May the 4th Be With You!

Here are the latest issues and topics that caught my attention:

• School Election
• Gianforte & Abortion
• Associate Justice Clarence Thomas

SCHOOL ELECTION:

The School Board election in Great Falls was held Tuesday. The polls closed at 8:00 pm. Tuesday night. Results of the election were released at about 9:00 pm Wednesday night. That’s WEDNESDAY FREAKING NIGHT!!

That’s about 25 hours after the polls closed. 25 HOURS! The slow counting of the ballots is ridiculous and shows the current Clerk and Recorder, Sandra Merchant, is not capable of doing her job.

There are no excuses for the poor management of the counting of ballots in this election.

Do the voters of Cascade County a favor, Ms. Merchant, RESIGN.

By the way, congratulations to the winning candidates – Amie Thompson, Bill Bronson, and Kim Skornogoski.

I saw on Twitter that someone said something like, “The voter rolls in Cascade County have been dirty for some time.” They were defending Merchant.

That almost made me spew coffee out of my nose. The MAGA Republicans control all the legislative seats in the county, all three county commissioners are MAGA Republicans as are all the elective seats in county government, except for one, county attorney. I expect the county attorney will switch parties like the sheriff did before his next election.

So, if the voter rolls are dirty…

GIANFORTE & ABORTION:

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) signed five abortion bills this week and held a ceremony outside the capitol with his fellow pro-life Republicans to tout the accomplishments.

According to the Daily Montanan, the legislation signed into law Wednesday includes a bill to ban abortion after 24 weeks; a resurrection of Legislative Referendum-131 with new language after it failed at the ballot box last fall; and a bill to allow medical practitioners and staff to object to participating in healthcare services due to their religious beliefs.

Reports say there are another five abortion bills that are awaiting his signature.

The Daily Montanan also had a response from the Democrats:

“With these bills, Republicans are supporting government overreach and intrusion into our most intimate decision-making. Each individual Montanan alone has the right to decide their reproductive health care – not Republican politicians,” said House Minority Leader Kim Abbott, D-Helena, and Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, in a joint statement Wednesday.

As for me, I hope we have fewer abortions in this country, but I am in no position, as are any of the Republican legislators, to dictate the rules to a pregnant woman. This is a purely personal decision that should be left up to the woman, her healthcare provider, and her God.

We will all be held accountable in the end for our actions.

All ten of these bills will be challenged in court and most, if not all, will probably be found unconstitutional. It will cost the state millions of dollars.

It’s too bad the Republicans don’t care about children outside the womb as much as they do the fetus.

Read the Daily Montanan article HERE.

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS:

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Clarence Thomas, is in a bit of hot water these days. The whole United State States Supreme Court seems to be in hot water.

ProPublica is reporting that in 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia.

Then ProPublica reported that tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow. The payments continued for about a year.

The grandnephew went to another school and that was paid for as well. ProPublica says that the exact total Crow paid for Martin’s education over the years remains unclear. If he paid for all four years at the two schools, the price tag could have exceeded $150,000, according to public records of tuition rates at the schools.

According to ProPublica, Justice Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures.

Last month ProPublica reported that Thomas accepted luxury travel from Crow virtually every year for decades, including international superyacht cruises and private jet flights around the world. Crow also paid money to Thomas and his relatives in an undisclosed real estate deal, ProPublica found.

The ethics and reporting of gifts rules in the U.S. Supreme Court need to be tightened, a lot.

I think this is just the tip of the iceberg for the U.S. Supreme Court. Buckle your seatbelts!

Read the complete report from ProPublica HERE.

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