Sycophant- (n) person who acts obsequiously toward someone important.
Senators Daines and Sheehy certainly can’t stand on principle when they can’t stand at all.
It took less than a week for Republicans to introduce their first anti-trans bill of this session.
Editor’s Choice: What Now, America?
By Mary Moe
It’s tempting to say nothing. With so much anger and nonsense everywhere, I keep telling myself, turn the other cheek. This, too, will pass. But eight years in, it hasn’t passed. It’s worsening. So as we celebrate the 248th birthday of our shared inheritance, a warning.
That fatal moment is upon us, Americans. If we don’t meet it calmly, rationally, and unwaveringly, the whole experiment fails.
When thousands of American citizens storm the nation’s Capitol under a president’s orchestration, at his behest, and without his interference … when they wave Confederate flags while they pummel those who defend ours … when they erect a gallows to hang the vice president and the president tweets, “He probably deserves it” … I’m plumb out of cheeks to turn — top and bottom.
But our institutions stood, right? Wrong. Every American on any side of any aisle should have risen up on Jan. 6, 2021, and every day after it to say what happened that day was inexcusable. Inexcusable. Instead, the Senate shirked its impeachment duty. And with depressingly few exceptions, Republicans — throughout this nation and throughout Montana — spent the next 3 1/2 years perpetuating the big lie and kowtowing to the Big Liar. They should know by now what virtually everyone in Trump’s White House learned the hard way: When you sell your soul to Donald Trump, there’s no buy-back clause in the contract.
But the cancer on the body politic that was the Trump presidency had metastasized. In Montana, we elected a governor who assaulted a reporter and lied about it, an attorney general now facing 41 ethical violations, a secretary of state who spent millions of taxpayer dollars in court to keep likely Democrats from voting, a state auditor who lied about his residency to get a cheaper hunting license, and a state school superintendent who … well, ‘nuff said. All in thrall to Trump.
We’ve spent the last two legislative sessions enacting a carpet-bagged agenda attacking libraries, schools, the court, local governments, and the autonomy of women and other marginalized groups while Montanans’ taxes sky-rocketed, health insurance evaporated, climate issues intensified, and housing escalated from problem to crisis.
The hate Trump legitimized is everywhere. The nonsensical theories that fuel it defy any rational discussion. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court that Trump packed — the Court the framers designed as a bulwark against partisanship — has become a political action committee.
https://missoulian.com/opinion/column/mary-sheehy-moe-donald-trump-election-2024/article_433b5a3e-37b6-11ef-b7f9-3bf02d7708cc.html
Zinke and Rosendale Join The Lost Cause, Voting to Place Confederate Statue at Arlington
This image depicts an African American man joining Confederate troops marching off to war.
Almost immediately after the Civil War, the losers began a propaganda campaign to reframe and rehabilitate white supremacy. This movement, which is now referred to as the “Lost Cause,” carries on today. They claim the Civil War was not about slavery. It was a matter of “States Rights” and industrialization in northern states versus a romanticized agrarian South. Understanding the power of symbols in the public square, advocates of the Lost Cause moved to place monuments to the Confederacy in cities and towns across the country and to name public facilities like schools, parks, streets and highways after leaders of the Confederacy. All of this to support and promote the institutional racism of Jim Crow and marginalization of African Americans in society.
Most people assume these monuments were placed shortly after the Civil War, but that is not the case. The monument pictured above was placed in The National Cemetery at Arlington in 1914, almost 50 years after the war ended. According to the American Historical Association, monuments put in place during this time “were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life.” The Confederate monument which was in Women’s Park in Helena was commissioned in 1914 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. It was replaced in 2017.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there was another surge in the placement of Confederate monuments across the country in response to the civil rights movement. For example, after passage of the Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act in the 1960s, 27 monuments dedicated to Confederate soldiers who had fought against “the federal enemy” were installed in Texas. Of course the Confederate battle flags we see all over Montana (most often next to Trump flags) are part and parcel of the same Lost Cause strategy to defend and protect white supremacy.
In recent years there has been a strong national movement to remove these commemorations to the Confederacy and white supremacy. The efforts to remove these symbols and change place names has become a flashpoint for controversy and, in some cases, violence, in many communities. Since 2017 and the murder of George Floyd, along with the Charleston church shooting and the Unite the Right Rally, 160 monuments across the country have been removed or torn down.
That brings us to Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale and their vote to reinstall this monument. The proposal failed in Congress, but the vote was a slap in the face to the African American community and advocates for equality as they were preparing to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday less than a week away. Unfortunately dog whistles and race baiting have become the order of the day among Republican politicians. And the rhetoric provided by advocates of Lost Cause propagandists that assume the mantle of historical accuracy and patriotic sentiment leaves people confused about the inherent bigotry of their phony facts and rewriting of American history. Zinke and Rosendale are finely tuned to the negative power of race baiting in the political process. Even though Rosendale is leaving public office, it should come as no surprise that he would join Ryan Zinke in jumping on this issue in an election year.
In Germany people don’t put up monuments to Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime. Is it only in America that we celebrate white supremacist losers?
Nice Afternoon With My Grandson
Beautiful summer day. My 11-year-old grandson, Rhys, has been visiting for the last week. We decided to load up the kayaks and head to the pond at the Pelican Point boat launch on the Missouri. After a couple of paddles around the pond with Gramma and the dogs, we decided to head out. The place was getting crowded.
While I was loading the pickup, Gramma and Rhys decided to walk down to the launch site on the river to use the latrine before the drive home. On a sunny Friday afternoon in June, the boat launch was packed with people coming and going. Families, people fishing, folks dropping boat trailers to pick up their rafts at the end of the float. Others are putting in rafts and other watercraft to head down river. There are only three or four campsites here, and this guy was hunkered down in one of them. Rhys pointed to this truck and said, “Look at that Gramma…and look at what it says on the bottom.” Guess he wanted to make sure Gramma got the full impact of this jerk’s political message.
So, my questions are, what is this guy trying to do? Is he hoping to persuade people? Is he looking for fellow cult members? Is he hoping to start an argument with some passers by so he can exercise his Second Amendment rights? Does the Castle Doctrine apply to RVs in public campgrounds? Actually, I don’t care much. I just hope these people crawl back under the rocks they came from soon.
WTF!! Can’t Make This Stuff Up
In case you missed it, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Award has been canceled this year. The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation announced the cancellation of the award following the announcement of this year’s recipients creating quite a stir. The award was established in 2019 with the help of Justice Ginsburg. It was intended for “women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility.” The award was originally called the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award. The name of the award was changed last year.
This year’s recipients included Elon Musk, Martha Stewart, Sylvester Stallone, Rupert Murdoch, and Michael Milken. Ironically the least offensive name on the list is probably Sylvester Stalone, who has made his fortune playing macho men in the movies. The rest are either right-wing ideologues or crooks. Oh, and let’s not forget a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. Way to go Martha!
Julie Opperman, Chair of the foundation said they did not consider “politics” and focused on people who had “have made significant contributions to society.” Beam me up Scotty!