Welcome! Here are the topics that made today’s column:
- Sheehy in the Driver’s Seat
- Busse Tax Returns
- Plea Deal for Former Teacher
Sheehy in the Driver’s Seat:
The Hill published an article yesterday titled, “Senate rankings: 5 seats most likely to flip” and the race in Montana between incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester and challenger, Republican Tim Sheehy, was mentioned first. It was not good news for Tester.
The Hill reports:
Multiple surveys in recent months indicate Sheehy is in the driver’s seat, with Decision Desk HQ’s (DDHQ) average of polls showing him with a 3.5 point lead. One Republican operative said a recent internal survey showed Sheehy up 4 points, and Democrats indicate they believe Tester is down by a low single-digit margin.
They also report as of Friday, DDHQ gave Sheehy a 73 percent chance of victory.
The other part that got my attention is Republicans think the only thing that could save Tester is a monumental screw-up by Sheehy that alienates Trump voters. Another Republican said, “Tester needs a miracle.”
Montanans have heard about Sheehy and the gunshot issue, his business issue, the parachute issue, and recently his disparaging remarks toward Native Americans. All those were screw-ups in my book and should keep people from voting for him.
If any Tester staffers have access to internal polling they want to share (anonymously) to let me know what your side is seeing feel free to email me.
You can read The Hill report HERE.
Busse Tax Returns:
I guess Democrat Ryan Busse, who is running for Montana Governor, is now a serious candidate if we are to believe what Republican incumbent Governor Greg Gianforte and his team said a few days ago.
Busse provided 10 years of tax records according to the Associated Press (AP). The AP reported:
The release of the tax records to The Associated Press comes after Gianforte last week dismissed Busse as not a “serious candidate” and suggested he wouldn’t debate him since the Democrat had not released his tax returns.
So I guess a debate is on the horizon. It might be more exciting for Busse and Gianforte to box.
Read the complete AP article HERE.
Plea Deal for Former Teacher:
KRTV in Great Falls is reporting that William James Harning, a former teacher at Great Falls High School who was charged last year after investigators found child pornography on his phone, has reached a plea deal with prosecutors.
KRTV reports that in December 2021, the principal at Great Falls High School contacted the Great Falls Police Department to report that Harning had sent an “inappropriate picture of Harning’s penis” to a 17-year-old student; Harning’s face reportedly could be seen in the photo.
After his phone was searched, it was reported that “numerous” sexually-explicit images of children between the ages of 5 and 17 years old, along with self-produced sexually-explicit images of Harning.
Harning was charged with six felony counts of sexual abuse of children. KRTV says that Harning entered into a plea agreement in which the six felony counts of sexual abuse of children were amended to two misdemeanor counts of obscenity, the second of which was dismissed.
KRTV says that according to MCA, a person convicted of obscenity shall be fined at least $500 but not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned in the county jail for a term not to exceed six months, or both. According to the plea agreement, Harning will be required to register as a sexual offender in Montana and also pay a $500 fine. He was sentenced to six months in prison, but that was suspended.
Of course, I don’t know the whole story, but this former teacher sent a photo of his penis to a 17-year-old student and had many other sexually-explicit images of children on his phone.
I don’t think this plea deal should be approved by the judge. This deal seems ridiculous.
## THE END ##
The Western Word 
I worked several pipelines, two here in Montana. The vast majority of jobs are taken up by 798ers from down south. My son developed a southern accent when I worked the Northern Border pipeline in Glasgow. The few of us locals got mostly the grunt jobs. I remember how badly we got price gouged in the stores and restaurants. I worked it from the Canadian border to North Dakota, just about six months of working 12 hour days 7 days a week. I just don’t get all the attention given to the Keystone.
Thanks for the great information.
People make political issues out of anything to score points. Keystone falls in that category. -JmB
Same with Colstrip. I was living in Billings when they built Colstrip 1 and 2. Mainly all southern boys who built those things. I used to drink with them. Pretty nice guys. Some decent guitar players in the bunch. Maybe a few Montana guys in the mix too, but this idea of Montana jobs is bullshit.
Same story with all the expansion at the refinery here in Great Falls the past couple years. County and City give them a big tax abatement, they bring up a bunch of non-union guys from Texas to do all the work, who then take all the money and go home. Maybe a few more very expensively taxpayer subsidized permanent jobs left here in the aftermath. And then Calumet appeals the taxable value of all that new construction.
Quite a sweet setup.
Very true. Those tax dollars could come in handy for public safety. Thanks, JmB
If we had a real press in this country, the very first question they would ask of any of our orange lipped MAGA politicos is, how the hell can you still be kissing Trump’s a** when the entire world knows that he’s a demented psychopath? Any respondents? Daines, Zinkester, Shady, Giantforte? The emperor’s had no clothes nor marbles left as pointed out by those who know him best. And he’s never had any ethics or morals. We’re in a serious situation here. Time to hold the conspirators accountable.
Sheehy is abysmally unqualified for office if for no other reason than his full-fledged support for a senile old felonious con man fascist suffering from terminal dementia. Just add that to his long list of other disqualifiers. Doesn’t say much for our beloved Montana any more that this race is even close. The MAGA invasion is nearly complete. Those of us old timers were damn fortunate to have seen her in her glory days. Pretty much all aspects of life in old Montana are gone now never to return. The old small town with long streets is now a billionaires’ feudal playground. So it seems only right to send three MAGA a**holes to represent us in D.C. Sad, so sad.
“In what world is this deranged person running for the highest office in what is still, arguably, the most powerful country in the world? In any reasonable society with equivalent resources, he would be in Memory Care, or being looked after full-time by his wife, or, given his putative wealth, at home with 24-hour staff to assure his safety (and screening his phone calls to make sure he doesn’t fall for some elder-targeting scam). That is, if he hadn’t been convicted of 34 criminal charges and facing more.
But in this country, as in, unfortunately, some families until the reality really takes hold, he is granted the power not only to do whatever he wants while others follow along to support him in his delusions and sometimes attempt a degree of damage control. Not only that, he is being encouraged by an array of bad actors who apparently think his election will help them in their quest to remake the U.S. as itself in Leave It To Beaver, a libertarian’s wet dream, a theocracy (Catholic or evangelical, take your pick), a male supremacist bastion, an oil executive’s paradise, and Nazi Germany. All at once.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267551/-Trump-Dementia-Went-Commando-In-Michigan-Speech
Also online today are the recommendations of the recently concluded Public Safety Advisory Committee.
With all due respect to the committee members who were chosen not volunteered but stepped up anyhow to participate, and the effort they put in on a very difficult task, it seems to me like kind of a “labored mightily and brought forth a mouse” end result. The recommendations are long on generalities many of which rehash Crime Task Force recommendations that the commission and City staff ignored previously, and short of specifics especially new and original ones that could be accomplished at the City level.
There is
In essence mostly just giving a thumbs up to things the city manager and city commission was already doing or considering, which isn’t surprising as the agenda of this committee just like the Crime Task Force was carefully stage managed by the City Manager and city staff.
2nd half of this agenda packet.
https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/greatfls-pubu/MEET-Packet-b0f1a82d0c844f3381ba34b0a9929de4.pdf
Let’s address the “issues”.
It’s like the little boy calling wolf. There’s so much muck slinging toward the finish line that no one believes any accusation.
Tester had a good run, fooled a lot of Montanans in the months preceding his elections but this time is different. Montanans are voting on his voting record which was exacerbated by the tied US Senate.
Nah. It’s the political equivalent of the bark beetle infestation. Look around, Swede. You live in Billings and you mean to tell me you can’t see it? It’s a MAGA infestation of kooks, weirdos, militia and mental defectives fleeing other areas of the country hoping Montana will become their white Christian homeland! Wackos yearning to be free, free of any type of government regulation! And they’ve ruined our political environment. And covid refugees too. I don’t see it changing any time soon. You win.
Tons of governmental regulation, covid lockdowns just a few miles north of GF in Canada Larry.
And if you protest there they’ll freeze your bank account and starve you out.
If they were actually voting on Tester’s record they would be very appreciative of all the money he has steered here including a lot for veterans, as well as the power of seniority to get things done for constituents, which Lyin’ Timmy won’t have for many years.
But what it appears many seem to be voting on are bogus far right culture wars issues and lies spun by Sheehy, the national Republican machine, and all the billionaire dark money groups that fund conservative PACs in pursuit of lowering their own taxes.
Would gladly trade seniority for no di*ks in my granddaughters locker rooms. Same for illegals voting, a value added tax, late term abortions, the XL Pipeline and buyback AR-15’s.
Most of the items you listed are not really happening. You should try watching several news sources instead of MAGA friendly ones. -JmB
Illegals already cannot vote. It is already against the law. Nor for that matter can legal immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. And Tester has never indicated support for it.
There is no value added tax currently under serious consideration. Certainly not by Tester. In fact you are far more likely to get a sales tax/VAT out of your Republican governor and legislature, maybe even as soon as next year. They want to lower their own income taxes even more.
The specific circumstances for “late term abortions” that liars like Sheehy claim Tester supports without conditions were spelled out in the Women’s Health Protection Act, “in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
The Student Non-Discrimination Act that Tester sponsored in 2015 was about harassment and bullying of all LGBTQ students. Never seen him support biological males in girls’ facilities. Any rules aimed at that were new Biden admin rules based on existing Title IX, and are now on hold due to a court ruling anyhow.
The XL Pipeline would only make it easier for Canadian oil companies and some already rich Americans to ship their dirty tar sands oil to the Gulf to be processed and then shipped overseas to the highest bidder. It does not remain here for U.S. use. While seizing the land of unwilling American farmers in service of those Canadian oil companies. All in exchange for a few transient jobs during construction and very few permanent ones later on. It would not contribute to any mythical “energy independence” because there is no such thing as long as there is a wide open world market where anyone can sell any oil they drill anywhere. Which is what the Canadians have started doing with that oil in the meantime, shipping it over the mountains and exporting it via BC.
I have also not seen Tester support any AR-15 buyback.
So, like was said above, bogus far right culture wars issues and lies spun by Sheehy, the national Republican machine, and all the billionaire dark money groups.
The GF Library Board web page has the dueling proposals for future City contributions to library funding.
In short the City proposes cutting off all 7 mills over the next couple years and ending the library director’s role as a City department head, while the library board proposes cutting City funding back to 4.5 mills. The library says the loss of the full 7 mills would roll back a whole bunch of the new and resumed programs. The board meets on Thursday to vote on which recommendation they accept. My prediction is library hater Noelle Johnson votes for the City proposal, and the others for the library’s. Not that how the library board votes is likely to make much difference in the long run.
It’s unfortunate this mayor and commission and city manager have adopted what seems like overt hostility to the library and total disdain for the majority of voters who approved that library levy. Even after Commissioner McKenney previously stated on the public record he would never vote against the will of the voters. And also unfortunate the legislators we send to Helena have reduced the larger municipalities in the state into eating their own with regressive top-down-control tax revenue laws, especially when it is those larger municipalities that are milked for the bulk of state tax revenues, which never seem to be in short supply for the pet projects of legislators and the governor.
https://greatfallsmt.net/sites/default/files/fileattachments/library_board_of_trustees/meeting/packets/265182/full-library_board_packet_special_meeting_september_5_2024.pdf
This is terrible. Many on the commission have shown their hatred of the library. Thanks for the update. -JmB
Gee, MAGAs seem like such nice, reasonable, rational people. Level headed I would call then. Like Trump himself, they get a bad rap when they’re really only victims. And they have solutions, viable solutions to make America great again.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/09/trump-team-use-project-2025-jail-and