Thursday Thoughts

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Here are my thoughts about these current issues:

  • State Rep. Zooey Zephyr
  • City Commissioner Rick Tryon
  • NFL Draft

STATE REP. ZOOEY ZEPHYR:

Montana is home to bigots. That is what most of the world is thinking today.

Yesterday the Montana State House Republicans, all 68 of them, barred Montana State Representative Zooey Zephyr from the House floor. She can still vote, but she can’t speak about the issues that are important to her and her constituents.

Somehow that seems unconstitutional, but the Montana Republicans have not let the constitution, state or federal, get in their way. They also closed the House gallery to the public and may close it for the remainder of the session, which is probably against the constitution, too. Talk about being chickenshits…

With all 68 Republicans voting to ban Zephyr, it makes me wonder what happened to the moderates. People like Ed Buttrey and Llew Jones must have been neutered and told to get in line with the MAGA crowd or become insignificant. Shame on you for being chickenshits.

The winner in this whole circus is Zephyr. She became known worldwide. She has been on the national news and has done several interviews. She won her last race with almost 80% of the vote in a three-way race, and she will win her next one by even more. She gave the best speech in her defense of all the speakers. She has a bright future. Google her name and see the headlines. Those headlines should bother all of Montana.

I tweeted most of the major stories about this event. You can see them on my Twitter page @TheWesternWord.

The other winner is the transgender community. We have heard a lot about their issues over the last few days and it’s all because of Zephyr. Although the hate from the bigots in Montana is formidable, this circus opened the eyes of many.

The younger voters (18-40) will see the Republicans as a bunch of crusty old white men and women who scream “get off my lawn” about anything new. The younger voters are more open-minded and will flock to the progressive candidates.

The losers are the Republicans. They came across as bigots and transphobic. Speaker of the House Matt Regier and his flunky, Majority Leader Sue Vinton, showed the world how hate-filled the Montana Republicans can be. None of the Republicans who spoke in favor of banning Zephyr could string two sentences together coherently. They, along with Casey Knudsen should go back to their hole in the ground and stop trying to be leaders. They are shitty at their jobs.

This legislative session was already tarnished by the hatred from the MAGA folks. The actions of the House this week have forever placed a stain on the state. It was historical and not in a good way.

CITY COMMISSIONER RICK TRYON:

A faithful reader told me that Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon has filed for reelection.

Here is his statement from Facebook:

“I officially filed for reelection to the Great Falls City Commission on Monday.
As our community starts to discuss priorities in the coming weeks and months let’s be HONEST about where we are, where we’re going and how we get there.”

As I have said before, Tryon will not get my vote. I think he is part of the MAGA crowd that has brought this community down into the toilet. His votes in the past four years to raise taxes and fees is another reason he won’t get my vote.

I am looking for a commissioner and mayoral candidate who will pledge not to raise my taxes and fees. I am looking for a candidate who will stand up FOR the voters and not roll over and be a “Yes” person for the city manager and department heads.

I hope we have a full slate of candidates.

NFL DRAFT:

In case you forgot, the 2023 NFL Draft starts tonight. The draft is being held in one of the greatest cities in this country, Kansas City, Missouri. I was born about 100 miles northeast of Kansas City and spent several years stationed at Whiteman AFB which is just east of Kansas City.

It starts at 6:00 pm Montana time. ESPN covers it along with the NFL Network.

In 2021, about 12.8 million people watched the first night of the draft. It’s a big thing.

I wish I could be there for the draft.

My Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs are scheduled to pick #31 tonight. The draft lasts through Saturday. This is where millionaires are made!

More information about the draft can be found HERE and HERE.

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11 thoughts on “Thursday Thoughts”

  2. Zooey saying people who vote against childhood interventions to halt puberty or alter a child’s body parts will have blood on their hands is nothing new. That’s the typical battle cry of Trans activists. When she mentioned Republicans praying at the same time she was calling them fake Christians. That set them off. Shouldn’t have but did. Her egging on protesters in the gallery was disruptive and not done before – that I’m aware off.

      • If the Montana Republicans were not so entrenched in bigotry and hatred, they could learn a lot from Zooey Zephyr. Thanks, JmB

    • Thanks. I appreciate your view.
      After reading and watching all the activity surrounding this circus, I don’t think she did anything wrong. The Republicans dislike her and the blood on your hands remark and holding up the microphone that Speaker Regier would not turn on was the final straw for the MAGA folks. They overreacted and looked like bigots in doing so. Thanks again, JmB

    • Not only bigotry and hatred, but pure unadulterated ignorance and stupidity! Zooey was NOT initially censured for inciting a riot. That came later. Her powerful speech prompted an uncontrollable knee jerk reaction and objection from Rep. Vinton. She claimed that Zooey had “shamed” the republicans, not stopping to think that asking them to examine their consciences before voting was hardly shaming. That later morphed into hate speech, and finally inciting a riot! It took them a while to figure what to charge her with, because they knew that what they had wasn’t enough. Trying to convince the public that Zooey asking them to examine their consciences was hate speech needed a boost. Hence, a riot. Never was it mentioned that the “riot” ensued because they refused to allow Zooey to speak.

      Y tu, Mateo? Not sure what type of degree Matt Regier has, but it obviously isn’t Shakespeare! He made the fatal mistake of allowing Zooey to speak one more time in her defense, completely unaware of what Marc Anthony did to Brutus. And Zooey nailed it! She basically reiterated the entire speech that got her censored in the first place, except that she eloquently expounded on it! It was one for the ages! I’m sure poor Regier was just aching to gavel her again but he knew that would not be very judicious. The only thing he could do was suffer in silence and remind her that her time was running out. Too late. The damage was done. Zooey effectively silenced and actually DID shame the “freedumb” party in a very public manner. She carried the day. And now it’s her on the front pages of all the country’s newspapers, not the MAGAs.

      We all owe her a debt of gratitude for sticking it to the MAGAs and furthering the understanding of trans issues. And democracy itself. Hopefully others will rally and follow her lead before the MAGAs run off all the doctors in the state. At the next invocation, I will be thanking God for making MAGAs stupid enough to self-destruct!

      • They don’t care Larry. They are proud of themselves. And probably so are their MAGA supporters.

        They got done what they had been aching to do all session from Day 1 and long to do with all LGBTQ people in Montana: Cancel the trans woman, remove her from their sight, silence her voice, and stifle her message of treating LBGTQ persons like Americans with constitutional rights as well as God’s creations, instead of some kind of monsters that need to be micro-regulated by a hostile big government. It’s a huge win in the MAGA-verse. With a magical snap of their fingers they snuffed transgenderism right out of their world.

  3. In response to Tax and Spend Tryon’s challenge:

    Where we are: Facing tax increases he voted for.

    Where we’re going: More tax increases he’ll vote for.

    How we get there: Knee-jerk yes votes by Rick for every tax increase.

  4. The C.T.E. draft is here. The 12.7 million gamblers can bet on who will get or already have permanent brain damage. I think the odds are 50-50.
    Chicken-shit is it now ? Great fertilizer, plenty to go around. Good description but not the fertilizer part.

  5. I applaud your comments on the Zephyr story. The GOP just can’t resist shooting itself in the foot and shining a light on the very thing they wish to extinguish, whether it’s trans folk, gun rights, reproductive rights, or voting rights. At the test of the vote counting machine Tuesday, a fellow in the audience got Ms. Merchant to say aloud that the counting machine is not connected to the internet – a small victory, perhaps, but it matters.

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