MT OPI Chief Arntzen’s 2014 run at the GOP nomination
for Montana’s congressional seat was not impressive

By James Conner

Montana’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives was open in 2014, a low turnout year that paradoxically featured a lot of Tea Party energy. Incumbent Republican Steve Daines was running for the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by Democrat Max Baucus.

Three former state senators — Ryan Zinke (Whitefish), Matt Rosendale (Glendive), and Corey Stapleton (Billings) — filed for the house nomination, as did former Yellowstone County state legislator Elsie Arntzen, and Helena businessman Drew Turino.

Statewide, Zinke won a narrow victory over Stapleton and Rosendale. But in the counties that now comprise Montana’s eastern congressional district, Stapleton finished ahead of Zinke. Arntzen and Turino each won less than one vote in ten.

…read the rest

Trump’s MAGA cult followers don’t care about
the facts or whether he’s guilty as charged

Florida based sociopath Donald J. Trump, a former President, today plead not guilty to 31 counts of violating the espionage act, and six counts including obstruction of justice. (Read the indictment.)

He was accused of unlawfully retaining top secret documents, not of spying or treason.

…read the rest

Three of Montana’s members of Congress
voted to default on our nation’s debts

Beginning with our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who took office in 1789, we have paid our nation’s debts in full and on time. Thanks to the passage of the McCarthy-Bide debt ceiling bill, we will continue doing so.

Sen. John Tester voted for the bill. He did his duty.

Sen. Steve Daines, and Reps. Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale voted against the bill — which means they voted for defaulting on our debts — then issued sanctimonious statements trying to justify their craven, irresponsible decisions. They did not honor their oath of office.

Why Joe Biden didn’t invoke the
14th Amendment to solve the debt ceiling crisis

By James Conner

When we think of the 14th Amendment, which Congress passed on 13 June 1866, and which was ratified on 9 July 1868, we usually think of equal rights under the law and Section 1:

We seldom think of Section 4, which leading constitutional scholars (see Buchanan and Dorf at dorfonlaw.org) believe requires the federal government to borrow money and pay our debts even when the statutory debt ceiling is reached:

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Will Ryan Zinke vote for or against
the McCarthy-Biden debt ceiling deal?

By James Conner

We know that Democratic Sen. Jon Tester will vote for the deal, and that Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Freedom Caucus fellow traveler to his dry bone, will vote against the deal.

But what will Montana’s western congressional representative, Republican Ryan Zinke, a far savvier politician than Rosendale, do?

If he votes for the deal, he would stay in McCarthy’s good graces, which down the road could help him move legislation related to Montana. But voting for the deal could infuriate hard core MAGA Republicans in Montana, generating a serious primary challenge next year (Zinke is not taking a run at Tester).

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A quiet note on the return of Flathead Memo

By James Conner

The short version: after Memorial Day, I will begin low frequency posting at Flathead Memo. I’m already commenting on Twitter at jrcflatheadmemo.

The longer version: On 16 March, I had triple bypass heart surgery. Given my age and infirmities (I’m diabetic and on kidney dialysis), I did not expect to survive. But I did.

I certainly did not expect to survive without brain damage, however mild. But I did.

Whatever the cause of my good fortune, I rolled the dice and won. Having the surgery, incidentally, was an easy decision. Without it, I now would be dead.

I did expect a long, complicated recovery — and that’s what I’m experiencing.

…read the rest

After the 2020 Democratic debacle in Montana,
Brady Wiseman warned us the apocalypse had arrived

By James Conner

Writing in Medium after the Republican sweep in Montana in 2020, former Bozeman Democratic state representative Brady Wiseman said:

What would the freed from a Democratic governor’s veto Republicans do? Wiseman laid it out:

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SB-458 is a brazen attempt to include the
Book of Genesis in the Montana Codes Annotated

By James Conner

In a theocracy — for example, Iran — the holy book of the dominant religion is also the law book for the state. Our nation’s founders, wise to the dangers of official religions, designed a nation in which all have the right to worship the god they choose while forbidding the nation the power to establish an official religion.

That’s worked out well, but there’s always been a vocal minority that asserts the United States should be a sectarian Christian nation instead of a secular nation that observes many of the values of enlightened Judo-Christian social philosophy. They seek official observances of the Christian religion, such as prayer in public schools and time released from schools for Bible studies.

And they seek to have the laws of our nation and states use the Biblical definition of sex.

A bill now before the Montana Legislature, SB-458, “An Act Generally Revising The Laws to Provide a Common Definition for the Word ‘Sex’ When Referring to a Human,” carried by Republican State Sen. Carl Glimm (SD-2, Columbia Falls), is based not on contemporary medical science but on the Old Testement book of Genesis, specifically Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 26 and 27:

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Flathead Memo stand down notice

Dear Friends and Readers:

Father Time and family heredity have caught up with me. In addition to requiring kidney dialysis, I now require surgery, scheduled for later this month, to replace blocked coronary arteries. If I survive the surgery, and survive it in good order, and I might, recovery will take several months.

I’m therefore suspending Flathead Memo, but keeping it online. If I’m not able to return to blogging, Flathead Memo will be kept online for two years and a home for its archives will be found.

I have a couple of posts in draft form, and may get them online before I’m “revascularized.” And as I am able, I will continue commenting via Twitter (@jrcflatheadmemo). But for the most part, the stand down commences today.

Thank you for reading Flathead Memo and for providing feedback and guest essays. I’ve tried to make Montana better, and I know you’ve made me better.

May the future bring you good health, prosperity, the survival of our democracy, and peace and laughter. — James Conner

Jon Tester’s odds of winning re-election in 2024
are better than many Montana pundits suppose

By James Conner

After the 2020 and 2022 Republican sweeps in Montana, when Democrats lost all statewide and Congressional district elections, and the GOP gained a supermajority in the legislature, some of the state’s most astute political commentators are not bullish on Democrat Jon Tester’s chances of winning a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

At the Flathead Beacon, Editor in Chief Kellyn Brown, expressing mild surprise that Tester’s running for a fourth term, observed that “His next race will be his toughest yet. And that’s saying something since none have been easy.”

Tester won by pluralities in 2006 and 2012, and by a slim majority in 2018.

…read the rest

“All the Montana Republican leaders are lapdog-loyal to Trump.”

Republican Roots and the Politics of Party

Guest essay by Bob Brown

“The Democrats killed two of my brothers.” That was the reply my nine-year-old father received from his great grandmother on her rural Iowa front porch when he asked her why she was such a strong Republican. Her comment reflected the bitter legacy of the Civil War. As it left the American South solidly Democratic for decades, it also made the Union upper Midwest just as solidly Republican.

My father couldn’t remember ever knowing a Democrat until moving to Montana in his early teens.

My mother’s family, on the other hand, was greatly benefitted by the New Deal Rural Electrification Administration, and the modernization that the federal government brought to the rural poor.

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“I have a long personal history with the ballot issue process”

An Attack on Direct Democracy in Montana

Guest essay by Jonathan Motl

The Republican majority [in the Montana Legislature] has just flexed its muscle to pass Senate Bill 93, thereby limiting the ability of Montana’s citizens to pass laws through the ballot issue process. SB-93 is unbelievably restrictive in scope, including imposition of a $3,700 filing fee for ballot issues and affording agencies power to veto a citizen ballot issue. Undoubtably the citizen ballot issue process is deeply harmed by SB 93.

There is a 100-year history in Montana of citizens writing and passing laws through the ballot issue process. I have a long personal history with the ballot issue process. As a lawyer I wrote the language of nine ballot initiatives. As a citizen I recall being politely asked by the postmaster to stop gathering signatures on the sidewalk in front of the Boulder post office as I sought the last few petition signatures necessary to qualify that legislative district. As a father I watched with joy as my daughters dressed up as an initiative petition for their Halloween costume and with pride as they carried initiative petitions seeking signatures of fellow citizens.

…read the rest

Will anti-DST fanatics steal an hour of evening sunlight?

Havre Democrat Paul Tuss wants the legislature
to repeal daylight saving time in Montana

By James Conner

Democratic Rep. Paul Tuss (HD-28, Havre) introduced on 17 February a bill, HB-617, to kill daylight saving time in Montana. It’s being heard today by the house’s business and labor committee.

The bill is standard farm country mischief. And it might become law if it can be sneaked by the legislature.

Before the session started, Tuss requested a bill with a short title suggesting he wanted to extend DST year around. That indicated he wants to avoid the spring and fall resetting of clocks, a task that a noisy few find incredibly annoying.

…read the rest

A mandate from God, not just the voters?

What’s going on at the Montana Legislature?

Guest essay by Jim Smith

What’s going on at the Montana Legislature? And why is this happening? Two questions that I have heard being asked around because of the kind of proposed resolutions and bills that are being reported in local media. Well, let’s try to come up with a valid answer.

With their super-majority “mandate” the Republicans, led by their mis-named “Freedom Caucus” have set about the task of imposing their will on the citizens of Montana. Self-anointed as the keepers of the flame to protect you from yourself, they think GOP stands for “Guarantee Our Purity.” So, while they mouth “local control,” “parental responsibility,” and “smaller government” they are drafting and passing bills that tell you what medical care you can have, what books you can read, what events you can take your children to, what schools and libraries can have on their shelves and they even want to dictate to the medical profession what procedures and medications they can prescribe.

…read the rest

Remember when Harry Reid kept Lieberman in the tent?

Montana GOP excommunicates former governor, attorney
general, and RNC chairman Marc Racicot for political heresy

By James Conner

It was the day after Valentines Day, and among the executive committee of Montana’s Republican Party there was no love for Marc Racicot, the former attorney general and two-term governor who also served as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He stood accused of supporting Democrats — and he was guilty as hell. He had, the executive committee said in a long, pompous statment, “…spoken in assemblies without denying that he still considers himself a Republican and therefore may be believed by some to be considered as speaking for Montana Republicans.”

Specifically, in the executive committee’s own words, he had committed four unforgivable sins:

…read the rest

Montana elects partisan public service commission
members, no professional credentials required

Guest essay by John Repke

Earlier this year an appointee to the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission acknowledged he had not met the educational requirements for the job – and actually resigned!

It was the honorable thing to do, but he didn’t really have much choice. Effective this year New Mexico has specific qualifications for its PRC commissioners. This guy slipped through the process. He did not have a college degree in a qualifying field, which is now required. According to the Albuquerque Journal he will be replaced by a ‘seasoned energy professional.’

Despite this snafu, New Mexico is doing the right thing and following the lead of most states with bi-partisan commissions made up of professionals with experience and expertise to do the important work of regulating monopoly utilities.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in Montana. We elect our Public Service Commissioners in partisan races without any requirements for candidacy. And guess what? We have a highly partisan, ineffective Commission driven by political agendas. Our current commissioners wouldn’t make the cut in New Mexico or any state that sets standards.

…read the rest

Pearl Harbor & Japanese bomb balloon déjà vu

Jon Tester’s belligerence on the Chinese balloon
is the surest sign yet he’s running for re-election

By James Conner

Sen. Jon Tester’s belligerence on the Chinese balloon is the surest sign yet that he’s either running for re-election or seriously keeping open his options.

“I don’t want a damn balloon going across the United States when we could’ve taken it down over the Aleutian Islands,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Feb. 9. [Washington Post]

We splashed that balloon off the South Carolina coast after President Biden accepted our military’s advice to spy on the balloon as it floated across the U.S. and then take it down over shallow territorial waters.

A few days later, three Volkswagon beetle sized objects, almost certainly harmless research or commercial or hobbyist balloons, were discovered over Alaska’s north slope, Canada’s Yukon, and northern Montana. All were shot down by half-million-dollar Sidewinders. The object spotted over Havre, MT, was blown to Kingdom Come over Lake Huron the next day.

Canada is still trying to recover the object that went down in the Yukon wilderness, but the U.S. has called off the search for the remnants of the innocent floaters it shot down so hastily and expensively.

Tester knows Biden made the right choice. But he also knows that reddening Montana’s reaction to the Chinese balloon was Pearl Harbor and the Japanese WWII bomb balloons déjà vu. Had he decided not to run in 2024, he would be defending Biden. Instead, he’s waving a pitchfork in one hand, a Sidewinder in the other, demanding that Chinese balloons never be allowed to float through the Big Sky and above Big Sandy, Malmstrom Air Force Base, and missile silos whose locations have been widely known for decades.

…read the rest

Amending Montana’s Constitution Thoughtfully

Guest essay by Dorothy Bradley &anp; Bob Brown

2022 was the year of celebrating the fiftieth birthday of Montana’s Constitution — its visionary provisions and the unique bipartisan approach adopted by the citizen delegates who wrote it. Our perspective is from a combined total of over 30 years of legislative experience under both our current Constitution, as well as the one that preceded it.

We see Montana’s Constitution as a truly glorious document. It has honorably served our citizens as well as our landscape for half a century, and we are dismayed that, out-of-the-blue, this 2023 legislature finds the need to consider 57 fundamental changes to it.

As we celebrated the anniversary of the Constitution last summer there was never a mention that 57 changes would improve our foundational document. As pointed out by former Governor/Attorney General Marc Racicot, this number of amendment proposals exceeds the entirety of proposals referred to the people over the last 50 years. And amending the Constitution is a far weightier task than amending statutes.

…read the rest

Biden’s SOTU speech had milkman readability

Donald Trump’s SOTU addresses took longer
to deliver, but Joe Biden’s contained more words

By James Conner

Does Joe Biden actually talk almost twice as fast as Donald Trump? No. But one could think so after a cursory look at these State of the Union address statistics.

…read the rest

Matt Barber & sister Jill cover Ian Tyson’s Summer Wages

By James Conner

Fans of Ian Tyson, the legendary Canadian folk and county-western singer and songwriter who died at 89 earlier this year, will want to add this video to their collection of Tyson’s music. I found the Barbers’ smooth harmonies, and affectionate nonverbal communication, captivating. So will you. The music starts two minutes and ten seconds into the video.

Matthew Barber’s website. Jill Barber’s website. “Better Together”review of their joint production, The Family Album.

…read the rest

The Lapdogs of Tyranny

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

There can be no clearer evidence of Montana’s spiral into fascism than the supermajority/Freedom Caucus jihad against our State’s fair, independent and impartial judiciary.

Make no mistake, this jihad is nothing less than a power-grab, designed to destroy the third, co-equal branch of government, along with the separation of powers and system of checks and balances that have served our State from its founding.

Indeed, our federal Constitution is grounded in these same democratic principles — three co-equal branches of government, with separate powers, designed to check the excesses of the executive and legislative (the political) branches.

Some specifics:

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The Confusion over the Debt Ceiling

Guest essay by Jim Smith

The new Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy is taking a stance on the issue of the “Debt Ceiling” which is both silly and dangerous. It is silly, because the “Debt Ceiling” is a cap on the amount of money the U.S. government can raise to pay bills that have already been incurred, not future spending. Congress passed laws and budgets in prior years that authorized this spending. Now that the invoices are coming in for these debts, the Treasury Department needs to pay them, or we will renege on our commitments, and that is when it becomes dangerous.

…read the rest

But not made out of ticky tacky

Little homes on little lots should be part of the
solution to Montana’s affordable housing crisis

By James Conner

Excessive minimum lot sizes result when local planners and planning boards try too hard to protect property values. Housing costs that are not affordable for low and low middle income families are the consequence.

In Kalispell’s R-1 zone, for example, the minimum lot size is 20,000 square feet, almost half an acre. A lot that size is for half-million-dollar homes, not dwellings that school teachers, bartenders, nurses, plumbers, and carpenters can afford.

But split eight ways, a near half-acre lot accommodates eight compact three bedroom homes that, with creative construction and financing, might be within financial reach of regular Joes and Jills.

House Bill 337, sponsored by Rep. Katie Zolnikov (R, HD-45, Billings), preempts nasty local fights over lot sizes by authorizing lots as small as 2,500 square feet on which small homes, including prefabricated homes, can be placed on permanent foundations where connections to sewer and water systems exist.

…read the rest

Flathead Memo is standing down for a few days

Tomorrow I will undergo what my doctors tell me is a “safe and routine” cardiac procedure. I hope it is successful, but given my age and status as a kidney dialysis patient, no procedure is safe or routine.

Recovery may take some time. Therefore, I probably won’t be posting on Flathead Memo for the rest of the week, perhaps longer. I will, to the extent I have the energy, Tweet on current affairs at Twitter at @jrcflatheadmemo.

I recommend following Montana politics at the Flathead Beacon, Montana Free Press, Daily Montanan, and The Western Word blog.

Thank you for reading Flathead Memo.

— James Conner

Is Oregon’s “mass timber” an answer?

Can prefabrication make housing more affordable?

By James Conner

For relatively simple structures, prefabrication in an indoor environment, a technology with which I have some experience, puts together structures faster and more efficiently than stick building them onsite, and permits better quality control.

Unfortunately, most prefabricated buildings are simple, and many look cheap. Examples are sheds and house trailers, the latter marketed as “manufactured homes.”

Trailer houses, of course, have a bad reputation for being cheaply built and looking ugly. Consequently, many neighborhood zoned residential prohibit manufactured homes even if those homes are placed on a permanent foundation.

But there is no reason why all prefabricated homes must be poorly designed, cheaply built, and unsuitable for traditional single family neighborhoods.

…read the rest

Medical Aid in Dying and Knowing the Mind of God

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

Once again, the GOP supermajority/Freedom Caucus is taking a run at criminalizing doctors who provide medical aid to a dying patient, enabling that person to end his or her own suffering, and life, with a self-administered medication prescribed by the physician. SB 210 is the bullet that ends the statutory approach to medical aid in dying set out in the Montana Supreme Court’s 2009 Baxter decision.

Despite its detractors, we know that over the intervening 14 years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Baxter v. State (note 1), Montanans suffering from horrible and debilitating life-ending illnesses have successfully sought and have obtained medical aid in dying from various compassionate physicians in this State.

…read the rest

SB-99 is a wrong headed attempt
to have the legislature practice medicine

By James Conner

One of this legislative session’s most controversial bills — State Sen. John Fuller’s SB-99 — will be heard this morning by the state senate’s judiciary committee at 0800 (watch or listen). SB-99 makes illegal most treatments for gender dysphoria (definition) for Montanans under 18 years of ago. It’s official title is long and cumbersome.

SB-99 is the son of the 2021 session’s HB-113, a similar bill by Fuller that died 49–51 on the third reading in the state house.

…read the rest

If the legislature does not protect low income homeowners
from unpayable property taxes, the son of CI-121 will emerge

By James Conner

Last year, when a constitutional amendment, CI-121, similar to California’s Proposition 13 that froze the appraised value of homes, was approved for signature gathering, Montana’s Democrats and Republicans worked independently, and for different reasons, to keep the initiative off the ballot.

They succeeded, partly because of their efforts, partly because the authors of CI-121 did not mount an aggressive campaign to gather signatures. Getting an initiative’s language approved for signature gathering is the easy part of legislating by the vote of the people. Obtaining enough signatures to make the ballot is harder, and now usually required paid signature collectors, and mounting a successful campaign to prevail in the general election is harder still.

Opponents of CI-121 alleged a multitude of horribles would result if the initiative were approved: government would be curtailed, education would be gutted, farmers and businesses (farming is a business) would pay more than their fair share. That frenzied, and in my judgment not entirely honest, campaign, coupled with vague pleas from legislators to let them find solutions in this session of the legislature, prevailed.

…read the rest

Balanced Budget Best, But Debt Default Dumb

Guest essay by Bob Brown

Government spending is increasing by $2.6 million a minute. The national debt now stands at over 31 trillion dollars. That’s primarily money that people over 40 have spent, and a debt that infants born today will be burdened with, likely for their entire lives. This, in a great nation in which each generation has continually been wealthier than the one before.

That is emphatically not so, now. The future generation has been accurately described as victims of “generational theft.”

Out of deep concern about this I contacted the wisest and smartest man I have ever know on the subjects of government debt and spending. Robert L. “Bob” Bixby for 30 years has been the CEO of the Concord Coalition, a national watchdog organization that has been monitoring and warning about government debt since the early 90’s. I have consulted him since before the 2011 budget crisis.

…read the rest

Joe Biden hands the GOP’s Gotcha! squad a sword

By James Conner

The Republican Party’s partisan Gotcha! squad is dancing a jig of joy beause Joe Biden found classified documents in his old Pennsylvania office.

Upon finding the documents, Biden’s staff notified the National Archives, which picked up the documents the next morning. Then the fickle finger of fate struck: a second set of classified documents was found, this time in his garage in Wilmington, Delaware. Again, the documents were collected by the Archives.

Was national security compromised? Probably not, although we won’t know for months. Was there an attempt to conceal the discovery or hold onto the document? No.

…read the rest

Covering a state legislative session is the hardest job in
political journalism – and harder in Montana than California

By James Conner

Montana’s 2023 legislative session convened last week, but shifts into high gear today as the state’s 150 legislators have just 85 legislative days left to dispose of a blizzard of bill requests — 4,425 as of this morning.

Unlike Congress, city councils, county commissions, school boards, and various other local decision making bodies, most state legislatures — California’s is an exception — do not meet year around. Instead, they meet for a few short months, most annually, but a few, like Montana, every other year.

…read the rest

Two years after Trump’s attempted coup,
millions embrace his stolen election Big Lie

By James Conner

Two years ago today, thousands of Americans, directly incited by then President Donald Trump, stormed our nation’s capitol, breaking into the building, vandalizing offices, bent on finding and injuring or killing members of Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi in particular, and Vice President Mike Pence, whose decision to abide the U.S. Constitution angered Trump. Hundreds were injured, several were killed.

As we know after two years of investigations, Trump knew he lost, but was determined to overturn the election by replacing duly chosen presidential electors with illegitimate presidential electors. He had accomplices in several states, and in many Republican members of Congress, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives. One such representative was Montana’s Matt Rosendale, who now keeps company with far right wackadoodles like Arizona’s Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar.

…read the rest

Montana’s GOP thinks we have too much democracy

Guest essay by Jim Smith

Editor's note. The Daily Montanan just published a report on the Montana Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing Montana legislators.

The new Montana Freedom Caucus (whatever that means) have a hatred of democracy. The problem, as they see it, is we have too much democracy. The country was founded as a republic on a democratic platform and system designed primarily to protect the rights of property, not people. The first Ten Amendments to the Constitution tried to expand democracy beyond just the needs of white propertied males. The entire struggle for real democracy in the U.S. has been to expand democracy to others — racial minorities, women, gays, immigrants, Indigenous people, and so on.

But to the acolytes of this “New GOP” this expansion of democracy is a danger to their hold on power and their ability to further their right-wing agenda. Trumpists, and most of the current GOP do not desire democracy. They desire more of what Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boebert, Rosendale, Zinke, and the Congressional Freedom Caucus represent. Hatred of anyone who is not like them and disdain for democracy and its institutions at all levels of government, right down to the local school or library board.

…read the rest

Rosendale runs with junkyard dogs

Montana’s Matt Rosendale continues his diehard
opposition to electing McCarthy Speaker of the House

By James Conner

Montana’s eastern district congressman, Republican Matt Rosendale, began his congressional career voting to not certify Joe Biden’s election as President. Since then, he’s kept company with the likes of Reps. Paul Gosar (R, AZ) and Andy Biggs (R, AZ), and a handful of other junkyard dogs who growl around the right edge of their political party, biting the legs of Republican leaders and embarrassing the voters who sent them to Congress.

Yesterday, Rosendale was one of 20 Republicans who refused to vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R, CA) for Speaker of the House. McCarthy actually received fewer votes for Speaker than Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries; neither received a majority.

Rosendale in Kalispell, 2014.

Voting for Speaker may resume at 1000 MST today. I doubt McCarthy can muster the votes he needs. I have the sense that no matter how many concessions he makes, that won’t be enough. His detractors are on a political murder-suicide mission, determined to take him down no matter the cost to their country or caucus.

Rosendale’s keeping company with the GOP’s junkyard dogs hurts his ability to help Montana. He’s establishing himself as an unserious legislator. Were he to build up seniority and learn to run with the big dogs, he could do Montana a lot of good. But right now, he’s doing his state and nation a lot of harm by keeping company with his party’s outlaws and curs.

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New Year’s music

By James Conner

Finding a performance of Johann Strauss I’s Radetsky March on YouTube is easy. Find one that can be embedded in a web page, and that has high sound quality, is not. This production has interesting visuals, but too much bass. Try the 2019 performance of the Vienna Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann conducting, for better sound.

Field Marshal Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz was 82 in 1848 when he won his greatest victory, the Battle of Custoza, the effective end of the first war for Italian independence. Not until after two more wars would Italy be unified.

While working on the instrumentation for the performance of the march, which was commissioned to commemorate Radetz'’s victory at Custoza Strauss I caught scarlet fever and died three days later.

The Radetsky March is the tradition encore for the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna. The audience claps as directed by the conductor.

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