There is a lot of work to do in 2022. . .

Our Eagle Is Mad As Hell

The Republican Party of Trump has finally done it. They sent forth a multitude of twits, thugs, and traitors on January 6, 2021 to perpetuate a coup on our government. Their goal was to overturn the 2020 presidential election and hand it over to the loser, Donald J. Trump.  It did not succeed, but it came close enough to show Americans the possible horrors to come in the 2022 and 2024 elections!

The Republican Party have come out of the closet and shown themselves to be anti-democracy, anti-freedom to vote, and anti-equality for all.

It is a well-known fact among GOP officials that if they don't find ways to cheat, they will never win another election. 

That is a helluva statement! 

The rest of that statement is: "and if we don't cheat on the ballots, we'll have to find a way to overturn the elections."  And that was the origin of their coup that was attempted  on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Do we have to ignore every Republican's name on every ballot in America?  That would appear to be the best answer, but it would also "throw out the baby with the bath."  There are good, well-meaning candidates in the GOP. Their work would be to "clean out their bad apples."  The Lincoln Project is trying to do just that.  They are solid, decades-old Grand Old Party members who are adamantly opposed to what officials in their Party have done to destroy their image. They are actively promoting their cause with high visibility in hopes of turning genuine Republicans against Trump Republicans.

Whatever the answer is, America must get rid of this idea that one of the two major political parties is not like the other - and not at all like America!

As a matter of fact, they are unlike anything we have ever seen!

HAVE A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

"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

 

From Open Insurgency to Civil Conflict. . .

 The Republican Party of Trump

All of America needs to wake up and realize what almost happened on Jan. 6, 2021.

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. 

Those are the facts as we now know them, and more facts are coming out, daily, about which elected officeholders in our Congress were complicit in this treasonous act!

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!

Most Americans will approach this possibility with pessimism as they argue "that is impossible in my America."  Tell Abraham Lincoln that. Today's Republican Party of Trump not only knows better, but they actually want it to happen! Its  a case of "the ends justifying the means" for their Party's certain death spiral should they continue on their current path of destruction.

People who have had their heads in the sand the past decade or so don't have any idea what can happen. They have been bumping along in their own little world, oblivious to the dark workings this Republican Party has been up to these last five years.

You, your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will not like any part of an American civil conflict! It will go into the history books as America's Civil War II.

 

Montana's Mr. Grinch. . .

 You're a mean one, Mr. Knudsen

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen hasn't just stepped out of bounds and beyond his authority, but he has bullishly claimed questionable dominion over all local law enforcement of the liberal variety.

He blows into a Montana jurisdiction like a bad wind storm and completely rolls over the local law officials. In his wake, he leaves the local businesses wondering what happened to their chances of protection under the law. It appears "his" law is now "the" law! 

An unruly customer starts a ruckus in a business place - even brandishing a fire arm - and the local law enforcement takes over. Charges are made, fines are leveled, and the guilty is ready for sentencing.  Then our AG Austin Knudsen enters the picture. The "sentence" has magically changed to a fine of a few dollars and the case is closed.  On to the next city.  AG Austin has been informed of another "victim" of the big bad people who are trying to keep people safe from Covid.

The posters go out to any RIGS (Republicans In Good Standing) who need a comforting shoulder and a sympathetic ear. The word is: You now have an AG who will rush to your aid. 

Whether you are a patient in a hospital who is reportedly a RIGS, or a thug who is packing heat and isn't interested in the Covid rules of a bar/restaurant, just know that Austin will have your back.

Many are wondering if there is an even bigger story going on here. Could it be a new way this administration is looking at our rule of law in general? Do they want all cases that are of interest to them, handled only by them? The way Montana's AG is handling things is not just mysterious - but it is downright frightening, too!

Montana, we are in strange and troubling times, indeed.

An Opinion by John Watson

 

The Criminals Within. . .

 Traitors, All

There have been some pretty bad things said and written about Republican politics the past five years. As I review the hundreds of blogs I have posted, I guess I have done my share, too. 

We can all agree, however, that the Republican Party of Trump has become grievously traitorous, hostile, misleading, and down-right dishonest in their political fight to survive.

The folks who are pictured above are but a small grouping of what is wrong with their Party. They go out of their way to be cantankerous and  treasonous. And they are fully aware of that which they are doing to others - and to our democracy. It is not political shenanigans, it is how traitors destroy their own country. 

The traitors we are talking about are members of the Congress of the United States of America.  They were elected and sent to Washington D.C. to do the work of the people of America.

They are, instead, doing the work of getting themselves re-elected and enhancing the chances of putting their Party in control.  Gaining control is not in itself a bad thing, but their reasoning is. They are out to overthrow our democracy and rule of law! According to their own experts, they cannot win another election unless they can stop certain segments of our population from voting, and, failing that, they are setting in place a way to overturn all elections they lose.

This is a picture of traitors at work. It is a treasonous play book for saboteurs of our constitution and our democracy!  It was written by their idol - the former president - and they are proud to carry on his work.

The picture of their intent cannot be clearer. This is not rhetorical politics.  This is criminal workings by a desperate political party!

The only thing left to do is figure out how to stop them, because our democracy is on the line.

Montana Republicans are circling the wagons around Arntzen. . .

The following are some excerpts from the Helena Independent Record of Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021 and a closing opinion by John Watson.

"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."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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. . .

 187 Minutes  -  3 Hours and 7 Minutes

This is the time it took the former president to first tell the mob to "march" on our Capitol and "fight like hell because you'll lose your country if you don't," until he told them it was time to go home. And as they began to leave, he told them, "We love you."

His "love" was for the carnage of the capitol building, more than 150 injuries, six deaths, and terror on the hearts and minds of our legislators who were trapped inside. Police were beaten with flag poles, fire extinguisher, fists, and various other objects that were handy for the mobsters to use. 

We now know that numerous members of the former president's inner circle, a family member, FOX personalities, and legislators spent those 187 minutes sending Trump's Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows messages begging him to tell the president to call off the insurrection.  He was "enjoying" the mayhem, too much, one reportedly said.  The pleas came in phone calls, tweets, and text messages saying "the thing was out of control and people were going to die!"

Still nothing.  For 187 minutes.

And this maniac is "threatening" to run for his old job again!

And far too many of his Republican followers are okay with that!

"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."

 

What part of that oath does he not understand? Well, pretty much all of it because he doesn't cotton too much to our democracy.  His oath would be much different.  If he faithfully executed an oath at all, it would say something about swearing only to his own authoritarian rule.

This man cannot run for President of the United States ever again!

And that should go for those Republicans who support him, too!

Treason used to be a capital offense. . .

        

Blood on their hands and evil in their hearts.

The Republican Party of Trump is still providing sustenance for their hero and former President of the United States.

On Jan. 4th - two days before the Jan. 6th Insurrection of our Capitol  - a power point was shown to many legislators in the U.S. Senate and House.  They received, firsthand, the plan to disrupt, create hysteria, and eventually overturn the vote count certification by the Electoral College. The Vice President was to declare Donald Trump our next president. There were notices sent out to key states to send alternate delegates to Washington instead of the designed ones. The alternates would falsely give their electoral votes to Trump instead of their state's legitimate winner: Joe Biden. Their reasoning would be the lie that there was massive fraud committed in their home state election and they would declare a new electoral winner.

There is blood on the hands of those who participated in this criminal and treasonous act and there is more blood yet to be washed off the hands of Republican Senators and Representatives who conspired with Trump and his inner circle thugs.

The names of the Trump conspirators are being exposed and the names of the Legislators will also come to light in due process.  How these legislators can still sit at their desks and committee assignments and do the work of the people is beyond belief. They have broken the sacred oaths they took as members of our Congress.

Lastly, these  Republicans who have been stained by the violent acts against our constitution and our democracy still - for some unimaginable reason - expect to be re-elected!

There is no punishment too severe for someone who has committed treason against his/her country. Their efforts at campaigning for election and re-election is beneath contempt!

 

Elsie Arntzen, It's time to go!

Elsie Arntzen: In 2004, Arntzen was elected to Montana House for District 53, which includes a portion of Yellowstone County. In 2012, she was elected to the Montana Senate for a four-year term. 

In 1992, Arntzen became a 5th grade school teacher for the Billings School District.

In 2016, Arntzen was elected as the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, which leads the state's prime education agency, the Montana Office of Public Instruction.

She is 65 years of age and from Billings, Montana. She is a member of the Republican Party. She has a BA from the University of Montana and a BA from Montana State University. 

She is currently under heavy attack from all of the state's AA schools, which represent nearly 54,000 students, and several other schools around the state, as well. The superintendents of the schools have sent her a scathing letter regarding her failure to handle the job as head of the Office of Public Instruction and concluded with a vote of "no confidence."

There have also been strong requests from various Montanans that Arntzen resign her position at OPI.  She has constantly let the people of Montana know her stance on private and charter schools over our public school system. 

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.

Elsie Arntzen has found herself in a dire pickle. Employees of her office have stated they left for "personal reasons."  Some were more direct in their reasoning, but in total Arntzen has reportedly said "ninety percent of her staff" has turned over.

OPI Superintendent Arntzen must accept her failure to do the job of leadership for Montana's Public Schools and resign her position.

 

This former Montana Republican Governor seems to get it. . .

Former Republican Governor of Montana, Marc Racicot, spoke to a group of nearly 100 people at a Montana Taxpayers Association meeting in Helena on Wednesday. He warns, "Our fidelity is in jeopardy in America, not only in regard to the state and national constitutions, but to the country's spirit as well."  He also said,  "There are serious warning signs that the U.S. Constitution and republic are at risk." At the conclusion, Racicot was given a standing ovation.

"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.

Arntzen has taken a wrecking ball to Montana's Office of Public Instruction. . .

Elsie must go!

"Montana's largest schools have sent a letter to Office of Public Instruction (OPI) Superintendent Elsie Arntzen expressing their frustration and lack of confidence.

The letter dated Dec. 6 was signed by the superintendents of every AA Montana school which represents around 45 percent of the state's enrolled students, almost 54,000 students in total.

"We write to express our disappointment in your leadership as our state's chief public education officer," the letter reads.

"Indeed, for the reasons described in this letter, we express no confidence in your performance as Montana's chief public education officer."

The letter was signed by the following superintendents: Greg Upham (Billings); Godfrey Saunders (Belgrade); Casey Bertram (Bozeman); Thomas Moore (Great Falls); Rob Watson (Missoula); Judy Jonart (Butte);, Mica Hill (Kalispell); and Rex Weltz (Helena).

Specifically, the top educators point to understaffing of critical OPI departments, undermining local school authority, a backlog of unlicensed teachers waiting for OPI approval, a lack of updated content standards, schools losing grants due to OPI missing deadlines and a general lack of support school districts have been receiving during Arntzen's tenure. 

The superintendents note the OPI turnover rate of around 90 percent has left the agency with absences in critical areas.

"While we understand the mantra of 'cutting the fat out of government,' the steps you have taken effectively left no muscle in our state's education agency. To continue with that metaphor, you are permitting - indeed, encouraging - OPI to bleed to death," the superintendents wrote.

The AA school districts also voiced their frustration with Arntzen's actions that seemed to undermine school districts, or inaccurately represent their intentions.

"To be clear, our concerns are not related to your politics, but rather your leadership (or lack thereof)," noted the superintendents in their letter.

                                                

The superintendents also took issue with Arntzen's recent appearances at parental rights rallies and her messaging on school COVID-19 protocols, which include her advocacy for a rule change that would allow parents to "opt out" of local school policies. They characterized such messaging as having "undermined the role and responsibilities" of locally elected school officials. 

"Your conduct destabilizes the credibility of our local schools, the same ones you are elected to represent and help and on whose behalf you are supposed to advocate," the superintendents wrote.

                                                     - Sakar Lassen, Montana Fee Press

While the concerns of the superintendent may not be related to Elsie's politics, it is common knowledge around the state that Elsie is not a friend of our public school system. She and her like-minded governor are firm believers in the Republican concept of placing as many kids and as much tax money into charter and private schools as possible. If they teach religion  - their kind of religion - even better!

If you dial up Wikipedia to review Elsie's biography, you will find she is better known as a politician than as an educator. She spent time in the Montana Legislature as a Republican, has a net worth of $1 million to $5 million, and you will not find one word of her time as a teacher.

The plan is clear - Elsie must leave. . . before she completely dismantles the Montana Office of Public Instruction!

 

Captain Underpants and the female versions of Beavis and Butthead. . .

The problem with the United States House of Representatives is clear to nearly everyone except the Minority Leader. 

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, alias "Captain Underpants" and his disruptive juvenile delinquents, who remind us all of Beavis and Butt-head, are shredding the decorum and rule of law in our hallowed halls of Congress.

If any high school student across America was allowed to publicly call out fellow students like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Greene calls out their fellow congressional members, they would lose extracurricular rights, acquire detention time, or even receive outright expulsion from school.

But what does Captain Underpants do?  He lovingly talks with them privately and sends them back onto the floor where they can continue to slice and dice their fellow representatives. 

One member of the U.S. House has said publicly that Taylor -Greene and Boebert are knowingly "doing these stunts for cash." It fires up their base and it opens the flood gates of donor money!  

This is how politics works - but it isn't supposed to be how our government works.  

However, it is how our government works for Republicans. 

And Captain Underpants is just pleased as punch because it is supposed to help him get his life's dream job: Speaker of the House.

Dream on, Captain.

                                         An Opinion by John Watson

 

Three Dates That Will "Live In Infamy". . .

December 7, 1941 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii attacked by 

the nation of Japan

September 11, 2001 

New York City World Trade Center Towers attacked by 

Foreign Terrorists

January 6, 2021 

America's Capitol attacked by 

Republican-incited Domestic Terrorists

The United States of America has been under severe and earth-shaking attacks three times in the past eighty years. The first two times brought our nation to war with foreign aggressors.

The third time brought our nation to war with itself. The enemy of this attack was domestic terrorists who were incited by the President of the United States, key individuals in his inner circle, various members of the Republican Party in our two houses of Congress, and willing members of such domestic terrorist groups as White Supremacists, QAnons, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and the like. The goal was to overturn a national election for the presidency. 

These three dates will, as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1941, "live in infamy."

No one date will surpass another in importance, other than the count of causalities, because each date was action taken against our nation's soil, our citizens, our democracy, and our constitution.

Perhaps we will, however, remember the last date as the one that pains us the most because it was Americans against Americans.  It solidified the realization that our dreams to be one nation and two major political parties is not a certainty any longer. We now know that one party is not at all like the other.  One is working to bring our democracy to its knees and replace it with an authoritarian form of government. The other is not.

"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."

The action taken on January 6, 2021 came perilously close to another date of infamy:  4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861 - when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor, Less than 34 hours later, Union forces surrendered. Traditionally, this event has been used to mark the beginning of our Civil War.

Will Jan. 6, 2021 mark the day our second civil war began?

 

My State, My Judges. . .

 

Under new Republican rule, the Montana Governor Gianforte gets to pick his own judges across the state as vacancies open up. This idea was hatched by him and sold to the Republican-controlled State Legislature this year. Where there used to be an impartial commission who would hand a list of possible replacements for vacated judgeships to the governor, now the governor gets to pull out his little black book of friends and pick his own replacements. 

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.

During the next three years of Gianforte's term - and possibly four more years beyond that -  Montana's judicial future is in his hands. By the time he leaves, he should have stacked up many more far-right religious characters like District Court Judge Breuner. 

And we can now assume that if Gov. Gianforte ever decides to body slam another reporter in Gallatin County, his penalty will be considerably less severe than a fine and anger management therapy classes.

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."