Here are the topics for today’s commentary:

• Cascade County Elections
• Missoula County Public Schools
• Trump Remarks
• One More Thing

CASCADE COUNTY ELECTIONS:

Besides all the problems with the Cascade County Elections office that prompted the Cascade County Commissioners, all Republicans, to vote 2-1 to strip the head of elections, Sandra Merchant, who is also a Republican, of her duties, we now have what is being called “Bucketgate.”

The Electric reported that during a recent meeting, commissioners discussed keys to the elections office and access to various county spaces:

County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski said that a directive she didn’t know about was issued to take all keys from Merchant, but Public Works Director Les Payne said that his office only asked for the keys to the elections office, which is standard practice when someone vacates a position.
Grulkowski said there was a bucket of keys that was taken that had keys to other buildings and County Commissioner Joe Briggs asked why that hadn’t been inventoried by the elections office. She said they were working on it.

Over at E-City Beat, Jeni Dodd writes about Bucketgate:

…we learned that a county maintenance worker removed a bucket of keys from the elections office. The bucket contained the keys to Expo Park where the voting tabulator machine is stored, and now, there’s no accounting for the keys.
Yep, you read that right. A voting tabulator machine that should be secured under lock and key at all times may not be secure. The keys have been unaccounted for, for days. So how can we be sure the machine hasn’t been, or won’t be, tampered with unless we inspect the machine and immediately change the locks?

I think it would be interesting to find out just how long this bucket of keys has been sitting around the election office. One year? Five years? I don’t know if it is serious as Dodd says, but this gives her MAGA friends something else to complain about. They can proclaim this a conspiracy!

I do know that Bucketgate reminded me to clean out some drawers and throw away all those old keys that I no longer use.

MISSOULA COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

In case you missed it, the Missoulian is reporting that the Montana Supreme Court ruled that mask mandates implemented by three school districts in Missoula did not infringe upon the rights of parents or students during the COVID-19 state of emergency.

The Missoulian also reported that rather, Missoula County Public Schools, Target Range and Hellgate Elementary — the school districts named in the 2021 lawsuit — had a “legitimate interest in preventing infections among teachers, staff and volunteers to ensure sufficient staffing levels are available for the schools to function properly,” and mask-related policies bore a “rational relationship” to that interest.

Good for these schools. I was for the mask mandates. I have had four COVID vaccinations.

I think Montana owes a big thank you to former Governor Steve Bullock for his leadership during the beginning stages of the pandemic. I think he saved lives by having us wear masks.

You can read the article from the Missoulian HERE.

TRUMP REMARKS:

The latest racist remarks from the former President have left many shaking their heads.

ABC News reported:

With less than a month until the first votes are cast in the 2024 Republican primary, former President Donald Trump spent his latest rally in New Hampshire praising multiple authoritarian leaders and quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin to try and discredit the criminal indictments against him — while sparking new backlash from critics that his anti-immigrant sentiment echoes Adolf Hitler.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” Trump said Saturday in Durham, New Hampshire. “They’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, over the world. They’re pouring into our country.”
The former president, again, praised authoritarian leaders including Hungary’s Viktor Orban, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — and called President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy,” reversing a frequent attack of Biden on him.

Maybe you voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I can overlook that. I didn’t. Maybe you voted for Trump in 2020. That was dumb. I didn’t vote for him. Maybe you plan on voting for Trump in 2024. That makes you pretty ignorant in my book. I won’t be voting for him in 2024 either.

You can read the full article from ABC News HERE.

ONE MORE THING:

Well, now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again
And hear your sister’s voice calling us home
Across the open yards
Well maybe we’ll cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars
“No Surrender” Writer: Bruce Springsteen
(Video)

## HAPPY HOLIDAYS ##