09/11/01 – Never Forget.
Here are the topics for today’s commentary:
- City of Great Falls
- Daines, Noem & Trump
- Football Roundup
CITY OF GREAT FALLS:
Over on the Nextdoor App, people are pissed about the tax increases and the city commissioners voting to take all 17 mills instead of “up to 17 mills” of the new taxes for the library instead of the dollar amount requested.
Commissioner Rick Tryon is taking hits for voting yes on taking the maximum mills. One person contends that the only thing Tryon has done since being elected is push for more taxes.” Another said Tryon’s crime task force was a “dog and pony show.” Still another said we should “Vote each and everyone of the commissioners out of office.”
Three candidates are running for city commissioner (besides Tryon and Eric Hinebauch the incumbents). I don’t plan on voting for Tryon or Hinebauch.
Candidates for commission are Eric Hinebauch, incumbent, Rick Tryon, incumbent, Kendall Cox, Shannon Wilson, and Micaela Stroop. Commissioners serve four-year terms.
DAINES, NOEM & TRUMP:
Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, Friday evening where he received an endorsement from South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. (Source)
There are reports that Noem is being considered for Vice President on the Trump ticket.
U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) attended the rally and spoke to the crowd for a few minutes praising Noem and saying, “I’ve now been in Washington, hard to believe, 11 years. I will tell you something – the best four years of my time in Washington was when President Trump was in the oval office.” He also talked about the need to win the U.S. Senate contests in West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio to give the Republicans control of the Senate in 2025.
You can watch the speech from Daines HERE.
FOOTBALL ROUNDUP:
There are still some larger schools taking on smaller ones to get an easy win as we rolled into week two of college football. There were some great games, like Texas and Alabama, that were exciting. Texas won 34-24. That game was in Alabama. Colorado beat Nebraska 36-14.
The two FCS teams in Montana played. Montana State lost to South Dakota State 20-16 as a go-ahead Montana State touchdown was called back with one second left. The Montana Grizzlies rolled over Utah Tech 43-13.
I signed up for the NFL RedZone channel and watched about seven hours of football on Sunday. So, I overdosed on football!!
I watched the first half of the Sunday Night Football game as Dallas whipped the New York Giants 40-0. The best part of the Sunday Night Football game was the opening by Carrie Underwood where she performed an updated rendition of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night.” Underwood played a drum solo during the song, which was pretty neat.
Check it out HERE.
The Western Word 
Not sure we should award McKenney the office of Mayor, either. The guy ran as a conservative but has done nothing but advocate for higher taxes ever since he took office. He was a very vocal champion for taxing us $30 million for public safety when the levy was first discussed, calling it the “absolute minimum”. As opposed to the mere (nominal) $10.7 million they settled for.
Plus I suspect (but do not know) that part of the motivation might be more local name recognition to boost his real estate business.
Rick may soon have to return to his old occupation, perpetual candidate and freedumb fighter. Not sure how well that pays, but gotta be less than pimping for the city. For guys with Rick’s credentials and abilities, it’s much easier being on the outside looking in. Who knows. Maybe his insightful diatribes at ECB will be picked up and published by some national right wing organization on a paying basis. As the old Kristofferson song says, “Lord help me to shoulder the burden of freedumb!” Freedumb ain’t free. A guy’s gotta eat!