Hello folks! Here are the topics for today’s commentary:

• GF Municipal General Election
• Trump/Carlson 2024
• Safe, Legal, & Rare
• Strike Three

GF MUNICIPAL GENERAL ELECTION:

Overall, I was pretty happy with the results of the Great Falls Municipal General Election. I may even spike the football.

I was not happy that it took until 1:30-2:00 a.m. to get the results. In this day and age when we know that a winning lottery ticket was sold in “Ten Buck Two” in a few minutes and even where the store that sold it is located an hour later, it is ridiculous for the Cascade County Elections Department to take from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. to count about 15,000 ballots. I also read that several people had problems with voting. There must be changes made in the elections office. The November 2024 election is too important for the county commissioners not to do something.

As for the new mayor, Cory Reeves, new commissioner Shannon Wilson, and reelected commissioner Rick Tryon, please be on the side of the Great Falls taxpayers during your terms. We voted against the Safety Levy and Bond. Remember that. In the past two years or so, it seems the commissioners were just siding with the city bureaucrats. Don’t be in awe of them.

I was extremely happy the public safety levy and the bond request failed. The city spent up to $150,000 of our money to promote it, which was wrong on several fronts.

As I have been saying since they set the levy and bond amounts, they were too much. A week or so ago, I said 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. If the City of Great Falls Public Safety Levy had passed, it would have provided funding for 32 NEW firefighters AND 24 NEW police officers., PLUS two NEW 911 dispatchers and eight NEW court and legal positions.

I am also concerned about the leaders who put these requests forward. I have lost confidence in the City Manager, the Chief of Police, and the Fire Chief.

With the money we saved in defeating the levy and bond, we can all buy a new security camera or two to protect us.

TRUMP/CARLSON 2024:

Several reports are saying that former President Donald Trump said he would consider Tucker Carlson as his running mate for 2024. (Source)

I remember back in 2016 when all the people running for the Republican nomination for President pretended to hate Trump, but as soon as he was nominated, they were sucking up to him big time.

I can see Trump picking Nikki Haley as his running mate. He could pick Kristi Noem, too.

SAFE, LEGAL, & RARE:

The Associated Press (AP) reported that voters threw their support behind abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia and elsewhere as Democrats look to springboard off those wins by using the issue to drive turnout and shape next year’s races for the White House, Congress and other elections. Ohio offered the clearest snapshot on Tuesday of the issue’s salience more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to abortion. Voters in the increasingly Republican-leaning state resoundingly approved an amendment to the state constitution to protect abortion access.

It might be time for the Democrats to go back to the 1992 term coined by Bill Clinton when he said that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare.” That seems to be what people want these days instead of outright bans. Back then, Clinton was trying to straddle the fence. He was elected President, twice.

STRIKE THREE:

For those of you interested in the ongoing saga of my outpatient shoulder surgery, I made it further than ever before Wednesday morning. I received the armband with my name, hospital socks, a nice gown, an IV, and the shoulder was shaved in preparation.

But it all stopped after the nurse reviewed my recent sleep study which had found I had severe sleep apnea. I had not seen it and it revealed that I had stopped breathing about 19 times an hour and my oxygen level fell to 64. The surgeon and the anesthesiologist said they could not do the surgery at this time because they administer a nerve blocker that could affect my lungs and diaphragm for up to 24 hours, plus the anesthesia more severely affects breathing in people with sleep apnea. So, they will need to do inpatient surgery and I will need to stay in the hospital and have my breathing monitored.

I will probably get to be on a CPAP machine soon.

## END ##