Up first today is the story about needing deep pockets to be a Montana citizen legislator.
Unfortunately, it appears to become a citizen legislator in Montana requires the candidate to have deep pockets. This is according to an Associated Press STORY in the Billings Gazette today. The story is about the cost to run for Montana House and Senate.
The average spent to win a seat in the Senate was about $13,000. The House cost about $8,500. The losers spent about $8,500 in the Senate and $6,000 in the House. That’s all so they can go to Helena every two years for 90 days.
We can only donate a maximum of $130 per candidate each election cycle.
It appears the people who run for these seats must have deep pockets as many of the candidates used their own money. It also means (to Jack the Blogger) that the normal blue collar person cannot afford to run a competitive race. It seems many of these folks are self-employed, small business owners, or they work for the government in some capacity.
So, what is the answer? The more this goes on, the less we Montanans will be represented by those who actually represent us.

The second story in the blog today is about the Billings Gazette’s opinion in this STORY they called, “Gazette Opinion: Don’t forget all the heroes who need help after war”
The Gazette has a right to tell our elected representatives what to do to help our veterans. As a veteran, I follow this issue closely. I look forward to seeing what these three federal officials will do to help Montana veterans.
The bar is very high for them. Around 1995, former Senator Conrad Burns helped open several VA clinics across the state and according to a news report the other night, two more are planned. Burns was on the VA Appropriations committee at that time and, he is a veteran. This move helped veterans get primary care closer to home.
It will be nice to see what the current federally-elected officials will do to top that.
But, the questions I have for the Gazette are: What percentage of your employees are veterans? What percentage of the editorial board who wrote this opinion are veterans? What have you done to ensure your business hires veterans; do you give them a preference?
Often, here in Montana we have reporters writing stories about issues they don’t know squat about. The Gazette is not alone in this problem as the Great Falls Tribune does it too. The Gazette would be well-served to actually help some of these heroes with jobs, scholarships for veterans, and donations to veteran’s service organizations. Then the Gazette could say they did not forget the heroes who needed help after the war, instead of just writing about it.

The third story on this blog deals with the Army Surgeon General being fired. It was recently reported that Lt. Gen. (3-Star) Kevin Kiley has submitted his retirement papers.
I think this is a good move. Now, he can get out of the Army and tell America what he really thinks happened at Walter Reed. I think he called the breaking news about Walter Reed yellow journalism. My bet is that he now blames the Bush Administration. Any takers? What news organization will get the interview?
Who’s next to go?