Here are some topics that caught my attention:
- Tanner Lee
- Montana Millionaire
- Free Trip to Arizona
TANNER LEE:
Tanner Lee is a Great Falls police officer and on March 7, 2023, a routine traffic stop turned violent when Officer Lee was shot in the chest and arm by a fleeing suspect.
According to the Great Falls Police Department, Officer Lee’s bullet-resistant armor stopped the shots to the chest, but his arm sustained serious injury. Officer Lee underwent surgery and has been released from the hospital. Though the prognosis is positive, he will need further medical care, likely more surgery, and rehabilitation.
His wife has created a GoFundMe page to help with medical and family expenses. The GoFundMe page can be found HERE.
I wish Officer Lee and his family my best as he recovers. Thank you for your service.
MONTANA MILLIONAIRE:
The Montana lottery announced that they are expanding the Montana Millionaire game.
According to the Montana Lottery officials:
This year’s game will feature 380,000 tickets – 100,000 more than 2022 – and three $1 million prizes instead of two. Because of how the game was designed, the odds of winning $1 million will improve. Following tradition, the game will launch Nov. 1 and sell for $20 per ticket.
More information can be found HERE.
FREE TRIP TO ARIZONA:
Lee Newspapers is reporting that the state of Montana could soon send 120 state inmates to a private prison facility in Arizona after lawmakers Tuesday gave initial approval to the proposal.
The private prison in Arizona is run by the same company (CoreCivic) that runs the Crossroads Correctional Facility in Shelby, Montana.
It was also reported:
Lawmakers and the Department of Corrections have been on the hunt for beds outside of the state prison near Deer Lodge. Along with capacity issues at the prison itself, about 280 inmates who are waiting to be transferred to the facility are backed up in county jails around the state, a dynamic that’s vexed local law enforcement since the COVID-19 pandemic halted all travel between detention centers.
Maybe CoreCivic would like to build another prison in Montana. It seems there’s a need for it. Like they say, “If you build it, they will come.”
The Western Word 
It’s their entire platform.
“ Hate of queer people; hate of college professors; hate of Black people; hate of immigrants; hate of public school teachers and books; hate of Hispanics; hate on “uppity” women; hate of drag queens; hate of liberals; hate of American history; hate of Asians; hate of “woke” and other terms to describe tolerance and compassion.”
Hate has become the primary driving force within today’s Republican Party.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/105487/now-that-hate-has-become-the-gops-main-political-weapon-what-can-americans-do
No private for-profit incarceration, period. What kind of society are we? Moving Montana incarcerated prisoners to other states and other states’ incarcerated prisoners to Montana? No way Jose. What kind of society are we?
One that wants to lock lots and lots of people up because that is the tough MAGA thing to do, but also doesn’t want to pay the taxes (or even spend surplus money) for new prison space or to maintain and properly staff the existing ones. I’m sure if they thought they could get away with it our right wing Montana legislators would send prisoners to Mexican prisons for $4.99 a day.
It’s a good thing Great Falls wants to hire a whole bunch more police officers to hunt down and arrest all those criminals for whom there is no jail space in Montana.
No problem, just push the incarceration burden off on all the other Montana taxpayers to send inmates off to other states.
CoreCivic … That name sounds familiar. Hasn’t there been issues with them at prisons across the country?
There are a few stories about CoreCivic, one was about possible cheating in Shelby on high school equivalency tests. Another one was about a death in one of their prisons. Not a lot of negative stories that I saw. Thanks, JmB