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

• Chippewa Cree/Chouteau County
• Trump & Museums
• Oklahoma Teacher Exam
• One More Thing

CHIPPEWA CREE/CHOUTEAU COUNTY:

The Daily Montanan is reporting that a new federal lawsuit alleges Chouteau County prevents Native American voters from fully participating in elections for Board of Commissioners, and county officials have been unresponsive to working on a joint solution with the Chippewa Cree Tribe.

The plaintiffs want the U.S. District Court’s Great Falls Division to find that Chouteau County’s at-large elections for its three commissioners don’t comply with the Voting Rights Act. They also want the court to implement a redistricting plan that doesn’t dilute the Native American vote.

It appears there may be precedent that favors the Chippewa Cree Tribe. MTN News reported that Samantha Blencke, Senior Staff Attorney and the lead attorney on the case with the Native American Rights Fund, said that courts have repeatedly struck down similar systems in Montana and across the country, explaining, “This has happened in Montana several times as well, in Blaine County and Big Horn County, and in Roosevelt County, all of those counties used at-large electoral districts that were deemed in violation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act.”

My thoughts – It would probably be best for Chouteau County to work with the Tribe to correct this issue instead of spending thousands of dollars on a court case that they will likely lose. 

TRUMP & MUSEUMS:

I heard the other day that a safe place to go if there is a civil war with MAGA folks is a library because they’ve never been there, and they don’t know where they are located. The same could be said about museums. 

President Donald Trump has decided to reform museums because he believes they are too WOKE.  

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said:

The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of “WOKE.” The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the “HOTTEST” Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.

So this white guy is saying slavery is not that bad? Unbelievable! Trump is 79 years old, and it appears that his mind is stuck in the 1950s and 1960s. 

OKLAHOMA TEACHER EXAM:

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that Oklahoma will require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an *exam that the Republican-dominated state’s top education official says is designed to safeguard against “radical leftist ideology,” but which opponents decry as a “MAGA loyalty test.”

Additionally, the AP reported that Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment *exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification.

Beam me up, Scotty!

*By the way, the AP asked for a copy of the 50-question exam, but was only provided with five questions. I aced the questions, and I am not a MAGA! You can view those questions on the link to the AP story HERE. 

ONE MORE THING:

My wife yelled from upstairs and asked, “Do you ever get a shooting pain across your body, like someone’s got a voodoo doll of you and they’re stabbing it?”

I replied, “No…”

She responded: “How about now?” 

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