Hello! Here are the topics for today’s column:

• Montana Legislature
• MHP Trooper Reinstated
• Presidential Memoranda
• One More Thing

MONTANA LEGISLATURE:

A little common sense is (maybe) prevailing in the Montana Legislature: 

State Senate Bill 164, which sought to make it a felony for adults to help transgender youth access certain types of medical care, went down on the Montana House floor Tuesday despite sailing through the Senate earlier this session. (Source)

State House Bill 838, which was Republican lawmakers’ most ambitious policy proposal under the caucus’s banner of “judicial reform,” appears to have failed entirely at the Montana Legislature after the last standing bill carrying party labels for judicial candidates died Monday on the House floor. (Source)

MHP TROOPER REINSTATED:

Lee Newspapers is reporting that Montana Highway Patrol trooper and union president Alicia Bragg will be reinstated and issued back pay after she was wrongly terminated for raising the alarm about an internal survey that was critical of leadership, a third-party labor arbitrator has found. She will be reinstated within 10 days. 

It was also reported that a spokesperson for the Montana Department of Justice called Jacobs’ decision binding and said the department would comply with it, but offered no further comment.

This is good news for Bragg. It was the right decision.

The Montana Department of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Austin Knudsen, looked quite foolish during this ordeal. 

PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDA:

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump decided to go after two former employees, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs.

Here is how Axios reported it:

President Trump has revoked the security clearances belonging to former CISA leader Chris Krebs and ex-DHS official Miles Taylor and ordered investigations into the work they did while in public service.

Why it matters: The move is the latest in Trump’s full-throttle attack on his perceived political enemies. 

Zoom in: The order calls for the Department of Justice to investigate both officials’ activities as government employees and also temporarily revokes the clearances held by any of their known associates.

The Memorandum about Krebs contained the following information:

Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.

You can read the complete Memorandum HERE. 

Likewise, Trump went after Taylor in another Memorandum:

Miles Taylor was entrusted with the solemn responsibility of Federal service, but instead prioritized his own ambition, personal notoriety, and monetary gain over fidelity to his constitutional oath. 

You can read the complete Memorandum HERE.

In short, Trump is using his Justice Department to go after people who disagree with him or who he thinks might have slighted him.

These are dangerous times.

ONE MORE THING:

I saw this in the New York Post:

Wild video shows several pallbearers plunging six feet into a grave while lowering their loved one’s casket — with a grieving son even getting knocked out cold. Check it out HERE. 

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