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

• The Bathroom Bill
• State Senator Jason Ellsworth
• Favorable Ratings
• One More Thing

THE BATHROOM BILL:

Lee Newspapers is reporting that a bill that would ban transgender people from Montana bathrooms, locker rooms, and sleeping areas that don’t correspond with their sex assigned at birth will soon come across Gov. Greg Gianforte’s desk. House Bill 121, sponsored by Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings, passed the Senate on Tuesday in a party-line 32-18 vote. 

Lee Newspapers also reported that the bill passed with the support of every Republican in the entire Montana Legislature.

The courts will undoubtedly strike down this bill. It’s been a waste of time and will be a waste of money trying to defend it in court. There are more important things this legislature should be working on. 

STATE SENATOR JASON ELLSWORTH:

With the Montana Department of Justice now looking at the allegations of criminal official misconduct for State Senator Jason Ellsworth, there have been a few other reports about his situation. 

As normal, the Republicans are in charge and they seem to implode when they have the power. 

The Daily Montanan is reporting that Ellsworth threatened members of his own party with disruption of the Montana Senate in his failed bid to retain the office of Senate president, according to multiple Republican senators.

Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, also threatened the new Senate President and majority leader with retaliation in connection with a waste, fraud and abuse investigation into a contract he signed with a business associate, according to public records obtained by the Daily Montanan. Ellsworth denied the claims he had threatened to upset activities in the Senate and repeatedly described the allegations as “ridiculous.”

Then, the Daily Montanan reported that before Ellsworth faced allegations of misconduct for signing a $170,000 state contract with his business associate, Bryce Eggleston, the senator from Hamilton pitched Eggleston as a potential candidate for a state communications job. The communications job never existed. However, Ellsworth presented Eggleston to Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court Bowen Greenwood as a viable candidate should he need a communications director. 

Probably one of the big reasons the government is so inefficient and why the Montana Legislature is called the good ol boy and girl network is what the Daily Montanan reported next:

He (Ellsworth) also pointed the finger at other people working at the Capitol with relatives or friends in office.

“Everybody here in this entire building has some relationship with somebody else,” Ellsworth said.

If you don’t see anything wrong with that, then you should resign. What a circus.   

FAVORABLE RATINGS:

Gallup Polling is reporting that of the five living men who have served as U.S. president, Barack Obama receives the highest favorable rating (59%) and Joe Biden the lowest (39%). George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are rated more positively than negatively, while opinions about Donald Trump are divided. Bush and Clinton are somewhat less familiar to Americans than the other three. The results are from a Jan. 21-27 Gallup survey taken shortly after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration to a second term as president. 

Since we just finished an election where Biden was portrayed negatively, I think his ratings will improve the longer he is out of office. Of course, that does not matter. 

ONE MORE THING:

Is it just me, or does no one disappear in the Bermuda Triangle anymore? 

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