Caught My Eye…

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Coming to you from deep within a bunker in Montana is the (almost) award-winning column, Caught My Eye!

Here are the topics for today’s column:

  • Public Safety Advisory Committee
  • Insurrectionists
  • College Basketball
  • Total Solar Eclipse

GREAT FALLS PUBLIC SAFETY ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

In case you missed it, the Great Falls City Commission voted unanimously to establish a new public safety advisory committee. The Electric reports that the members include Sandra Guynn, Mike Parcel, Wendy McKamey, Jeni Dodd, George Nikolakakos, Aaron Weissman, Tony Rosales, Thad Reiste, Joe McKenney, and Shannon Wilson.

I don’t know if they hand-picked these folks or if these folks came forward to apply. They have some full-fledged politicians on the committee, so this will be fun to watch.

I think the first thing the committee should do is hold a bake sale with commissioners and department heads to recoup the $150,000 of taxpayer money they spent to promote the last levy.

There is talk about spending MORE money to conduct a poll to gauge how much residents are willing to spend on public safety. This is absurd.

The city was already told that their request for the levy and bond was too much – that happened in the last election.

It seems when issues come up, the city’s first move is to decide how much of our money they can spend on it.

Right now, as residents are paying higher taxes and fees, taking more money from my paycheck for anything else is a non-starter – especially if I have a say in the matter.

Read the report from The Electric HERE.

INSURRECTIONISTS:

ABC News is reporting that a Washington state man who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Wednesday to seven years and three months in prison. Taylor James Johnatakis was convicted in November on seven charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting police officers.

I think this sentence is more along the lines of a sentence that all the insurrectionists should receive.

Read the report from ABC News HERE.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL:

College basketball comes to an end this weekend (and Monday).

Friday night we have the women’s semifinals with North Carolina State taking on South Carolina. This game is at 5:00 p.m. Montana time on ESPN. After that Iowa and UConn face off. That game is scheduled to begin around 7:00 Montana time on ESPN.

The winners will play for the NCAA Women’s National Championship on Sunday at 1:00 Montana time on ABC/ESPN.

On the men’s side, North Carolina State plays Purdue at 4:00 p.m. Montana time on TBS. Then Alabama takes on UConn around 6:45 p.m. Montana time on TBS. These games are on Saturday.

The winners will face off in the NCAA Men’s National Championship on Monday night at 7:20 p.m. Montana time. The national championship game will air on TBS, TNT and truTV.

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE:

In case you have been asleep, there will be a total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8. MTN News has a report about the eclipse:

Here in Montana, the northwest corner of the state will only see about a quarter of the sun eclipsed. Southeast Montana will have approximately half of the sun’s disk blocked by the moon.
The eclipse will begin at approximately 11:40 a.m. in Montana, with maximum at 12:48 p.m., and ending just before 2 p.m.

NBC News posted an article called, “Your last-minute guide to Monday’s total solar eclipse” which has some interesting information.

Many cable news and network news stations will have special coverage of the event.

## HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND ##

15 thoughts on “Caught My Eye…”

  1. Off topic but a very important read. An exaggeration? Not hardly. For who could have possibly imagined Montana would be so full of stupid and incompetent MAGA people beholden to their orange god trump twenty-five years ago? We even have an ex-Navy SEAL claiming to be a “trump conservative.” If he’s an indication of whom the military would follow in a coup, we’re in big trouble. 

    As in Germany, the billionaires know their business. And they know we’re on the ropes. And they know the MAGAs are stupid enough to love it! Is this dystopian future inevitable? Hard to say at this point. But it doesn’t look like the cavalry is comin’ any time soon.

    https://www.rawstory.com/hartmann-trump/

  3. Got my “supplemental second half 2023 tax bill” today. Yay.

    Thanks Gov. Gianforte for fighting the association of counties for every last red cent of State property tax levy money. That you won’t cap the same way cities and counties are capped. Because the State is ever so much more fiscally responsible with our money than cities and counties.

    Of course this way as much of our money as possible flows to the general fund, so that’s good. It makes a nice cushion for you to give yourself and your high income buddies more income tax or capital gains or whatnot cuts. Same reason the legislature punted and did nothing when it was obvious we were going to get hit with massively higher property tax bills.

    • Thanks. Now we have something else to look forward to.
      Will the tax debacle be enough for the GOP to lose some seats? I doubt they lose many.
      -JmB

  4. I suggest our safety committee follow the Texas model. Raises revenue and discourages reading. A win/win. Just kidding of course.

    But as I look at the make up of the committee, I wonder how many of these folks actually know what it’s like to barely eke out a living in Great Falls? I see some folks with military pensions, and some folks that are pretty well off. Will they really be able to sympathize with the plight of the average resident? Or will they just be cop groupies like Rick? Cops have enough groupies, we poor people have no groupies. Maybe they could do a ride along with some of us to see what it’s like for most folks in Great Falls.

    I know it’s difficult to get a truly representative group of people for such a committee because most working people don’t have time to participate. Therefore I’m skeptical as to how this committee’s conclusions will be any more palatable than the 1500 dollar variety.

    Safety Texas style.

    https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/us-news/texas-mom-kaylee-morgan-gets-warrant-issued-for-her-arrest-over-late-library-books-just-bonkers/

    • It’s gonna be interesting.
      Maybe they will come up with a plan to make money like ticketing drivers talking on cellphones. This time they could pass an ordinance to ticket people for eating while driving.
      -JmB

  5. Wow that is a nice long sentence. Wonder how long it would have been if he’d been charged with “Insurrection” or something even close to that, or almost as scary sounding.

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