find these days in the Flathead.

Who are these workers? Some are the usual suspects: busboys, waiters, cooks, and bartenders; motel maids and night auditors; carpenters not making union wages; receptionists. Others are not: nurses, dental technicians, teachers, social workers, entry level constables and firefighters.

What’s happening is no secret. The Flathead is a beautiful place to live that’s caught the fancy of hundreds if not thousands of Americans with deep pockets and portable professions. They’re fleeing the cities and settling here, bidding up real estate prices to levels that regular Joes and Janes cannot afford.

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MRD votes to file map with MT SecST

Redistricting commission defers to county commissioners, adopts original Map 12’s congressional district boundaries

Today’s 39-minute Zoom meeting of Montana’s redistricting commission ended with unamended Republican congressional Map 12 approved and a decision made to file the map with Montana’s Secretary of State. The filing deadline is 14 November.

After hearing public comments, the commission’s chair, Maylinn Smith, opened discussion on the map. GOP commissioner Jeff Essmann moved to repeal the amendment to Map 12 that the commission approved on 9 November. Smith voted for Essmann’s motion, which passed 3–2.

Yesterday, Pondera County’s commissioners sent the redistricting commissioners a letter asking the redistricting commission to repeal the amendment, which put the Blackfeet reservation in the western district and the rest of Pondera County in the eastern district.

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Both districts in Montana Congressional Map 12 lean
Republican, but Democrats can live with the western district

After the Montana Redistricting Commission’s hearing on Republican drawn Map 12 yesterday, the commission’s presiding officer, Maylinn Smith, the professional mediator appointed to the commission by Montana’s supreme court, announced her support for the map, which must be delivered to Montana’s secretary of state by 14 November.

Larger map

None of Montana’s largest counties — Cascade, Flathead, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark, Missoula, Ravalli, Silver Bow, and Yellowstone — is crossed by a congressional district line.

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Where are the real conservatives?

Guest essay by Aaron Irion

In November 2020 Montana voters elected Republicans up and down the ballot, returning the governorship to a Republican for the first time in 16 years and increasing their control of the state house and senate. During the legislative session it’s hard to grasp the grand vision — bills move fast, change, die, and are brought back to life.

Six months after the legislature adjourned, it’s now important to take a step back and ask ourselves: where is this all heading? Reflecting on this point I was struck with just how un-conservative the nominally conservative MT Republican party is. While obviously the “conservative” label is fluid, shouldn’t it at least be the case that conservatives want to, well, conserve something in our state?

The sad fact is that the modern Republican party in Montana has proven to be anything but conservative. Governor Gianforte has adamantly used the conservative label claiming:

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Plus, the speech Bush should have delivered

Two response to attacks speeches: Bush 43 v. FDR

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 is the only event in American history comparable to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Both attacks were bolts from the blue. Both were watershed events for the American psyche. Later this week, I’ll look at how badly we were hurt, but today I’m concentrating on the Presidential responses. [2021: I did not write a post on how badly we were hurt.]

Franklin Roosevelt was in the ninth year of his presidency, very much aware that the United States was nearing the point when it must join the battle against Hitler’s Germany. Indeed, on 11 September 1941, he delivered a sobering fireside chat on the sinking of the destroyer Greer, a step toward preparing Americans for entry into the conflict in Europe. Whether the authors of the attacks on 11 September 2001 were aware of this is an interesting question, but my personal opinion is that they did not know and would not have cared.

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The Power of Privacy

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Texas’ new anti-abortion law is one of the most restrictive in the developed world.(1) But no surprise that the brouhaha over women’s right to abortion services has nothing to do with honoring their personal autonomy and little to do with fetal mortality. Rather, the fight is grounded in partisan politics.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson provides the background:(2) Abortion has been a part of American history since its inception. States began to criminalize it the 1870s, with the result that by the 1960s there were hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions a year endangering women. Based on sound medical practice, states began to de-criminalize pregnancy terminations, leaving the matter to the woman and her doctor. By 1972, (the year Roe v. Wade was handed down) 64% of Americans (59% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans) agreed with this medical model.

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Two women — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Hillary Clinton —
are primarily responsible for the demise of Roe v. Wade

First, a summary of what happened yesterday. Then why Ginsburg and Hillary bear considerable responsibility for the awful outcome.

Summary

Yesterday, by a 5–4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to enjoin Texas from enforcing what ought to be called the Lone Start Vigilante Enforced Anti-Abortion Act of 2021. Steamrollered through the Texas legislature, the act, contrary to Roe v. Wade, bans abortions after six weeks and delegates its enforcement not to government officials but to citizens, who may sue anyone associated with a post six weeks abortion for $10,000. For additional information, visit the Texas Tribune.

The dangerous Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal district court not to hold a hearing on the act. SCOTUS justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett upheld the Fifth’s outrageous decision. Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Breyer, Sotomayer, and Kagan dissented, the latter three with memorable pith.

Roberts’ dissent addressed the heart of the procedural issue:

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Ballot Issue 8 withdrawn

Ballot Issue 9 would protect owners of primary residences
from unaffordable property assessments and taxes

Matt Monforton and Troy Downing have withdrawn Ballot Issue 8, which Flathead Memo described on 26 August, and submitted a substantially revised constitutional initiative, Ballot Issue 9, the full text of which is below.

Ballot Issue 9 excludes commercial property and applies only to primary residences, and does not contain its predecessor’s provision requiring tax increases to be put to the public and approved by a two-thirds majority. These are significant differences from California’s Proposition 13.

Here’s the proposed ballot statement, converted to bullet points:

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Do the survivors of natural disasters panic? No.

Every few summers, an August thunderstorm lights up the sky, rattles my house, and takes down the electrical grid, leaving me without lights, refrigeration, appliances, and my computer. Until Flathead Electric restores my power, my world is limited to what I can see from my front porch, hear on my battery powered radio, or learn from my smartphone, while their batterys last (assuming cell towers are operative). Even a short outage disquiets, taking me back a century.

For survivors of a major hurricane, such as Katrina in 2005, or Ida, which raked the same area yesterday, outages last far longer, impacts on communications are greater, and isolation is much more profound. When radio and smartphone batteries die, the world contracts to what survivors can see from the place where they’ve taken shelter. Those of us on the outside, with access to a glut of news sources, know far more about the disaster than the people at the center of it.

Do the survivors panic? Become helpless with hysteria? No. That’s a trope of disaster movies, and a belief held by public officials who distrust and have contempt for the public.

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California’s Proposition 13, Big Sky Style

A property tax limiting constitutional initiative
probably will be on Montana's 2022 general election ballot

 Update, 29 August 2021.  Ballot Issue 8 is in its third iteration, which may differ significantly from the second iteration described below.

When middle and low income homeowners fear they will lose their homes because rapidly rising property values will raise their taxes to unaffordable levels, they may vote for almost any kind of tax relief — including tax relief that significantly damages a society’s ability to provide needed, and demanded, governmental services.

Property values in western Montana, especially in Flathead and Gallatin Counties, are skyrocketing. The last legislature failed to pass mitigation measures, especially for low income elderly homeowners. And now, predictably, a Brobdingnagian chicken — Ballot Issue 8 — probably will roost as a constitutional initiative on Montana’s 2020 general election ballot.

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Will We Never Learn?

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

The Preamble to our State’s Constitution speaks to the importance of Montana’s quiet beauty, the grandeur of our Mountains, and the vastness of our rolling plains as underpinning our desire to improve our quality of life, equality of opportunity and to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations.

In fulfillment of that solemn commitment, the framers proposed, and We the People adopted in Article II, Section 3, our inalienable right to a clean and healthful environment — not as an aspiration, or a gauzy goal — but as one of the Article II fundamental constitutional rights guaranteed to each and every Montanan.

This right has been honored only in the breach by many. Sadly, this time our constitutional protections are being brushed aside by the very agency charged with safeguarding Montana’s environment: Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

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Afghanistan always was going to be ruled by the Taliban
after our departure from that land outside Christendom

Note. I started writing this yesterday. The collapse of the Afghan government occurred so rapidly I would revise my essay, check the latest news, revise my essay again, and repeat the cycle over the next 24 hours. I think what I’ve written is reasonably up to date, but at some point it becomes necessary to stop writing and to publish what one has written

Our sons and daughters are coming home from Afghanistan, now controlled by the Taliban following the predictable collapse of our puppet government there. The president of that fallen government, Ashraf Ghani, a politician as popular as a pig in a perfume parlour, flew to Tajikistan, where his hindquarters remain within reach of the Taliban. He won’t stay there long. He and his cronies will hightail it to places Taliban assassins are not likely to go.

Update, 19 August. Reports he had skedaddled to Tajikistan were wrong. Ghani flew to the United Arab Emirates, which I suspect is just a stopping point. He could take up residence in the United States, where he was an exchange student during the 1966-1967 school year, and where he earned his doctorate at Columbia in 1982. His Wikipedia biography is worth reading.

No student of history should be surprised by these events or by the speed with which they occurred. Governments propped up by foreign forces collapse with stunning swiftness when the foreign forces leave. That our government was caught by surprise underscores our tragic ability to read history, yet not understand it.

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Are GOP covid enablers DeSantis, et al,
comparable to the Butcher of the Somme?

In Churchill and the Generals, American Gen. George C. Marshall asks Winston Churchill what most concerns him about an early western front against Germany in WWII. Churchill replies, “The Somme,” the July to mid-November, 1916, western offensive that stalled after gaining only six miles.

That battle’s butcher’s bill: a million young men. The Butcher of the Somme: British general Sir Douglas Haig, whose brutal, obtuse, frontal assaults of infantry into machine guns and artillery displayed a contempt for human life matched by few in his bloody profession.

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, reminds me of Haig, as does South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, and the rest of that party’s swaggering, “My state is open for business!” chief state executives whose conduct proves they are willing to accept any number of Covid casualties to keep the bars open and the dollars rolling in.

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Independence Day parades should celebrate
our common values and accomplishments

David Moore Williams had a helluva good time in Kalispell’s 4th of July parade. Driving his Clydesdale powered, Trump flag flying, brewery wagon at a brisk trot, he took pleasure in the discomfort his rapid approaches to their heels caused the group in front of him.

We know he took pleasure in the discomfort of that group, the Flathead Democrats, because he wrote about it on his Facebook page:

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A Clydesdale, broken chairs, and democracy

What I Learned in the Emergency Room on the 4th of July

Guest essay by Kyle Waterman

Though the 4th of July seemed hotter this year than usual, I can’t blame my weekend misadventure to the doctor’s office on the heat.

The night before the 4th, a few friends and I met at the brewery, followed by a spontaneous BBQ at my house. As we were enjoying the cooling of the evening, one friend spotted a few vintage web-strap lawn chairs in the back of my carport. I explained that I had finally admitted to myself that, no, I was not going to learn how to replace those vintage straps as I imagine my grandfather would have back in his day, and had placed them there in the carport because I was going to take them to the dump.

Though I warned her that I highly doubted the chairs would endure, my friend insisted we try them out and take a seat. We connected, we talked, we laughed — and then my chair gave way.

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The Government Can’t Impair Your Right to Vote

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

In its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder and in its July 1, 2021 decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the United States Supreme Court made clear that it will not interfere with States which adopt laws to suppress voting rights and which make it harder for minority people to vote.

Sadly, it appears that our Country’s highest Court is oblivious to, or worse, tacitly in support of, the very tactics that authoritarians and fascists use to prevent people from votingtactics such as: gerrymandering voting districts; adopting laws that make it more difficult, more complicated, and more inconvenient to vote; laws which effectively rig election processes so that only the majority parties candidates have a chance to win. The High Court’s decisions have rendered the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act a nullity for all practical purposes. (Ironically this is same Act that Congress voted — almost unanimously — to reauthorize in 2006).

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Guest Essay

The Despot’s Playbook

By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

From the time of Mussolini and Hitler there has been a playbook pursuant to which authoritarians and despots have taken and maintained power — think of the governments and leaders of Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Iran, the Philippines, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and more than three dozen other countries around the globe.(1)

The the rules, if you will, are always the same. Authoritarians and despots:

• Draw up an enemies list—you are either for us or against us; we govern for the party in power, not for all the people; we intimidate, bully, marginalize and crush the opposition.


• Systematically trash the press—a free press is the enemy of the people; the truth is fake news; we delegitimize the press or control and use it as a propaganda tool.

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How does zippia.com know that 65 percent of the
employees at Kalispell’s hospital are Democrats?

zippia.com, an online service for job seekers, provides amazingly detailed information on employers — including, at least for Kalispell Regional Healthcare/Logan Health, their political affiliations.

Taken 30 May 2021 from a point approximately two miles west of the hospital. This is not an innocent name change. I'll have more on the subject later this week.

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Guest essay

The Demise of the Rule of Law

By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

It Worked for Hitler!

Dr. David James’ recent guest view comparing our modern political times with those of pre-war Germany and the rise of Hitler and Nazism was point-on. When lies trump truth; when fiction trumps fact; and when fantasy trumps reality, we are, indeed, circling the drain into fascism.

The January 6th attempted putsch of our national government proves that point: lies, fiction and fantasy propagandized by elected officials—who swore to defend the Constitution, not to destroy it—are, as Dr. James noted, the absurdities that cause atrocities.

And, part and parcel of this political perversion is the rejection of the rule of law. The seminal value upon which our Country and State were founded, Justice Sonia Sotomayor concludes that “the rule of law is the foundation for all our basic rights.”

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First Baptist Dallas is not the Little Brown Church

There Is Power in the Blood, First Baptist Dallas style

When Lewis Edgar Jones wrote There Is Power in the Blood in 1899, he could not have imagined that 120 years later it would be performed to accompaniment of a megachurch orchestra featuring drums and electric guitars as well as strings and horns, and in the 13,000-member First Baptist Dallas’ $130 millon worship center.

Robert Jeffress, First Baptist Dallas’ senior pastor, is a Fox News contributor. This week The Dallas Morning News featured his efforts to combat Covid vaccination fears. His support for CV19 vaccination is not shared by all evangelicals and their clergy.

Jones was inspired by Revelation 7, 14:

That verse also inspired Alisha Hoffman, who wrote a similar song, Are You Washed in the Blood? in 1878 (Alan Jackson’s performance).

I’m featuring First Baptist Dallas’ performance of There Is Power in the Blood because for progressives it opens a window on the power of gospel music. Watching the faces and body language of the singers drives home how deep the bonds of church fellowship are, and how much joy and comfort the faithful derive from Christian music. This is why limits on the size of indoor gatherings and mandatory masking during the Covid pandemic have been so bitterly and energetically denounced and challenged by parishioners and pastors alike.

My interest in Christian and gospel music, incidentally, developed while I was in college in Houston in the mid-sixties. For a young man from the uptight north, the southern gospel tradition was a surprise and a revelation, and I learned as much about it as I could when I had the opportunity.

Here’s another First Baptist Dallas foot stomper and hand clapper:

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1970–2020 Census and Intercensal Populations
for Montana and Montana Counties

On Monday, 26 April, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2020 apportionment and resident populations for the United States. The 2020 populations for counties were not released, and may not be available until August or September.

Therefore, I estimated the 2020 populations for Montana’s counties using the formula 2020 = 2019 * (2019/2018), and rounded the result to the nearest hundred.

I added those values to my spreadsheet of Montana county census and intercensal populations for 1970–2019.

Governments, and most likely private organizations doing business with governments, must, I believe, use the Census Bureau’s 2019 intercensal numbers. The rest of us, if we prefer, can use the 2020 estimate, which may make a small, but significant, difference for Flathead and Gallatin Counties, Montana’s fastest growing large counties.

Download Excel (xlsx) spreadsheet.

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Montana’s legislators requested
a record number of bill this session

In Montana’s 1997 legislative session, 1,424 bills were requested, 1,088 were introduced, and 608 were adopted. Twenty-four years later, as of 25 April, legislators had requested a record 3,357 bills and introduced 1,313 (the tally of bills adopted becomes available when the session ends.)

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Roots music

The sun is up, but The Hens Aren't Laying

Left to right: fiddler Joel Savoy of the Savoy Family Band, Cajun legend Jesse Lege, Nadine Landry, the Foghorn String Band’s jolly bass player, and Stephen “Sammy” Lind, the Foghorn String Band’s old time fiddler.

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A Better System for Selecting Judges

By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Montana’s Supreme Court Justices and District Court judges are elected by popular vote. Prior to this legislative session, vacancies created by a judge’s retirement, resignation or removal before her or his term ended were filled via a merit-based process involving the Judicial Nomination Commission and the governor.

This legislature scrapped that nearly 50 year, well-functioning process in favor of one involving patronage appointments solely in the governor’s discretion. Will that result in the appointment of better jurists? Not likely.

We need to change this whole system so as to insure that the judiciary remains fair, independent, impartial, and competent and to conform to two fundamental constitutional requirements. These two mandates are: first, among the three branches of government, the judiciary is co-equal with executive and legislative branches, and second, true co-equality fulfills the Constitutional imperative of checks and balances implemented through the separation of powers in Article III, section 1 of the Montana Constitution.

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Derek Chauvin is getting a fair trial —
will the community accept the verdict?

Closing arguments in the case of lawman Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, start this morning. The mixed race jury, which will be “sequestered” (more on that below), is expected to begin deliberations this afternoon.

One reason I’m following Chauvin’s trial: The issue — whether police officers will be held accountable for lethal force of dubious justification — is of national importance. The other: I grew up in northern Minnesota but lived in Minneapolis when law-n-order Charlie Stenvig was mayor. Minnesota Nice never has applied to Minneapolis’ police force.

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Biden makes right decision on Afghanistan

President Biden is bringing home from Afghanistan, an Islamic country no Western nation has conquered, America’s sons and daughters — all of them — and by 11 September. It’s the right decision, long overdue. We’ve been there far too long for any good we’ve been doing.

We began this adventure with good intentions and justifiable national security concerns. A month after Al Qaeda terrorists crashed jumbo jetliners into the Pentagon and New York’s twin trade towers, killing 3,000, American forces entered Afghanistan in what should have been a raid in force. Our objectives: destroy the Al Qaeda training camps where 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden was hiding, and punish the Taliban, the cruel and reactionary Islamic fundamentalists protecting Bin Laden.

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Religious exemptions to vaccination
are neither necessary nor wise

After the Covid 19 pandemic began, Jehovah’s Witness’ prosthelytizers stopped knocking on my door. Instead, they mailed me brief handwritten notes promising salvation, and pamphlets they would have offered in person. With the pandemic apparently on the wan (but definitely still with us), the JWs will return to knocking on door; perhaps this summer, perhaps sooner.

If, when, they knock on my door aga, they damn well better be fully vaccinated. And according to researchers at Vanderbilt University, they can be:

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13 months of pandemic in the Flathead

The Centers for Disease Control now provides for download rudimentary county level data on Covid-19 new cases, tests, and deaths. I downloaded the full data set for Flathead County, and from it constructed this time series plot of the 7-day rolling mean of new CV19 cases in the valley:

     Double size      PDF for printing      Download data

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…Hoppin’ down the bunny trail,
hippity hoppity, Easter is today

Songwriters Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson, known for their Christmas hit, Frosty the Snowman, wrote the Easter song Here Comes Peter Cottontail in 1949. The next year, Gene Autry, The Singing Cowboy, recorded it. Autry, playing town doctor Gene Autry, sang Cottontail in The Hills of Utah western in 1951. The clip below is from that movie. The song, an Easter standard, is a perennial children’s favorite. Autry accumulated millions in his 91 years, owning radio and television stations, and was the first owner of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.

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Updated

After 16 years of blogging for social justice,
Don Pogreba pulls the plug on The Montana Post

Montana’s leading independent liberal blog, The Montana Post, published by Don Pogreba, shut down suddenly Friday. In his farewell post Time to Turn Out the Lights, Pogreba said:

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More people will be shot dead because the U.S. lacks
the courage and wisdom to control guns — and always will

Only a few hours after he legally purchased a 9mm handgun on 16 March, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long shot dead eight Atlanta residents, six of them women. Long survived, was arrested, and has been charged with murder.

The same day, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, also 21, purchased, somewhere in Colorado, a Ruger AR-556. Monday, he used it to kill 10 persons in a Boulder, CO, supermarket. Allissa, wounded in the shootout, is jailed, charged with 10 counts of murder.

Why these killers killed remains unknown, although isolated bits of information, especially about Long, are beginning to emerge. The paucity of information on motive has not prevented speculation. Indeed, the paucity invites speculation because human minds are hardwired to connect dots as quickly as possible — it’s a survival strategy — even when there are not enough dots to paint a full and true picture of what happened.

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Music for St. Patrick’s Day

The Irish Rover and Katie Daley

A rousing performance of The Irish Rover by young Irish country singer Nathan Carter, and a good natured performance of Katie Daley by the late Dessie O’Halloran, whose voice has been likened, uncharitably, to the bleat of a goat undergoing rectal surgery. This video is notable for the reaction of musicians to the piano player’s improvisations. The best performance of Katie Daley that I’ve heard is Mike Denver’s.

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Washington Post’s fact checker gives
President Biden a bum rap on Covid-19 deaths

During his national address last night, President Biden, trying to put the pandemic’s tally of deaths into historical context, said:

The Washington Post’s chief fact checker, Glenn Kessler, who sometimes makes a mountain out of a molehill, immediately pounced on Biden’s numbers, arguing that all in-theatre deaths (battlefield deaths plus accidents, disease, etc.) in those wars exceeded Biden’s Covid-19 count.

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Guest post

CDC’s “Huge Mistake:” Did Misguided Mask Advice
Drive Up Covid Death Toll for Health Workers?

By Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News

Since the start of the pandemic, the most terrifying task in health care was thought to be when a doctor put a breathing tube down the trachea of a critically ill covid patient.

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

Those performing such “aerosol-generating” procedures, often in an intensive care unit, got the best protective gear even if there wasn’t enough to go around, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. And for anyone else working with covid patients, until a month ago, a surgical mask was considered sufficient.

A new wave of research now shows that several of those procedures were not the most hazardous. Recent studies have determined that a basic cough produces about 20 times more particles than intubation, a procedure one doctor likened to the risk of being next to a nuclear reactor.

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I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a modern interpretation

This wailing account of the travails of our journey through life probably dates from the earth 19th century. The lyrics were published in 1858, in Joseph Bever’s Christian Songster, but the original author is unknown. It was known briefly as the Libby Prison Hymn during and after the Civil War; Libby was a notorious Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia. During the 1950s–1980s folk music era, the song was a staple of most folk groups. The video below, by Norway’s Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, is notable for its lighting, and the lead singer’s keening voice that cuts to one’s soul.

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Guest post

Pfizer’s Newest Vaccine Plant Has
Persistent Mold Issues, History of Recalls

By Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News

Pfizer’s management knew last year there was “a mold issue” at the Kansas facility now slated to produce the drugmaker’s urgently needed covid-19 vaccine, according to a Food and Drug Administration inspection report.

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When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, Russian style

Following referrals on YouTube leads to strange and interesting places. A search for a song performed by the Dave Rawlings Machine (folksingers) eventually led to this video from Russia. The cinematography and staging of scenes are excellent. The color has less snap than most western music videos. The music eventually builds to crescendo worthy of Heaven’s power.

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Vaccination progress in Montana

The rate of vaccination is limited by the supply of vaccines, which is increasing, and probably increasing at a slightly nonlinear rate. The true fully vaccinated curve probably will lie between the linear and polynomial projections below.

These plots are for the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine approved over the weekend will complicate the statistical picture.

Secular hymns for a pandemic Sunday:
Pray for America and I hear Them All

The Old Crow Medicine Show got its start in 1998 busking on street corners in New York state. It sometimes plays with guitarist, singer, and songwriter Dave Rawlins.

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What happened & takeaways

JABBED, Part II: Flathead Memo’s editor and janitor
gets his second dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine

Updated. Thursday, at the Flathead County Health Department’s vaccination clinic at the county’s fairgrounds, I received my second dose of Pfizer’s 95 percent effective Covid-19 vaccine. Aside from a mildly sore right deltoid, I didn’t initially experience any of the memorable unpleasantness the vaccine’s second dose provokes in approximately one-third of its recipients. Now I’m feeling it, but it’s still a mild reaction, far preferable to getting hugged by Mr. Covid.

First, what happened. Then, takeaways, not all favorable to FCHD and a note on the adverse effects scarcity can provoke

Flathead Memo’s ancient blogger sitting in the monitored for shock seats following his second shot. He clocked his 15-minute observation period with his iPhone instead of the mechanical kitchen timer the monitor offered. This selfie should give the unvaccinated hope that help is on the way, but there always are contrarians who miss that message.

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Time to amend the Constitution

The Senate’s feckless acquittal of Trump means we need
a better way of choosing our nation’s chief executive

Saturday, 57 senators, seven of them Republicans, voted to convict former president Trump of the high crime of inciting an insurrection intended to overturn the free and fair election he lost. The tally fell 10 votes short of the 67 needed for conviction and the opportunity to disqualify him from ever again holding federal office.

Many were dismayed, none was surprised. At the end of this post is a lengthy excerpt from Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson’s 13 February Letter from an American that’s the best summary of why witnesses were not called. After briefly discussing the post trial statements of the Senate’s minority and majority leaders, I present the takeaways from the trial and acquittal that concern me most.

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Friday roundup: Gianforte and masks, impeachment

Unmasking Montana

Today Gov. Gianforte is expected to release a directive rescinding former Gov. Bullock’ statewide mask-up directive that many of Gianforte’s followers loathed and believed was an unconstitutional and immoral restraint on their God given right to infect other people. The directive may leave in place local mask-up mandates such as exist in Lewis and Clark County and Whitefish. I’ll provide a link to the directive when it becomes available.

Gianforte’s decision to deep-six the statewide mask-up mandate fulfills a campaign promise. That’s good politics. Whether it’s good policy is an entirely different matter.

Gianforte’s decision to bless barefacing appears to be based on three arguments:

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FCHD: “A” for organization, “F” for small print

JABBED! Flathead Memo’s editor
gets his first dose of Covid-19 vaccine

The Flathead County health department’s Covid-19 vaccination clinic yesterday morning in the fairgrounds’ Expo building went smoothly and swiftly, but it was not a picnic for the weaker eyes of older citizens.

Flathead Memo’s KN95 masked editor and janitor receives the Pfizer vaccine.

The inoculation, administered through a small needle, was not terrorizing: a barely felt prick, then some discomfort as the liquid was forced into my upper arm. I was monitored 15 minutes for an allergic reaction, then released with a warning I might experience a sore arm, chills, or some other unpleasantness in the next 24 hours. So far, only mild soreness in my arm and I feel fine.

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Why has a Flathead County resident been told to call a
Seeley Lake number to schedule a CV19 vaccination?

 Update, 4 February.  The vaccination scheduler told me the Seeley Lake prefix was for a cell phone, which are being used for the call back number because people who called the county’s landlines became ensnarled in the county’s phone system. Evidently the calls go out using the county’s landlines.

I was given the times and dates of my first and second jabs, and told not to show up early.

On 18 January, I signed-up for a Covid-19 vaccination at Flathead County’s health department using the online form. I received a robo reply:

Screenshot

Today, two weeks later, I received a voice mail message from a 406-751 8xxx number telling me to call a 406-499 xxxx number to schedule my appointment for my vaccination.

499 is Seeley Lake.

This smells like fraud. It seems to me the callback number should have the same area code and three-digit prefix as the “here’s how to schedule your vaccination” call.

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Whitefish has one house district — so how can Rep. Dave Fern,
D-Whitefish, and Rep. John Fuller, R-Whitefish, both be true?

If Montana’s legislators had to live in the districts they represent, I would not be writing this post, which addresses news reports that are true but misleading. I’m not advocating in-district only representation.

But I am advocating an end to news stories and blog posts that do not unequivocally identify the district a legislator represents.

Here’s the problem. Whitefish, a town of 7,700 in northwestern Montana, has one house district in Montana’s legislature. Yet, a news story about the current legislative session could identify a bill’s sponsor as “Rep. Dave Fern, D-Whitefish,” or as “Rep. John Fuller, R-Whitefish,” — and both statements could be true.

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Rosendale, the Oathkeepers, and
that 2014 2nd Amendment rally

Rep. Matt Rosendale was one of five Republicans running for the nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives when he spoke at a 2nd Amendment rally in Kalispell that April. It wasn’t enough; he finished third, behind Corey Stapleton and winner Ryan Zinke.

That’s a fair question. At The Montana Post yesterday, Don Pogreba, was skeptical of Rosendale’s claim, first reported by NBC’s Maritsa Georgiou on 20 January, that Rosendale didn’t know whether the Oathkeepers organized the rally:

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New Flathead County health board member
has testified in favor of wearing face masks

St. James Robinson was on leave as a health board member while she served as the county’s pubic health officer. Her rocky tenure as public health officer ended with her resignation in December. Former public health officer Joe Russell is back at his old job while the county searches for someone able to fill the position long term.

Some on social media are wondering whether a medical doctor should have been been appointed instead of a veterinarian. There’s no reason to worry about that. Malberg-Fiftal is a scientist and will bring a scientists approach to her job on the board of health.

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Guest post

No Proof, No Evidence, No Truth

By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Our local newspaper recently carried a lengthy report on the echoes in Montana of the claims that led to the January 6, 2020, U.S. Capitol insurrection. Among others, the paper provided statements from state legislators confirming their belief that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and was replete with fraud. These same claims were made by Senator Steve Daines and Representative, Matt Rosendale, and continue to flood the web and social media. These allegations, started before the election, have been used, tweeted and re-tweeted by the President and voiced in numerous rallies and protests countless times.

All this is old news. But, two things struck me from reading the newspaper article.

The first was the oft-repeated statement that no courts have been willing to hear these claims of fraud. This is absolutely and unequivocally untrue.

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Why members of Congress cannot be recalled

There’s a new hashtag on Twitter, #RecallDaines. There may be a similar hashtag for Rep. Matt Rosendale judging from a message from reader in Butte.

Disregard those hashtags, which should be taken down.

Members of Congress can be expelled by the chamber in which they serve, but they cannot be recalled. Here’s the lowdown from the Congressional Research Service:

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Daines and Rosendale stink of brown-nosing

A short note on our unrepentant,
irredeemable, blessing in the White House

Two days ago, President Trump incited a riot that killed five, injured dozens, and vandalized our nation’s Capitol. It was the work of a psychotic demagogue who was, and still is, proud of what he did.

Officers of the law are rounding up and arresting the rioters they can identify and find. Some will be charged with homicide for killing a policeman. They won’t get off scot-free.

Neither should Trump. For weeks he’s alleged — without any factual, legal, or political basis — that he beat Joe Biden in a landslide, but was robbed of his victory by various nefarious actors that do not exist. He lied in a seditious attempt to overturn a fair, free, and decisive election. His authoritarian followers who find comfort in uncritically submitting to his authority believed him. Some so deeply believed his lies that they came to Washington, D.C., where they rumbled in an unsuccessful, but bloody, attempt to keep Congress from counting the electoral votes.

What will Trump do next? He’s irrational, vindictive, and as president has the power to start wars. Will he order an attack on Iran? Will he issue pardons for all inmates of federal prisons? Will he try to fire everyone in the civil service? He now claims there will be a smooth transition to Biden’s presidency, but given the calls for his resignation, impeachment, or removal via the 25th Amendment, he undoubtedly promising a smooth transition to avoid being given the heave-ho before his term expires.

He should be given the heave-ho. He should be removed today via the 25th Amendment, then impeached, convicted, and barred from federal office for life (given his role in Wednesday’s attempted putsch, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment may bar him from federal office).

That’s what should happen. Instead, he’ll finish his term, probably with a self-pardon. In the meantime, I suspect there is now in place an informal plan within his cabinet to slow walk or ignore orders that imperil the nation. That may be enough to prevent or at least mitigate further damage to the nation. After he’s a private citizen again, he can be prosecuted for inciting the riot.

Daines and Rosendale

At the last moment before Congress reconvened to seal the election for Biden, Sen. Steve Daines decided not to vote to sustain objections to electoral votes. Rep. Matt Rosendale did so vote. I’ll give Daines a vanishingly small amount of credit for coming to his senses. But both he and Rosendale should have, by 7 November, acknowledged that Biden had won and tipped their hats to Biden. Corey Stapleton did. Instead, they groveled to Trump, repeated his lies, and abdicated their duty to tell their constituents the truth about the election. They were weak. They besmirched themselves and they brought dishonor on Montana. When the roll is called up yonder they won’t be there.

Congress Must Clean House

By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Donald J. Trump (DJT) is so mentally and emotionally damaged that 37 psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors and mental health experts have deemed him to be an existential threat to our democracy. Variously, they cite malignant narcissistic personality disorder, extreme presen t hedonism and arrested emotional development, antisocial personality disorder, bullying, lack of empathy, sociopathy, sadism, paranoia and delusional thinking. Read their book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.(1)

Yet, based upon nothing more than DJT’s bizarre, unfounded claims of massive election fraud, a number members of Congress (including Montana’s Senator Steve Daines) have determined to challenge November’s presidential election results and award the election to the loser.

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The year’s latest sunrise, a clean shave for Gianforte,
and Trump’s crazy call to Georgia’s Secretary of State

Latest sunrise. Montana’s eyes are on the capitol in Helena this morning, where the legislature commences its 2021 session and former U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte will be sworn-in as Montana’s first Republican governor. Perhaps fittingly, the sun rose in Helena at 0812 MST today, the latest sunrise of the year. Helena’s earliest sunrises in 2021 occur at 0524 MDT during 10–21 June. These extremes are not six months apart because Earth’s orbit around the sun is elliptical, not circular.

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A case of act first, think later

Sen. Daines joins Hawley’s democracy damaging campaign to delegitimize Biden's election as President of the United States

When Congress convenes in joint session on 6 January to certify the results of the Electoral College’s 306–232 vote electing Joe Biden the next President of the United States, the session should be ceremonial, as it has been for over a century. Instead, thanks to diehard Trump sycophants and sans-scruples senators with presidential ambitions, led by Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the session will become a debate over the legitimacy of a fair and free election, with hours of speechs to stuff the Congressional Record with bogus claims of election fraud and irregularities that justify overturning the will of the voters.

Today, Montana’s junior senator, just re-elected Steve Daines, announced he has joined Hawley’s and Cruz’s despicable campaign to delegitimize Biden’s victory. To put it bluntly, he’s decided to be a lapdog for Trump’s bootlickers. He should know better. Now he must explain why his own election in a state that voted for Trump is legitimate, but elections in states that voted for Biden are not, and why legitimacy is a product not of the voters’ will but of the losing candidate’s desired outcome. That will be an interesting exercise in sophistry, and probably a good subject for high school and college debators.

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We’ll miss Bullock, but not Trump

Prediction: 2021 will be better than 2020, but not
enough better to justify shouts of great joy

Happy New Year. Reality tempers my hope that life will improve much in 2021:

• Humankind begins 2021 fighting a lethal virus that has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds of thousands. Vaccines are finally available, but in the United States the rollout has been chaotic and and far too slow. Meanwhile, barenosers and barefacers continue to flout mask-up mandates and distancing requirements. In the near future, the plague will worsen.


• A defeated, deranged, raging, vengeful president remains in the White House, focusing his energy not on containing the pandemic but on a close to treasonous attempt — aided and abetted by sycophantic Republican politicians — to overturn a fair and free election.

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