Happy Monday, friends! Here are the topics for today’s column:
- GF Public Safety Levy/Bond Request
- Existential Threat
- Katherine M. Bidegaray
- Congress’ Job Approval
- Pence Drops Out
- One More Thing
GF PUBLIC SAFETY LEVY/BOND REQUEST:
If the City of Great Falls Public Safety Levy passes, it will provide funding for 32 NEW firefighters AND 24 NEW police officers., PLUS two NEW 911 dispatchers and eight NEW court and legal positions. (Source)
Holy Cow! That’s a lot of new positions.
If they both pass, it will cost the owner of a $200k home in Great Falls about $325 extra in taxes per year. (Source) We also have the Cascade County public safety taxes to pay for and the library levy. Recently, we found that Northwestern Energy is being allowed to raise our rates by 28%.
I am against the passage of the Safety Levy and Bond request. It’s too much and from what I am reading on social media, many other people feel the same way.
I could probably vote for a levy that provides FIVE new firefighters FIVE new police officers and FOUR new court personnel, plus ONE new 911 dispatcher. That seems reasonable.
I will be voting NO on both and hope that in the future the city commission will send a request to the voters that is much more reasonable.
EXISTENTIAL THREAT:
Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon, who is running for reelection, wrote a short opinion piece for the E-City Beat blog about the Israel-Hamas war.
Tryon writes:
It’s always been clear who the haters of the Jewish state and people are in the Mideast, but now the veil has been removed and we see clearly who the haters are in our own country, on our college campuses, in our cities, and even in the halls of Congress.
Pray for Israel and our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Pray for the United States of America.
I guess Tryon believes his views will help him with his reelection.
Many people are chiming in about the Israel–Hamas war who have no idea what they are talking about.
I pray for peace in the region. I pray for a peaceful solution. I pray for the innocent who are suffering on both sides.
KATHERINE M. BIDEGARAY:
State District Court Judge Katherine Bidegaray of Sidney is running for a seat on the Montana Supreme Court.
Her biography from her website says she was born in Sidney, Montana, and raised on a farm/ranch in rural Richland County, Montana. After practicing law for more than 17 years, Judge Bidegaray was elected to the District Court bench in 2002 to serve the Montana 7th Judicial District (Dawson, McCone, Prairie, Richland, and Wibaux Counties). She and her then-husband raised five children on their farm/ranch in northeastern Montana. Judge Bidegaray is serving in her 4th term as a Montana District Court Judge.
Check out her website HERE.
CONGRESS’ JOB APPROVAL:
Gallup is reporting that amid a prolonged search for a new House speaker that paralyzed the House of Representatives for three weeks while two U.S. allies are engaged in wars, Americans’ approval of Congress’ job performance fell from 17% to 13%. This is the lowest approval rating of Congress since October and November 2017, when it was also 13%, and is just four percentage points above the all-time low from November 2013.
But they are still getting paid!
PENCE DROPS OUT:
The Associated Press (AP) and other sources reported that former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.
Although Pence stood for some things that I am against, I respect him for his views. He did not become “religious” to win a campaign like his running mate Donald Trump did. Pence always wore his religion on his sleeves.
The MAGA crowd will always hate Pence for not helping Trump stay in office. Pence sided with the Constitution instead of Trump, which was the right thing to do. We should all thank and respect him for his stand against Trump.
ONE MORE THING:
In case you missed a couple of posts about my surgery, I am now scheduled to have outpatient surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and other problems in my left arm on Halloween! Trick or Treat!
I fell a few months ago and have not had full use of my left arm since then.
Depending on how I feel, I may not be posting for a while.
The Western Word 
Terry, Larry,
Is ripping down posters of hostage Jews antisemitism or is that anti zionism? Anti settlerism? or anti colonialism?
Happy Halloween, Jackie!
Same to you!
MAGA! Ricky’s constituents!
(And Sandra merchant’s)
I don’t know if the GF public safety levy will.pass or not. If one went strictly by social media opinions the library levy would have lost in a landslide.
But if this levy is defeated and the city has to go back to the drawing board, they really should try to structure it as something other than a straight mill levy. That has become a strangling monster as property values ballooned that would cost us all 33% more than is necessary, even before we vote.
There needs to be some written governing mechanism on mill levies just like the normal tax increases, to prevent a property owner’s potential tax liability from rising astronomically with property values, far above the general rate of inflation. We don’t require 33% or 40% or whatever more public safety resources simply because our property appreciated that much in a two year period.
I know all our candidates claim they would not take all the mills, at least not right away. But sorry, just trusting public officials to do the right thing is no good. They couldn’t even do the right thing the first chance they had, with the new City library levy, and due to the inflated value of the County safety levy our sheriff has already proposed new programs above and beyond what we voted for just last Fall, to use up his bonus money. And we all know what the promises of politicians are worth.
It’s obviously becoming much more than an existential threat in the middle east. It’s a very real threat that did not need to happen. And poor Tryon doesn’t appear to realize that some of the biggest critics of Israeli policies and their fascist leadership are the Israelis themselves. Guess Ricky would label them as haters too. MAGAs are mentally incapable of doing nuance very well.
I never watch Tucker Carlson, but his recent guest provides the best analysis of the current situation that I’ve seen. We are in a scary place, and we need to ask ourselves why. How did we get to this point? And criticism of Israeli policy is NOT anti-Semitism. They don’t want a fascist government any more than we do in this country. And Netanyahu has now led them to the brink of regional war in spite of nearly a complete lack of support from the Israeli people. They understand that the world will not accept the genocide he has planned for the Palestinian people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJJ9zEPSAwo
“Criticism of Israeli policy is NOT anti-Semitism”
Bingo. No more than criticism of the actions of the government of Ethiopia is racism or those of Saudi Arabia is Islamophobia.
Tryon regularly criticizes the policies and leaders of the government of the USA. By the transitive property his “logic” makes him a white Christian/America hater.