Hello, faithful readers! Here are the topics for today’s independent commentary:

• Prager University
• U.S. Senate Montana 2024
• Down Goes Jordan
• One More Thing

PRAGER UNIVERSITY:

A few readers have already commented about Prager University and a textbook license agreement with Montana.

Here is what was reported by the Montana Free Press (MTFP):

According to the Office of Public Instruction, state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen signed a textbook license agreement Aug. 2 with Prager University, a nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 2009 by conservative talk show host Dennis Prager. On its website, PragerU, which is not an accredited educational institution, says it “promotes American values” through the use of its videos and “offers a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media and education.” As of this fall, the organization is also an approved vendor of educational materials in Florida, Oklahoma and Texas.

MTN News reported that the curriculum will not be automatically implemented in schools as individual districts and school trustees must make a decision to vote the curriculum in and allocate the necessary funding.

This is another example of why elections matter – from who wins school board elections to who runs the Office of Public Instruction.

Will moves like this anger the moderates and left-leaning Montanans enough to work harder to make changes? We’ll see.

Check out the MTFP story HERE and the MTN story HERE.

U.S. SENATE MONTANA 2024:

We are a long way from the meat and potatoes part of the U.S. Senate campaign here in Montana, but we are already seeing ads and flyers from one of the possible opponents of incumbent Democrat Jon Tester. We are also seeing a lot of stories about the candidates.

The Hill has a story about an Emerson College Polling survey that shows Tester up 39% to 35% over Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy. Another 6 percent said they plan to cast their ballots for another candidate, and 21 percent were still undecided.

The Emerson College Polling survey was conducted Oct. 1-4, of 447 registered voters had a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. Check out the story HERE.

I’m a little surprised that Sheehy polled that high, although in Montana if Charles Manson had an “R” behind his name, he would poll well.

Speaking of meat and potatoes, I happened to catch a story about Tester’s reelection campaign. The story reports that the campaign team “spent thousands of dollars on upscale restaurants, fancy catering companies, and alcohol…” The story went on to report that the Tester campaign spent $344 on alcohol, over $7,000 on nice restaurants and roughly $2,500 on fancy catering, along with several thousand dollars on related expenses, the disbursements show.

I can’t wait to see the ads about this.

It’s important to note that this is not taxpayer money being spent by Tester. It is money from donors who support him, and Tester is wining and dining folks to raise more money.

If you invite me for a nice 16-ounce ribeye, a bottle of Merlot, along with some political talk, it’s hard telling how much money I’d donate. Check out the story HERE.

DOWN GOES JORDAN:

Watching the vote for Speaker of the House yesterday almost made me feel sorry for the Republicans, who have a slim majority in the U.S. House.

Almost.

While they are wasting a lot of time trying to get a Speaker, at least it is keeping them from passing bat-shit crazy legislation. I’m sure the voters will think twice before allowing them to run the U.S. House, again. We’ll see.

This week it is U.S. Representative Jim Jordan’s turn to be humiliated. In the latest vote, Jordan failed to get enough votes to win the Speakership. Jordan could only muster 200 votes. He needed 217.

As for Montana’s two Republican U.S. Representatives, Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke, they both voted for Jordan. (Source)

We’ll see if Jordan continues to try and become Speaker or if he withdraws.

ONE MORE THING:

Someone told me the other day that humans eat more bananas than monkeys. That’s pretty obvious as I can’t remember the last time I ate a monkey…

## VOTE “NO” ON EVERYTHING ##