by Helena Lovick | Sep 4, 2024 | Abortions Rights
On the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, women took the stage to share their devastating experiences of abortion access in America.
Hadley Duvall, a 22-year-old who became pregnant as a child after she was raped by her stepfather, has called for exceptions to Kentucky’s abortion ban for sexual assault survivors.
“At age 12, I took my first pregnancy test, and it was positive,” Duvall told the DNC crowd. “That was the first time I was ever told, ‘You have options.’ I can’t imagine not having a choice, but today, that’s the reality for many women and girls across the country because of Donald Trump’s abortion bans.”
Kaitlyn Joshua spoke about being denied miscarriage treatment when she was pregnant with her second child. “Two emergency rooms sent me away. Because of Louisiana’s abortion ban, no one would confirm that I was miscarrying,” she said.
Appearing alongside her husband, Zurawski said delayed pregnancy care threatened her life. “Every time I share our story, my heart breaks for the baby girl we wanted so desperately, for the doctors and nurses who couldn’t help me deliver safely, for Josh who feared he’d lose me too,” she said.
This is post-Roe America.
How are we doing in Montana?
In Montana, abortion access remains legal. But our GOP majority legislature is filled with extremists that work hand in hand with our Republican Governor. These anti-abortion creeps want to control women so badly. The Montana GOP has repeatedly put the squeeze on our rights with invasive anti-choice bill after bill. As we mentioned in an earlier blog post, our excellent State Constitution and impartial State Supreme Court continue to work in our favor. Even though it costs Montana taxpayers ridiculous sums of money to defend the unconstitutional bills passed by the legislature, for now Montana courts continue to impartially and fairly interpret our State Constitution and throw out these unconstitutional laws (see here and here).
But what if our court is overtaken by right-wing wing extremists?
Dark money groups and our right-wing right wing extremist legislators are working tirelessly to undermine and infiltrate our court with justices that will approve their unconstitutional laws. In reality, we are one bad election away from losing our rights.
Vote Yes on CI-128 to Protect Our Rights
The risk to our rights based on a bad election cycle is why I support CI-128. This constitutional initiative would amend our State Constitution to preserve Montanans rights to abortion care. You can see the ballot language below. As the Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights group supporting and informing citizens about this constitutional initiative have stated “decisions around pregnancy are deeply personal and should be made between us, our families, and our health care providers. Not the government. Voting “Yes” ensures that right.”
by Helena Lovick | Sep 2, 2024 | Elections
Great Falls, Montana
The news is spreading that the City of Great Falls has proposed removal of 7 mills over a 5 year term of city funding from the Great Falls Public Library, resulting in a 27% reduction in the library’s operating budget (approx. $842,800/year). Consequently, the voter approved, newly implemented expanded hours and services will be dramatically reduced.
People are understandably starting to get pissed at this plan to undermine the will of the voters when we just voted to fund our library more. After the Electric posted this accurate news story on the situation (here), our mayor Cory Reeves tried to jump out and derail the growing criticism. Here is the misleading post he put on his Facebook page on September 1st.
How dumb do you think we are Cory?
While the city is considering “to end the city subsidy of 7 mills and redirect those funds back to public safety”…”this does NOT mean we are considering removing or reducing the mills that voters recently passed”. OH FUCKING REALLY? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSHIT? That is effectively taking away funds that the voters just allocated to the library and you fucking know it Cory.
Oh, oh it’s totally separate money and we’re going to take that money from the library but not touch the money for the library the voters just put in place. So fucking what if you don’t take the mills we *just* voted for. If you’re taking library funding from somewhere else, you are still taking library funding when the voters just voted to fund the library more! That’s some mealy-mouthed, misleading dog shit.
How did we get here?
In June 2023, Great Falls voted to pass a library levy to help fund expanded services at our public library. The library levy added about $1.2 million to the library budget and increased the annual tax on $200,000 home by approximately $40.50 (news story here). In November 2023, fewer than 40% of Great Falls voters supported a hefty public safety levy request, which would have raised property taxes on a $200,000 home by $280.11 a year, and increased funding for the city’s fire, law enforcement and municipal court system by $13.7 million annually.
And our City Commission has been freaking out ever since.
Does our City Commission “fully support” our library?
We wrote about the City Commission’s shitty work to install a book banner on the library board back in October 2023. Despite the vast majority of community members speaking against the appointment of Noelle Johnson, the commission proceeded to appoint her anyway. And then, despite another majority of community members requesting the commission appoint a member who actually likes public libraries and wishes them to succeed, the Great Falls City Commission appointed her for an even longer term in June 2024. All this after Noelle Johnson’s presence on the board was characterized as “a disruptive force that complicates board work.” (As reported in the Great Falls Tribune here). So much for the will of the voters.
But what about public safety?
Yes, public safety is very important. We all want our city to have the resources to balance safety and our freedoms.
But the voters rejected the City’s request for so much money for public safety. Maybe if the City repackaged it in smaller bites it would be successful. But this is about our library. Voters voted to help our library. Public safety and our public library funding are two separate issues and the voters spoke on how they want them handled for now. The Great Falls City Commission needs to stop undermining our library and look at other solutions to uphold the will of the voters.
Let your voice be heard!
If you want to do something about the situation, you can contact our City Commission. Let them know as voting city residents. How would you like the commission to approach the dilemma of city funding, while still honoring the will of the people?
by Helena Lovick | Aug 23, 2024 | Abortions Rights, Elections
My eyes about rolled into another dimension when I got the mailer about Jerry Lynch’s and Katherine Bidegaray’s dangerous liberal agenda. Right. If anything, that’s an endorsement based on the dark money groups that fund that nonsense. As noted by an editorial in the Daily Inter Lake, “Montanans for Fair Taxes is funded by out-of-state pharmaceutical companies, tobacco companies, uber-wealthy political extremists and Montana Chamber money. The same is true for another shady group hypocritically called Montanans for Judicial Accountability.”
But I’m sure they have everyday Montanans best interests at heart. (Great, now my eyes hurt from rolling so much).
Several of the current problems with the “Supreme” Court of the United States (SCOTUS) are due to the lifetime appointments of the justices with no real oversight. In Montana, we vote on our State Supreme Court justices which allows our court to be filled with judges accountable to the people. And that’s why dark money groups are so invested in putting their preferred picks on the court.
Why should we care about the makeup of Montana’s Supreme Court?
Welp, do you want reproductive freedom?
Nightmarish stories of American women suffering through a miscarriage and being turned away from emergency rooms have filled the news. Thankfully our State Supreme Court is currently holding back unconstitutional bans of abortion in Montana. Because of Montana’s robust State Constitution and right to privacy, abortion rights continue to be protected in Montana.
Yes! Abortion is still legal in Montana.
Let’s hang strong and keep abortion legal Montana!
Image from NYT
Because Montana continues to offer abortion services, residents of surrounding states have been traveling to our state for necessary healthcare. For example, the number of Idahoans traveling to Montana to receive abortion care has tripled in the last year. Of course, we can’t get complacent and ignore justice elections for our State Supreme Court. We know that established law can be thrown out by partisan judges with a personal agenda. Take a look at the SCOTUS with their bullshit decisions on a range of issues including Roe v. Wade.
Impartial Judges for the Win
Since I want a Montana Supreme Court that continues to function with impartial justices who adhere to the constitution, I will be voting for Jerry Lynch and Katherine Bidegaray. The fact that dark money groups have negative ads against them is just another sign that these two judges will actually be the impartial justices we need to protect our rights.
by Helena Lovick | Jun 18, 2024 | Elections
In 2017, in Las Vegas, a man decided to convert his firearm with a bump stock to allow him to rapidly fire over 1,000 bullets in 11 minutes into a crowd at a music concert. That mass shooting, in the endless stream of mass shootings in America, may have stood out to you because that coward murdered 60 people and wounded more than 850 people in those 11 minutes.
The vast majority of Americans support common sense gun regulations
The majority of Americans support common sense laws to prevent and reduce gun-related deaths like that horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas. Time and time again, the Republican extremists in our Congress and state legislatures bow down to the gun lobby and refuse to enact any reasonable measures to stop this insanity. But surprisingly after that mass shooting in Vegas, the Trump Administration issued a federal ban on bump stocks.
Our hijacked Supreme Court of the United States Doesn’t Care
But this June, the Supreme Court of the United States has struck down the Trump era law banning bump stocks.
SCOTUS says 60 people murdered in 11 minutes is not fast enough. We gotta have more bump stocks.
If nothing else, let this ruling open your eyes to the fact our Supreme Court has been hijacked with right wing extremists completely divorced from the will of the people. And you can lay the blame for that (and the fall of Roe v. Wade, and so much more) at the feet of convicted felon and former president Donald Trump. Because of Donald and his Republican enablers, the three Supreme Court Justices he appointed have shifted the balance of the court so they can make these right-wing fever dream legal interpretations.
Nobody is coming to save us — we have to save ourselves
We have to dig our country out of this mess and right now we can’t rely on an entire branch of our government to do it.
Let’s continue the calls for court reform and vote for people we can work with to stop and repair the damage. And hey, even conservative Justice Alito noted that Congress can change the law. Democrats are calling a vote this week. Will Republicans do the right thing or will they line up in lock step with the gun lobby again?
by Helena Lovick | Jun 17, 2024 | LGBTQ+ Issues
Great Falls, MONT
Mayor Proclaims He Won’t Proclaim Support for LGBTQ+ Community….
Early in June, the Great Falls Mayor Cory Reeves posted a statement on Facebook that he wouldn’t be issuing a proclamation for LGBTQ+ Month. And we’re still seeing the fallout on our town from the mayor’s clueless-at-best position.
Mayor Reeves’s Facebook proclamation that he’s not making a proclamation
Sure, I agree with the mayor that people should be “treated with equal respect and dignity without government interference in personal matters”. BUT ARE THEY?
Of course we know they are not. We all know that the LGBTQ+ community is marginalized, discriminated against, and faces continued stigma for just being who they are.
And Hate Speech Follows
Why didn’t Cory just stay silent and not issue a proclamation? Instead, he made it worse by openly refusing to make a proclamation of support. That clearly sends the message that our city government DOESN’T support the LGBTQ+ community. And like clockwork, bigots come crawling out of the woodwork. Affirming organizations, including our blog, are getting hate messages because we openly support actual “equality for all individuals” by speaking in support of the LGBTQ+ Community. The neo-nazi “wHitE LiVes MatTeR” crowd was emboldened to put up their racist and homophobic stickers in our town the night of June 15th. More than 60 anti-LGBTQ+ stickers and and dozens of racist white lives matter stickers were found throughout the downtown area. Below are some images of the hate-speech, lie-filled stickers.
Loser neo-nazi unsurprisingly spreads lies and hate speech stickers in Great Falls, Montana
Of course the neo-nazi who put up the stickers is still too big of coward to do it publicly. And yeah, Great Falls is NOT filled with bigots (nice strawman argument Rick Tryon, we never said it was). It is likely one or two fucking pieces of shit putting up those stickers. But that doesn’t stop the harm it causes.
Let this inspire those of us who don’t support hate
One person can have a huge impact. Love is Love! Put up a “Hate has NO home here” sign at your home, wear a rainbow. Be a visible ally. We can use more love in this world.
And Cory, if you’re reading this, you were wrong. You can own your mistake and issue a proclamation now. It won’t undo the harm you unleashed but it will be better than just letting the hate continue to froth up. Our community deserves better.
