Friday, December 31, 2021
There is a lot of work to do in 2022. . .
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
"You can't take your eyes off of them for a second. . . "
The incredible jaw-dropping plan from the Grand Old Party of Trump to win the 2024 presidential election is beginning to come into focus for those who want to look. The following is a news story from the Wisconsin Examiner by Ruth Conniff dated Oct. 28, 2021. It explains how the Wisconsin Republican Party officials tried to confiscate the actual voter ballots of Nov. 2020 by hoodwinking the state election officials into handing them over to GOP Party officials for their own "audit" shell game.
"Republicans seem to figure they can get away with distorting the audit bureau's findings because most people won't actually read the report for themselves. Specifically, Vos (the GOP official) pointed to elections officials in Madison who 'wouldn't even turn over the basic ballots to have the Legislative Audit Bureau -- totally nonpartisan, totally respected - even do their job. 'But, as the LAB report itself states, the clerk in Madison who didn't turn over those ballots was merely following guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice, which warned that she could be violating the federal Civil Rights Act if she gave up physical custody of election records. 'In part as a result of this guidance from the DOJ, the City of Madison clerk did not allow us to physically handle election records,' the LAB report explains.Rather than run afoul of federal law, the Madison clerk offered auditors the chance to view the ballots without physical custody of them. The auditors didn't take her up on that offer."
Of course, we know why they refused.
The Wisconsin Election Official said, about the Republicans who were insisting on doing their own audit of Biden's Wisconsin win, "You can't take your eyes off of them for a second."
The serious monkey business now underway in more than half of our states by the Republican Party of Trump will aim to overturn any election they lose with similar game plans. It is frightening, it is illegal, and it will mark the end of our democracy!
The most telling sentence in the above new story is this: "Republicans seem to feel they can get away with distorting the audit bureau's findings because most people won't actually read the report for themselves."
I can understand Americans who will fight to the death before losing our democracy. . . but how on earth can uninformed and disinterested Americans simply let it be snookered away from them?
And I would bet my next social security check the plan book has been sent to Helena, dusted off, Republican eyeballs scanning the pages, and visions of elections overturned in their little minds. . . as we speak!
VOTERS BEWARE!
Opinion by John Watson
Monday, December 27, 2021
From Open Insurgency to Civil Conflict. . .
The former President of the United States, his Vice President, his Chief-of-Staff, members of his inner circle, most of the Republicans in the U. S. House and Senate, and about 10,000 thugs that breached and damaged our Capitol building, killed, and injured members of the Capitol Police as they carried out an insurrection and a coup on our government.
Today, we all need to realize our country is in a very dangerous and frightening place in our history. After nearly 245 years of what has been called a "grand experiment in democracy," we find ourselves in what is described as an anocracy. That means we are somewhere between a democracy and an autocracy. As we approach the last stage of open insurgency, we are facing a mind-numbing period of civil conflict. That - just to be clear - is a full-blown civil war!
Monday, December 20, 2021
Montana's Mr. Grinch. . .
Thursday, December 16, 2021
The Criminals Within. . .
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Montana Republicans are circling the wagons around Arntzen. . .
"Two school boards trustees wrote a letter of 'confidence' Tuesday to Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen after 12 superintendents around the state questioned her leadership last week."
"The letter was sent by Mike Gehl, a trustee with Missoula County Public Schools, and Jim Riley, a trustee with District No. 89 Smith Valley in Kalispell. It includes signatures of support from 21 state senators and representatives - all Republicans - and five other school board trustees, a Kalispell City-County board of health member and a Flathead County commissioner."
"University of Montana football coach Bobby Hauck and his wife, Stacey Hauck, were also among those who signed, along with more than 500 other citizens."
"The Western Montana Liberty Coalition sent an email to its subscribers on Friday, Dec. 10, urging people to contact the office of Quentin Rhoades, a Missoula-based lawyer, to add their name to the 'Arntzen Support Letter Signatory List.'"
"Rhoades was the person who remarked, 'in jest' that people should shoot school superintendents they don't agree with on mask policies at a meeting at Crosspoint Community Church earlier this fall."
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After closer scrutiny, the instigators of this "letter of confidence" for Arntzen are seemingly all Republican supporters, who have pointed fingers at the state superintendents for being political in their letter of "no confidence" to Elsie Arntzen!
This problem lies with one person - Elsie Arntzen - and should not become a political punching bag. Let's not turn it into one. There are already words being tossed about for citizen supporters of Arntzen to fire superintendents who are opposed to her while at the same time they are struggling with severely decreased assistance from her office of public instruction.
The time it took to open up hell. . .
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Treason used to be a capital offense. . .
Elsie Arntzen, It's time to go!
Even more egregious is the ugly and heavy-handed approach to the business of our state by not only the Superintendent of the OPI but the same manner of leadership by the Governor and Attorney General. It appears that these folks received a false idea that the "red tide" of elections gave them some kind of superior authority over our normal rules and laws and the good people of Montana.
Saturday, December 11, 2021
This former Montana Republican Governor seems to get it. . .
"A people who cannot talk or listen to each other, who do not respect each other, who will not sincerely consider the thoughts of each other, who do not trust each other and who cannot reason with each other, cannot long live in freedom," former Gov. Racicot said.
In regards to the social media in general, he said, "It seems almost impossible to me to manage the noise, to control the flood of unverified and frequently inaccurate communication, conceived in anger and competition and then regretted because of all the blathering that is now a matter of public record," he said.
"How do we stop this runaway train as it picks up speed and leaves scattered all over the landscape so much destruction and damage along the way?"
"Fidelity is the exact opposite of seeking power for its own sake, which as history reveals, at the end of the day, is really a fool's errand," Racicot said.
He said the Montana Constitution requires an oath for any public office and asked what the framers had in mind when they chose "fidelity" as the guiding principle for appropriate behavior from anyone who holds public office.
He concluded with, "Let us abandon the fruitless and solitary search for power and control, and get about fixing the problems, with fidelity - so help me God.
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Arntzen has taken a wrecking ball to Montana's Office of Public Instruction. . .
The superintendents note the OPI turnover rate of around 90 percent has left the agency with absences in critical areas.
"To be clear, our concerns are not related to your politics, but rather your leadership (or lack thereof)," noted the superintendents in their letter.
Monday, December 6, 2021
Captain Underpants and the female versions of Beavis and Butthead. . .
An Opinion by John Watson
Saturday, December 4, 2021
Three Dates That Will "Live In Infamy". . .
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Thursday, December 2, 2021
My State, My Judges. . .
A case in point: Andrew Breuner, attorney in Gallatin County has been picked by Gianforte to serve a judgeship in District Court in Gallatin County.Breuner has served on the Petra Academy Board (a private religious school Gianforte founded) and Love In The Name Of Christ (Love Inc.) an organization that has benefited from the Gianforte Family Foundation.
Paraphrasing what Sammy Davis, Jr. used to say on Rowen & Martin's "Laugh In," the governor now says, "Here come my Judge, Here come my Judge, Order in my court room, Here come my Judge."
Sunday, November 28, 2021
This is a fight America cannot lose. . .
The Republican Party is going through a political metamorphosis and their chances are excellent that it may not end well. It is, however, a change they feel they must take a gamble on doing. Their chances today of a long life are slim and none. Their disdain for anyone who doesn't look like them, think like them, or live like them puts them on a short dead-end road. The white majority in America is about to become the white minority in a little more than 20 short years from now!
Saturday, November 27, 2021
We frogs are in the water and it's beginning to boil. . .
Toxic: Very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Attorney Generalissimo Knudsen. . .
However, enter Generalissimo Knudsen, who moved the judge aside and took charge of the case, himself. Knudsen's handling consisted of a "$50 fine and everybody move along - nothing more to see here, folks." There is a pattern beginning with this administration and it stinks to high heaven. These rebellious, right-wing nuts are getting away with disrespecting our laws and they're getting help from right-wing "leaders" of our state.
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
What have we done to our Fourth Estate?
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." Geo. Orwell "1984"
We need Lincoln's words today. . .
If President Lincoln were alive on Jan. 7, 2021 and found it necessary to give an "Insurrection Address" at the Capitol Building, it might go something like his Gettysburg Address of Nov. 19, 1863. America's democracy is once again in great peril, and we are once again a seriously divided nation. We find ourselves primarily a land of two tribal mentalities. One side is frantically trying to overthrow our present form of government and install an authoritarian rule, while the other is desperately holding on to what we have had for 245 years.
Perhaps Lincoln would speak words such as these. . .
Twelve score and five years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in the beginning of another great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can still endure. We are met on a great battlefield of two opposing kinds of government. One, to continue our great experiment of democracy, and the other, to begin an evil authoritarian rule. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who might give their lives in pursuit of democracy, that the hopes of that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The fighting men who will struggle here, will have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will greatly note, and long remember what we do here, and it must never forget the democracy that may be lost here. It is for us the patriotic, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who will fight here have thus far so nobly tried to advance. It is rather for us, the saviors of democracy, to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us. And that from the honored dead we will take increased devotion to that cause for which they will give the last full measure of devotion to our nation - that we here highly resolve that those who fought to hold on to our constitution shall not have died in vain, and that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government shall remain of the people, by the people, and for the people; and that it shall not perish from the earth.
It is imperative that in today's America, we understand the gravity of the situation when President Lincoln gave his speech and how close, today, this nation is to facing another great war with itself.
This tribalism in our nation must stop!
Are we not all Americans?
Do we not all bleed the same color of blood?
Can we not all enjoy the same fruits of our democracy?