The Wednesday Read

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Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s independent commentary:

  • Cascade County Elections
  • Cascade County Circus
  • U.S. Senate 2026
  • Senators Not Voting

CASCADE COUNTY ELECTIONS:

More disturbing news is coming out of the Cascade County Elections Department.  

The Electric reports that ballots for seven precincts in Cascade County are heading to a recount by hand later this week as some ballots were not removed from their secrecy envelopes and incorrectly placed in boxes for discarded, and empty, secrecy envelopes. Those precincts are:

20B, 21B, 22B, 23C, 24A, 24B, and 25A.

The Electric is reporting that there are about 12,400 ballots between those seven precincts that will need to be hand-counted. 

I don’t think the County Commissioners hired the right person for the job. We just had the most important election in many years and the Elections Administrator, Terry Thompson, and her crew effed it up. It’s time to find someone who can do the job.  

By the way, the Cascade County Commissioners are all Republicans. 

Read the full report from The Electric HERE. 

CASCADE COUNTY CIRCUS:

The Electric nailed it with the headline that in part stated:

…Tension Amongst Commissioners Continues

Take a look at a recent article from The Electric HERE. About halfway through it is where the fun starts. 

All I can say is that there are only so many meetings left before Commissioner Rae Grulkowski departs and the new commissioner, (Eric Hinebauch) is sworn in. The county might want to hold these meetings at the Expo Park and sell tickets like they would if a circus was in town. 

You can view the County Commissioners meeting schedule HERE.

U.S. SENATE 2026:

The Livingston Enterprise is reporting that Park County resident Reilly Neill, who ran in the recent U.S. House District 2 race as a Democratic Party write-in candidate, has announced she’s running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Steve Daines, a Republican. 

Check out her website HERE.  

SENATORS NOT VOTING:

Several U.S. Senators are missing votes and that is helping the “Senate Democrats to ram through key Biden judicial nominees” according to the Daily Beast. They also reported that President-elect Trump also helped Democrats by taking a few Republicans on a field trip to see the SpaceX rocket launch.

Since some Senators were not voting, I decided to check on my two Senators. I checked the votes for Monday, November 18, and Tuesday, November 19. 

According to my calculation, there were about 25 votes. U.S. Senator Steve Daines missed 12 votes and U.S. Senator Jon Tester missed 17 votes. Tester is a lame duck. These were vote numbers 269-288. (Source) 

I checked both senator’s websites and did not find a reason for them “Not Voting.”  I have seen senators in the past who missed votes issue a press release listing the reason they missed the vote and how they would have voted. 

U.S. Senators are paid $174,000 per year. 

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6 thoughts on “The Wednesday Read”

  2. Another defeat for his lordship, GF city commissioner Rick T.

    The City commission voted 4-1 last night to accept the compromise 3.5 mils management agreement for the library. You can guess who the “1” was.

    Of course Tryon did not go quietly into the night, delivering another of his signature condescending, hostile, divisive, political, and misleading lectures to the public as an apologia for his “no” vote.

    • Began by saying he was very upset by the acrimony and nasty political rhetoric surrounding the library funding agreement, when he himself has carried on in exactly that manner for months about the subject in social media.
    • Continued his own nasty acrimonious and divisive political rhetoric by smearing a letter writing campaign as orchestrated by some “far left, progressive, activist organization”. As if that had any bearing on the subject, even if true.
    • Dishonestly tried to characterize the library levy as some effort at “expansion”, when we all know it really was an effort to get the library back to a fully functional state. Even went to far as to compare 2023 pre-levy payroll with 2024 post-levy payroll, when we also all know in 2023 the library was operating on bare bones with much reduced staff and facing even more cuts. Which is why we needed that levy. Duh.
    • Then went so far as to try and employ the hackneyed righties’ “salary envy” device in regard to some of the library positions in comparison to some mythical average wage in Great Falls – which one is no doubt aware he NEVER does about the average wage in Great Falls in comparison to City staff salaries/wages (and cadillac bennies), especially those of upper City management as well as the policemen and firefighters he wants to give even more of our money to.

    And so much more.

    Latest foghorn blast starts at ~ 2:08:00 of this video:

    https://greatfallsmt.viebit.com/watch?hash=bNrTwMpADKU8i8Jp

    • Terry- Thanks for the update. I watched the video. Tryon plays a victim really well. He is way over his head in this elected position. He is a poor example for GF. -JmB

    • As a student of history, I often wonder how we survived as long as we did without Lord Rickest of Strapon to guide us through these turbulent times. Lord Rickest of Strapon is sent from his highness himself, the Donold! And what a blessing that is!

  3. Grulkowski is getting paid $80,000+ per year or whatever it is, but now feels it necessary to hit county taxpayers for a mileage allowance solely as punishment of the other commissioners, in tit for tat of disallowed expenses she rang up taking an unauthorized trip. Shameful.

    Can you imagine if any of us went ahead took a trip for training that we had previously been told was unauthorized, but then after the fact insisted to management that we should be reimbursed anyhow? Ridiculous.

    The fact she only got 1600 votes in her failed write in campaign seems like a pretty good indication Cascade County voters are thoroughly sick and tired of that drama. Come on, end of December.

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