Great Falls, Montana News, Politics, & Commentary
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With Ryan Zinke expected to sail through Senate confirmation hearings to become Donald Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, Montana politicians are rapidly angling to replace him in the U.S. House.
The very good Mike Dennison has a piece profiling six sitting legislators and how their Congressional aspirations might affect the 2017 session.
For Republicans, Sen. Ed Buttrey, a Great Falls businessman, was the first to announce his candidacy. Buttrey hails from the moderate wing of the GOP, is good friends with Zinke, and would likely approximate most of Zinke’s policy positions. His leading role in expanding Montana Medicaid did not endear him to more conservative Republicans, however — and it’s precisely these right-wing Central Committee members who will choose a nominee for the special election. If Buttrey can survive the hothouse of the state Central Committee (a big “if”), he would stand an excellent chance to win.
Other names include 29 year-old Rep. Daniel Zolnikov – Billings, as well as Senate President Scott Sales – Bozeman. Old charges of dark money (“Drain the Swamp?”) would indisputably follow Sales, who — perhaps to Dennison’s point — does not appear as though he will play nice this session, nor does he seem interested in legislating from anywhere other than the extreme right:
Senate pres. Scott Sales probably won't vote for any infrastructure bill, he says at @MontanaChamber breakfast. #mtpol #mtleg
— Travis Kavulla (@TKavulla) January 3, 2017
This is hardly surprising. Sales often stakes out far-right positions on bills, yet seldom enforces the “whip” on his members, instead letting his caucus make up its own mind. Of the two leaders from within the legislative chambers, Rep. and House Speaker Austin Knudsen is the more thoughtful and more likely to make a lasting impact as a conservative leader. People might see him as a better choice than Sales if it’s a leader from the Legislature they are looking for.
On the Democratic side, Reps. Amanda Curtis – Butte, Casey Schreiner – Great Falls, and Kelly McCarthy – Billings have all entered the fray. One has to assume, though, that in a red state, and competing in an election so closely removed from a strong Republican November, any Democrat not named Brian Schweitzer will almost certainly face an uphill battle.
Coming later in the week: a look at other announced and rumored candidates from outside the Legislature.
H/T to Twitchy, for compiling Iowahawk’s complete and total takedown of the Democrats’ and the mainstream media’s myth that the Russians “hacked” the 2016 Presidential Election.
It took him just 12 tweets:
1/ John Podesta, like 100% of everyone who has ever had a email account, received a password phishing email. He fell for it.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
3/ whatever the case, the password purloiners downloaded his emails, which eventually got into the hands of Wikileaks, who made them public.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
5/ At the time of their release (Oct) they were hardly covered by any media, and largely dismissed as a big fat nothingburger.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
7/ Fast forward to December. The October nothingburger has now magically transformed into "vote hacking" and "election hacking."
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
9/ This is not Alex Jones or angry conspiracy kook Facebook uncles, it's the NYTs, the WaPo, our beloved State Radio.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
11/ none of this is a defense of Trump, or his garbage kleptocrat pal Putin. It's an indictment of our garbage narrative-driven media.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
12/ it shouldn't have to take a drunk internet nobody to point any of this out, but hey, here we are.
<end thread>— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2016
Brilliant!
As the 2017 legislature session kicks off tomorrow in Helena, the prospect of declining revenue and a leaner budget looms over everything.
From the Helena IR:
After leaving a $300 million rainy day fund at the end of the 2015 Legislature, the state was looking at a roughly $225 million hole if it didn’t make adjustments. The $4.7 billion budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock was drafted to deal with declining oil, gas and coal revenues as well as slowed growth in income and property tax collections. It contains $110 million in spending cuts and $123 million in new taxes.
‘Priority one, two and three this session, unfortunately, is the budget,’ Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson, said Friday. ‘In order to get necessary government funded and fund just existing programs we’re going to have to be looking in the couch cushions pretty hard for loose change this session.’
Nevertheless, Montana Democrats, in typical big-government fashion, remain hellbent on increasing spending.
Compromise?
Query: if revenues are down, what is the more measured legislative response: to heed the advice of Speaker Knudsen, and look for common-sense belt-tightening, or to raise taxes and grow government largesse? Moreover, with respect to Rep. Miller’s nearly two-year old tweet, should Democrats entertain a compromise with the majority party, or would it be better public policy to hector an overwhelming spate of popularly elected Republicans for the sake of “the kids?”
Several Great Falls and Montana residents have decided this is a perfect time to compliment existing print and TV news, with an online news blog to explore various issues and their effects on Great Falls and Montana residents.
Our idea stems from the Great Gregg Smith, who hung up his spurs after a successful run with Electric City Weblog, en route to a first-ballot Hall of Fame blogging career. We miss ECW!
Our Editor and Publisher Kelly Parks, entrepreneur, believes that like her grandfather’s numerous newspapers in the early 1900’s, the public has a right to know all sides of a story.
Our vision is to explore and add depth and discussion to newsworthy matters that many of our readers have requested.
It took a bit of time and some serious discussion, but alas here we are.
H/T to Democracy NOW!, via Glenn Greenwald:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald says Democrats have adopted a “Cold War McCarthyite kind of rhetoric” by accusing many its critics of having ties to Russia. “It’s sort of this constant rhetorical tactic to try and insinuate that anyone opposing the Clintons are somehow Russian agents, when it’s the Clintons who actually have a lot of ties to Russia, as well,” Greenwald said. “I mean, the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton helped Russian companies take over uranium industries in various parts of the world. He received lots of Russian money for speeches.”
Read the whole thing here.
H/T to BizPacReview, for exposing the worst-kept secret in this year’s 2016 presidential election: the mainstream media, particularly CNN, is totally in the bag for Hillary Clinton:
Witness CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the man who called Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort a liar and debated Rudy Giuliani for 32 break-less minutes on the ridiculous liberal interpretation of Trump’s Second Amendment statement, wax eloquent during a 2014 segment during which he and another host were discussing Clinton’s potential entry into the race.
“It’s a problem because she’s doing what they call in politics “freezing pockets,” because the donors are giving her money thinking she’s going to run, that means they’re not going to have available money for other candidates if she doesn’t.” Cuomo said. “And I don’t think she’s going to give it to them. We couldn’t help her any more than we have, she’s got just a free ride so far from the media, we’re the biggest ones promoting her campaign, so it had better happen.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9zMwOQMNYM
A fun tweet today from Wikileaks, who now boasts a net positive favorable approval rating within the U.S. The whistleblower group has pounded on Hillary Clinton and the DNC in recent weeks, much to the delight of Republicans, and evidently, to a majority of Americans.
The interesting question, though, is whether or not the Wikileaks poll “knows” something the mainstream polls don’t. Either way, this doesn’t appear to bode well for HRC.
