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

• Daines/Sheehy & Public Lands
• Protesting 101
• Terry Moran Update
• One More Thing

DAINES/SHEEHY & PUBLIC LANDS:

The Montana Free Press (MTFP) is reporting that a proposal to sell 500,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management holdings in Nevada and Utah that’s generated political conversation and consternation in recent months reemerged last week.

The proposal was removed by the U.S. House Budget Committee, but now that the bill has moved to the U.S. Senate, they may try to put it back in. 

So the MTFP tried to do interviews with Montana’s two U.S. Senators, Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy. Here is what they reported: 

On June 4, Montana Free Press emailed Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy to request interviews to learn whether Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Sheehy, the freshman Republican who won Democrat Jon Tester’s seat in November, would vote for the bill if the federal land sale is amended back in. 

Communications staffers for the senators declined to grant MTFP’s interview requests, instead providing emailed statements that don’t directly address the question.

Sheehy spent a whole campaign dodging the press. Daines is afraid he will do something that Donald Trump and company won’t like. Daines is up for reelection. By the way, Daines is the past chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

One other thing about Sheehy. On April 7, 2025, I emailed his office through his official U.S. Senate website and professionally and courteously asked him why he missed a vote in the U.S. Senate. It has been over two months and he has not answered the email.

PROTESTING 101:

Over the years, I have made a conscious effort never to use the “F” word in this blog unless I needed to quote someone.  

When the MAGA folks were flying flags that said, “F” Joe Biden (spelled out), I thought that was wrong, and that displaying a flag like that showed their ignorance.  

The other day, Rick Tryon posted his opinion on the E-City Beat blog about some photos he obtained from a recent protest in Great Falls. The two photos showed people holding signs. One stated “F” ICE, and the other stated “‘F’ with Veterans and Find Out.” The “F” words were spelled out. 

While I would never hold a protest sign that had the “F” word in it, people do have the freedom to do that. Tryon went into full virtue signaling mode by condemning the ICE sign and tying the display to being hateful toward local law enforcement. He went on to write, “‘F**K ICE’ and assaulting kids eyeballs with the ‘F’ word on our streets is not who we are in Great Falls.

Tryon said one of the people holding the signs was a candidate for the City Commission. The Mayor of Great Falls also chimed in about that candidate. I don’t know if the person was a candidate or not, but if he is, then that was probably the main reason for the post. The tax and spend commissioners and mayor want to keep the band together for a few more years so they can hit us with more 27% rate increases. 

Tryon also posted a link to his opinion on his personal Facebook page, where people were not so nice to the protestors.  One former local government official called for throwing the protestors off the bridge.

No political side has cornered the market on being nice. In fact, there are asses on both sides. 

TERRY MORAN UPDATE:

Terry Moran is out at ABC News. The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that 

ABC said Tuesday that it was at the end of its contract with Moran “and based on his recent post — which was a clear violation of ABC News policies, we have made the decision not to renew.”

Here is what Moran posted on X: 

The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. 

Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. 

But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. 

It’s not brains. It’s bile. 

Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. 

You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.

Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only a means to an end, and that end his his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.

It will be interesting to see where he lands. 

ONE MORE THING:

When I have to fill out a form asking who to call in case of an emergency, I always write “ambulance.” That’s because no one in my family is going to answer a call from an unknown number. (Source)

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