The only people who could possibly find those numbers bad news are Montana Republicans, who keep claiming that Montana has a poor business climate and excessive government regulation. Those might make compelling claims at local Reagan dinners, but they ignore the simple fact that Montana’s business climate is doing quite well—and we don’t need to engage in a race to the bottom in environmental protection, corporate taxation or sensible regulation to ensure that Montana’s economy—and job outlook—continue to stay bright.

Through tough economic times, the steady, sensible leadership of Governors Schweitzer and Bullock have been a boon to the state, no matter how badly Republicans wish (and believe) otherwise.

Like Cillizza, we expect Schweitzer to jump in the race, as well – likely after the next filing period.  And Schweitzer is definitely the favorite – only Daines could make it a somewhat interesting race.

Earlier this year, Chris Cillizza named Montana Street Fighter one of “The Best State-Based Political Blogs” in the country.

The post Schweitzer Likely To Win Senate Race appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

Ultimately, Obama has made a grave error here, which was rhetorically tying US policy to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. First of all, it continues acting as thought the category of ‘WMDs’ means anything, suggesting that chemical weapons are somehow comparable to nuclear ones. This is clearly false. Nuclear weapons have been used in one war, twice, in their entire history. Chemical weapons have been used hundreds if not thousands of times even since being putatively outlawed. From a geopolitical perspective, they are hardly decisive – from Flanders to Iran to Yemen, they have been used but without impacting the outcome of war. Morally, although they are horrific (Dulce et Decorum Est!), the last fifty years have been ample demonstration that high explosives and heavy weapons are at least as effective in killing civilians as chemical weapons.

However, Obama is correct in not, so far, reacting to news of chemical weapons used in Syria by preparing for any kind of intervention. First, there is no conclusive evidence that the Syrian government is mainly or exclusively responsible for using chemical weapons; even if there was conclusive evidence of widespread chemical attacks, there is a non-trivial chance they were used first by anti-government forces.

More importantly, however, Syrian chemical weapons do not have any effect on the overall situation. They are unlikely to substantially influence the course of the war or greatly increase the casualty toll. And their presence doesn’t do anything to consolidate the anti-government forces into something resembling an organization capable of governing Syria (or desirous of doing so in line with American ideals and interests), nor does it greatly increase the chance of the Syrian government collapsing quickly. Indeed, chemical weapons make a terrible Red Line because the major obstacles to a successful intervention in Syria are absolutely unaffected by their use. It’d be far more appropriate for US policy makers to be rhetorically honest – we will not intervene in Syria until the there is a real chance of the our intervention resulting in the removal of the Assad regime and the establishment of a government allied to the United States and respectful of human rights and democratic and human rights norms. Any other artificial line or trigger laid down will either be a another line crossed uneventfully, reducing US credibility, or (far worse) a source of greater pressure to intervene before doing so is advisable.

The post Steve Daines Lies About White House Tweet appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

“The great Albert Einstein defined insanity as follows: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Senator Harry Reid on the floor of the U.S. Senate, yesterday.  He was referring to the U.S. House voting to repeal Obamacare for the 37^th time.

“We are the voice of the people,” said Montana’s Steve Daines during an interview with U.S. News and World Report.   Daines went on to say that he would be voting to repeal Obamacare for the 37^th time because freshman Representatives like himself have the “freshest perspectives.”

Only in D.C. voting to repeal a piece of legislation for the 37^th time considered “fresh.”  In Montana, it’s called “bat crap crazy.”

The post Harry Reid: Steve Daines Is Insane appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

The profile shows how Priest used dark money to demonize Supreme Court candidates Ed Sheehy and Elizabeth Best in support of a TEA Party candidate.  Priest also used the dark money group to send out attack mailers to kill the Medicaid expansion.  Because of Priest’s actions, 70,000 of Montanan’s most disadvantaged working poor won’t be able to get health care. 

Beckel, who writes for the Center for Public Integrity, published the report on the heels of a new analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics that found Montana is one of 35 states where rules regarding the disclosure of political spending by independent groups are less stringent than federal election law.

There’s much more on this, so check out the links in Beckel’s story above.

The report makes clear just how transparently disingenuous organizations like the Montana Growth Network really are. During the primary, Priest’s organization spent $42,000 supporting their preferred candidate, Laurie McKinnon, disclosing spending because their activities were in support of a candidate.

The Montana Growth Network spent roughly $42,000 during the primary election — more than either Sheehy or McKinnon’s own campaigns.

Once Sheehy and McKinnnon advanced to the general election, though, the Montana Growth Network stopped reporting its spending, claiming that mailers attacking Ed Sheehy were simply issue ads:

Ahead of the November election, one direct mail piece from the Montana Growth Network argued that under Sheehy, justice would be “beholden to a political party,” based on Sheehy’s past financial support of Democratic candidates.

Additionally, both mail and radio advertisements said that Sheehy had an “activist agenda” for his defense of Tyler Michael Miller, the so-called “Christmas Day Killer” who murdered his girlfriend and her 15-year-old daughter “in cold blood” in 2010.

Even a member of the TEA Party can see through what the MGN is attempting to do—and what Montana law currently allows.

That’s the system Jason Priest worked so hard to protect during the last legislative session: a climate in which dark money organizations can spend unlimited, unreported funds simply by asserting that their actions are not directly in support of a candidate, no matter the evidence that’s not true.

I’ll be communing with nature (and some awesome friends) along the Smith until Tuesday, so there won’t be much action here until then.
(B I G  thanks to my house/dog sitters!)

Until then, be fabulous!

~G

That’s almost once every 20 days for the White House and almost once every three days from the IRS. Now, there’s no telling how these views got there. I imagine even bored staffers at the IRS and White House sometimes Google things like “least credible news site in America” or “Name one thing worse than Fox News” once in awhile.

Read this breaking news, friends in the media world, and weep that you are not this kind of intrepid reporter:

According to Google analytics, the IRS generated 456 unique visitors, between January 2009 and May 2013. The report notes 552 visits and 709 page views from the IRS. Most of the traffic occurred between the second half of 2012 and this week.

One day in December, watchdog.org received more than 100 visits from the tax agency.

The analytics show 60 unique visitors and 84 page views to Watchdog.org from eop.gov, the Executive Office of the President, between December 2009 and May 2013.

Those who follow Montana politics and the media no doubt remember their sad efforts to defeat Jon Tester in the 2012 Senate and their subsequent disappearance from state coverage once the race was over.

The best part of this sad attempt at a story is not even that a corporately-funded effort to shape and control media coverage in the country is pretending to have been victimized by the IRS scandal. It’s not even the spectacle of one of their “reporters” desperately tweeting the non-story to the right wing echo chamber all day.  It’s that, lost in the collective right-wing hernia about the TEA Party being picked on by the IRS, is the fact that the Citizens United decision has made it almost impossible to regulate these dark money groups. As Time’s Alex Altman notes:

All this outrage threatens to obscure an important point: the IRS does need to crack down on political groups masquerading as social-welfare organizations. Many of the nonprofit groups who claim 501(c)(4) status either flout tax law or flirt with the murky line between electioneering and issue advocacy, all while using their tax-exempt status to conceal their donors. The problem isn’t that the IRS flagged nonprofit groups for additional review. The problem is that it did so poorly, lavishing special attention on Tea Party outfits when it should have been scrutinizing everyone — or at least more egregious offenders.

This is easier said than done. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in January 2010, donors flocked to 501(c)(4)s as a vehicle to pump cash into elections without disclosing the source of their contributions. The number of groups applying for social-welfare status has since doubled. In 2012, the news outlet ProPublica examined 72 501(c)(4) applications from groups that claimed to have no plans to spend money on elections. They compared those documents against the subsequent tax returns. Nearly half of the groups found their plans had changed.

There’s no doubt that some employees at the IRS behaved inappropriately in this whole debacle, but the very people who should be better regulated to control the spread of corporate influence are hardly best positioned to be making the case for reform. Even if their traffic SURGED to a couple of hits a week.

P.S. There’s always an addendum on the stories about these people. Of course, they got their facts wrong. About their own Google Analytics numbers.

Rep. Bachmann announced this morning, that she is moving to Montana with her husband Marcus.  ”Marcus and I spent a prayerful night on our knees” said GOP Representative at a press conference in St. Cloud, MN, the main city in her congressional district.   “…and this Homosexual Marriage law will turn the Twin Cities into Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississippi.”

It’s likely that the diary’s author has been taken for a ride by the Daily Currant – a satirical online newspaper similar to The Onion.

The post Michele Bachmann Is Moving To Montana? appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

Art Wittich, the Montana Senate Majority Leader and Tea Party stalwart, has been in court lately to try to get what he believes is rightfully his.

Wittich, a lawyer, had once provided legal services to a Bozeman couple. There was an outstanding balance of $93.99 that the couple had not paid Wittich.  Wittich was not going to abandon the matter, and not only collected the debt but got himself a tidy reward, an additional several thousand dollars.

It appears, as best I can tell from a not-very-clearly-drafted court opinion (the link to the decision is below), that Wittich quietly got a default legal judgment against the couple, for the $93.99, even as his office was in talks with the couple over possibly arriving at a settlement over this piddling amount of money.  After successfully getting the judgment, he began efforts to collect it.  After some time, he managed to persuade the court to award him not only the $93.99, but $2,900 more for “fees, costs and interests” that he claimed to have incurred as a result of spending his time trying to collect the $93.99.

A divided state Supreme Court, shockingly, upheld the judgment.  Justice Cotter dissented, calling the decision [UPDATED pdf] “unconscionable” and an “affront,” scolding Wittich for “financial carnage wreaked upon [the Bozeman couple] for their refusal to pay a disputed $93.”  Justice Baker grudgingly voted in favor of Wittich because there was apparently a contract, which Wittich had gotten the couple to sign, including a clause that allowed him, ultimately, to get this outrageous amount of money from them in the event of a collection action.  But Justice Baker strongly cautioned him to review the rules of the State Bar which address lawyers and their billing practices, and are designed to prevent lawyers from fleecing their clients.

And Cotter notes that when the dust finally settles, the couple will probably owe north of $5,000 to Wittich, because Wittich will try to recoup additional costs from them, namely, his costs in litigating the case of the $93.99 in front of the Supreme Court.

In essence, Whittich did what he could, not what he should.  Nice guy.

Oh, and one other point, which goes without saying: if Wittich ever thought he could run for statewide office, that dream he can now kiss goodbye.

It’s highly doubtful Schweitzer will make an announcement before the beginning of the next reporting period.  In the mean time, he can continue to bask in the limelight of the state and national media while pundits drool over his possible candidacy.

By waiting to announce, he also slows other candidates from jumping in and raising money.  However, if Brian does announce, it’s hard to imagine Daines won’t be the focus of intense pressure for him to run, since he clearly is the best shot the Republicans have to take on Schweitzer.

Until Brian does announce, we can expect to see a lot more of this:

The post Staying In The Limelight appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

I applaud Dawn’s courage and decision to transition.  I hope she will continue to have a long and distinguished journalism career with one of the great news organizations.

However, I admit that I have been critical about the manner in which she couched her announcement. Her coming out statement included this: “Ennis said she suffers from an ‘unusual hormonal imbalance,’ and blames her mother, who fed her female hormones as a child to prolong a commercial acting career.”

“I have a rare medical condition — nothing deadly or infectious — but it has resulted in an unusual hormonal imbalance,” she explains. “One so profound that I don’t resemble the man you first met 10 years ago.”

My posts today have demonstrated my concerns.

“This is good, but to seize upon a “rare medical condition” as the result of a hormonal imbalance induced in childhood seems a wee tad disingenuous. It seems much more authentic to just claim our true selves unabashedly.”

I got a few tepid responses, including one from a transwoman who was the successful plaintiff in a now notorious federal circuit court discrimination case which established as a matter of law (at least in that circuit) that Gender Identification Dysphoria (GID) is a “serious medical condition.”  And so it is true.

I replied: “I could not agree with you more, but our “medical condition” is not the one which Dawn is asserting. Many of us feel & assert that we were born TG, not forced to become TG by some post womb atrocity purposely committed by our mothers. I don’t believe for a moment that you really accord the feeling of being born in the wrong body to mere eccentricity, but you seem to be asserting as much. I also do not agree that gender incongruence can be induced by merely ingesting hormones as a child. It seems like Dawn’s assertion is more of an attempt to legitimize her nature in the eyes of a misunderstanding and judgmental public by reference to some scurrilous outside influence, rather than just claiming her true self as many of us have had to do. Yes, it is disingenuous and a disservice. BTW, I have read, understood and applauded the legal argument “Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a serious medical condition.” I do not see that Dawn’s assertions are analogous merely because of the “rare medical condition” language in which she has framed the legitimization of her transgender nature. So, there ‘ya have it.”

A friend wrote: “We must just continue to push through to make the world safe and accepting for all. Trans is. No need to legitimize it. It’s already legit. Takes a huge amount of personal courage to be who you are without apology or justification whether you are trans, intersex or uniquely average….”

Another friend wondered: “Can I attribute it to her being somewhat new at this, especially at being SO out?”  She is always the compassionate peacemaker, and I admire that quality in the few people I know who truly possess it.

My response: “Yes, of course. I admire your compassion. The difficulty is that, like a friend of mine says, when we make shit up, we come to believe it, and when we believe it we have to defend it. Thus, I came to believe the lies I told myself to justify my existence, while all the while no justification was ever necessary (Just as my friend so eloquently stated). I am what I am! I am a transexual! I celebrate me. And because it is so, because I am authentic, other people embrace, love and accept me too. Honesty really is the best policy.”

And that brings me to the point of this piece.  (For shame that it took so long, I know).

If you have ever had to disclose your transsexual identity to anyone important in your life, you realize immediately that most people have a great deal of difficulty wrapping their heads around the concept.   Many people simply do not understand.  And there is scant “medical science” to assist them.  They cannot run to the Physician’s Desk Reference, for instance, and read about the scientific, double blind, controlled study of the effect of too much exposure upon a fetus of what turns out to be opposite sex hormones while in utero.  But, that is the current, most widely accepted theory on the cause of GID.

Many would dispute such an unscientific theory as mere poppycock.  The simple truth is that even the best, most widely accepted theory does not help the larger world to understand and accept trans people.  Now here’s the rub.

A very important person in a high profile international news organization is suggesting an even more novel theory – not hormone over exposure in utero, but, hormone over exposure during childhood.  However, the science that we do know suggests that this is unlikely.  Gender identification is fixed by age three and is extremely difficult to change after that.  (Pamela J. Kalbfleisch, Michael J. Cody (1995). Gender, power, and communication in human relationships. Psychology Press. pp. 366 pages. ISBN 0805814043. Retrieved June 3, 2011; Ann M. Gallagher, James C. Kaufman, Gender differences in mathematics: an integrative psychological approach, Cambridge University Press, 2005; “gender identity.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 11 Mar. 2011).  So, unless Dawn’s commercial acting career was in full swing as an infant or toddler, the exposure to hormones would not likely have had the impact which she ascribes to them.  Personally, I am rather dubious if they would have that effect even earlier.

Don’t get me wrong.  The hormones would have an effect on her emotional state while she was taking them.  Just ask men who have been treated with Depo Prevara (Reduces sex drive, compulsive sexual fantasies, and capacity for sexual arousal. Some users show increases in body fat and reduced bone density. There may also be other “feminizing” effects such as gynecomastia (development of larger than normal mammary glands in males), reduced body hair, and loss of muscle mass).  Most of these effects are considered reversible when use is discontinued.

Likewise, introduction of anti-androgens and estrogen therapy is a treatment option for men with prostate cancer.  It produces some of the same side effects, including changes in sexual desire, including loss of libido, changes in facial or body hair growth, and mood changes including anxiety, frustration, anger, depression and emotional outbursts.  When my late father-in-law began hormone therapy for his prostrate cancer we teasingly suggested he would grow boobs and develop a new interst in picking flowers.  Unfontunately, cancer occurred throughout his body and took him before we could test that theory.

While some might quip about possible similarities to Pre-menstrual Stress, a uniquely feminine phenomena, with the exception of sympathetic reactions in some men, there is simply no medical evidence that the introduction of female hormones to men cause them to be confused about their gender; or, to believe that they are actually women, or, that they were born that way, that they can do nothing to change that, and that they are no longer able to live in this binary culture unless they are able to become the woman that they believe inside that they have always been.  I suspect the same would be true for a small boy.

So, as a person who has painfully experienced these things over the course of forty eight years in the wrong body, I do take exception.  Yes, it is a wee tad disingenuous to assert that post-utero forced use of opposite sex hormones causes GID.  It suggests that a transperson can be made that way instead of born that way.  And, if they can be made that way, they can choose not to.  That is not the experience of the trans people I have become associated with over the last several years (1500 or so).  We are born that way. We did not and cannot choose to be trans.  Who would?  And it is a profound disservice to their courage and integrity to suggest otherwise.

Related articles

• TransMSU Promotes Inclusion in Bozeman and Montana State University (dgsmith.org)
• Newsman Becomes Newswoman Due To Hormone Imbalance (987ampradio.cbslocal.com)
• ABC News Editor Don ‘Dawn’ Ennis Comes Out As Transgender (businessinsider.com)

Here’s the clip:

The Human Rights Network has done some research on this group, which calls itself the National Policy Institute.

In 2011, they held an event at the National Press Club to release its report called “Majority Strategy: Why the GOP Must Win White America.” The report urged the Republican Party to “reach in” to its base of white voters instead of “reaching out” to minorities. The report told the GOP to embrace immigration restrictions, end civil rights laws, and stop all forms of affirmative action.

The group’s leader, Richard Spencer, recently moved the group from Georgia to Whitefish. He says: “It is perfectly feasible for a white state to be established on the North American continent,” adding, “I have a dream.”

You’ll want to go read James Conner’s post on this, which is up at the Flathead Memo.

I’ve taught students just like Jeff Bliss. While I watched him passionately demanding more from his high school experience than an endless series of reading packets and worksheets, I immediately thought of a handful of students, who unconcerned about perception, stood up for their right to receive an authentic education.

 PACKETS AND PERCEPTION

What Jeff Bliss experienced in Texas is not far from the norm. In his excellent book Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement, Michael Schmoker writes:

What do we see in the vast majority of classrooms? We find startling amounts of busy work, with no connection to important standards or a common curriculum. The system we place our teachers in, with its isolation and lack of constructive feedback or supervision, ensures that most of what we see is at odds with good practice. In most cases, neither teachers nor students can articulate what they are supposed to be learning that day. They can describe only the activity or assignment, which is often chosen because it keeps kids occupied. Irrelevant worksheets and activities often predominate. Catching students learning the most vital reading and writing standards is heartbreakingly rare.

Despite this description of our schools, we do little to differentiate our assessment of the teachers who work in the classrooms. This, despite the evidence that an effective instructor is the single most important variable in determining student adult success:

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material…. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher.

The teacher who engages students and pushes them to think critically is likely to be evaluated just as positively as the teacher handing out “freakin” packets. Even worse, the latter teacher likely believes she is as, if not more, effective, than the former.

According to the 2009 Widget Effect: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness, districts routinely evaluate all of their teachers as having the same level of effectiveness in the classroom after using fitful, inconsistent evaluation tools that identify almost every teacher as effective.

And teachers internalize those reviews. According to the same report, an astonishing 90% of teachers surveyed in six districts rated their instructional performance as an 8-10 on a ten point scale. Not one rated herself below a five.

This Lake Woebegone inspired assessment of teacher effectiveness destroys incentive for improvement in the classroom, and it makes sense that teachers are hesitant to change their practice, because no matter how ineffective they are, they’re virtually assured a positive evaluation. What incentive does a teacher who both believes she is doing an effective job and who is told by her supervisor that she is doing an effective job have to improve or change?

CONSERVATIVE RESPONSE

All of this, course, has become fuel for conservatives who want to destroy public schools. They seize on incidents like this as evidence that unions are destroying  our schools, with no evidence to support these claims.

Unfortunately, as I have often wondered, how is it that conservatives ask so many good questions about education while getting every answer wrong?

Calls to privatize education or transfer public funds to private charter schools and independent schools are morally bankrupt schemes designed to benefit the elite while leaving our most needy students behind in newly-impoverished schools.

Calls to end tenure don’t change the underlying problem of schools: our failure to evaluate and assess instructional quality. Eliminating tenure protections will threaten effective, late-career teachers who cost districts more money than new teachers, but won’t change evaluation systems or classroom practice.

Criticism of their solutions aside, conservatives and other critics of American education aren’t wrong to be demanding more. Our failure to respond will only make the public discontent about our schools more powerful, and the imposition of ineffective, punitive policies more likely. We’re seeing it all over the country and Republicans in the past two legislative sessions have tried to seriously weaken our schools. This threat is only going to grow, unless schools, teachers, and administrators start making serious reform their top priority.

Teachers who practice this kind of passive “education” and districts who permit it are their own worst enemies when it comes to public perception about public schools. We can no longer tolerate a system that doesn’t demand excellence in individual classrooms, measure results from individual teachers, and improve those teachers who simply aren’t meeting expectations. We even need to be willing to acknowledge that teaching isn’t the career for everyone–because our students deserve the best quality instruction every day.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Fixing our schools is going to demand the kind of leadership that makes teachers uncomfortable and compels them to improve their practice. Having teachers sit through workshops and meetings about school improvement won’t change classroom practice as long as classrooms are autonomous islands in which any teaching activity is tolerated. Teachers need strong, clear leadership about heightened expectations for student engagement and achievement–and they need to know that failure to improve practice will not be tolerated.

Schmoker again:

When administrators “go along” instead of leading, they perpetuate mediocrity. Subtle institutional forces urge them to accommodate or wink at inferior practice, while implying to their communities that instruction is effective or “good enough.” We can only imagine the psychic toll this takes on many of them.

Good enough cannot be enough. Keeping students occupied, but not engaged, cannot ever be enough. Shaking our heads but remaining silent about ineffective classroom practice is not enough.

Reflective practice, driven by research-based and tested instructional techniques and evaluated by critical administrators is the key to fixing what ails American schools. Just as teachers should never tolerate sub-standard work from their students, administrators must stop accepting substandard practice in the classrooms they oversee.

The system isn’t broken and the situation isn’t hopeless, but we need to start work now. Every year we delay implementation of effective classroom strategies across the board potentially wastes 7% of the time a student gets in K-12 education. That’s got to be more than unacceptable to us; it needs to be a clarion call for action.

It’s time for what Roland Barth calls “recognition of and moral outrage at ineffective practices.” That outrage shouldn’t just come from outside the school walls, but from within, as Mr. Bliss pointed out in his classroom speech:

“You want kids to come to class? You want them to get excited? You gotta come in here, you gotta make ‘em excited, to change him and make him better, you gotta touch his freakin’ heart. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell him.”

Amen, Jeff. Amen.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The post The Maddow Expose Everyone In Montana Missed, But Needs To See appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

Attorney General Tim Fox has been floated as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate, but it’s much more likely he goes in for a rematch against Governor Steve Bullock.

The post Tim Fox Running Digital PSAs appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

Cowgirl readers will recall that last year, Boniek was hauled into court to answer charges that he’d sped through a roadblock in defiance of an officer’s order to keep out. Boniek was trying to get to his house, but his house was in an area where a forest fire was burning and had been evacuated and blocked off due to the emergency. As a devoted Tea Partier and general wingnut, Boniek did not recognize the authority of the policeman to keep him away from his private property. Also, during his encounter with the officer before he crashed the barrier, Boniek allegedly reached for a gun that he had with him in the front seat. As the Livingston Enterprise reported, he:

“allegedly argued with the officers and eventually ‘dropped his left hand near what looked like a holster’ before a deputy brought him to the ground….The deputy removed a loaded handgun from the holster, according to court documents.”

For his day in court, Boniek brought with him an angry mob of supporters, who shouted down the Judge and Prosecutor in such a menacing way that they fled the courtroom fearing for their safety. At that point, Boniek stood up and proclaimed himself regent over the courtroom, and decreed himself innocent of all the charges (before the bailiff told him otherwise, while brandishing his own weapon).

Boniek, who is representing himself, has been asked to stop bringing up a number of frivolous and conspiracy-related arguments.

The first is “jury nullification” which is when a jury ignores the evidence and or instructions of the judge and returns a verdict of “Not Guilty” despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation he or she is charged with. This appears to be a primary focus of Boniek’s self-defense, and the case is being closely followed by the jury nullification crew, as you can see from their press release on the case. He and his band of TEA Partiers have also been ordered not to distribute TEA Party pamphlets around the courthouse before the trial tomorrow, May 10.

During a hearing of his court case on Friday, the Livingston Enterprise reports, Boniek himself “lodged multiple complaints and objections, including that the court is fraudulent and that officials are treating him as an “artificial person” because his name appears in all capital letters on legal documents.”

He’s also accused the judge and everyone involved with the trial of being “fraudulent” so therefore his trial should not proceed. Boniek alleges that the judge will see personal financial benefit from his trial and any fines related to it.

Boniek is also angry with the Livingston Enterprise,who he has demanded show him every story they write about him before it is printed. The whole Enterprise article on the case’s latest developments is a must read.

Miseducation is ostensibly a story about a young teen exploring her sexuality in a conservative, evangelical community where homosexuality is viewed as a sin – and in the aftermath of her parents’ death. And that story is definitely in there. What I was not prepared for was the love letter to Montana. The language is beautiful and lyrical and I felt that landscape in a way I don’t think I ever have in a book. Here’s a taste from the first page:

Miles City had been cooking in the high nineties for days, and it was only the end of June, hot even for eastern Montana. It was the kind of heat where a breeze feels like someone’s venting a dryer out over the town, whipping dust and making the cottonseeds from the big cottonwoods float across a wide blue sky and collect in soft tufts on neighborhood lawns. Irene and I called it summer snow, and sometimes we’d squint into the dry glare and try to catch cotton on our tongues.

I am fascinated by the intersection of sexuality and religion, so it will come as no surprise that I ate up the portion of the book where Cameron gets sent off to a residential ex-gay program. I loved how she described the effect of the program, like dust and lint that just sticks to a gummy hand over time and how hard it is to wash it off.

The longer I stayed at Promise, the more all the stuff they were throwing at me, at us, started to stick, just like to those sticky hands, in little bits, at first, random pieces, no big deal. For instance, maybe I’d be in bed during lights out and I’d start to think about Coley and kissing Coley, and doing more with Coley, or Lindsey, or whomever, Michelle Pfeiffer. But then I might hear Lydia’s voice saying, “You have to fight these sinful impulses: fight, it’s not supposed to be easy to fight sin,” and I might totally ignore it, or even laugh to myself about what an idiot she was, but there it would be in her voice, in my head, where it hadn’t been before. And it was other stuff too, these bits and pieces of doctrine, of scripture, of life lessons here and there, until more and more of them were coated on, along for the ride, and I didn’t consistently question where they had come from, or why they were there, but I did start to feel kind of weighed down by them.

I hope you will be as taken with the landscape of Montana and the map that Cameron draws in her explorations as I was.

Jill Seidenstein is a queer femme writer, yogini, swimmer and traveler. You can’t read her scribblings yet, but you can get a taste of what she’s thinking about at www.slowbloom.com/blog.

Related articles

• Interview: Emily M. Danforth (Part 1) (storycarnivores.com)

Since Senator Baucus announced his retirement, the question has quickly shifted from “will Schweitzer announce?” to “when will Schweitzer announce?”

Following Baucus’ surprise announcement, a “Draft Schweitzer for Senate” wave swept through the progressive community.   Schweitzer, who in the past has said he would be hesitant to run for U.S. Senate again (Schweitzer ran for the Senate in 2000), has been noticeably more open to the idea.

Most pundits are calling him the favorite if he were to run, which would mean holding onto one more U.S. Senate seat in what may be a tough year for Democrats.

Schweitzer and his staff have also been touting polls showing him as the favorite in addition to commentary urging Mr. Schweitzer to throw his hat in the ring.

This weekend, Schweitzer will be the keynote at the Montana AFL-CIO convention.  It’s unlikely he announces a run for the U.S. Senate there, but the question is no longer “will,” it’s “when.”  Schweitzer could drag out making an announcement in order to prevent others from jumping in the race and raising money.  Also, by taking his time to announce, Schweitzer stays in the spot light so that when he does announce the volunteers and checks are sure to pour through the door and into the P.O. Box.

It would be surprising to see the former Governor announce before early summer, but we are no strangers to being surprised by Brian.

The post It’s Not “Will,” It’s “When” appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

I’m trying to imagine this situation on a college campus – a similar situation, but if that particular student (or teacher) had a concealed weapon. He may have kept it concealed in the case of an emergency situation like a campus shooter, but that would leave him in a bad situation if he actually was confronted with a shooter whose gun was already drawn. Upon being frisked by police, then, such a student would have to be disarmed and temporarily apprehended (lest he be in fact a perpetrator who had merely put his gun away). No benefit gained from the concealed weapon, and more precious time lost by the officers in charge of ending the crisis.

Imagine, though, that our hypothetical concealed carrier had in fact drawn his weapon, hoping to defend himself. That person, when suddenly confronted with police coming around the corner, is suddenly in a very dangerous position. The fight-or-flight instinct, to either attempt to escape the situation or prepare to confront a potential enemy, is exceedingly strong, and if our concealed carrier acted on instinct before listening to police instructions, tragedy is likely, especially with a police force expecting to come across a dangerous shooter who needs to be neutralized.

This danger exists even (especially?) in false-alarm situations, which are thankfully more numerous than actual crises. Therefore, any potential benefit in case of an actual shooting of extending concealed weapon rights to campuses (or bars, for that matter) seems far more dangerous than it’s worth, and we ought to congratulate Steve Bullock for his wisdom in vetoing this bill.

From this Metafilter thread, mostly about the Grandaddy of Using Conspiracy for Profit, there is a link to a righteous rant by the blogger MightyGodKing.  He, like myself, has lost all patience with the false-flagger conspiracy loons who blame all criminal malfeasance on subtle and unknowable government evil.  He points out what I have as well many times, and quite frankly does it much better than I ever have.  The 'Conspiracy Theorists' who scream "False Flag" over any and all tragic events are trying desperately to have an important place in the consequences of the horror.  MGK writes:

"because yelling “false flag” doesn’t really have anything to do with the plausibility of a conspiracy theory, but instead relies on the desperate need of people – and, let’s be honest, generally white dudes, because it is white dudes who comprise the overwhelming majority of conspiracy theorists – to feel victimized when something bad had absolutely nothing to do with them."

That is the long and short of it.  The point of engaging conspiracies has nothing to do with engagement at all.  It is appropriating pain for personal self-importance.  Frankly it is no different than the companies widely reviled who use tragic events to market their products.  That's not engagement, but rather manipulation and as MGK notes, it's awfully assholish.

"falseflaggers don’t care because their theories aren’t about logic or reason or anything at all. Their theories are about making tragedies that happen to other people about them. It’s a fundamentally narcissistic response to tragedy – to not only ask “how does this affect me” but to twist the facts of the event to create a narrative so that you are more likely to be affected. It’s an asshole move, plain and simple, and falseflaggers deserve to be treated like assholes, because they’re assholes."

One of the most profound comments to the post is this, from The Unstoppable Gravy Express:

Embattled TEA Party figure Tim Ravndal, who made headlines for his remarks that implied support for violence against gays, is floating a slate of candidates for GOP Chair and Vice Chair. Gary Carlson has already announced and put out a flyer listing his qualifications. Jennifer Fielder, a TEA Party legislator from Noxon with ties to the militia movement, is the second name.

In the past, the GOP has tried to give token support to the hard right wing of the party without actually letting them take full control. However, the battle we saw in the Montana legislature between the hard right leadership of Wittich, Priest, and Essmann and the more traditional GOP-ers is also likely to play out here.

Cassidy Medicine Horse is a Pride Foundation supporter and founder of TransMSU, a new group at Montana State University in Bozeman.
**Photo courtesy of the Bozeman Chronicle

By Caitlin Copple

Being trans can be a challenge anywhere, but it’s especially tough in Montana, as there are no statewide nondiscrimination protections for gender identity, including at Montana State University. A coalition of student organizations is working to change this, including TransMSU (TMSU) a support group for transgender MSU students.

Founded by graduate student Cassidy Medicine Horse, the group came into being after Medicine Horse was invited to talk about barriers to the community to the MSU student senate.

Despite Bozeman’s reputation for being a fairly liberal college town, Cassidy explains that prejudices exist when it comes to bathrooms, showers, dorms, and health care providers. Even though the school is receptive to hormone therapy coverage, it’s common for insurance carriers to exclude it from their prescription formulary. Cassidy adds that, to her knowledge, there are only three therapists and as many doctors in the Bozeman area who treat trans individuals.

Navigating these barriers while also going through a major life and identity transition was extremely difficult for Medicine Horse, and she started TransMSU to ensure other transitioning would have a built-in support network.

“Transitioning can be, at the very least, a lonely time,” she says. “Sometimes it can be filled with self-recrimination, self-loathing, anger, and great loss of family and friends.”

Beyond support, Medicine Horse hopes the group will provide a place for trans advocacy and increased visibility of the community, as they have with the efforts to add gender identity and expression to the Montana University System bylaws.

“What I am truly hoping for is that trans as a paradigm of the ‘other’ will cease to exist,” she says. “Sometimes I joke, half-heartedly, that I don’t want people just to come out of the closet. I want them to burn the closet down. The fact that a person is transgendered or transsexual should be about as interesting as whether you had mustard on your last sandwich. To be transgendered is not about sex. It is not about being homosexual or straight. It is about identity.”

Until then, she and TransMSU are partnering with the Montana Human Rights Network, a longtime Pride Foundation grantee, to work for equal protections for all Bozeman residents.

“Cassidy’s work to establish TMSU is essential to helping fill a gap as LGBTQ policy work moves forward in Bozeman,” said Jamee Greer, LGBT organizer for the Montana Human Rights Network. “It shows trans Bozemanites that they belong here, and also helps educate cisgender* folks around why trans inclusion matters.”

“Bozeman is a great little town with great folks,” adds Medicine Horse. “It’s time that we stand next to Missoula and Helena and give an additional voice to the concept of equality.”

When asked how people can be better allies to trans people, she shared:

1. Learn the correct use of pronouns. If you don’t know, ask respectfully about pronoun preference.
2. Don’t out us, and don’t use “bio” or “real” when referring to trans folks. If you need to designate, use “cis” or, better yet, how about referring to us just as a “person.”
3. Do not ask me what my “real” name is or whether I have had had the surgery. It is, frankly, no one else’s business.
4. Don’t automatically identify trans people as homosexual. Again, it’s not your concern and has nothing to do with being transgendered. Recognize that not all people fit into a nice little binary world of gender identification.
5. Speak out when you hear pejorative remarks about trans people.

Currently, TMSU has 23 members, and the group welcomes trans, MtF, FtM, intersex, questioning, students, faculty, local residents, spouses, and supporters. The group meets weekly on Monday nights on the MSU campus from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

*A cisgender person is someone who identifies as the gender/sex they were assigned at birth.  The colloquial use of cisgender suggests that it is the opposite of transgender.

Caitlin Copple is Pride Foundation’s Regional Development Organizer in Montana.

Related articles

• Top 50 Myths About Being Transgender  (kchapmangibbons.wordpress.com)
• Twenty-One questions on trans issues answered (cnlester.wordpress.com)
• Queer vocabulary (thehindu.com)
• Chile Transgender Man Becomes Nation’s First To Give Birth: Report (huffingtonpost.com)

Dear Supporters, As many of you know, Pride Foundation’s Montana Organizer, Caitlin Copple has recently accepted a role at the national nonprofit Women’s Voices for the Earth to be a part-time communications contractor. Women’s Voices for the Earth is a national nonprofit organization that works to eliminate toxic chemicals that harm women’s health by changing consumer behaviors, corporate practices, and government policies. Caitlin was with Pride Foundation for over two years and was an inaugural member of our regional team that expanded our staffing impact and structure across our 5-state region. All along the way, and for years before, Caitlin has served as a proud champion and activist in our LGBTQ movement in Montana, and we are sad to see her go. Yet, we are aware of the incredible network and foundation she built with your help and excited for the opportunities ahead both for her and Pride Foundation’s work on justice issues around the Northwest. With Caitlin’s departure, Pride Foundation is conducting a competitive regional search for the Regional Development Organizer (RDO) in Montana. And we’d like to ask for your help in this process. Pride Foundation is a donor-supported community foundation that inspires a culture of generosity by connecting and strengthening organizations, leaders, and students who are advancing equality for LGBTQ people and their families in the Northwest. The Regional Development Organizer in Montana will provide strategic vision and leadership for Pride Foundation’s programmatic efforts throughout Montana. This person will also oversee all aspects of grants and scholarships across the state including scholar and grantee recruitment, review processes, and on-going support. Additionally, the new RDO will have the unique opportunity to serve in collaboration with other statewide LGBTQ and allied organizations to continue to move equality forward in cities across the Treasure State. Finally, the new RDO will work closely with Pride Foundation’s Community Giving and Communications teams to ensure best practices in fund raising, donor stewardship, storytelling, and community support. The ideal candidate would bring a creative and thoughtful approach to program support while maintaining an appreciation of Pride Foundation’s history, legacy, and commitment to social justice philanthropy. Pride Foundation has a $3 million operating budget with 16 full-time employees and several student interns. It is governed by a Board of Directors with 23 members from across the 5-state region with diverse professional, cultural, and personal backgrounds. This position reports to the Director of Regional Operations and Leadership.  Please see the full position description and share the opportunity with your networks of friends and colleagues. Best, Amy White Director of Regional Operations and Leadership

Related articles

• Join Pride Foundation Scholars At Special Reception (dgsmith.org)
• You’re Invited (dgsmith.org)

A newly launched website further demonstrates how worried Republicans are about the U.S. Senate race in Montana.  “Draft Marc Racicot” provides visitors with bio of Montana’s disgraced ex-Governor (*cough* deregulation *cough*), allows supporters to sign-up for updates, and sports a poorly designed blog.  They also have an awesome Twitter account.

Their first (and only) post was published on May 3rd and doesn’t pull any punches:

If you are a Republican in Montana, don’t be delusional. Here are a some realities you better get through your head:

1. There is no way Steve Daines will give up his House seat to risk losing to Brian Schweitzer.
2. Denny Rehberg’s lobby gig is too good to give up to run against Schweitzer.
3. Champ Edmunds is a great guy, but he obviously can’t win. And he knows it too.
4. Corey Stapleton is a sore loser and a weak candidate.
5. With Brad Johnson’s name ID, the only thing he’d have to do is put his name on the ballot and he could beat the announced candidates in the Republican primary. Weak field!

My point: Marc Racicot is the Republicans only hope for winning the open US Senate seat in Montana.

If you don’t agree, then lay off the 420 and get the hell out of Montana politics.

Two things are clear: the Republican short list for U.S. Senate is weak and a GOP primary could be pretty nasty.

The post Republicans Desperate To Draft Racicot appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

Some of the Republican bills Governor Bullock vetoed include a one-time, money sucking income tax cut; legislation aimed at gutting public schools’ silencers on guns while hunting; a bill to create more government to study government efficiency; and guns on campus.

These vetoes show just how nutty the Republican controlled legislature is and just how important it is to have a Democrat in the Governor’s office.

The post Bullock Vetoes 71 Bills appeared first on Montana Street Fighter.

McKenna added the following language to Missouri Senate Bill 437:

“Any person living in this state aged eight and under may wear seersucker suits at their leisure. Any person over the age of eight living in this state may not wear seersucker suits because adults look ridiculous in seersucker suits,”

While the Esquire blog in which this item first appeared has its own theory on the proposed ban, I’ll add mine here.  It’s already started to get quite warm in the south, and perhaps by banning comfortable clothing Sen. McKenna was hoping to get the GOP-controlled body out of town earlier before more damage could be done.  The 2013 session of the Missouri legislative assembly is scheduled to end May 17.

Jeremy Peters writes:

Twenty Democratic-held seats are up in 2014, compared with 13 held by Republicans. And many of those Democratic seats are in states where President Obama lost in 2012 — including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas and Alaska.

So far, Republicans have no viable declared candidates in any of those red states yet, though conservatives are urging several strong possible contenders to run, like Representative Tom Cotton in Arkansas. Late Friday, Alaska’s governor, Sean Parnell, said he would not run, as did Representative Steve King of Iowa.

Ouch.

Bowen Greenwood, the head of the Montana GOP, has been hard at work tweeting about his exciting evening at home watching Les Miserables on DVD.

He even has a Hugh Jackman man-crush, describing him this way:

Alas poor Bowen is an outlier, and leads a party that might not share his tastes. Not so long ago, conservatives in America were renaming things like French Toast to “Freedom Toast” for their hatred of despicable France. The Tea Party despises France for many reasons, among them that the nation did not support our invasion of Iraq, and that all French citizens receive medical care. Tea Partiers do not go to see Les Mis, but rather Atlas Shrugged or Transformers 3.

And consider too that most Tea Partiers believe that to own a passport and visit France is to commit treason.

I worry that Bowen could be making himself vulnerable to accusations that he is a European Socialist, especially given that Les Miserable is about a revolution that germinated a socialist state, now hated by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

I wonder if Bowen might have had a little too much Merlot when he sent these tweets.

“I have been overwhelmed by the interest in the Senate race,” Schriock said during an Emily’s List event Thursday. “I will say this, Montana has a great history of electing women. Emily’s List has been involved a long time in Montana and I think, like you, I am waiting to see how this all plays out.”

As Schriock considers a run, her Democratic allies back home say that it’s not Schriock’s role at Emily’s List alone that makes her a good fit to serve Montanans, it is the connection to her home state.

“She’s not just qualified because of her prestigious position; she’s qualified because she knows and cares about Montana,” says Aaron Murphy, a democratic strategist based in Montana. “She knows the politics. The issue is whether she decides to pursue it, and that is up to her.”

A favorite part of the article was Montana GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood trotting out the same tired Republican cliché to attack Schriock:

“There is a reason that Democrats want Brian Schweitzer so bad because a standard East Coast liberal just don’t fly here.”

Aside for the magnificently mangled syntax of Greenwood’s comment, I’d say Montana Republicans should spend less time attacking women who might run for the open Senate seat and more time cultivating female candidates of their own. In addition to Schriock, Democrats have viable female candidates like Denise Juneau and Monica Lindeen who could contend for the seat.

As for the Montana GOP, their best hope for a female candidate might be Judy Martz or one of those twins from the deeply weird Denny Rehberg ads last fall.

I’m certainly sad that she missed earlier pieces like “Barb Rush Attacks Hungry Children on the Way Out” and “Barbara Rush In Her Own Words” but perhaps she’s had the chance to review some of my observations of her one madwoman campaign against the Helena School District.

As for myself, I’m gratified that Ms. Rush has turned her attention from attacking pregnant teenaged girls and hungry children to my direction. I feel I am better positioned to respond.

While I wait for HER NEXT BIG POST, I’ll do some thinking about this claim she made about me in her post:

Isn’t it sad that we can’t count on the teachers of our students to support and defend our Constitution? Don thinks our constitution had slavery written into it!! I wonder if he has ever even read the document.

At least Ms. Rush wasn’t teaching History, I guess.

By the way, Mrs. Rush’s husband is running for the Helena School Board. I wonder if he’d sue himself if he won.

The Montana Family Foundation’s Jeff Laszloffy suffered a slew of losses this session, but perhaps none was felt so bitterly as his failure to get a parental consent legislative referendum on the ballot for 2014. The Family Foundation’s legislative referenda work was the organization’s major cash cow last election cycle.  Since Laszloffy failed to get the measure on the ballot for 2014, the Family Foundation’s ability to impact elections has now evaporated.

Cowgirl readers will recall that Governor Steve Bullock allowed Laszloffy’s unconstitutional bill to become law solely so that the bill can be struck down in Montana’s courts. As John Adams at The Lowdown reports, the move allows women to immediately challenge the measure in court long before an identical referenda passed by the legislature gets to the ballot in 2014.

Sure, Laszloffy knew that the measure was unconstitutional–everyone knew it. But Lazloffy’s purpose in pushing it was electoral, not policy-driven.

You see, last election cycle Laszloffy raised some $300,000–purportedly for the parental notification legislative referenda which was sent to the ballot by the 2011 legislature.    Montana Family Foundation’s Incidental Ballot Committee Reports in 2012 show they were able to raise and spend $320,000 in 2012.

In a typical year, the Family Foundation raises about $20,000 for electoral work.  But because of the LR, LR-120, they were able to raise more than 15 times that amount. You can see the reports below.

$18,000 May 8-May 24

$3,000 May 25-June 18

$2,000 June 19-July 3

$6,000 July 4 -Aug 3 

$29,000 Aug 4-Sept 3

$191,000 spent Sept 15-Oct 15

$3,000 spent Oct 16-Oct 25

$68,000 spent Oct 26-Nov 19

For one thing, this is money that could be used to supplant Family Foundation funds that had been going toward Laszloffy’s salary.  What’s also interesting is that the campaign finance reports for Laszloffy’s ballot committee  shows that some of the money he raised was leveraged to actually help the GOP’s top targeted legislative races–not just the ballot initiative.

Here’s a screenshot from his “incidental ballot committee’s” campaign report.  It reports the expenditure Lazsoffy made for a mailer that was about the ballot measure on one side, and a top tier targeted GOP race on the other.   This means that all of the polling and research Laszloffy did for these mailings was supporting the GOP’s legislative candidates too.

Thanks to Cowgirl tipsters for pointing out these fundraising anomalies. Reader tips are the essence of this blog. Send tips to mntnacowgirl (at) gmail.com

FREE —  3 Days of Training!!!

(1/2 day) HIV/STD/HCV Update, (1/2 day) OraQuick Rapid Test & (2 days) HIV CTRS Training

(Counseling Testing and Referral Services)

June 24-26th, 2013

8am-5pm each day

Big Horn Resort, Billings, MT

Please register by May 14th!!!

~ Chris Broussard, ESPN Commentator.

Bible (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

I do so wish to avoid judging those who judge others.  Thus, I have tried to avoid comment upon the religious right rhetoric about LGBT people.  Yet, it is becoming increasingly clear that statements like the above quote stray from even the most basic of Christian tenets, Jesus’s command that we “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”  John 13:34-35.  Moreover, for a biblical literalist, the above scriptural interpretation  (Not cited, but denominated as biblical by the phrase, “it says.” ) is simply inaccurate.  Finally, one of the most basic rules of journalism is that the media represent all sides of an issue.  And, there is another side to this story.

So, what is gained by my silence? Some great Christian leaders have posited that to be silent in the face of oppression is to join the oppressor.  (E.g., Dr. King, and more recently, Bishop Gene Robinson).  Thus, I gladly risk the criticism that I am being judgmental in favor of speaking out on behalf of the oppressed.  I speak my truth to power.

Now, about Gay Christians.  The term is neither an oxymoron nor disingenuous.  I personally identify as LGBT and Christian.  I believe that Jesus is Lord!   According to scripture, I cannot make such a statement lightly, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (1 Corinthians 12:3).  Moreover, if I say it and believe it than scripture guarantees my salvation.  (Romans 10:9).  Hence, the scriptural formulaic equation for salvation is not exclusive.  I can be Gay and Christian.  And I am not alone in this belief.

There are a whole host or Christian organizations, many of which we see on Face Book every day, dedicated to the same proposition. We are in the minority now, but I believe that as we continue to change the world that all of Christendom will likewise evolve.  One such group is called Fortunate Families, a national organization of Catholic parents with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender children, with a passion for social justice advocacy and a focus on the Catholic Church and LGBT issues.  In my present church affiliation, Methodist, we have the Reconciling Ministries Network whose purpose is to mobilize United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love.  The Episcopal church has an organization called Integrity, whose mission it is to inspire and equip the Episcopal Church, its dioceses, congregations, and members to proclaim and embody God’s all-inclusive love for LGBTQ persons and those who love them.  Perhaps you know of others.

When it comes to scripture, I am merely a “jack-theologian,” so-to-speak.  While I have a minor in religious studies, I certainly do not have any sort of divinity degree.  However, I have at least read the passages to which I refer.  I understand that they have been through multiple translations over the millennia, and were written in a vastly different culture with a vastly inferior world view, knowledge and technology, and that they were gathered into what we now know as the Bible by church fathers in the Third Century.  (Even a cursory search reveals that the origins of the Bible is a complicated story rife with dissension and debate).  Scripture did not even have line and verse until the 16^th century.  (The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne).  People believed over the entire 4,000 or so years that the various books of the Bible were written that the world was flat and the heavens (and God) resided a few hundred feet above them.  Science now informs our world view to cast aside such notions, as well as the notion that the Biblical genealogy found in Genesis denotes the age of the world.

Against that backdrop, we have the self-righteous and inflammatory conclusions above.  They can be summarized as follows: The bible says that homosexuality is a sin in open rebellion to God and Jesus.  In claiming to be LGBT and Christian I must, as Gene Robinson says, “unabashedly” assert that this statement is false! None of the Gospels attribute to Jesus as ever uttering a single word about homosexuality, much less the word itself, or that he would accord it to himself as “open rebellion.”  No such word existed in Hebrew or Greek, the two main languages in which the books of the bible were written.  The word “homosexual” is not in the Bible, except in oblique translations of the six or so references to men “lying” with men in the Hebrew text and Paul’s letters, the most notorious of which is found in Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”  (Evidently, the only reason one lies with a female is to have sex.  But is it okay if I lie with a woman until I need glasses?  Sorry, I digress (impishly laughing to self with tongue firmly in cheek)).

The Hebrew term, shiqquwts is translated as “abomination” by almost all translations of the Bible. The similar words, sheqets, and shâqats, are almost exclusively used for dietary violations.  Toeba, is also translated as abomination in some texts. Many modern versions of the Bible translate it as  “detestable”or “loathsome.”  I hear one Rabbi refer to it as “yicky.”  Biblical literalists interpret this to mean that same-sex sexual activity is an abomination and therefore inherently sinful.  (Note, however, that it is not one of the Ten Commandments).

However,please consider that a word or phrase which has been translated through multiple languages over centuries and the subject of great debate and disagreement among the worlds great scholars and theologians, inherently, cannot credibly be taken as a modern-day literal truth.  Moreover, this supposed proscription was part of what is called the ancient Hebrew Holiness Code which highly regulated the everyday lives of ancient Hebrew men, from what they were to wear to what they were to eat.  Violations of these rules were also called abominations.  The code referred to how they were to treat one another too.  Later prophets make this clear.  In a little referred to scripture, Ezekiel says at  16:49-50: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.”  Clearly, Sodom’s lack of hospitality is the abomination.

Yet, there is no mention of the word, “homosexual,” again defying the literalists.  They cannot rely on the literal words of scripture to reach the result they want, but must interpret the meaning of the words used through their various translations over time in spite of  later clarification within the Bible’s own pages.  Now I wonder how to characterize the above quotation from the ESPN announcer.  Is it hospitable, or detestable and loathsome?  Is it an abomination?  What would Ezekiel say?

Related articles

• At INTERCHANGE: “Scripture and Science and Sex, OH MY!” (dgsmith.org)
• Proud Christian, Proud Supporter of Marriage Equality by Elizabeth Carwyn (sexatbaylor.wordpress.com)
• What Does God Think About Tattoos? (multiplyministries.wordpress.com)

Update:  Just because I think she's a lying witch, I really have to ask:  Jhwygirl 'claims' that no blogger at 4 and Ego is "paid" to blog, yet other bloggers around the state are.  How does she know?  More to the point, how does any reader know that no blogger at that website isn't blogging on the state dime, yet supposedly obvious others are?  Others blog using 'inside knowledge' of state function obviously only acquirable from someone who garners government pay, yet strangely the 4 & 20 folk just pull what they know from the ether.  So obviously one website is "paid" and the other isn't.  Curious, don't you think?

The Ad Hominems have taken control of the Montana web'o'sphere, and I guarantee you right now, that the worst offenders are the ones who cry most foul that I point this out.

The only reason I see him not running is that there is some element of risk that could threaten future aspirations for higher office. While he’d certain be the favorite to win a race against any of the Republican candidates, elections are anything but certainties—and a loss to the likes of Denny Rehberg or Steve Daines would cut short any Presidential aspirations Schweitzer might hold.

More about Governor Schweitzer in a future post, but he holds the key to understanding the Republican field.

The Republicans

1. Steve Daines is certainly the strongest candidate Republicans have to offer in this race, but it’s hard to see him taking the risk of a bruising campaign for the Senate after less than a single term in the House. Rick Berg from North Dakota just offered an instructive example for Daines to consider—and Berg wasn’t facing a candidate like Schweitzer.

Daines was able to win his 2012 House race for a few reasons: he was able to say absolutely nothing substantive during the race, faced view critical questions from the media, and his opponent wasn’t able to make much headway given all the attention focused on the race for Governor and Senate. None of these things will be true in 2014.

Still, in recent polling Daines looks competitive against Schweitzer and he has done a lot of working spreading money around to other Republicans in the state, building a network for a run.

Prognosis: Daines will certainly run for Senate if Schweitzer does not (even if Rehberg wants the seat), and will certainly stay out if Schweitzer runs.

2. Denny Rehberg has apparently decided that “family time” might not be the most important thing in his life and is weighing his options for another run.

Prognosis: Much as I would love to see Rehberg defeated by Senator Baucus, Senator Tester, and future Senator Schweitzer during his career, I think Rehberg sits this one out and goes back to his first love, lobbying. He’s never been actually all that interested in the work of government anyway, and would probably prefer to make some more money using his connections in Washington. My guess? We’ll see Rehberg again—in four or eight years—making a bid for Governor, the job I suspect he’s wanted all along.

3. Marc Racicot is something of a white whale for Montana Republicans, who have imagined in successive major elections that the former governor will return to Montana politics, be swarmed by adoring Montanans, and be swept into office. I’ve just never understood this narrative, as Racicot has some serious baggage like utility deregulation on his record and was never actually all that popular. He barely edged Dorothy Bradley in his first election, and his re-election hardly proved his massive support.

The last time major political acts Montanans know Racicot for are a) helping elect Judy Martz governor and b) helping George Bush steal Florida in 2000. Fourteen years is an eternity in politics.

His career as a lobbyist and bag man for the Bush campaign probably wouldn’t hurt him in a Republican primary, but would be deadly in a general election campaign. I also suspect that the modern version of the Republican Party might find some of Racicot’s positions too progressive, as hard as that is to imagine.

Prognosis: No chance that Racicot runs for this seat, or any other elective office in Montana again.

4. Corey Stapleton really wants to be elected to something, but his weak second place finish against Rick Hill in 2012 suggests a candidate without broad support. He’s got a real messaging problem, as he’s trying to simultaneously position himself as a Main Street conservative and TEA Party radical. In the 2012 primary, that got him flanked on both sides.

One note for the Stapleton campaign: enforcement of federal campaign finance violations is a bit more muscular than enforcement here in Montana. Just sayin’.

Prognosis: If the top tier of Daines, Rehberg, and Racicot sit this one out, Stapleton is likely the Republican nominee, continuing the streak of weak GOP candidates for this Senate seat. I also suspect that Stapleton will jump ship for the House race if Daines enters the contest.

5. Champ Edmunds might run for the Senate seat, but there is no chance he will become the Republican nominee. Edmunds is seeking to position himself as the true conservative in the race, but he lacks the kind of institutional support, name recognition, or legislative achievements to make a real bid. The fact that he still hasn’t announced any fundraising numbers, despite being the first candidate out of the gate, says a great deal about his prospects.

Prognosis: Edmunds has said that he will run for the House seat if Steve Daines makes a bid for the Senate, but he has no more chance to win that race than he does the Senate seat. Representative Edmunds will certainly be crying over spilt raw milk in June of 2014.

6. A woman seems unlikely to become the Republican nominee, as none are even mentioned as possible candidates. The contrast here with the names being thrown around for consideration on the Democratic side is striking.

7. Wild Cards: I was convinced that Neil Livingstone’s crazed bid for the governor in 2012 was an attempt to introduce himself for a run against Baucus in 2014. I’d say both Livingstone and Ryan Zinke are potential candidates, but only if Daines and Schweitzer are not in the field. I’ve heard Tim Fox’s name get mentioned, but given his aggressive campaigning style as Attorney General and the path Racicot and Bullock have laid down, my guess is Fox is looking to move to a new office in the Montana capitol, not run for D.C.

My initial response is "No".  Given the appeal of Facilebook and the Twahters, there isn't much reason for people to blog anymore.  The larger political bases are covered, the sentimental self-indulgence has moved to Facebook, and the need to be needed has fostered Twitter.  So, from a purely user-need orientation, there is no point to blogging, for any of us.

From a reader-need perspective, there is little to be offered.  There is no safe place.  Every website is rife with trolls.  Concern trolls like Craig Moore, and Belief beggars like Tokarski.  Every website seems in intellectual competition with others.  The holy writ of 4 & 20 cannot be denied by anyone, and Intelligent Discontent is just pablum for the masses.  Dog forbid anybody should read Left in The West.  It isn't fashionable.  Montana Cowgirl is beneath notice, except maybe to EVERYONE,  and Montana Streetfighter can't be bothered to actually engage with any other blog with a link (or check their moderation queue, apparently.)   Then there are the flood control experts, mostly interested in releasing the Damn/Dam, commenters like Larry Kralj.  There is little point to actually reading blogs anymore.  And from a personal perspective, there's damn little point in writing them.

Still, I spent the afternoon looking for newer Montana blogs to support.  Yes I found a few and think it pointless to offer support.  Blogging probably is dead.  Over the next week, I will be archiving most of what I've written here, and then I will likely leave the Internet as 'we know it'.  After all, I pay for my website, like so very few others.  'Kinda like to have the money back.  I would love to help the newest Montana voices, but they seem to not want it, or my voice would simply feed the ego of those who have no choice but to follow theirs.  Don't get me wrong.  If this website doesn't go away, it will be because of my passion and love for posting about football.  You have no say in it, one way or the other.  (That was posted for concern troll, Craig.  And, yes, Tokarski, your comments will still end up in the spam folder.)

I want to use my free speech rights to give grades to the Montana online.  Here it is.

Treasure state politics:  D-  Nut up, you immature assholes.  You don't allow comments.  You don't allow dissenting voice.  You don't allow anything that establishes your credibility.  You kinda suck.

4 & 20:  Jay, you started this website and it was one of the best.  Turning it over to egos like Lizard?  Bad move.  No matter how many precious kudos this site gets from the Missoula community, it is still just a an inbred horrorshow.  Lizard doesn't seem to care at all about Montana or Montanans.   JC doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself.  Jhwygirl has fled, mores the pity.    Pete is still engaged, and that's the only reason this website deserves  a C.

Montana Streetfighter:  F.  What a hollow use for bandwidth.  You 'break news' that you can't and won't confirm.  You are a rumor mill, nothing more.  Half the comments you get likely come from you, yourself.  Yours is not a website.  It's a propaganda rag of pixels.  You don't engage with anybody in Montana; you don't seem to care about Montana at all.  You really suck.

Montana Cowgirl:  B +.  Despite the spite spewed your way, you do seem to break news important to us all.  I don't care whether it's Cowgirl, Cowgirls, or any random person.  You make news, and this is not a bad thing.

Should anybody wonder I would only give my website a B-.  I know my football, and that is my passion.  If you don't like the grades I've given, too bad.  Argue with me if you can.  I allow comments.  But wouldn't you efforts be better spent supporting the newest Montana websites?  We need new blood.  Go for that.

Because federal wildfire management has caused changes in the quality, quantity and timing of streamflows in Montana, and because “federal policies threaten natural ecosystem processes and habitat, resulting in large burned-over areas that are susceptible to invasive plant species and changes in stream flow and water quality that affect native fish populations”.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:

     That the Governor and the Attorney General are urged to initiate legal action against the federal government to recover damages to Montana water users caused by federal land management policies, as well as wildfire suppression policies in headwater areas.

Yep, that’s right. Because the climate is warming, there are more and larger wildfires, stream runoff now occurs earlier in the spring with less water in the summer and fall, waters are warmer and the quality of the water is diminished, it must be due to the actions of Federal management policies. I don’t suppose it could be that all these things could have a common cause, like, maybe what rational people call global warming or climate change? Oh, what was I thinking. All natural processes have changed since we elected a Muslim President. It probably has something to do with Obama’s drone policy, or a screw-up in Benghazi. None of these things would be happening if we had a real one-percenter in the Whitehouse.

These guys could be done with their work and out of town in two weeks if they didn’t waste so much of their time and my tax money arguing about insane bills like paying your parking tickets with forty lashes from a cat o’ nine tails, allowing juries to make law, stopping reasonable irrigation management, nullifying federal laws, giving voting rights to embryos, etc., etc.  Take a look at the vote tally on this bill if you want to see just who the really crazy people are in the Montana House.

I especially liked her calling out Jerry O’Neil on his “Jury Nullification Act” (HB 290) and the “self-proclaimed constitutionalists” who don’t really have a clue about how the court system or the Constitution works. “The people who voted yes for this [HB290] maybe should not be getting their jobs back next time.” The vote for HB 290 “very clearly shows who is crazy and who is a fairly reasonable human being.” I LOVE this lady!

You can catch more on her YouTube channel and also her Facebook page. You owe it to yourself and to Montana to watch and learn about what really happens in the legislature.

Be it resolved: 

     That the 63rd Legislature:

     (1) recognizes that anthropogenic or human-made climate change is scientifically valid and represents scientific fact;

     (2) understands that anthropogenic climate change, manifesting as major changes in weather patterns in North America, including Montana, has the potential to cause major socioeconomic and demographic dislocations in Montana that can be construed as an ecological threat;

     (3) compels state government and its affiliated agencies, with due consideration of Montana’s economic heritage and preservation of employment traditions, to employ, invent, and apply new technologies commensurate with the conservation of resources in a manner that mitigates and adapts to climate change to the best of our ability; and

     (4) suggests that educators include anthropogenic climate change science in their science education curricula.

This legislation goes to a hearing at the Montana House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday (2/13). Let’s support this bill. Yes, it’s a feel-good, do-nothing bill that likely won’t go anywhere, but let’s face it, real science doesn’t make it to the Legislature very often. I think we can send a message to climate deniers and cranks in the legislature and around the state that there are a lot of folks out here living in a reality-based world and we are pretty sick of listening to the crap that substitutes for fact among our elected representatives.

Climate change is real, climate change is happening, and it’s affecting Montana. Stand up and say so for God’s sake! If you have a local House member on the Natural Resources Committee, send them a quick email and let them know that you support real science. Using the Legislature’s Contact Page, it’s simple. If none of your local legislators are on the committee, just whip off a missive to the entire committee and tell them that this bill needs to make it to the floor for a vote putting every legislator on the record.

“We must stop being the stupid party,”

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:

NEW SECTION.  Section 1.  Corporal punishment in lieu of incarceration. (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a person convicted of any offense by a court in this state, whether a misdemeanor or felony, may during a sentencing hearing as provided in 46-18-115 bargain with the court for the imposition of corporal punishment in lieu of or to reduce the term of any sentence of incarceration available to the court for imposition.

(2) The court and the person convicted of an offense shall negotiate the exact nature of the corporal punishment to be imposed, which must be commensurate with the severity, nature, and degree of the harm caused by the offender. If the court and the offender cannot agree on the exact nature of the corporal punishment to be imposed, the court shall impose a sentence as provided in 46-18-201.

(3) The imposition of a sentence under this section must be carried out by the sheriff of the county in which the crime occurred if the sentence for corporal punishment reduced or eliminated the term of incarceration in the county jail or by the department of corrections if the sentence reduced or eliminated the term of incarceration in the state prison. Any imposition of sentence pursuant to this section must be carried out within a reasonable time.

(4) For purposes of this section, “corporal punishment” means the infliction of physical pain on a defendant to carry out the sentence negotiated between the judge and the defendant.

Representative O’neil began taking heat even before the legislature convened for his demand that the state pay him in gold coin, because the U.S. Treasury is controlled by a Muslin extremist who will destroy the value of paper money. He has also introduced a resolution to force the U.S. to modify the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution because he has found “the current allotment of power to the United States Congress that allows the Congress to regulate intrastate commerce to be overly broad and overreaching.”

On the moderate side, his new bill actually does actually allow defendants to “negotiate” for the severity of their punishment and even though the last incident of lawful corporal punishment in the U.S. occurred in 1952, it’s not like spanking as punishment is unheard of;

Corporal punishment remains a common form of criminal punishment in several countries including Singapore, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria. For example, media reported on Monday that the Iranian state amputated the fingers on the right hand of a convicted thief. Corporal punishment remains on the books in several other countries including Barbados, Botswana, Brunei, Swaziland, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe.

I’m not sure if amputation as punishment is covered in Mr. O’neil’s bill.

Now, Verdell has bewilderingly taken offense with the Reserved Water Rights Compact between the Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the State of Montana. For a dozen years, the CSKT, the State of Montana and Federal regulators have been working on an agreement to protect the rights of existing water rights holders and address water rights and adjudication on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Since 1996, water rights on the reservation have been tied up due to uncertainties in the existing law. Since that time, there has been no legal way to obtain water rights inside reservation boundaries. Through a series of grueling negotiations over many years, the Compact Commission has worked out a provisional agreement that is fair to all parties. At the last minute, Verdell wants to step in and extend the argument for several more years for no perceptible reason.

In an op-ed in the Kalispell Daily Inter Lake on Jan. 20, Jackson makes several claims that are based entirely on fiction.

To put it simply, this compact will likely make it impossible to obtain any new surface water rights and will restrict wells located close to surface water in Western Montana along with limiting many existing water rights of irrigators. New home sites and large building projects may not get a viable amount of water.

Put simply, this entire claim is bunk. The compact does not affect any water rights claims in Western Montana outside the boundaries of the Flathead Reservation. The Compact does not restrict anybody’s wells or surface water rights off the Reservation. On the Flathead Reservation, the Compact would establish a Water Management Board to administer water rights on the Reservation and end the roadblock for new claims that has existed since 1996. The claim that new building projects may not be able to get a “viable amount of water” is just flat-out wrong. In fact, the Compact provides more local control and avoids costly litigation. The Compact provides for additional water from Hungry Horse Reservoir that would be available to the Tribes to lease for future development both on and off the Reservation.

Jackson also claims that the Compact will “give senior water rights to all of Western Montana’s major lakes and rivers to the tribes.” Again, this is complete and utter hokum invented by the Senator. As part of the agreement, the Tribes get a shared interest in a few in-stream flow water rights in Western Montana that already exist and are currently administered by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The agreement establishes NO new surface water rights either on or off the Reservation.

Senator Jackson either doesn’t understand current law, or is trying to be willfully ignorant. Under current law, established by the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 and upheld by numerous courts, the Tribes hold water rights on nearly every stream in Western Montana. They have rarely exercised these rights because of the litigation it would entail, but the courts have consistently recognized that the rights exist. Under this compact, the Tribes are giving up nearly all of those existing rights off of the Reservation in exchange for a more stable system of water rights both for them and for the residents of Montana both on and off of the Reservation.

I’m not sure what agenda Senator Jackson thinks will be furthered by delaying or corrupting this good agreement. I can only speculate that since Jackson has been tied to ultra-right-wing groups like American Tradition Partnership and the American Legislative Exchange Council and likes to push knee-jerk crackpot bills like allowing legislators to carry guns in the Capitol, there is a game plan here that hasn’t yet come to light. The only constituency for this change this late is the game would be trial lawyers who would greatly profit from the resulting flurry of litigation while water-rights holders and water users in Western Montana would take it in the shorts and Montana taxpayers, once again, pony up to foot the bill for another of Verdell’s cockeyed schemes.

“We’d like a modest, workmanlike session that’s focused on the things important to Montanans,” Senate President Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, said. “We’d like to see bills that move the needle for our economy.”

That’s what we want to hear. Now we can get our economy back on track and solve the important problems. Not like the last legislature that spent its valuable time, and our tax money, working on stuff like;

• Allowing legislators to carry guns in the capital.
• Creating an 11 person panel with authority to nullify all federal laws.
• Removing Barack Obama’s name from the 2012, ballot because his father was born outside of America.
• Making it legal to hunt with spears and stones.
• Requiring the federal government to prove in court that the National Parks were lawfully acquired.

Already this year we have important and sensible bills like:

• Ending same-day voter registration. (HB30)
• Opening the medical records of pregnant women to the courts. (HB104)
• Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to nullify federal firearms laws.
• Paying lawmakers in gold, silver, monopoly money or coal.

Now we learn from emails among the leadership, their primary interest lies in “Agenda Control” whatever the Hell that is. In comments exchanged between Jeff Essmann, Senate Majority Leader Art Wittich of Bozeman, Sen. Jason Priest of Red Lodge, Majority Whip Eric Moore of Miles City, Sen. Ed Walker of Billings and Sen. Dave Lewis of Helena we find an extremely paranoid Essmann saying in September;

“How do we show progress on advancing the conservative policies so that we can engage in the long game strategy that involves changing the face of the Montana Supreme Court so that it does not find a constitutional block to every conservative policy initiative and will give us a better shot a redistricting in 10 years?

“But what do we do now? Is it better to force the moderates to be transparent in the cooperation with the Dems to block our objectives, so that we can use that to raise money and win primaries, or is it better to negotiate a deal (subject to be broken) to advance conservative policies?”

How do we keep those sleazy moderate Republicans from working for compromise and undermining the agenda of the minority? Art Wittich replies; “No, I do not trust them.”

“The session is a biennial docu drama. Let’s make it a good show, from day 1. We want the people watching to know there is a legitimate battle of ideas in the country and state, and at least some of us “get it”. That will help with the logistics, and frankly recruiting reinforcements. . . Appeasement is not the answer. . . We must help the purge along. Hopefully, a new phoenix will rise from the ashes.”

They seem to be at war with people in their own party with whom they disagree. Ah, compromise. The basis of all civil government. And  “docu drama”, and purging everybody who doesn’t agree with you. There is quite a bit of just “inside baseball” in these emails. They show some of the planning and strategy that occurs each time the Legislature meets. Mostly they just show neurotic people who are more interested in how the game is played than in what the result may be. No matter how much we hear from Teabirther legislators who control how we spend our money, about compromise and moving forward the “needle of our economy”, the important thing to these folks is winning the rhetorical game and furthering the far-right agenda no matter the effect on the state of Montana.

In reaction to release of the emails, former Senate president Jim Peterson said,

“I think the politics of power is trumping good policy,” “If you can’t have good debate and then vote and then move on, if politics continues to be the driving force of the Legislature, then it’s going to be hard to do what the Montana voters want us to do.”

You can expect that this session will be different. You can hope that legislators will finally be less combative, work together and honestly try to solve the problems of the Treasure State but, if it turns out otherwise, you shouldn’t be too surprised or disappointed.