Monthly Archives: August 2010

Tired

“Americans have grown tired of the wars. While we support the troops, we’re tired of seeing flags flown at half-staff in honor of our fallen. We’re tired of seeing maimed young men and women rebuilding their lives. We’re tired of hearing about IEDs. We’re just tired and we’re sad that so much of our treasure has been used up in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

There won’t be a landing on an aircraft carrier tonight nor will there be a “Mission Accomplished” sign behind President Obama when he gives his speech tonight (6:00 p.m. Mountain time) from the newly-remodeled oval office.

But really, part of the mission is accomplished.

President Obama will speak about major combat operations ending in Iraq. Obama was against this war when it was not “cool” to be against this war. Even after the United States was in it neck deep, he did not support the surge that ultimately led to the United States to be able to withdraw our combat troops. It will be interesting to see if he gives any credit to former President George Bush for where we are today. Since politics play a role in everything, I doubt it.

Americans have grown tired of the wars. While we support the troops, we’re tired of seeing flags flown at half-staff in honor of our fallen. We’re tired of seeing maimed young men and women rebuilding their lives. We’re tired of hearing about IEDs. We’re just tired and we’re sad that so much of our treasure has been used up in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Long wars with 24 hour media coverage can tire a whole nation. Continue reading →

Montana “Revenuers” Coming to Get You

The Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, is having his revenuers look for out of state companies that do business in Montana that may not have paid their fair share of taxes. The plan is to get more tax money flowing into the state’s coffers.

If not, he may need to raise taxes. You can read the Associated Press story HERE.

As I was watching the Governor’s big announcement that he was sending his revenuers out to hunt down the tax cheats, I was kind of reminded of chase scenes from “The Dukes of Hazzard” or “Smokey and the Bandit.” Continue reading →

National Security Threat

Just imagine if you had to pay $600 billion in interest. $600 billion! It’s an astonishing number. According to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that is what the United States will be paying in 2012 on the national debt.

Some have disputed that, but the fact is that we’re (the USA) is in a world of hurt.

Some folks are probably wondering why the Admiral is talking about the interest on the national debt and the answer is simple: it’s a national security threat. That’s not to say, the Department of Defense’s budget hasn’t increased significantly over the last decade – two wars will do that.

Mullen told CNN: Continue reading →

Political Stunts

Back in late March, I wrote a column I titled “Amusing” about the Republican moratorium on earmarks. You can read the full column HERE.

I wrote at that time:

The Republican moratorium on earmarks is a nice thought, but I wondered why they did not think of this when they were in control. Is it another campaign gimmick or has the GOP finally decided to be fiscally conservative?

So here it is late August, and the Great Falls Tribune is catching up to that story with a story of their own with the headline, “Rehberg’s earmark ban: stunt or reform” by a reporter named Elizabeth Bewley from the Tribune Washington Bureau. The article does not appear to be on-line yet.

Since it’s hardly “new” news I won’t spend much time on it.

Maybe the earmark ban is a political stunt to get votes (it appears to be working as the Democrats may lose the majority in the House and maybe the Senate in November) but this is hardly the first time it was tried. It was first used as a campaign stunt way back in 2006 by candidate Jon Tester. We all know by now he was caught on tape saying at an October 9, 2006, PBS debate in Bozeman, “I don’t support earmarks, period.” A few seconds later, he added, “I’m not for earmarks.”

Ms. Bewley failed to do the research and did not find that piece of information, though. Continue reading →

Caught My Eye…

Happy Friday! Here’s a quick look and commentary about some random stories that “Caught My Eye” this week that I did not have time to write about:

Mehlman:

Former Republican National Committee Chairman and Bush Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman has announced that he is gay. I’ll bet the far-right Republicans gasped when they heard this announcement, “OMG!”

Mehlman did a wonderful job for the GOP and Bush. I think I met him once – and along with Karl Rove, Mehlman was a major reason why Bush succeeded in getting elected and reelected as President. I’m glad he’s found peace in his life.

Alaska Senate:

I did a column about this race earlier this week, but on Wednesday CQ Politics ran a short story about the blame game going on in Alaska with the Murkowski/Miller GOP Senate primary. There are ties to Montana. Here’s a snippet: Continue reading →

Honest, Open, and Transparent?

This was too good to pass up on a Thursday…

Back in 2006 when he was running for United States Senate, candidate Jon Tester promised that “…he’ll set an example — by asking a Montana judge to conduct an ethics audit of his office every year…”

It was right there on his campaign website in black and white. I can’t seem to find it now. But, luckily there are ways to find these things on the Web and then there are some folks who follow politics (like me) who keep copies of campaign promises on all the candidates, both Republican and Democrat.

Politicians are only as good as their word, right?

The “every year” ethics review has now become “latest ethics review for the current session of Congress” which means, for people who do not follow Congress very much; it is now being done every two years.

Are we heading down a slippery slope here, senator? Continue reading →

Solvable?

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano met with about 100 people in a garage in Havre yesterday to talk about Northern Border security. Montana’s two U.S. Senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, tagged along for the media attention.

By the way, it was a garage at the Havre Border Station – not a parking garage or someone’s two-car garage.

Sadly, I don’t think too many of my sample questions from my commentary were asked. Oh well. The media were all over this visit like flies on a dead carcass; stories and photos galore fill the web this morning.

According to the headline from the Associated Press, Napolitano said the problem with the border crossing at Whitetail was “solvable.”

We don’t really get any indication what “solvable” means in Secretary Napolitano’s terminology.

She also blamed Canada for not telling the United States that they were closing their side of the port. Nice diplomatic relations there, Janet. Continue reading →

Hiring Experts

Around the web and especially on the blogs, there are articles about Max Baucus saying he did not read the healthcare bill that was passed by Congress. He was asked that question during his meeting with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius when she was in Montana earlier this week.

By the way, the person asking this question should be given a medal or something.

So far, it’s not been a good term for Senator Baucus, but he is not up for reelection until 2014.

An article in The Hill blog basically tells the whole story with this Baucus answer:

“I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the healthcare bill,” Baucus said, according to the Flathead Beacon. “You know why? It’s statutory language. … We hire experts.”

Uh, yes we do, Senator. That was such a foolish answer that I just had to offer my commentary! Continue reading →

Alaska!

Sorry about the delay in posting my column early this morning, but today is the first day of school for my middle school child, plus there were some computer glitches this morning.

The results are still coming in for the U.S. Senate Republican primary in Alaska, but it’s not looking too good for U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski.

As I am writing this commentary, she trails Joe Miller by about 1960 votes with 429 of 438 precincts reporting. According to some reports in Alaska, there were about 16,000 absentee ballots sent out and only about 7,600 have been returned, plus some of the rural votes have not been counted yet. It may be a week or so before we know the winner. Supposedly, Alaska has until September 8 to count all the votes.

Murkowski was targeted by the Tea Party as not being conservative enough for their liking – probably for the same old worn-out campaign theme: abortion. Murkowski is pro-choice.

The darlings of the Tea Party (Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee) did robo-calls for Miller and the Tea Party pumped in $600,000 for ads against Murkowski – which buys a lot of time on the airways in Alaska. Continue reading →