The Wednesday Read

Posted on by

Hey Friends! Here are the topics that made today’s column:

  • Judicial Reform Bills
  • State of the State
  • Pete Hegseth

JUDICIAL REFORM BILLS:

Since many of the bills passed by the MAGAs in the Montana State Legislature last session were found unconstitutional by the courts, the MAGAs have decided to “reform” the state judiciary. 

The “reform” will mean that MAGAs will try to make it so they control the courts in Montana. 

The only thing standing in the way of bat-shit crazy laws in Montana is an independent court. We should admire independent courts. We should strive to have independent courts that are not swayed by the latest flavor of the day in politics, which is currently MAGA. 

There needs to be some checks and balances along the way. Our courts in Montana are doing a fine job, so leave them alone.  

You can read reports about the “reform” bills HERE, HERE, and HERE. 

STATE OF THE STATE:

In case you missed it, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte gave his “State of the State” address Tuesday evening. 

Gianforte touted the fact that he had dinner with President-elect Donald Trump last Thursday and that he is “eager to work with President Trump and members of his Cabinet, many of whom I’ve worked alongside in Congress and as governor,  to Make America Affordable, Safe, Prosperous, and Great Again.”

I think I ate a baloney sandwich Thursday night…

He also took the time to get in a parting shot or two at Joe Biden. He talked about the “failed leadership in Washington” and that “Joe Biden and members of Congress have not tightened their belts. The federal government does not live within its means. As a result, they’re imposing a crushing national debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids.” 

I believe that Gianforte added to that debt when he was a member of Congress. I will bet that in four years the debt will be more than it is now. The Republicans are running the whole show starting on January 20. 

Gianforte said he would “welcome legislation to my desk that provides privacy and security to women and girls, because a man shouldn’t be in a women’s restroom, shouldn’t be in a women’s shower room, and shouldn’t be housed in a women’s prison.”

I wonder if there’s kitty litter in these restrooms…

You can read a transcript of his address HERE. 

PETE HEGSETH:

After watching some of the nomination hearing for Pete Hegseth to be the next Secretary of Defense, I posted the following message on X:

After watching today’s hearing, I want to party with Pete Hegseth!

Hegseth was supposedly known for being a frequent partier! Some of his shenanigans were brought up during the hearing.

Like many hearings for a Presidential nominee, the President’s party (Republicans in this case) threw softball questions at Hegseth, and the other party (Democrats in this case) attacked. It was good television and many senators knew they were on TV and acted accordingly. 

I expect the Hegseth nomination to be voted favorably out of the Senate Armed Services Committee, probably on a party-line vote, and go to the full U.S. Senate. Since the Republicans control the U.S. Senate, he should be confirmed.

What Republican Senator in his/her right mind would vote against Trump’s first nominee? It would be political suicide. 

I don’t think Hegseth is the right person to be the Secretary of Defense. I hope he proves me wrong. 

You can view the hearing by clicking HERE. 

## END ##

14 thoughts on “The Wednesday Read”

    • Maybe he was just drunk again, Swede. Three wives and seven kids later will do that to a guy! And I don’t blame him! Three wives and seven kids are best handled in a drunken stupor, which could I suppose be interpreted in MAGA world as calmness! Is that your point, Swede?

      But of course if he gets the job he says he’ll swear off drinking. Every prospective employer falls for that one!

    • Shady’s moronic She-He joke off his own name didn’t seem to play as well to the national audience as it did to the sniggering MAGA faithful here in Montana, did it. Not least because 97%+ of people watching those proceedings were wondering, “Who the hell IS this guy?”

      Gotta wonder why he was even wasting everyone’s time asking questions, because there was never any doubt about how he is going to vote: How he was told to vote.

    • Larry, I wonder if you knew Will Ditto? He died recently. Will lost his legs in Vietnam about the same time as you served. He spoke at my school just before I entered draft age, and convinced me I wanted no part of war. He was quite a character and I remember him being a pretty good pool player despite his handicap.

      • No, I didn’t know him. I wish I could have. He sounds like a great guy. I moved to Billings when I got out of the military and spent about the next twenty years down there. I went to college at EMC, and we had a huge vet population there at that time. Most were Vietnam Vets. A really good bunch of friends.

        We weren’t the VFW type of vets. We didn’t really want much to do with any military type organizations after we got out. I guess we kind of formed our own informal support group. PTSD officially didn’t exist back then, so we helped each other as best we could. Drank way too much also.

        I’m glad that Will talked to you guys. I was teaching when we got involved in the Middle East wars. I had great discussions with the kids. They basically couldn’t understand why I was so opposed to us getting into another senseless war so soon after Vietnam. I explained to them exactly what was going to happen, and it did. It was a huge waste of money, lives, and resources. But the kids were very patriotic and basically taught that our country could do no wrong. I usually advised them to watch Born on the Fourth of July, the best anti-war movie that there is. And perfectly accurate. It captured the moment perfectly.

        I still worry about my former students who entered the military during war times. And I still admire all those who choose to serve. It’s dangerous out there, and yet they do so willingly. No draft for them.

      • My nephew was one of those patriotic kids that got involved in a senseless war, he died at the ripe old age of 19 in Fallujah. One year out of high school. Nathan Wood.

      • I am so sorry to hear that. Falluja should never have happened. To the rest of the world, Falluja was considered a war crime. The British before us had safely pacified the city. There was absolutely no need for us to invade. I seriously doubt that our country has learned anything from those wars. Trump wants to invade everywhere. Seems that about every thirty years we’ve got to slaughter another innocent country, and shed the blood of our young people.

        I personally know several ex-soldiers from those wars who have since committed suicide. So tragedy continues unabated.

        https://www.arabnews.com/node/275831

  3. If the Federal government really did cut spendimg to “live within its means”, taker state governors like Gianforte would suddenly find rhemsevles confronted with the need to take care of the state’s people and roads and water systems and cops and schools and so on themselves.

    No more big gobs of Covid money, no more funds like Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies to take care of Montana’s people, no more grants for cops and schools, no more job training and housing community development money, no more money for expensive water systems in remote rural areas to serve a small number of people, no more for rural high speed broadband, far less for roads, no more block grants, etc. And forget disaster relief.

    There is a reason the Federal government runs a deficit, and it is in good part because mostly red taker states like Montana send far less in taxes to Washington than they get back in benefits. The people running up those deficits are us.

    But it always sounds good for governors to smugly say, “The whole country would so much better off if only it was more fiscally responsible like Montana”. But if it was, Gianforte would be faced with the prospect of much higher state taxes to pay for all those water systems and roads and cops and health care and so on himself.

  4. Who is Hegseth? He tells you in his book. And it ain’t good.

    “Hegseth has written in a book, An American Crusade, that he could imagine a scenario in which the US armed forces would be used violently in American domestic politics.

    Hegseth’s book exhorts conservatives to undertake “an AMERICAN CRUSADE,” to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents”, to “attack first” in response to a left he identifies with “sedition,” and he writes that the book “lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies.”

    Hegseth’s descriptions of leftists, progressives, and Democrats as “internal” or “domestic enemies” should ring alarm bells for anyone concerned by Trump’s repeated threats to unleash the US military, which Hegseth would directly control, on those he has described as “the enemy within.””

    Elsewhere in American Crusade he writes: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”

    Hegseth explicitly rejects democracy, characterizing it as a leftist demand: “For leftists, calls for ‘democracy’ represent a complete rejection of our system. Watch how often they use the word,” adding: “They hate America, so they hate the Constitution and want to quickly amass 51 percent of the votes to change it.”

    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/112668/the-shame-of-hegseth

    • Scott Jennings has been with CNN for several years, but has been getting more publicity recently. I think he’s a great addition. I enjoyed him and David Axelrod going back and forth during the election season.
      News shows are better when both sides are presented. -JmB

Comments are closed.