Thanks for stopping by! Here are the topics I am providing commentary about today:

• Fear-Mongering
• Chief Justice Mike McGrath
• Rolling Back Hate Speech Rules
• One More Thing

FEAR-MONGERING:

If you have watched the national news much in the past day or two then you have seen the fires in California getting a lot of attention. It’s a sad situation and I feel for the people who have lost their homes. 

Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon used the California fires to inform his readers that the Great Falls Fire Department is “understaffed and lacking adequate resources for equipment, personnel, and firefighting gear.” 

Here is his full post:

Consider the wind driving the flames in the L.A. fire.

Now consider the wind we often get in Great Falls.

Now consider the possibility of a large fire in your Great Falls neighborhood close to your home on a very windy Great Falls day.

Now consider that GFFR is CURRENTLY understaffed and lacking adequate resources for equipment, personnel, and firefighting gear.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Not all of his readers agreed with Tryon’s comment. One person said “Cause fear mongering is always appropriate…”

Then, Great Falls Mayor Cory Reeves commented: 

Very unfortunate to read some of the ignorant and uninformed comments on this post already. I implore you to start attending city commission meetings so you can make better, educated comments from your keyboard on how local government works. Or you can continue throwing stones from your keyboard and spreading fake news.

Trying to scare people seems to be the method of operation that started when the Great Falls Commission tried to pass a massive public safety levy in 2023. It was too much.

When the Commission took money from the Library, they sealed the fate of any safety levy ever passing. In short, they pissed off a whole bunch of people. 

So the Mayor and Commissioner will go on with their tactics and when they propose another safety levy I will vote “No” and urge others to do the same. 

CHIEF JUSTICE MIKE MCGRATH:

The Helena Independent Record has a story posted on the website about Chief Justice Mike McGrath retiring from the helm of the state’s highest court this week after 16 years. His last official act was swearing in another former prosecutor, Cory Swanson, the Broadwater County Attorney elected in November by a wide margin over a former federal judge from Missoula.

One of the more interesting parts of the report was about legislation being struck down by the court: 

Since 2009, the Montana Supreme Court struck down an average of one piece of legislation per year, according to figures McGrath shared during the interview. But in the last three years, the court has found 12 unconstitutional.

“Why is that? We’ve been the exact same court since 2016,” he said. “We haven’t changed. What’s changed?” McGrath, answering his own question, said what’s changed is the supermajority of Republicans at the Montana State Legislature.

That is putting it mildly. I think it is because the nut job MAGAs are running the show and they don’t seem to like to follow the constitution. Now the MAGAs want to change the courts in Montana because they are not in control. The courts in Montana are the only thing standing in the way of complete MAGA chaos.

ROLLING BACK HATE SPEECH RULES:   

The Hill reported this week that social media giant Meta announced a series of changes to its content moderation policies Tuesday, including the elimination of its fact-checking program, in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said was an effort to embrace free speech.

The Hill also reported in a separate story that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, dropped some LGBTQ protections from its hate speech rules Tuesday amid a wider overhaul of the social media giant’s content moderation practices. 

It was also reported that under its newly updated policies on hateful conduct, Meta will allow users to accuse LGBTQ individuals of being mentally ill despite otherwise prohibiting such content. 

I’m all for free speech, but this is like going back to the Wild West. 

ONE MORE THING:

Another meme that caught my attention:

I’m trying to figure out how renaming the Gulf of Mexico will lower grocery prices. 

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