Quote for the Day…

Deep conversations with the right people are priceless. – Unknown

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:

• Ryan Zinke
• Ed Butcher
• To Tell the Truth
• Election Time
• One More Thing

RYAN ZINKE:

It has been a rough week for Republican Congressional candidate Ryan Zinke.

MTN News reported that former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke misled investigators about his office’s handling of a proposal to build a tribal casino and his dealings with a competing casino and its lobbyists, according to a federal inspector general’s report released Wednesday.

Is it political? Of course, it is.

MTN also reported that the U.S. Justice Department declined last year to prosecute Zinke for any violations related to the report, but the OIG said it is referring its report to current Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for “any action deemed appropriate.”

Since this is a Democratic administration, don’t look for this issue to go away before the general election. The playbook says the Democrats and their supporters will pounce on Zinke and try to sway voters by claiming that Zinke will probably be in jail soon. It has worked before. It is politics.

As for Zinke, he posted the following message about the report on his Facebook page:

Another Deep State political hit job from the corrupt bureaucrats desperate to hang on to power. They lie, they cheat, and now they’re trying to influence the election. They want to take me out before Election Day because they know I’m going after the swamp with the FEAR Act. Let’s go.

If Zinke was a cat, he would be running out of lives.

Read the article from MTN News HERE.

ED BUTCHER:

I happened to catch a story in the Havre Daily News about former state Sen. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred, speaking to the North Central Pachyderms. Butcher runs the website legislatorloyalty.com. The website tracks the party loyalty of Republicans in the state legislature.

I don’t really care about Butcher’s attempt to signal out the moderates in the Republican Party (most of us left long ago), but what was disheartening was the final two paragraphs when Butcher talked about Native Americans:

When the subject of legislators from Montana’s Indian reservations came up he remarked that their representatives always vote for welfare, and said while there were two he respected very much, most legislators from reservations are unintelligent.
“I won’t mention the other names that are room-temperature IQs,” he said. “The reservation doesn’t necessarily always send their best and brightest.”

Shame on Butcher. The Montana Republican Party should denounce these remarks as well as the North Central Pachyderms.

Read the Havre Daily News report HERE.

TO TELL THE TRUTH:

A funny thing happened in a Billings courtroom this week when Republican State Rep. Geraldine Custer testified that her GOP colleagues were motivated when crafting new election laws last year by the perception that “college students tend to be liberal.”

That seems to have been the method of operation for the Republican legislature and the governor in Montana – make it harder for people to vote – especially those who don’t vote “our way.”

Nonetheless, it was refreshing to hear the truth.

Check out the article from Lee Newspapers HERE.

ELECTION TIME:

As you know, 2022 is an important election year – so be sure to follow The Western Word on Facebook, on Twitter @TheWesternWord, and subscribe to The Western Word Blog for independent commentary about politics, sports, the media, and current events!

The Western Word blog was established in 2005. The blog is Veteran owned and comes to you from deep within a bunker somewhere in Montana.

ONE MORE THING:

I saw this and thought we could all use a laugh since so many people are upset about Biden’s student loan plan…

Jesus’s miracle of the loaves and fishes was a slap in the face to all the people who brought their own lunch…

## HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND ##