An update on the future of Flathead Memo

By James Conner

Two situations account for my recent paucity of posts on Flathead Memo.

Two situations account for my recent paucity of posts on Flathead Memo.

Antibiotics, greenbacks, & flat on my back. My last post, a commentary on Matt Rosendale’s possible candidacy for U.S. Senate (see today’s update) was a month ago. Since then, I’ve been employing powerful and expensive antibiotics to fight several dangerous bacterial infections. I’m winning. But I’m also exhausted. And when I recover from this, I’m headed for surgery on my arm.

Will I still be posting on Flathead Memo? Yes. Will I be posting as frequently as planned? No, damnit. But I will be posting. I still enjoy writing, and I still have a few things to say.

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Rosendale is approaching put up or shut up
time for a U.S. Senate bid

By James Conner

Eastern district incumbent Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, who lost to Jon Tester in 2018, has been hinting for months that he’d like another crack at Tester. Meanwhile, wealthy businessman and former naval commando Tim Sheehy, recruited and backed by Steve Daines, has filed for the nomination, is actively campaigning, and is closing the gap with Rosendale. Former secretary of state Brad Johnson, 72, announced recently that he’s seeking the GOP nomination. Libertarian Sid Daoud filed for the Senate earlier this week.

So why is Rosendale teasing a run, but dithering and dawdling?

Here’s my theory. He’s waiting to see whether he can count on Democratic crossover votes in the primary.

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A disgraceful moment in the U.S. House of Representatives

By James Conner

Last night, the U.S. House censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI 12) for uttering the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” According to the New York Times, the censure resolution:

I consider the slogan a rallying cry for Hamas’ goal of eradicating the state of Israel and killing all Jews. Tlaib’s defense of her use of it doesn’t pass the laugh test.

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 Updated  extensively at 1855 MDT.

Israel needs and deserves the full support
of all Americans. Hamas deserves death.

By James Conner

Israel’s population is 9.4 million; Gaza’s, 2.3 million; Gaza plus the occupied West Bank, approximately 6 million; the United States’, 332 million.

As of this morning, the English language Times of Israel reports that Hamas has murdered more than 800 in Israel. Multiplying that by (332/9.4) yields a U.S. equivalent deaths number of approximately 28,000, an order of magnitude greater than the death toll for the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s trade towers and the Pentagon.

Those figures are approximate, but they help Americans understand the shock and anger that Hamas’ murderous raid has generated in Israel.

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Will voters approve four levies for Kalispell’s
schools when property values are out of control?

By James Conner

Kalispell’s elementary and high school districts are putting four six-figure levies to the voters this fall. It’s an all mail ballot election, and the ballots are due Tuesday, 3 October.

Each district is running safety and technology levies.

The levies

This summary is mostly for readers who do not live in Kalispell.

The elementary district is asking approval of 15.6 mils, to raise $1.5 million a year for safety, and the same amounts for technology.

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Twenty-two years after terrorists knocked down the
Trade Towers and set the Pentagon afire, we are less free

I began that day as usual, checking the news on CNN’s website. An image of a smoke pouring from a skyscraper greeted me. Because in those times news websites sometimes were hacked, I turned on my television to confirm what I was seeing. There was no hack. A jumbo airliner had crashed into one of New York’s World Trade Towers in broad daylight.

The press speculated that it was a terrible accident, but I knew instantly it was a terrorist attack. Airliners and other large aircraft do not accidentally crash into a skyscraper when the sun is shining and visibility is unlimited. Within the hour, a second airliner roared into the other tower at 500 mph, proving to everyone that a terrorist attack was underway.

In Kalispell, 2,000 miles and two time zones to the northwest, the day was sunny, clear, and mild. A county road crew was repaving the road in front of my house. The crew waiting for the next truckload of hot asphalt gathered on my front lawn listening to a huge portable radio. I took a few digital photographs of the scene and chatted with the workers. “This means war,” said one.

Flathead road crew listens to news of the attacks.

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AG Knudsen’s legal troubles result from the GOP’s
efforts to govern Montana by legislative supremacy

Montana’ Office of Disciplinary Counsel has accused Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen of 41 counts of professional misconduct. That’s a staggering tally.

But it’s part of a pattern. The radicals now running Montana’s Republican Party do not believe in co-equal branches of government, in the checkS, balances, and safeguards built into the separation of the executive, judicial, and legislative functions of government. They believe that what the legislature decides should be supreme and not subject to judicial review. To that end, they spent the last several legislative sessions attempting to weaken the judiciary and to subordinate it to the legislature.

They already have, with a veto-proof majority, the ability to override the governor. If they can eviscerate the judiciary, they’ll have the means to be constable, judge, jury, and court of review for Montana. There’s a name for that kind of government: legislative dictatorship.

Overall, that’s what Knudsen’s current predicament is about.

If the charges against him hold up, his role in the scheme to establish legislative supremacy in Montana may be kneecapped. But the scheme will continue unabated. The only way to stop is if for Democrats to win a majority in at least one house of the legislature.

Flathead Memo standing down until 5 September

Unless there is an emergency, I’m standing down until after Labor Day while I do late summer maintenance on my house, and finish switching upgrading from my 2009 Intel powered Mac Mini to a 2020 M1 powered Mac Mini that can run current software.

— James Conner

Two disturbing moments defined
the 23 August Republican debate

By James Conner

Eight Republican presidential candidates, and the conspicuous absence of front runner Donald Trump, gathered in Milwaukee Wedensday for a two-hour debate sponsored and conducted by Fox News. I watched all be the last 15 minutes and would have watched those minutes had not Fox’s live stream suddenly terminated, as it had several times during the event.

But I saw enough.

According to small sample quick post debate polls, the performances of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose raging bull delivery would have made a pro wrestler proud, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old pharmaceutical billionaire without any public service on his résumé, were liked best by Republican primary voters. And, as Morning Consult, discovered, Trump is ahead of both men by miles.

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Trying to get a Montana tax rebate: one
woman’s exasperating experience

Guest essay by Jan Lombardi

OK, armed and ready, I sat down with a computer, a postcard and letter from Governor Gianforte and two letters from his Revenue Department on how to get a property tax rebate.

Logged on to website and bonk – What’s a geocode? Frustrated, I set the paperwork aside.

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The Republican-Tax-Montana-Homeowners-Program
Will Be Hitting Your Mailbox Soon

Guest essay by Ann Brodsky

Ever since Democrats shined a spotlight on the historic residential property tax increases that are coming your way, Republicans have been trying every which way to shift the blame from themselves. It’s the local governments raising your taxes, they cry! We should be grateful for the one-time partial rebate, they declare! More recently, they’ve been proclaiming we need a property tax overhaul in 2025!

According to Montana’s Revenue Department, homeowner property taxes across the state will rise approximately $200 million annually, on a permanent basis, because the legislature failed to adjust a simple statutory formula when home values rose. By failing to neutralize your tax rates, the Republicans-in-Charge (of both the executive and legislative branches) guaranteed their Tax-Montana-Homeowners-Program will arrive at your doorstep soon in the form of your 2023 property tax bill.

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A quick and dirty measurement of a smoke plume

By James Conner

Located on the east side of the reservoir six miles southeast of Hungry Horse, the Ridge Fire (Facebook page) — a dangerous fire that, should winds drive it north, could threaten the Highway 2 corridor to West Glacier and Apgar Village — blew up two weeks ago, producing a towering column of smoke that was easily visible twenty miles to the west.

Larger, easier to read image.

I saw the plume rising over the Swan Range as I crossed the Highway 93 overpass driving east on Two Mile Drive. I wish I could have gotten a photo, but there was no place to stop and cars behind me. Later, at Harbor Freight’s parking lot, I used my iPhone to photograph the plume. At that point, didn’t know which fire — there were several in the general vicinity — was producing the plume.

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Montana homeowners shouldn’t have to pay $81 million/year
in new property taxes to the State now and into the future

Guest essay by Ann Brodsky

I’m a lawyer and interested in politics. Fortunately, I’ve been able to stay out of Montana tax law for my career, except at a very high level. Is the tax fair? Does it hurt or help those who can least afford to pay? That’s what most Democrats ask.

This changed when I, like all other Montana homeowners, got my reappraisal notice from Governor Gianforte’s Department of Revenue and learned my property values had skyrocketed.

That, itself, wasn’t news to me, as I watched property sales go out the roof post-pandemic, when out-of-state folks with hefty incomes swooped into Montana and bought homes. Heck, they paid CASH for these homes, and at prices well over the asking price!

But what did this mean for my property taxes? I didn’t know.

So like other homeowners, I began paying attention. And I’m reeling!

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Push Digital pushed Lindsey, Cindy, Marco, Trey, & Chuck

Tim Sheehy should fire his blundering
South Carolina based campaign consultants

By James Conner

Tim Sheehy

Republican senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s great weakness is his profound dearth of experience in electoral politics. That leaves him heavily dependent on Steve Daines and the national Republican senatorial campaign committee in choosing campaign consultants, and on those consultants after he chooses them.

To build his campaign website, and probably to do much more, he chose www.pushdigital.com, a full service political consultancy in South Carolina. Among Push’s clients are — the names are splashed atop the firm’s home page — nationally prominent Republicans Sen. Lindsey Grayham, SC; Sen. Marco Rubio, FL; former Rep. Trey Gowdy, SC; Sen. Chuck Grassley, IA; and Sen. Cindy-Hyde Smith, MS.

That’s an impressive list of, except for Iowan Grassley, southern politicians. One can see how hiring Push may have seemed a good idea. The firm’s description of itself eschews humility: “The place where the most talented team in politics shapes the future of digital communication.”

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Only a special legislative session can prevent
Montanans from paying sky high state property taxes

By James Conner

We think of property taxes as local taxes because they fund local governments and schools, but we also pay a 101 mil state property tax — and our bill for that tax will go up 40 percent or more because of the recent reappraisals unless Montana’s legislature amends state law.

Here’s the background. In late November 2022, Montana’s Department of Revenue sent the legislature’s revenue interim committee a memorandum warning that the tax value neutral rate needed to be reduced to compensate for the increase in appraisals. The TVN is set in stone in statute and can be changed only by changing the Montana Codes Annotated, which requires legislation.

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LBJ’s historic speech at Howard University

SCOTUS affirmative action ruling not likely to have
much effect on Montana's colleges and universities

By James Conner

Most colleges and universities — including Montana’s — admit almost everyone who applies to them (Pew Research Center). Unlike at Harvard and other elite institution, none of their students is admitted or rejected on the basis of race. But they were at Harvard and the University of North Carolina:

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. V. President and Fellows of Harvard College, SCOTUS ruled that:

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