Quote for the Day…
Taking care of our veterans is a cost of war. If you can spend six trillion dollars sending people to war, you can spend a few billion dollars taking care of them when they come home. – Bernie Sanders
Caught My Eye (CME) is the once-a-week column that is posted every Friday morning. This is when I look at some of the stories I did not have time to write about during the week.
Here are some of the things that “Caught My Eye” this week:
- PACT Act & Daines
- Public Safety Levy
- Trump & 9/11
- One More Thing
PACT ACT & DAINES:
In mid-June, the U.S. Senate voted 84-14 in favor of the legislation, called the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, which had passed the House earlier this year. U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) supported the bill and even fired off a press release to get some publicity for his support.
According to U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) who is Chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the PACT Act will expand health care for Post-9/11 combat veterans, create a framework for the establishment of future presumptions of service connection related to toxic exposure, expand VA’s list of service presumptions, and improve resources to support VA’s claims processing.
In the press release, dated June 16, 2022, Daines said:
“Montana veterans served our nation with honor, and it is our duty to ensure they have the care and services they need when they return home. The ‘Honoring Our PACT Act’ will ensure that the men and women who have suffered from toxic exposure while bravely defending our country receive the support they deserve. I look forward to seeing this bipartisan bill signed into law.”
That statement was a lie.
This week, Daines and 40 other Republican Senators shit on veterans by voting against basically the same bill that only had some technical fixes by the House. As far as I can tell, Daines did not even have the guts to defend his vote by issuing a press release.
The editorial board of The Kansas City Star put it this way: Republicans “betrayed sick veterans” with a move that “boggles the mind.”
No kidding.
I hope Montana newspapers will follow my lead and call Daines what he really is – a chickenshit.
Daines wants badly to see Tester defeated in 2024. That won’t happen now. Tester fights for Veterans, and Daines plays politics.
Read comments from Tester by clicking HERE.
PUBLIC SAFETY LEVY:
The Electric reported this week that Cascade County Commissioners are considering sending a $3.52 million public safety levy to the November ballot.
I say, “Hell no!”
MTN News reported:
Right now, Cascade County lags behind other public safety departments in the area and across the state. According to the county staff report submitted with [the] resolution, the starting salary for a CCSO deputy is 26% less than a new officer at the Great Falls Police Department. And the starting salary of a Cascade County deputy attorney is 17% less than starting salary for the Office of Public Defender. The funding would also help with pre-trial services.
We hear the Republicans talk about inflation, food prices, and gas prices, but they want to stick it to the man by taxing us even more. That’s on top of what the city of Great Falls approved a few weeks ago.
I urge the commissioners to vote NO on the safety levy. If it makes it to the ballot, I will be voting NO – and I will be vocal about it.
You can read the Cascade County Agenda Action Report about this issue by clicking HERE. (MTN News).
TRUMP & 9/11:
The New York Post reported that Former President Donald Trump defended hosting the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series at his Bedminster, NJ course on Thursday, brushing off criticism from families of 9/11 victims by saying “nobody’s gotten to the bottom” of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Trump was quoted saying:
“Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately, and they should have as to the maniacs that did that horrible thing to our city, to our country, to our world,” Trump said. “So nobody’s really been there.”
Read the complete NY Post story HERE.
ONE MORE THING:
One of our local elected officials in Great Falls believes that Great Falls is on the verge of being “discovered” and that “big change is coming sooner rather than later.”
I wonder if there’s a Red Lobster coming our way or maybe 10 more casinos…
The Western Word 
Rick asks the question eloquently that every journalist in Montana should be asking Daines every time they see him. We owe that to our vets. Just what the hell were he and Cruz celebrating with that joyful fist bump? Wasn’t much celebrating among the vets who are suffering indescribable pain from exposure to some of the most toxic chemicals on earth who would have been the beneficiaries of that bill. We’re talking peoples’ lives here. Literally. And Daines is joyful to have ruined them. Why? From what sinister region of hell comes such joy?
https://www.rawstory.com/burn-pits/
He’s talkin’ to you, fist bump boy! Daines needs to be sentenced to about forty hours community service in a VA hospital. He needs to see first hand what suffering the vets go through that he just took a dump on. I think a size twelve combat boot enema might help him see things more clearly! Better than a fist bump from Ted Cruz!
https://www.rawstory.com/burn-pit-bill/
Regarding Daines’s fist bump: https://mooreonmontana.com/2022/07/29/senator-sob/
True. Very true.
More Taxes: Maybe Slaughter could find more money to pay his deputies if he cut back on all the travel to radical sheriff and political events, and curtailed the extracurricular political indoctrination of school kids by SROs. Kinda clever of the Cascade commissioners to beat GF commissioners to the punch though.
Daines: Nothing but a slavish and obedient tool of the McConnell and the RNC, voting against vets because they were mad at Dems. When will groups that knee-jerk vote Republican finally learn that the Republican party despises them? See Steve fist-bumping with the execrable “I care about no one but me” Ted Cruz in celebration of screwing vets here:
https://www.newsweek.com/gop-fistbump-pact-senate-military-ted-cruz-steve-daines-1729031
Terry – Good points. As for Slaughter, it’s the same old method of operation – add a bunch of programs and duties you can’t afford and then ask for money. As for the salaries, the folks who work there knew the salaries when they applied.
As for Daines, I am disgusted by his fist bump. He may have sealed his fate with that. He sure won’t be taken seriously by veterans anymore.
Thanks, JmB
Jon Stewart calls out the Repubs for their lies about some “budget gimmick” the Dems supposedly inserted in the vets bill. No such thing, of course.
Wording about mandatory vs discretionary spending was in the bill Daines voted for the first time. The only thing that changed was the deletion of one sentence about taxation and rural hospitals. That’s it one sentence.
One would like to think people will remember Daines’ craven political toying with vets’ !ives next time he is for re-election, but voters have a short memory. Guys like Daines count on it.
https://nypost.com/2022/07/29/jon-stewart-blasts-gop-after-senate-blocks-veteran-burn-pit-bill/amp/
Mistake to correct: Apparently Daines did not vote for PACT the first time. He just didn’t bother to vote at all.
Apparently his new excuse for the latest nay is the Dems have to choose between helping vets or their climate bill. It’s their fault. Steve dutifully voted for all $8 triilion of Trump’s budget busting deficit legislation including tax cuts for rich guys like himself but all of a sudden he’s fiscally responsible … on the back of veterans.
Terry – that is true, but he did issue a press release showing his support. Thanks, JmB