Great Falls, Montana News, Politics, & Commentary
We recently linked to a tweet from Brit Hume, who had a question for Bernie Sanders.
Today, The Daily Caller tweeted out a short clip of that same question being posed to Elizabeth Warren, who, to her credit, had an answer:
With the impeachment trial set to begin next week, we thought we would ask you, our readers, where you stand …
Vote now!
[poll id=”18″]
Not from us, but from Brit Hume:
Seems fair to at least ask.
What would be the limiting principle of Bernie’s socialist give-away train?
Would there be one?
George Washington’s Farewell Address is a letter written by the first American President, George Washington, to “The People of the United States of America”. Washington wrote the letter near the end of his second term as President, before his retirement to his home Mount Vernon.
Washington begins his warnings to the American people by trying to convince them that their independence, peace at home and abroad, safety, prosperity, and liberty are all dependent upon the unity between the states. As a result, he warns them that the union of states, created by the Constitution, will come under the most frequent and focused attacks by foreign and domestic enemies of the country.
In regard to foreign alliances, Washington felt it was necessary to support France and to align with them. Washington warns the American people to be suspicious and look down upon anyone who seeks to abandon the Union, to secede a portion of the country from the rest, or seeks to weaken the bonds that hold the constitutional union together.
To promote the strength of the Union, he urges the people to place their identity as Americans above their identities as members of a state, city, or region, and focus their efforts and affection on the country above all other local interests.
Washington further asks the people to look beyond any slight differences between them in religion, manners, habits, and political principles, and place their independence and liberty above all else, wanting everyone to be united.
Washington continues to express his support of the Union by giving some examples of how he believes the country, its regions, and its people are already benefiting from the unity they currently share.
He then looks to the future by sharing his belief that the combined effort, and resources of its people will protect the country from foreign attack, and allow them to avoid wars between neighboring nations that often happen due to rivalries, and competing relations with foreign nations.
He argues that the security provided by the Union will also allow the United States to avoid the creation of an overgrown military establishment, which he sees as one of the greatest threats to liberty, especially the republican liberty that the United States has created.
Washington warns the people that political factions who seek to obstruct the execution of the laws created by the government, or prevent the constitutional branches from enacting the powers provided them by the constitution may claim to be working in the interest of answering popular demands or solving pressing problems, but their true intentions are to take the power from the people and place it in the hands of unjust men.
Washington continues to advance his idea of the dangers of sectionalism and expands his warning to include the dangers of political parties to the government and country as a whole.
His warnings took on added significance with the recent creation of the Democratic-Republican Party by Jefferson, to oppose Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which had been created a year earlier in 1791, which in many ways promoted the interest of certain regions and groups of Americans over others.
While Washington accepts the fact that it is natural for people to organize and operate within groups like political parties, he also argues that every government has recognized political parties as an enemy and has sought to repress them because of their tendency to seek more power than other groups and take revenge on political opponents.
Moreover, Washington makes the case that “the alternate domination” of one party over another and coinciding efforts to exact revenge upon their opponents have led to horrible atrocities, and “is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”
From Washington’s perspective and judgment, the tendency of political parties toward permanent despotism is because they eventually and “gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.”
Washington goes on and acknowledges the fact that parties are sometimes beneficial in promoting liberty in monarchies…
…but argues that political parties must be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies among groups and regions, raise false alarms amongst the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they can impose their will upon the country.
Isn’t it a shame we haven’t honored the wishes of our founding father…
This morning House Judiciary Committee Democrats voted two articles of impeachment against President Trump out of committee by a 23-17 vote along strict party lines.
There appears to be zero chance that a two-thirds majority of Senators will vote to convict and remove the President if the full House votes next Wednesday to send the matter to the Senate for a trial, which would likely begin sometime soon after January 1, 2020.
“There appears to be zero chance that a two-thirds majority of Senators will vote to convict and remove the President…”
So, the only real political debate remaining is whether or not the impeachment attempt by Democrats will backfire on them by sending more fired-up Trump Republicans to the polls and endangering moderate Dems up for election in November 2020, especially House Dems in districts Trump carried in 2016.
So, here’s today’s poll question:
[poll id=”17″]
California Senator Kamala Harris, a self-proclaimed “top-tier candidate” for the presidency, mercifully ended her failing campaign today, months before the first primary and much to the chagrin of woke progressives on Twitter.
Witness the immortal Sally Kohn swipe away at this (to paraphrase Van Jones) “whitelash” by the Democrats:
Obviously I’m no centrist but it’s downright effed up that smart, compelling, *very* experienced, centrist Democratic candidates of color are floundering while a smart but wildly inexperienced, centrist white mayor of teeny tiny city is surging.
Bad look, Democrats.
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) December 3, 2019
CNN contributor MJ Lee tweeted that the remaining candidates who have qualified for the next debate are all white:
Kamala Harris’ campaign was historic — a black and South Asian female candidate whose potential seemed sky high early on.
Her dropping out means that every candidate that’s qualified so far for the next debate is white: Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer and Warren.
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) December 3, 2019
Wait a minute … since when is Elizabeth Warren white?!
Ahhh, here’s another submission from our local anonymous cartoonist.
Have a great weekend, fine readers, and remember to keep your sense of humor.
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The U.S. House of Representatives will hold the first two impeachment inquiry public hearings this week.
Wednesday, Nov. 13, George Kent, a deputy assistant Secretary of State and Bill Taylor, a former ambassador and the top US diplomat in Ukraine are scheduled to testify.
Friday, Nov.15, it will be former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
It appears inevitable at this point that the House will vote to impeach President Trump and equally certain that there will not be a conviction in the Senate. In other words, it’s all politics.
We’ve seen polls suggesting that about half of Americans believe the President should be impeached and removed. We’d like to ask the same question in a different way to see what local readers are thinking.
So here’s our poll question:
[poll id=”16″]
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“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by…”
…their political party affiliation or ideological leaning?
…their level of hatred or support for Trump?
Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was that we would judge others based on the “content of their character”. But in today’s hyper-partisan America where Twitter mobs and Facebook arguments are so pervasive, King’s dream seems further from reality than it did 50 years ago, and not primarily for racial reasons. This new breed of discrimination is based on your politics rather than skin color.
Why? Because we have allowed political identification and ideology to become the predominant, and sometimes only, defining characteristic by which we judge our fellow Americans.
If you voted for or support President Trump, well, that’s all some folks need to know about you in order to conclude that you are of low character and an enabler of evil. Your support of or vote for Trump is what defines you, and it means you’re a Nazi racist misogynist homophobe deplorable, unquestionably. Right?
Remember when supporting a duly and fairly elected POTUS because we wanted to see the country succeed was considered a good thing? Not anymore. Now, you must publicly confess that Trump is the full-on manifestation of the Prince of Darkness, because if you don’t then you’re obviously one of his evil minions who will be held equally responsible for the coming Trump-caused collapse of Western civilization.
Because according to some, no good, virtuous, moral person of high character could possibly support any part of Trumps agenda.
How in the world did we come to the place that we actually believe ones character can be determined by a cursory glance at his or hers choice of political platform or candidate?
The political part of a person is only a sliver, a tiny slice, of who that person is, and to make broad and character-defining judgments about folks based solely on the politicians they like or don’t like is preposterous and flat-out wrong. Yet that seems to be the place we’ve come to in America now.
And yes, we saw the same tendencies during the Obama presidency, and Bush before that etc. But it’s worse now than I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been around awhile.
Trump is a temporary occupant of the White House, he’ll be gone eventually and other presidents after him will have to endure the precedent we’re setting today, and that precedent doesn’t look much like Dr. Kings vision.
It looks more like we’re judging the character of our American brothers and sisters based on an opinion of the content of someone else’s character.
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It appears our Great Falls City Commissioner Houck has become the self-appointed arbiter of civility, political responsibility and justice. We’re in trouble now.
Houck lectured Senator Daines on Facebook. She opines that he doesn’t speak on behalf of the majority of Montanans and that he certainly doesn’t represent the views and wishes of her and her friends. She offered her “help,” by suggesting she had materials to help guide his future work and efforts in DC for all Montanans.
No, and HECK NO!
I’d like to remind Houck that there are other people in Montana—people that don’t share her views and values. People that think for themselves rather than gather under a hashtag. Houck’s views on Kavanaugh and Senator Daines certainly don’t represent me, my friends and, I would argue, the majority of Montanans that I’ve met. Her implication that Daines needs her help to understand all Montanans is just ridiculous.
And to her comment that she’d be “happy to share the statistics of the number of men and women who have been sexually assaulted in their life times”—share it as proof of what? Just what is the relevance of those statistics to the Kavanaugh accusations and Daines’ communication? What do those statistics prove, other than there are a certain number of sexual assaults? It certainly doesn’t prove that a man now accused of a sexual assault 36 years in the past—with no corroborating witnesses, no evidence and no accurate and detailed account of the incident—is guilty. Quite the contrary, I would say.
It’s actually embarrassing that someone so nonsensical is representing the city of Great Falls. It’s also embarrassing that Houck thinks she’s more astute about Montanans than our senator. Perhaps I should take a page from the resistance playbook at this point and say, “Not My Commissioner!”
It’s actually embarrassing that someone so nonsensical is representing the city of Great Falls. It’s also embarrassing that Houck thinks she’s more astute about Montanans than our senator. Perhaps I should take a page from the resistance playbook at this point and say, “Not My Commissioner!”
Interestingly, Houck claims this isn’t about being Democrat or Republican. I chuckled at that because, on the contrary, it most certainly is about that—it’s about a Democratic Party unhinged and taken over by progressivism/socialism.
And in the unhinged world of the progressivist/socialist resistance:
The accused are guilty until proven innocent.
Mere accusations are proof in themselves, with no need for corroborating evidence.
A so-called victim account, riddled with inconsistencies and outright discrepancies, becomes prima facie evidence of a crime.
Mob rule replaces a Constitutional Republic.
Political correctness trumps freedom of speech.
Feelings are more important than civil liberties, truth and logic.
The values, views and agenda espoused by Houck and progressives/socialists don’t represent the majority of Montanans, or of United States citizens for that matter—at least not yet—and for that I am grateful.
I am also grateful for Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. I believe he will faithfully interpret the Constitution, rather than legislate from the bench. I know many strong, courageous women throughout the United States feel the same, and that includes many sexual assault victims.
Those of us who value the Constitution, our justice system and a free market economy cannot become complacent about the damaging influence of emotion-based, progressivist/socialist group-think.
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