The Monday Memo

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We are just 29 days from election day! Make sure you are registered to vote. This last month is where the rubber meets the road. Here are the topics to begin the week:

  • Cascade County Settles
  • The Wind Event
  • Helene Rumor Response
  • One More Thing

CASCADE COUNTY SETTLES:

The Electric and other sources reported that Cascade County Commissioners approved a $52,500 settlement during an Oct. 4 special meeting over a complaint of discrimination in the election administrator hiring process.

Former Clerk and Recorder Rina Fontana Moore applied for the elections administrator position with the county but was not chosen. 

The Electric is reporting Moore filed a complaint with the Montana Human Rights Bureau alleging political belief discrimination against the county and the commissioners both individually and in their official capacity. Moore generally asserted that she was qualified for the job but wasn’t hired due to political belief discrimination, according to Jordan Crosby, one of the county’s outside legal counsels.

It was reported that the parties agreed to resolve the matter for $52,500. The county is probably getting off cheap. Moore was the best candidate for the job. 

You can read the full report from The Electric HERE. 

THE WIND EVENT:

Friday night was more exciting than normal as a cold front moved through Great Falls and we had a wind gust at the airport at 73 mph. I lost power at my house which is near the University of Providence. It was out for about an hour. 

There were some limbs down in town and some damage. 

I saw comments from Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon, who used the “wind event” to tell readers that the “public safety folks in Great Falls are understaffed, overworked, and lacking resources.” (Source)

He continued, “Unfortunately, that situation will only get worse if we continue to pretend ‘everything is just fine’. It’s not.”

I expected nothing less from Commissioner Tryon. We saw it during the months before the vote for the public safety levy request that failed miserably. These events don’t happen very often, so I doubt Joe and Jill Six-Pack will want to give the city more money in taxes just in case a tree blocks a road. 

I know being without power for an hour or two and having a few tree limbs in my yard does not make me want to pay more for public safety. 

HURRICANE HELENE RUMOR RESPONSE:

The MAGA folks and Donald Trump are spreading so many lies about the FEMA response to Hurricane Helene that FEMA had to create a “rumor response” website.

Even the Charlotte (NC) Observer Editorial Board said this about Trump and his lies:

“Shame on Donald Trump for worsening NC’s Helene tragedy with political lies” (Source)

FEMA says:

Help keep yourself, your family, and your community safe after Hurricane Helene by being aware of rumors and scams and sharing official information from trusted sources. 

Check out the website HERE. 

ONE MORE THING:

The website Consequence Sound reported that Taylor Swift has surpassed Rhianna to become the world’s richest female musician, with a net worth estimated to be a whopping $1.6 billion.

Swift’s ascent was confirmed on Saturday, October 5th, with Forbes updating her net worth to reflect her growing fortune in the wake of the historic “Eras Tour” and the continued popularity of her catalog. Now, she’s not only topping the list of richest female musicians — surpassing Rhianna’s $1.4 billion net worth — but is ranked No. 2 on the list of richest musicians, period. Only Jay-Z is valued more, with a $2.5 billion net worth.

I guess endorsing Kamala Harris and being hated by Donald Trump did not hurt her bottom line. Good for her! 

## HAVE A GREAT WEEK ##

16 thoughts on “The Monday Memo”

  1. I’m outraged that we lowered our flag today for something that happened in Israel, a country that has never been an ally, and even sank a U.S. Navy ship and nearly slaughtered the entire crew! We have fought two wars on their behalf, and Bibi is doing his damndest to get us in another war with Iran! AIPAC controls our entire government. We have bankrupted our own country for them. We’re not supposed to be the unites states of Israel! Enough already!

    • Big Swede – I guess you aren’t old enough to remember when the people across the upper midwest ranted about the “degradation of American culture” because of the influx of the people they called “squareheads.” All those Scandinavians who couldn’t speak, read, or write English, and corrupted the neighborhoods where they joined in communities that reflected their cultural background.

      My adoptive daughter is from Guatemala. You can only wish that you or yours might ever have the courage to travel thousands of miles through peril and despair to make a better life for your children and their children. This young woman had never seen a machine more complex than a wheelbarrow, yet became the best machine technician and troubleshooter I’ve ever worked with. She is fluent in five languages. Her daughter graduated with honors from SUNY Stonybrook, her sons are polite, hard-working, and conscientious. She pays into Medicare and Social Security, yet will never see a dime of that back. She willingly and proudly pays her taxes, grateful that she has that opportunity.

      “Import the third world?” When I see the ignorance and venom spewing from the “first world” MAGAts, I can only be thankful that we have the opportunity to “import” people like her. Send more!!

      • Big Swede – Juana, with the equivalent of a 3d grade education, can indeed read/write in Spanish and English, and regards 3 Mayan indian dialects as her “native” languages. In point of fact, her grammar and vocabulary in both are probably better than yours.

        I’m sure you’re a devout believer in the so-called “Great Replacement Theory” conspiracy promulgated by the QAnon low-wattage bulbs. Remarkably, you may actually be right to be concerned about that. It’s a very Darwinian situation called “survival of the fittest” and I don’t think MAGAts have an edge.

        You might consider going back to school.

    • Same exact xenophobic argument nativists made against all the impoverished Irish and German and various Catholic and Chinese immigrants in the 1800s, and Italian and Jewish and Chinese and you name it in the early 1900s. Those people came here, some got into crime and gangs because that’s what happens in poor neighborhoods, but they eventually assimilated.

      The offspring of the new immigrants will assimilate too. But their skin color will still be a bit darker and continue to enrage the MAGAs.

      Some history:

      https://theconversation.com/a-century-ago-anti-immigrant-backlash-almost-closed-americas-doors-228589

  3. The lions’ share of the damage repair from the wind will be done by Northwestern, the Park and Rec in the boulevards, and tree contractors on private property. Not the police or the firemen.

    • I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove.
      I think it might be an emergency if a thousand migrants come to your area. Fox News placed a small update at the end of one of their stories saying the FEMA money for hurricanes (disaster relief) comes from a different funding stream than humanitarian relief funding.
      The bottom line is there will be funding for what’s needed. -JmB

      • Happening in Sweden right now

        The most recent survey by Statistics Sweden shows there are currently around 780,000 people between the ages of 16 and 65 who are illiterate in Sweden, but this number is soaring.

        “Each month, eight to ten illiterate students arrive,” said Rita Sommarkrans, SFI teacher in Västerås, to SVT. She added that if someone can’t read or write, it’s hard for them to find a place, pay their bills, or even book a doctor’s appointment. 

        “If this trend continues, we risk having an entire generation of young people who are effectively functionally illiterate,” wrote Minister of Education Johan Pehrson and Minister of School Affairs Lotta Edholm in an introductory article.

    • Of course it goes without saying that the Shelter and Services program FEMA administers is a totally separate pool of money from the Disaster Relief fund, with funding approved by Congress (with Republican votes) every year through DHS appropriations. Like all Congressional appropriations it can only be spent on what it is supposed to be spent on.

      It is the successor to the “Emergency Food and Shelter Program” which was originally created in 1987 to help the homeless but expanded in 2019 to provide support for migrants through the “Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, 2019 (Title III, P.L. 116-26), enacted on July 1, 2019”.

      You know, 2019, when Tubby J. Trump was still president, and long before COVID.

      “And today I’m signing a bill to deliver $4.6 billion in humanitarian assistance to our southern border. This includes funding for medical care, shelters, and increased housing for minors through the Department of Health and Human Services.”

      Kind of surprised that was even necessary since Tubby had the border totally shut down during his administration. Or so the story goes now in 2024.

      https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-signing-the-emergency-supplemental-appropriations-for-humanitarian-assistance-and

      https://www.newsweek.com/fema-response-accusations-money-spent-migrants-1963702

      • Might also help if the U.S. did not kick off bogus elective wars based on Republican lies like Iraq that totally disrupted the Middle East, which continues to today causing massive outflow of Middle East refugees. Or quit with all the ideologically motivated economic wars against countries like Cuba and Venezuela that impoverish their people to the point the people are desperate to depart. Or for that matter do something serious about root causes of Latin American migration like the demand for illegal drugs here in the U.S., or stem the massive flow of illegal weapons out of the U.S. to Latin America.

        It’s all fine and dandy as long as the devastation and misery is “over there” and the gun pushers and military-industrial folks and oil companies are making lots of money and paying off politicians, but not so fun when those chickens come home to roost.

  5. Yes but if we only provided more money to our public safety agencies they would stop windstorms in their tracks. No more damage in the first place.

    And IMO you didn’t mention the best Electric story about the county commission, the one where chaos agent and disrupter in chief commissioner Rae Grulkowski carried on like a child complaining that people were talking about her, demanded reports of this ‘n that, tried to change the agenda, and whined that county department heads (for some odd reason) weren’t speaking to her. The report of chairman Larson telling her to go out to the public comment lectern if she wanted to discuss off agenda topics is priceless. And so much more.

    https://theelectricgf.com/2024/10/03/division-among-cascade-county-commissioners-apparent-during-oct-2-work-session-over-agenda-items-travel/

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