It’s hump day! Here are the topics for today’s commentary:
- Cascade County Elections
- Library Under Attack
- Taylor & Travis
CASCADE COUNTY ELECTIONS:
Maybe you’re as tired of reading about the mess with Cascade County elections as I am writing about it. It is important and I’m glad that there are people keeping track of the circus that is happening right under our noses.
I suggest anyone interested in the elections in Cascade County read the updated report from The Electric. You can see it HERE.
It does not appear from the reporting that anyone knows exactly how much an election will cost. There seems to be some confusion about the number of registered voters.
One thing for certain is the MAGA folks want to do away with mail ballot elections. This is their ultimate goal.
LIBRARY UNDER ATTACK:
The Great Falls Public Library is still under attack from the MAGA crowd. The MAGA folks have their panties in a wad after the voters in Cascade County approved a levy request. Now all they can do is attack the library for almost anything they do.
The other day I read what is close to a novel from Jeni Dodd about the public library. It’s probably close to 1,600 words. About halfway through her opinion piece, I thought of the character named Michael in the movie, “The Big Chill” who was played by Jeff Goldblum. He worked for People magazine and was asked about writing in the big world of journalism. He responded with:
“Well, where I work, we only have one editorial rule. You can’t write anything longer than it takes your average person to take an average crap.”
Amen to that.
TAYLOR & TRAVIS:
I love the conspiracy theories being floated around and how the MAGA crowd is concerned about Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and Joe Biden.
I saw that you can place a bet on whether Kelce asks Swift to marry him after the Chiefs win the Super Bowl.
I can see when the Chiefs win, the camera pans to Swift and Kelce hugging while the confetti falls and the camera operator asks, “You’ve just won the Super Bowl; what are you going to do next?” They answer with, “We’re endorsing Joe Biden for President…then going to Disney World.”
I saw that Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon is bothered by the publicity the couple has been receiving. Tryon thinks the NFL has lost viewership with Swift being shown on camera. He thinks other wives should be shown and believes, “Doing so would go a long ways to getting back some of the NFL viewership being lost because of this weird media hyper focus on Swift at a football game.”
Tryon is wrong about the NFL losing viewers. In the three playoff games the Chiefs played (and Swift attended), here is the rundown, first from Sports Illustrated:
On the NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend, the Kansas City Chiefs matchup against the Miami Dolphins on Peacock captured many eyes and set a new streaming record in the process. Just over a week later, their recent outing against the Buffalo Bills continues that trend of putting up insane numbers.
According to a Tuesday release from Paramount, Chiefs vs. Bills on CBS set an all-time record for viewership of a Divisional Round playoff broadcast. Drawing in an average of over 50 million viewers, this is a sizable increase over 2023’s similar window and the first time a second-round postseason outing reached that specific mark. The broadcast peaked at more than 56 million viewers and was the most-streamed live event on Paramount+ in his history. Here’s more from Paramount:
Then we have the Chiefs at Ravens. CBS reports:
If you were watching the AFC championship game on CBS over the weekend, then give yourself a pat on the back, because you were part of television history.
The game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens had an average audience of 55.473 million, making it the most-watched AFC title game in NFL history. The viewing number peaked with an astronomical 64.022 million people watching at one point in the second half.
Maybe many of his MAGA followers will take his word about the viewers, but from what I know about the commissioner, we should fact-check everything he says or writes.
The Western Word 
Colin Cowherd has a piece up taking the MAGA studmuffins to task over Taylor Swift.
Colin Cowherd’s message to those bothered by Taylor Swift’s NFL presence (youtube.com)
That was a great commentary about Swift and Kelce. Thanks, JmB
Good fact based takedown of Tryon’s claim the NFL is losing viewers over Swift’s miniscule airtime during very long NFL broadcasts. Tryon’s latest whine is also proof that MAGAs like him are still watching – they know she was shown.
But it’s fun to imagine all MAGA Americans in living rooms across the land simultaneously tightly closing their eyes, clapping hands over ears, and loudly braying “lalalalalala” every time the camera pans to her. Then a few seconds later en masse cautiously peeking out from one eye to see if the horror is over yet. Such is the awesome power of Taylor Swift – she owns them.