Sunday, April 30, 2017

The Montana Special Congressional Election candidates' debate is posted now on YouTube. If you do not need starting background, move to 12:00 in the video where the debate starts. While the video has not been posted for long a hope is the viewings total will build between now and election day, May 25.

This link, a working link today. May it stays that way.

Between now and May 25 Montana voters are urged to view the video. And when a candidate is in your Montana hometown to speak, please attend.

If for any reason the link above fails to load, the item should be accessible via this websearch.

UPDATE: Quist and Gianforte, (Wicks ignored), Billings Gazette endorsement interview, on YouTube. Posted to YouTube about a week prior to the TV stations' collaborative broadcast.

Sometimes there is a frustration of candidate neglect to actually respond to the question proposed.

FURTHER UPDATE: After watching the entire Billings Gazette item, Montana is lucky with their choice. Neither candidate would be a trainwreck if elected. People will have to choose. And those that don't bother to vote will have to live with whoever others choose. Which, of course will apply to voters who do cast their ballots but fail to constitute a majority.

It will be a tough election; the outside negative money is unfortunate; and that is why those wanting to vote should watch video and attend events. It is how you best optimize your choice. Wicks was not a part of the Gazette session, but he impressed in the other shorter video. Whether the "wasted vote" suggestion makes sense, or whether the two party system has failed us can be debated for a long time.

A personal impression. I like the Democrat and the Republican offered to Montana voters better than the comparable candidates offered the entire nation last November. No balloon drop among other things. But well more than that.

Yo, bro, THE CONCEPT OF OUTSOURCING FOLKS' JOBS IS NOT BIBILCAL! [updated]

YouTube, here.

Blessed are those who outsource and who profit from aiding outsourcerers by giving for pay the means to outsource, for they will seek high office and Pilate shall not move an inch against them?

Not biblical.

UPDATE: Another online highlight of the Gianforte-Noah bible college speech; interesting in its ending conclusion.

In other contexts Gianforte does not appear that messed up, but the Noah thing, kidding aside, is troubling. It bespeaks cause to worry. Either it's a callous spiel, or he's dead serious, and either way it is cause to worry. That and the creationist dinosaur museum ring the wrong bell. Congress does not need Noah stories to cozy into Paul Ryan's will to kill social security. It's a greased skid that way. Hanging the social security kill rap on Noah is unfair to the old guy.

FURTHER UPDATE: The post before this drew a comment - an anonymous one - which I have the discretion to elevate to within a post, in this case a different one:

Haters? You have the IQ and vocabulary of a stupid teenager.

But look at the facts. It is poking one's nose into the private family decision making of others; invading their privacy.

It IS choice hatred. Inflamed as a divide/conquor tactic by cynical Republicans and those getting a living from fanning the flames, in order to have a constituency when their intent is to screw over all but the 1% while having seen when Romney got on video saying that his chance was over. So they cultivate their wedge people such as Focus on the Family, and the press plays along. It is an issue the 1% can overload with emotional syrup while cynically moving toward taking Social Security and Medicare from the old and taking the future from the young; while trying to drive a wedge there too between old and young. I find it hard to believe Gianforte can really believe the Noah myth as literal truth, and be educated at the same time. So then what's his purpose? To not pay fair taxes on his obscene wealth, which under capital gains law for portfolio wealth already cozies him fine, unlike the land poor land owners such as Libertarian candidate Wicks, per the TV network debate where Wicks made the point that many Montanans are land-millionaires, but it's illiquid wealth.

Look at the museum. What good is it to anybody besides as ego balm for Gianforte? Who else gets ANY value from it?

Look at the organizations he gives money to, as family foundation "charity?"

The foundation has given about $1.5 million to the Montana Family Foundation and Focus on the Family, which oppose same-sex marriage and abortion, and more funds to several other groups critical of homosexuality or gay rights and that support school choice.

Gianforte has given only a few thousand dollars to groups that have sided with property owners in a stream-access dispute or advocated for some private management of public lands. Yet the foundation also had made small donations to conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited and the Montana Wildlife Federation.

Gianforte mostly shrugs off the criticism, saying the foundation’s primary agenda is not political, but rather to help those in need.

Not political? That's telling people what he wants them to hear and believe. True; or not -- He says it. What else should you expect? Trump in campaigning said he'd "Make America Great Again" without ever saying when it was great, why, and how now differs [press giving him a free pass that way]. This is Gianforte doing the same thing, his way.

But with Gianforte, the newspapers get it: missoulian.com having reported during the cash-heavy character-lite guv try:

Jeremy Johnson, a Carroll College politics professor, agreed that Democrats could use the giving as fodder in future campaign attacks while voters might start to evaluate the Republican beyond his focus to-date on economic issues.

“He has donated to a large number of organizations that all share an agenda to promote conservatism in policy making,” Johnson said. “Although his campaign has not yet discussed policy positions in detail we can infer he has strong ideological convictions based on the sheer number of such donations.”

Of the 395 grants awarded from 2005 to 2013, nearly half went to 52 Christian missions or faith-based social service organizations. Those donations totaled $10.8 million, about a third of the foundation’s spending. Another third, or $11.1 million, was gifted to Bozeman’s Petra Academy, the Christian private school attended by the Gianforte children and where Greg serves on the board.

“We support these charities because we believe in the work they’re doing and having an impact in the community. We tend to give to organizations that we have relationships with and where we have confidence in their leadership,” Gianforte said.

"Charities" he calls them. Propaganda outlets would be an assessment others might make.

See, also: Billings Gazette. Also, helenair.com, here:

“We’ve been incredibly blessed and we feel an obligation to give back, and that’s the reason we’ve given more than half our income away in the last 10 years and why I am stepping up to offer my services to bring business expertise to get Montana out of being 49th in wages,” he said. “It all stems from the same root of wanting to serve, but they are two distinct, separate areas.”

Asked what voters might learn about the policy stances and worldview of Gianforte the candidate from the spending and advocacy of Gianforte the philanthropist, campaign spokesman Aaron Flint called the question “flawed, if not outright inappropriate.”

That's bullshit. It's "outright" appropriate to examine dimensions of a candidate, to see what form of human wants your vote, and "wanting to serve" should be judged in the context of having a firm and "partners" pushing a software product with it's sole business value to customers being to fire some people and outsource jobs more easily and to thus gain greater profits. "The same root" seems, in fact, to be wanting to generate wealth for himself and then when the fine Oracle sale nest egg is there, finalized, to spend his remaining life at minimizing the cash flow from the giant nest egg going to support government which is where public goods are created; such as DARPANET being a government funded thing that led to the web which is what his entire wealth is based upon. He got his that way, and bless all the rest of the world, once he's hunkered in.

You don't see it that way? Well, reconcile this. Your sales tax on the groceries; vs his income tax on the annual money generated by his massive portfolio; and to him, big surprise, your groceries being taxed seems optimal to Ginaforte. Gee. Go figure.

And the man has flat out admits DARPANET seed government funding which led to development and growth of the Internet was his springboard to cashing in big time:

Where did the idea for RightNow come from?

Three primary factors:

First, disruption creates opportunity for innovation. The desire to grow a large software business required reinventing a business process that was being disrupted. The Internet was empowering consumers and disrupting the power balance between consumer companies and their customers.

Secondly, traditional software was going to be disrupted by Cloud delivery because Cloud eliminated 80% of enterprise software ownership costs and delivered value five times faster.

Thirdly, I was a software guy.

So the original Business plan was “Internet Software for Customer Experience delivered in the Cloud”.

What is your business model?

We sold directly to large consumer businesses a subscription to our software service. Our customers were organizations like Travelocity, Nike, Nikon, Motorola, Electronic Arts and about 2,000 others. We saved them a lot of money and they paid us a portion of those savings in the form of subscription fees.

He sold a technology allowing off-shoring and outsourcing to where U.S. workers could be fired and cheaper foreign site labor could be rolled almost seamlessly into customer operations; gaining them big bucks by outsorucing with G-man's firm taking a cut. He flat out says it exactly that way.

Then, he talks fine and convincing as having Montanans collective interests close to his heart, while saying Noah did not retire and did not cash social security checks, so fuck you if you expect me to not go after your social security hand-in-hand with Paul Ryan, who also is a salesman first. Get this, Gianforte's principle of how he operates:

These people thought that if they had self-service capability on the website that allowed consumers to get answers without having to pick up the phone or send an e-mail that would be goodness. I asked them what they would pay for that, and they threw some numbers out. I spent six weeks building the first product. I called them back and said, “I have it now; would you like it?”
A lot of entrepreneurs, particularly technology entrepreneurs, confuse shipping and selling. They are two distinct and separate activities. You don’t need a product to try to sell something. Immerse yourself with prospective clients; understand where their pain points are. If you can solve a pain point for less money than they are willing to pay to solve it, you have the basis for a business.
At RightNow, I had forty customers before I hired the first employee. Then we doubled revenue every 90 days for two and a half years without raising any outside money.

[italics added]. So when in debates he continuously pats his own back over going statewide and visiting peoples' homes he is guaging their vulnerabilities; where their "pain points" are via immersive schmoozing "prospective clients," voters in the instance of a very smooth politician. He's looking for sucker points, Noah and all. Dinosaurs and all. He's doing a con job is how my subjective bullshit meter unpins from zero and pins full scale. Others see it as sincere. I see a salesman.

More guile than substance. When stripped of a friendly sounding veneer. Perhaps not. It's subjective. Some may be out there saying that of Quist. I do not see how they could feel that, but it at bottom is a guiding feeling; and you vote by that.

BOTTOM LINE: As saying at the outset, outsourcing is not mentioned in the bible, old or new testament, and new testament there is the Sermon on the Mount which nowhere says "Outsource your neighbor." So, out of decency why not just say your intent is to work with Paul Ryan to kill Social Security; and leave the Noah mythology out of it as a confusion of the actual issues?

FURTHER UPDATE: Okay. Found it. Cain and Abel, Genesis 4:4 onward, KJV:

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

[...] And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? 10 And he said, What hast thou done? it is your software that led to your brother's outsourcing. 11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, [...] a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. 13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. 15 And the LORD said unto him, Don't worry go to DC amid a congress of sinners and vagabonds. And the LORD set a dollar sign upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. 16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of DC, on the east of Eden.

Yeah, I think I got that text correct. But ask Greg. He'd likely change the subject, however, to Noah never applied for nor received food stamps, but went hungry to his ark building old age duty.

Do DC politicians, especially "pro-life" choice haters, pay sufficient attention here; and what about State Department staff cutting?

This link. Compare and contrast that data, with this and this.

Alphabetically, and some study papers. If it is a CIA concern, why exactly?

Estimates. Alphabetically. Most numerous to least numerous.

Download the book. An in addition bonus...

No pretenses here of having read all, prior to posting.

More? State Department cuts; who's watching the world then, setting policy?

More? Hyde Amendment vs foreign policy, if any differences, you research that.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Watching that Montana debate, two things about Gianforte. [UPDATED (more things)]

1. He's running against Nancy Pelosi. He said that in closing. Fact is, he's running against two people. Gianforte still belives in scaring children with a bogie man.

2. He sat there and flat out lied about a 90% marginal tax rate, with his "working into November for the government" BS. The aim he has, a low marginal rate is his because his cash flow from investment income is so vast compared to regular people that it puts most of his annual income at the high bracket margin. Everybody's first $50,000 is taxed the same for those making that or more; ditto, the first $100,000; money over the cut-off low income no-taxation level -up to the threshold for the next bracket - is taxed the same, for Quist or for Gianforte that low end bracket is at the lowest rate there is, properly so. As income for some marches from lower to next, to higher, to highest bracket, then the marginal amount in that higher bracket sees the higher rate imposed on that fraction of income. The fact is, raising that floor and cutting bottom rates is where cuts help the entire economy. People who spend it all because they have to, recirculate money into the community, they buy, they do not hoard. Those with loopholes dodge taxes regular people pay; and those at the highest margin level should see their marginal million hit hardest. They have benefited more by the public goods being provided in this nation and in their state, in that they get more money coming in with those assets helping, and they should pay more for those public goods so that others can have a better life by being taxed less. They owe it back to the nation that allowed them to prosper. It's called tax the rich. It's been sound policy forever. It's been fought by the rich forever. Gianforte being today's example.

Again, the big lie - deliberately fudging about the top marginal rate being raised, vs a flat tax of 90% - Gianforte mis-dressed that distinction in a lie that a 90% marginal rate would mean everybody having to work until November for the government. That is inexcusible, wanting to blandly mislead people that way. It is an insult to every man, woman and child in the State of Montana saying it that way because he is quite intelligent; meaning he knows better. He should stop.

The Libertarian candidate belonged; but on a few questions it looked as if Quist was ganged up on by two Republicans. If I were in Montana, disinclined to vote for Quist, he'd have my vote over Gianforte, as more of a straight shooter. Less a worry. Less in lockstep with Trump.

However, watching the live stream was reassuring. While being critical about the glide and slide Gianforte did on the deliberate confusion of total vs marginal rate taxation, (it was intentional misrepresentation and nothing short of itentional); I nonetheless admit and write that he would not be as disastrous were Montana voters to send him to DC as the disaster a majority of my home district voters in the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota did in sending a total brickhead, Michele Bachmann, to Congress. And they did that more than once.

Gianforte, while a rabid creationist, is not anywhere near the threat and menace to reason as was/is/will be Michele Bachmann.

Faint praise? True it is that.

But it forms a perspective.

Were I there, a Montana voter, I would vote Quist. But Montanans are lucky in that any of the three gentlemen would be better as a representative than Bachmann was; and also far better than talk show host Jason Lewis, also from Minnesota, is as a first term Republican Congressman.

Montana is luckier that way.

UPDATE: In saying if I were a Montanan I'd vote Quist, is that saying I think Quist won the debate? No. I do not think he won the debate. I would not vote on that basis. I would look at the men as best as I could to be able to guess which of the three would be the best to send to DC. First, best for the nation because the nation is on an economic brink that could be worse than the Sept. 2008 Bush presidency burst of the securitized real estate mortgage bubble led to, and then, for the State who is best, and the question would be whose judgment would lead to the most good for the most people.

In that, I believe Quist has the best policies in mind, the best heart for others, and the best will to oppose business as usual in DC. I say that mindful that the Governor of my state after a single term in the Senate and refusing to stay there for more, correctly called the way government is done in DC a cesspool. Quist is the one of the three I see with the best likelihood of standing up to that and saying it is morally wrong and that he will not play ball on that team by those improper rules.

Opinions can differ. Gianforte in my view, of the three would be the least likely to rock the boat; since it's a comfortable yacht for his kind and he'd fit right in and he'd oppose rocking it. Not everybody is a yachtsman. (In passing, that analogy is chosen because he sold his business to an actual yachtsman; but the chance of reform of DC appears to me greatest with Quist, and better with the Libertarian than with Gianforte.) In saying all that, I would not be surprised if Montana did elect Gianforte to Congress. It's their choice. Not mine.

FURTHER UPDATE: Here, the post ended with a well-deserved Gianforte "NOAH" jab, and the guy's BS about retirement/social security being absent from the bible, Noah building an Ark at age 700, all that crap. The insincerity of bible-when-it-helps, forget bible when otherwise; someone should tell the two spouses that NOWHERE IN THE BIBLE DOES IT SAY "OUTSOURCE THY NEIGHBOR," DIRECT OR DONE VIA "PARTNERS," AND THAT ESPECIALLY GOES TO THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND DO UNTO OTHERS, ETC. That Noah stuff gives a whiff of mendacity, when the Testaments arguably would be the man's core bible parts.

Just saying -

The more I think about it the more it galls me. Without  the Internet, which grew out of DARPANET, a government funded anchor, the guy'd have no cloud to exploit, no direct communication to Oracle, no software of the kind he sold, to have sold; and that is exactly how public goods gave the guy a big, MEGA boost he declines to acknowledge; entrepreneurship being something he says he teaches.

He should teach that those who get MEGA BUCKS OUT OF USING PUBLIC GOODS SHOULD NOT BE SO CHEAP AS TO NOT WANT TO PAY A FAIR SHARE; I.E., HE OPPOSES TAXING THE GREAT MARGINAL WEALTH AND INCOME HE HAS IN A FAIR WAY AT THE VERY TOP MARGINAL BUCKS HE HAULS IN. LOOK WHAT HE GOT; COMPARE WHAT HE SAYS.

The farm operator Libertarian had far, far, far less of that glide-and-slide and "I Did It My Way."

Just saying -

Rob Quist would be the first to tell you he was blessed and is appreciative; appreciative of being born and spending his boyhood in Montana, in learning ranching, in being blessed with a musical talent that has helped him feed his family; and that accordingly, he has an open heart, compassion, for those less blessed. Love they neighbor means something just seeming to be lacking from the Gianforte candidacy. It's a subjective perception, but I got mine so go get yours as a lifestyle/policy/philosophy seems insensitive to neighborly needs. And that's needs - not wants, needs.

Expecting the Ginaforte spouses are charitable through their church activity, and charity from those of affluence is good to see and is applauded here; nonetheless, that ignores things such as HEALTHCARE AS A RIGHT. Or FAIR TAXING OF THOSE MOST AFFLUENT VIA BENEFIT FROM PUBLIC GOODS. It seems the Gianforte got-mine/get-yours mindset denies rights that most people see differently. Government duty is not narrowly constrained. It is to be tailored to needs of a people, of the citizenry, and it is not a virtue to be chintzy about government aid to others - to the neighbors we are told to love as much as we love ourselves.

Just saying -

Social Darwinism, the fittest prospering the less fit dwindling, is not a way to run a nation.

FURTHER UPDATE: The Libertarian in the debate correctly said, in consideration of "millionaires" in one sense of defining that word, land-poor millionaires are prevalent in Montana.

But that is not how Quist is using the term. Those having an annual net taxable income [loopholes for the rich aside] in the millions of dollars need to look at how they are blessed. And to be humbled by their blessing. Not boisterous and aggressive tax avoiders.

And reading the Montana Cowgirl Blog newest post Sunday morning after the debate,  all that is true and good and needs saying. However, it is ancillary to the simple compelling truth: a person claiming publicly to be a man of faith and admitting to being a man of exceptional wealth does not love his neighbors by bankrolling a creationist museum. Who the hell does that help besides giving an ego boost to Gianforte that his bankroll shows to be unneeded. It is proselytizing one's neighbor, which is something well apart from a love from the heart, a generous outpouring.

Recognizing the land-poor illiquidity thing, unless you find a willing buyer and are a willing seller to cash out; you cannot live as affluently in a McMansion on a stream as some whose wealth is liquid. You have needs, then sell shares does not work for everyone. Particularly for those not owning shares to sell. That recognition is an important distinction Ginaforte also seems inclined to glide-slide and move on. Real property taxes on such "millionaires" as the Libertarian guy focused on hurt. And sales taxes of the kind some would advocate over taxing marginal millions heavily also hurt most at the level of the least affluent. The least able to make ends meet. The ones most needful of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps.

On the latter point - government assuring everyone's right to eat in the wealthiest nation time has ever seen - and the surprise of a blowback from being dismissive of the needs of very many neighbors that way was a topic of interest in Minnesota where I live; e.g., see web notice of a deficient attitude here and here. Individualism is okay in John Wayne films; but in the real world we all are born under a death sentence and however highly we regard ourselves, everybody eats and craps daily, so there is no inherent great difference from the humblest to the haughtiest. We're in it together.

Which candidate(s) for the vacant Congressional seat do you figure has the best grasp of such truths? And, if you do not vote based on that, what are your core principles?

FURTHER UPDATE: All three at the debate, on the question of military spending and interventionist foreign policy, said don't put the troops at unnecessary risk and yet North Korean policy might need an intervention. All that is separate and apart from whether the officer corp, not the grunts in combat, is brass heavy and in need of cost cutting down-sizing. And it is independent from judging the wisdom of firing fifty-nine cruise missiles costing $1.3 million a pop into Syria and not hitting a single thing worth the effort, and doing that based on questionable info about who might have used nerve gas in an uncertain situation. Raytheon, who makes the Tomahawk cruise missles benefitted, but nobody else. The stock went up, and Gianforte might have it and other defense contractor shares in his portfolio, that being more likely than not, in guessing. Welfare for Lockheed is a question apart from never putting the grunts at risk needlessly. In minute long soundbites or less, the "debate" format, any such depth analysis was impossible. The format limited the thing to superficialities, and on the superficialities Gianforte was glib and the most well-spoken. That fact has little to nothing to do with who of the three is wisest; or who of the three has had the life experiences most fit to going to DC and improving the culture and decency there. To some extent that is a gut feeling thing as well as some opinion formed by cogent analysis; and that said, my order of excellence, that way, is Quist, the Libertarian, and Gianforte, last but not incapable at all. Any of the three would be better than what I suffered under, having to tell friends in other states that Michele Bachmann was my Rep.

FURTHER UPDATE: When the "debate" superficially touched on ObamaCare, none of the three had the balls to say that because Montanan Max Baucus chaired a key committee and was in the back pocket of big pharma true reform that way was off the table. Obama likely was in the same, or the other back pocket. Quist disappointed me in not being stronger on Medicare for All, or better universal government paid and run healthcare being the only ultimate answer. Folks in Montana have Saskatchewan and Alberta across the border and the folks there would revolt and flood the streets against any effort to change what they have to the insurance/pharma/HMO dominated pile of garbage we have forced upon us here. A close relative had a bout of congestive heart failure in Montreal, things were streamlined, and the treating hospital physician was adamant - he treats disease and emergency, but is not anyone's paper pusher and in no way in hell was he going to have a thing to do with US forms. That's the place where "Medicare for All" and the Canadian universal care system would differ; with the northern neighbors being smarter and more civilized that way.

Ditto on marijuana. The Libertarian was insightful, if it's broke don't keep pouring money into the rat hole; and Gianforte again was disingenuous with the "gateway durg" crap which was gratuitously inserted by him in his soundbite but not a part of the question. Canada as a nation is legalizing it, or may already have completed the cutover. Because of the money involved, the cutover is not simple, but disenfranchising the cartels and fattening the government coffers from people's recreational habits and/or health needs is the only thing that's ever made sense. Overincarceration of potheads was properly mentioned by Quist as but one very bad aspect of "Drug War" stupidity.

I just perceived, subjectively again, that the Gianforte attitude was "I don't use it, nobody should."

The man simply is NOT a template for the remainder of the nation, despite whether he feels otherwise. Aside from him, it was refreshing to see two of three individuals without overbearing egos. Two of three is not a bad ratio. Three duds would, unfortunately, be more frequent outside of Montana. It's how Mike Pence got elected into DC and as Indiana's governor.

Today's Montana Special Election Debate will be streamed online, beginning at 7:00 pm Mountain Time, with a Sunday MTPR rebroadcast, 6:00 pm. [NOTE: post timestamp altered to keep this item at top of postings]

MTPR posted, here, linking to Billings' KTVQ.com homepage.

http://www.ktvq.com/

If other outlets will livestream the event, none are known here at present.

Presumably an upload of the debate to YouTube shortly after the broadcast/rebroadcast is likely. Within days, hopefully.

UPDATE:
  Here, the KTVQ website says:

Saturday evening at 7 p.m. MTN will broadcast the first live candidate debate from the studios of KRTV in Great Falls, Mont.

Democrat Rob Quist, Republican Greg Gianforte, and Libertarian Mark Wicks will answer questions from a panel of MTN journalists including debate moderator and Q2 news anchor Jay Kohn.

The debate will be broadcast on all MTN stations including KTVQ and will be streamed live on all MTN websites including ktvq.com.

You have got to be kidding me.

This link, this screencapture:


Sure. White supremacist hand signals show up among: LeBron, James Harden, and Steph Curry; not because any made three point shot is involved. More food for thought; so who's to say? There is at least one hand signal less ambiguous -

- here and here, of course, what hand sign did you think I had in mind? Oh, those two images, thumb out, thumb crossed; does that make a difference?

YouTube, bonus.

"Despite the objections, an Obama spokesperson dismissed the idea that the large speaking fee compromised the former President's convictions. 'As we announced months ago, President Obama will deliver speeches from time to time,' Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to Obama, said in a statement Wednesday. 'Some of those speeches will be paid, some will be unpaid, and regardless of venue or sponsor, President Obama will be true to his values, his vision, and his record.' "

The headline is two paragraphs run together, out of this CNN report.

The man's record is the biggest Wall Street bailouts in history, no senior leadership forced to step down, not one single Wall Street crook got put into the slammer. True to that? Well -

$400,000 for first Wall Street speech. Big advance on book contract. Surely it would have looked unseemly had this all not waited until after the Trump inauguration. Even allowed a few extra months, how much more sensitive can you be?

Before Trump's inauguration, Cornel West wrote in this Guradian item:

Eight years ago the world was on the brink of a grand celebration: the inauguration of a brilliant and charismatic black president of the United States of America. Today we are on the edge of an abyss: the installation of a mendacious and cathartic white president who will replace him.

This is a depressing decline in the highest office of the most powerful empire in the history of the world. It could easily produce a pervasive cynicism and poisonous nihilism. Is there really any hope for truth and justice in this decadent time? Does America even have the capacity to be honest about itself and come to terms with its self-destructive addiction to money-worship and cowardly xenophobia?

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville – the two great public intellectuals of 19th-century America – wrestled with similar questions and reached the same conclusion as Heraclitus: character is destiny (“sow a character and you reap a destiny”).

The age of Barack Obama may have been our last chance to break from our neoliberal soulcraft. We are rooted in market-driven brands that shun integrity and profit-driven policies that trump public goods. Our “post-integrity” and “post-truth” world is suffocated by entertaining brands and money-making activities that have little or nothing to do with truth, integrity or the long-term survival of the planet. We are witnessing the postmodern version of the full-scale gangsterization of the world.

The reign of Obama did not produce the nightmare of Donald Trump – but it did contribute to it. And those Obama cheerleaders who refused to make him accountable bear some responsibility.
Barack Obama forever changed black America | Peniel E Joseph
Read more

A few of us begged and pleaded with Obama to break with the Wall Street priorities and bail out Main Street. But he followed the advice of his “smart” neoliberal advisers to bail out Wall Street. In March 2009, Obama met with Wall Street leaders. He proclaimed: I stand between you and the pitchforks. I am on your side and I will protect you, he promised them. And not one Wall Street criminal executive went to jail.

The Obama legacy will stand in history with the [Bill] Clinton legacy. Uninspiring giving it the greatest leeway; awful by other measure. Bush with a brain. "Little or nothing to do with truth" is a phrase West wrote. It fits. Well-spoken in the process. But it fits.

______________UPDATE_____________
These may appear as new critiques by people newly revulsed by the magnitude of the Wall Street low hanging fruit being picked now that the tires driving from the White House have cooled a bit. However, voices of the jaded did not need this particular mega-fee transgression to voice dissatisfaction earlier; here and here.

HOPE and CHANGE were a crock. Very sound people, with differing degrees of grace and constraint, are saying so.

Lesser evil than McCain-Palin; lesser evil than vulture-voucher [Romney-Ryan], is not mere faint praise. It is no praise at all. Properly so. Earned.

WSJ, behind a paywall, reports an update on the Bayrock/Trump situation.

WSJ, here, only lead sentences are open-posted.

This websearch for background.

No more to post of it here, now.

Give the guy a hammer and sickle, (even though his software was to outsource worker jobs). Oh, wait, that was yesterday, before the oligarchs of great wealth and will to buy influence took over. During the Cold War before this new one.

Cowgirl breaks a "put a fork in him" story for Montanans, by linking to INTERESTING news at Guardian. Cowboy posting on Cowgirl blog, excerpts and links, here, at Guradian. And Cowgirl analyzes, so read the Cowgirl's latest post for that. Guradian reported;

GOP candidate has financial ties to US-sanctioned Russian companies --
Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte owns shares in Russian index funds --
$250,000 invested in funds with holdings in Gazprom and Rosneft --
Ben Jacobs in Washington - Friday 28 April 2017 14.54 EDT


According to a financial disclosure filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives, the Montana tech mogul owns almost $150,000 worth of shares in VanEck Vectors Russia ETF and $92,400 in the IShares MSCF Russia ETF fund. Both are indexed to the Russian equities market and have significant holdings in companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft that came under US sanctions in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of the Crimea.

The holdings, while substantial, make up only a small portion of Gianforte’s wealth. [...]

Richard Nephew, the former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the state department, told the Guardian that “there is definitely a question here but my initial reaction is that this is not something to freak out about” [... but] it did raise some concerns from “a Russia policy perspective” as a conflict of interest because “betting on Russia’s economy is problematic”.

Shane Scanlon, a spokesman for Gianforte, told the Guardian that the Republican candidate did not oversee his portfolio on a day-to-day basis. Instead, Gianforte focused on the “overall performance”, he said.

[Guradian's linking omitted]

Well, gee. Portfolio so big a mere six-figure chunk of it can be dismissed as unimportant. Oligarchs use that kind of cash to light their cigars. Greg and Susan are attuned to the portfolio in toto. Boy, that's a relief. Yet, "not day to day" really says little about how long the bet on the Russian energy sector has lingered. Nor, more importantly, why the investment's been kept given sanctions in place against that very Russian energy sector, over Ukranian incursions by the portfolio's Russians. As if, by some action, sanctions could lift.

You'd think a politician holding out the Trump kid all around the State of Montana would have changed the portfolio first; FBI investigations being pending as they are in the direction they are taking. A savvy politician at least. Not a tone-deaf one.

So now we know. No wonder he's campaigning with Trump Jr. Of a feather. Flocking together, and borscht anyone? Just not this borscht, not Ukranian. Make it good ol' Mother Russia. But wait - isn't that getting into policy things the Russian investor might have to vote about, if he ever makes it to Congress?

______________UPDATE______________
An earlier but recent post is in a way related.

Quist verbally jabs at GOP opponent in 'health care town hall' in Missoula
By DAVID ERICKSON david.erickson@missoulian.com Mar 30, 2017


[...] Quist’s personal health issues have been in the media spotlight lately. The Billings Gazette has quoted Quist attributing his 16-year debt trail to 20 years of sporadic illness due to a botched gallbladder surgery in 1996. The Gazette also reported this week that, according to court documents, Quist said he was too sick to work and make mortgage payments in 2011, even though he played 35 shows with the Mission Mountain Wood band that year.

[...] “My health care issues have been splattered across the state,” he said. “This is something I have not hidden from. I kind of laid out all my issues in gory detail in my first speech at the Missoula Public Library.”

[...] “I challenge Gianforte and all their media mouthpieces to come listen to the stories today,” he said. “Greg Gianforte has $2.5 million in stock for some of these pharmaceutical companies that are charging such high prices. We need to reject Mr. Gianforte and the dinosaur he rode in on.”

[italics added] At a guess, most Montanans cannot understand the love between a rich man and his portfolio management goals and decisions: Keep betting on the Russians, and expect sanctions relief. Sometime. Somehow. Keep riding the profit-gouging Pharma-Industrial complex. It's good for one's money to do so.

How many Montanans might regard six-figure blocs of a portfolio as miniscule? Of little consequence? As not influencing policy likelihoods, were the portfolio holder to ever have a Congressional vote? As irrelevant to that?

As a bet, more Montanans live paycheck to paycheck and have suffered one time or another horrendously at the hands of "healthcare delivery costs" and pharmaceutical profiteering than have the money allocation concerns the Gianforte portfolio entails, or ones like it. You can trust Quist will make Congressional decisions in tune with his experiences, and you might expect that Gianforte might make decisions in tune with his investments.

In closing, perhaps it's an uncalled for jab, but Noah did not have a portfolio to comfortably sit on, he had an ark. Something useful.

Salon reports . . .

Here:

Montana congressional candidate Rob Quist wants to be considered a man of the people — clothed or unclothed.

The Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday that Quist is a frequent performer at Sun Meadow Resort, Idaho’s premier nudist resort for families.

The resort’s website had a picture of a clothed Quist playing guitar on stage, but the image was taken down as of Thursday. A blog post from 2009 recommends Quist’s $12 shows at the resort.

I'd bet Quist could tell you, the audience there looked as naked as Gianforte prancing around campaign events without his necktie. His Trump necktie. Affectations do have a way of showing things.

And for Gianforte, remind him that the original Singing Cowboy did NOT sing, "Let's Fence Them Out," (no shell-game shell corporation needed nor used by singing cowboys); tune time; and this item.

whose shell? this link

Beltway bastards hanging Quist out to dry?

Politico:

As early voting kicks off in Montana this week, national Democrats are holding back from heavy investments in the state’s May 25 special House election, believing Democratic candidate Rob Quist still has a steep hill to climb to win a state that voted heavily for President Donald Trump just months ago.

[...] Republican outside groups hoping to avoid surprises are spending $2 million on TV ads savaging Quist, while Donald Trump Jr. recently stumped with Gianforte.

Along with his heady online fundraising, Quist will get a campaign assist from Bernie Sanders sometime in the next month. And the DCCC sent just under $200,000 to the state Democratic Party to help out. A DCCC aide said that the committee is “working with the Quist campaign and watching it closely. We’re excited about the energy and it’s possible we’ll invest more.”

But the House Democratic committee, which recently went on the air in Georgia, is not airing TV ads pushing back against the barrage of spots from the NRCC and Congressional Leadership Fund. Overall, GOP groups have already spent over $2.2 million attacking Quist, according to campaign finance disclosures.

“They’re doing what they can to get him in a position to where he can win, but until they see data that assures them that he can win and that the investment is worthwhile, you don’t spend that much money until you’re sure it pays off,” said Jesse Ferguson, who directed the DCCC’s independent expenditure unit in 2014.

Despite past Democratic successes in Montana by the likes of Gov. Steve Bullock and Sen. Jon Tester, some Democrats are concerned that Quist will simply hit a ceiling.

Telling Berniecrats to go it alone in Montana, and good luck, is telling Berniecrats they're not wanted, that perhaps the beltway entrenched inner party base feels a few alienated Berniecrats in affluent suburban Georgia seeing abandonment in Montana and put off is okay, and taht Ossoff will be without any measure of fallout harm? Big tent for big money? It got Trump elected, the Dem inner party dumping on Bernie's mass appeal yet expecting sheep-like adherence to what the money told them to do last November; the tepid-to-hostile feelings that engendered re the artificial Clinton-Kaine Podesta/Bubba managed ticket.

That "data that he can win" business; polling is all idiots know, and Clinton's polls said she'd win. End of that story. The fact is the inner party money loving DC base hung Thompson out to dry in Kansas, and appear so inclined in Montana. This is worrisome after the Kieth Ellison ambush, and such. Joe Biden will have problems besides age, in 2020.

_____________UPDATE_____________
New York mega-wealthy Trump Jr. in Montana to beat Gianforte's drum; reporting from Billings:

By MIKE KORDENBROCK mkordenbrock@billingsgazette.com Apr 21, 2017

By the time 7:30 rolled around on a rainy, overcast evening in Billings, about 50 protesters had split up along either side of Mullowney Lane in front of the Red Lion Hotel and Convention Center for a protest timed with the arrival of Donald Trump Jr. in Billings to campaign for Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives Greg Gianforte.

[...] For Billings resident Kirk Blee, the presence of the younger Trump, who helps manage the Trump Organization business with his brother Eric Trump, represented what he sees as abuse of the United States government by the Trump family in order to advance themselves financially.

"His daughter's making money off of this, he's making money off of this, his kids are making money off of this," Blee said. "He's just robbing the country blind. I don't really have much against Gianforte but he's aligning himself with a monster. It's disgusting. I can't believe this is happening in America."

Blee, a local property manager, said he views himself politically as an independent. Wearing a yellow rain jacket and holding a sign reading "Gianforte and Trump Make America Great Again=Billions In Tax Cuts For Them And Slogans And Ads for You," Blee said he had "not really" protested anything before.

Millionaires sticking together is not news. Ordinary people seeing nothing worthwhile to it, that is good news. Perhaps even watershed news; if it holds through 2018 and into the end of 2020.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Hopefully, the women reported in protest, here, will remember not only to vote by May 25, but the each tell ten friends. Noted then:

Signs at the rally included [...] "Grab them by the ballot"

At a guess, Trump Jr. leaving Trump Tower in Manhattan to dink around in Montana has added inspiration to women nationwide to contribute to the Quist campaign, by check or by ActBlue. At least that's the hope. Blowback to Gianforte should happen, for hitching to Trump instead of running on his own merit, whatever that may be.

--------------------------------------------------------

This Quist contributions page.

Checks can be mailed:

Rob Quist Congressional Campaign
PO Box 1917 Kalispell, MT 59903

Every dollar helps.
Remember: You don't need credit for helping. What you need is a better Congress.

______________FURTHER UPDATE________________
Early April HuffPo reporting, here, followed up by no helpful talk, no action, from DCCC. Money management by DCCC is a worry; a ton of donor cash has been put into the Ossoff effort in Georgia; leading to a special election set to happen after Rob Quist's fate in Montana has been measured; May 25. HuffPo sure reported something you'd expect, from reading the account, to be fully ripe for national party money to help; but DC is MIA. Go figure. Is it a Bernie freeze-out inclination? Is there any better explanation? Is the Party face going to look attractive with the nose cut off, in spite?

Friday, April 28, 2017

Taking too much round-about time to say it stinks.

Shaun King, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Friday, April 28, 2017, 1:19 PM.

Not unexpected, not here at least, but it stinks:

I didn't just vote for Barack Obama twice, I volunteered for his campaigns. My family donated to those campaigns. In my house, particularly around my wife, who worships the ground the Obamas walk on, you can't say anything wrong about them — it doesn't matter if it's about drones, or the misuse of our personal data, or anything else — the Obamas are right and everybody else is wrong, as far as she's concerned.

[...]I wasn't surprised to see that Barack and Michelle will be getting $60 million for their memoir. He's actually an amazing writer and storyteller and I could imagine it being one of the best presidential memoirs ever. I'm not even surprised to see him delivering speeches for a lot of money. He has a gift for speaking and it's not quite like he's about to get another job to build wealth off of. He was a gifted speaker and writer before he became President of the United States so he has every right to earn a living and build wealth with his own skills and gifts. However, it's not so cut and dry with President Obama or other politicians who hold so much influence and sway over how things get done in this country.

The news that President Obama signed with the same speaking agency used by Bill and Hillary Clinton makes sense. That agency clearly understands how to manage the affairs of such high-profile people. That's a unique skill held by very few agencies. However, it appears that President Obama could end up speaking to pretty much the same old crowd as the Clintons after it was revealed that he'll be paid $400,000 to speak to the Wall Street investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

I operate under the guise that these firms like Goldman Sachs and Cantor Fitzgerald spend that amount of money not simply because they want to hear what someone has to say, but that they want to curry favor and get in the good graces of the high-profile people they invite. If Hillary Clinton went to Goldman Sachs and put them on blast for their greed and bad practices, she damn sure would've released the transcripts.

Maybe President Obama will release his transcripts as a standard practice. I doubt it, though. When it comes to Wall Street, it's genuinely hard to tell Barack and Hillary apart. Again, I don't mean that as an insult — it's just the billionaire class are their friends. This is who they hobnob and vacation with. These are their buddies and the financiers of their campaigns. Neither of them will ever go down in history as being tough on billionaires or investment bankers.

That's also why I understand Elizabeth Warren's recent remarks expressing real reservations about Obama's paid speeches to Wall Street. It will be insincere for him to ever really talk about the problematic role of money in politics, particularly as it pertains to the billionaire class, particularly when he's being paid by them.

Earlier this year a major defense contractor asked my speaking agency if I'd be willing to speak there during Black History Month. I wasn't. I don't agree with their practices. I didn't want to be used as a prop.

[Warren link in original]. Is anybody at all really surprised? I have become very, very, very, VERY tired of voting lesser evil. That's why I refused to do it, 2016. (Not voting greater evil either, not Trump, but there were other ballot choices besides Clinton/Podesta/Goldman and Trump/Jarad/Goldman). It sucks. The author of that quoted item was gentle.

THE TIME FOR TOLERATING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PULLING THE LESSER EVIL BULLSHIT IS OVER. THEY NEED TO SUCK IT UP.

Bravo, Lizzy. Duly circumspect, but detecting a miasma too. Also this link. Sixty million for a book.

Even Pynchon does not make that money per pop; but he's paid only for the output - in writing the book, not for anything prior to it.

Do you think for one minute Lizzy got that kind of loot for her book mentioned in that perhaps too gentle bostonglobe.com report:

“I was troubled by that,” she said.

That was the extent of her comments aimed directly at Obama. She quickly launched into a broader discussion of her views of the corrupting influence of money in Washington.

“I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington. And that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington,” she said, referencing her just-published book, “This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class.”

“The influence of dollars on this place is what scares me,” she continued. “I think it ultimately threatens democracy.”

While Warren’s critique was a far cry from the withering criticism some on the left have leveled at Obama, it’s rougher than anything she said during the 2016 campaign about former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s acceptance of hefty speaking fees from Wall Street firms.

Unlike Obama, Clinton was considering running for office when she gave her controversial speeches, while the former president’s days in elected public office are behind him.

Warren stayed neutral — and mostly silent — throughout the bitter primary contest between Clinton and Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, despite, as she writes in her book, coming under intense pressure from both sides to endorse her preferred candidate. “I didn’t want to undermine either of our candidates or to short-circuit any part of that debate,” she writes.

When Warren finally did endorse Clinton, after the New York Democrat had secured enough primary votes to clinch the nomination, the Globe asked whether Clinton should release the transcripts of paid speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs, an issue Sanders had hammered on the campaign trail.

“That’s for her to decide — there will be a whole lot of issues to talk about over the next several months,” Warren said.

Yeah. She waffled when she could have been more forceful. But aside from Warren feeling a need to be politically nice, the fair and honest truth is Obama's loot grabbing is obscene. But hardly unexpected. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

_____________UPDATE______________
From the sidebar:

Breaking the promise of Minnesota's Legacy Amendment.

A reader forwarded to me an email from:

Paul Austin
Executive Director
Conservation Minnesota
www.ConservationMinnesota.org
1101 West River Parkway, Suite 250, Minneapolis, MN, 55415 US

The item is online, here, stating in part:

When the Minnesota Legislature is in session, we make a point to keep an eye out to see what local news organizations are saying about Capitol activities. Recently the St. Cloud Times wrote an editorial, and it is the best summary that I have seen of the ways that the legislature is ignoring the values of Minnesotans and breaking the promise of the Legacy Amendment this session.

Our state currently has a $1.6 billion budget surplus. We also have communities with water that is too polluted for residents to drink and 40% of our lakes and rivers that don’t meet water quality standards. It makes no sense to slash funds and undermine polices that support the clean water, wildlife, parks and natural resources that are so important to our health, our economy, and our quality of life. Minnesotans have made this point clearly at the ballot box every time they have been asked.

Take a look at the article:

"Despite Constitution, legislators attack environment
By: Times Editorial Board, St. Cloud Times - April 22, 2017"

From the close of the Conservation Minnesota post:

About Paul Austin
Paul Austin has 23 years of public service as an elected leader, advocate and political strategist, Paul Austin brings a rare combination of skills and experience to his position as Executive Director. At age 25, Paul was elected Mayor of Clinton, Connecticut – the youngest in state history. Paul has served as Executive Director of Conservation Minnesota since 2004.

With readers strongly urged to read the St. Cloud Times Editorial in full, it is only briefly quoted here:

In the past 60-plus years, Minnesotans have been asked five times through constitutional amendments if and how much they value the state's natural resources. Every time their answer has been loud and clear and the same: Yes, a lot!

Yes, we want to establish (and financially sustain) a Minnesota Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund. Yes, we want to guarantee our right to hunt and fish. And most recently, yes, we will even raise our own taxes for 25 years to protect water resources, enhance natural habitat and support parks and trails.

The collective message to legislators is crystal clear: Preserving and protecting Mother Nature is a — perhaps even the — top Minnesota priority.

[...] Obvious attacks

Make no mistake. Proposals rooted solidly in Republican House and Senate majorities undoubtedly aim to weaken, even remove, scores of rules, regulations, public-input processes and funding put in place to uphold the very values Minnesotans have placed through the state Constitution on the state's natural resources. Among the easy-to-see examples: [... see original for listing detail]

There also is a push to curb or even eliminate the Environmental Quality Board, which for almost a half-century has served as a centerpoint for managing water resources while ensuring the public has a voice in those issues. Could that board be reformed or made better? Probably. Should it be neutered or eliminated? No.

[...] What's it going to take to show these legislators Minnesotans value — and are willing to pay for — clean air, water and land?

We'd say a constitutional amendment. But that's already been done — five different times! — and these legislators apparently don't think those votes matter.

The devil always is in details; and if you believe the editorial board judges legislative intentions harshly, do read the entire item and consider what voters did in amending our Minnesota Constitution and how that is being honored in the breach. If you've a legislator to write or phone, where you think it might make a difference, please do that. It would take you less time than it took to prepare this blog post.

A hope is the Trump outsider kid helped provide something Greg appears to have lost.

No, not momentum. Guess again.

Before:

image source

Before No.2:

image source

Before No.3:

image source

Before No.4:

image source

After:

image from gregformontana Congressional campaign site

So young Trump, a millionaire helping another, should have a hand in promoting the family brand in order to make Greg look like himself again.



Wha' happened:
Somebody drew a map for Greg; a staffer got a sizes list from Susan to be sent to shop; or, they got the new-package duds online; what?

UPDATE: If having to guess, it looks REI to me.

The "Congressional Leadership Fund" is flooding Montana with negative advertising against Democrat Rob Quist. OpenSecrets.org lists the moneymen behind the effort, some giving millions; three pages, no Montanans.

This link. Also informative of how they operate; here. They independently sling mud at Democratic Party candidates. It's their habit. Their Gestalt. Their reason for existing. Those are 2016 numbers, but those folks are tampering in Montana now.

The first link, go to each of the three pages of donor listings. Do a word search, each page, even the last low-budget page, search = Montana.

Go figure.

Second link; the nutshell info:

2016 PAC Contribution Data
Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates (list recipients) $0
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more ( list donors) $50,490,681

Fifty million dollars and not a single contribution to a campaign. Citizens United was a Supreme Court opinion inviting abuse, and these folks RSVP'd big time. The only thing "super" about this SuperPAC is the staggering amount of wealth being slung around when ordinary voting citizens struggle to make ends meet. It's more than grocery and rent money, and its not yours because these folks want it all!

The Montana Special Election has nationwide importance. Besides sidebar links and earlier posts, the two candidates will debate on MTN, tomorrow, Apr. 29.

click the thumbnail to read 

The information is that MTN, Montana Television Network, will televise statewide.

Unclear, I am trying to pin down; whether an online live stream will be available; and whether a YouTube of the debate video will be uploaded soon, since the election day is May 29.

If answer are found, look for a post update.


-------------------------------------------
The screencapture is from here: https://robquist.org/events/

A special Quist contribution page (an actblue.com page) has been created; this link.

Also, snail mail:

Rob Quist Congressional Campaign
PO Box 1917 Kalispell, MT 59903


Not just boosting, but doing it myself, second check mailed today.

"I don't need credit for helping. I need a better Congress."

Pretorian Guard? Time to fire Harteau? The mayor is the civilian elected head of the police department. Anybody else serves under the commander in chief. As with the over-sized federal military. Civilian control is bedrock.

This link.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Reading this and that, a Clinton sighting recently, the question: Where's Huma?

image source
Wikipedia. Zippo about since Clinton left government and lost. Can anyone even in a comment indicate whether she's gotten her laptop computer back, or not?

Indeed, what's Teneo specializing in these days? This link, but a subscription wall. Yesterday's news.

Is there any chance Teneo might be tied to the Russians, Russian emigre oligarchs? Money gloms together a lot, after all.

A shot-in-the-dark websearch only turned up this and this. Largely a dry well. Who's to say?

Questions having more appeal than "Where's Hillary?"

This. This. All I know is what I read on the web. For all I know there might have been a Teneo Hospitality presence in that Russian hotel where Trump stayed during the beauty pageant.

Uranium One. Between election and inauguration.

Another shot-in-the-dark search; yielding as first two hits on the list, this and this, both fairly recent. One mentions Uranium One, the other does not.

But, where's Huma? A remaining mystery. Another dry well search.

UPDATE: Zain Endeavors LLC? What have you done for me lately? For anyone? Where do you endeavor? Who's Zain?

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

You have got to be kidding me. In suing to quiet title against a publicly held and publicly used road route to recreational public land and to a public waterway (a Montana stream) it seems a degree of lack of forethought to political ramifications might disqualify a person trying that stunt from being deemed by voters as in all ways qualified to handle the nuances of duty going with holding a posiiton of public trust. Voters should be informed, and then decide.

Not being a Montana lawyer, all I can write about is what I read on the internet, where a lawyer's opinion clearly would be needed to assess likelihoods and difficulties; law having its nuances and not being an exact science. Were it one, there would never be any disputes over law and the meanings of wording of statutes; only disputes of facts; and it is likely disputes of law have existed since territorial times. Again, for definitive advice on that or any word of this post, ask a practicing licensed Montana lawyer.

That said, Google Scholar has Montana case law online; this link for search = easement by prescription

This link for search = frivolous claim

The Gianforte complaint appears to allege some original defect of easement grant in that grantor persons named in the complaint are alleged to have lacked full title to be able to convey an easement, with that being suggested in the complaint as having fatal consequences for continuing pubic ingress/egress. See: This site, posting by link, this pdf of the court filing.

From the first Google Scholar search; Public Lands Access v. Boone & Crockett, 856 P. 2d 525, 259 Mont. 279 (Mont. 1993) teaches as black-letter law:

To establish an easement by prescription, the party claiming an easement "must show open, notorious, exclusive, adverse, continuous and uninterrupted use of the easement claimed for the full statutory period. The statutory period is five years." Keebler v. Harding (1991), 247 Mont. 518, 521, 807 P.2d 1354, 1356. (Citation omitted.) See also; Downing v. Grover (1989), 237 Mont. 172, 175, 772 P.2d 850, 852. The burden is on the party seeking to establish the prescriptive easement. Downing, 772 P.2d at 852. "All elements must be proved in a case such as this because `one who has legal title should not be forced to give up what is rightfully his without the opportunity to know that his title is in jeopardy and that he can fight for it'" Downing, 772 P.2d at 852.

"To be adverse, the use of the alleged easement must be exercised under a claim of right and not as a mere privilege or license revocable at the pleasure of the owner of the land; such claim must be known to, and acquiesced in by, the owner of the land." Keebler, 807 P.2d at 1356-1357. "If the owner shows permissive use, no easement can be acquired since the theory of prescriptive easement is based on adverse use." Rathbun v. Robson (1983), 203 Mont. 319, 322, 661 P.2d 850, 852. (Citation omitted.)

Landowners in their McMansion had to know people were coming and going over the route in question for as long as they occupied the McMansion. Use would have been open and notorious to a grade school student; and claim of right seems admitted in the complaint - a deed of record, claimed to be defective, but sufficient as a claim of right. Ingress/egress over the route had to exist over time, well over the five year prescriptive period, even if legal title had a defect.

Neighborly accommodation and extinguishment by actions evidencing a "distinct and positive assertion of a hostile right," if present, were not pleaded in the complaint. Only a defect in legal title was alleged. If the Gianforte spouses ever put a chain or other "keep out" barrier across the access route, such possibility is absent from the pleading.

A court would have to decide whether a frivolous action was involved; but the action was dismissed by the court on its own motion for lack of any diligent prosecution of the claim.

In any event, whether a lame and unwinnable claim was or was not at issue, for a politician to pull such a boneheaded bunch of crap against public access to public facilities staggers the imagination.

That's not a legal opinion. It's a plain common sense conclusion based on a belief of there being a functioning sensible psychology to a voting public. That the quiet title stunt; valid at law or not; was a fatal error for one wanting election by a majority vote of a voting public.

Apart from practicalities and legalities of the assertion of an attempt to close off a public recreational access route by one contemplating seeking office; there may or may not be a dimension at play of The Elihu Root Quotation.

Readers may form independent opinions of these subjective "judgment" questions; and one parting thought is helpful. The Enhancing Montana's Wildlife & Habitat post, already linked, seems the most thorough and helpful analysis of the factual detail of the Gianforte route killing effort; and voter judgment shall be the determinant of the wisdom of that anti-public-interest effort ever having seen the light of day.

UPDATE: Credit for reaching the EMWH item just mentioned, is due. This fork-in-him item, included a footer UPDATE link, with the update in turn linking to EMWH.

Referring back to the recent Timmer - LeftMN post, and a context for a thought.

Timmer here wrote:

The Democrats think that by being the Slightly Less Evil to Workers™ party and sitting back and letting Trump be Trump, we’ll be good.

In answer, perhaps.

Here is a recent tightly written post by Dan Burns online at MPP. A part of an extended online sequence, as is clear from the title.
Click to enlarge and read, or go to the original

While unsure of where Burns got the image, it tells its own story. Perhaps all but the most lumberheaded Dem inner party dweller might look at the jobs in the red, and say "lost spoils."

Perhaps, but don't bet on it, enough of the lower-income Dem inner party mavens may consider the wisdom of burying the hatchet and giving progressives their due.

Since Bernie would have won and all inner party persons, both parties, know that regardless of what they'll admit, what is "the progressives' due" might take time to establish given intransigence of ideologues of the Clinton Republican-lite Third Way; but coming to reason can be at least hoped for, if not being a good bet for any wager.

Those in-the-red job numbers have an eloquence that blog posting by Timmer, or here about Timmer, lack; however best we try to write and explain.

It is simple. Not rocket science. Polling proves: Bernie had the winning message, despite the money givers calling shots differently for the Dem candicacy handed us during the last presidential election.

It is not progressives' oxen being gored. If progressives are not given their due; there are other jobs, state levels, as well as federal. Even the entrenched donor-fed DC consultancies might suffer.

Dem Inner Party mavens - feel the rain.

UPDATE: The MPP chart, full size, is online here. The numbers are easier to read.

FURTHER UPDATE: As to labels, "progressives" is in common usage but is not as good as "democratic socialists," the term that Bernie and Jill Stein helped define and popularize last election cycle [see sidebar]. Woodrow Wilson has forever given a stain and taint to the term "progressiveism" since it was war-mongering and big-state to him, and he if anything was plain vanilla traditional liberal; with the neoliberals, both parties, being the present impediment to a decent nation. Terms such as "Our Revolution" and "Justice Democrats" serve well, to delineate distinctions.

While both were used during the recent Montana Governor race, these are two of the most effective short political ads done recently; and each applies to the pending special election contest in Montana.

Online videos. Here and here. Watch them. Fast food and fish, but so much more.

And the opponent highlighted in each is not a Tea Party GOP reformer. He is a part of the in-place GOP inner party plutocracy, and he makes no pretenses of offering Tea Party cred. That Montana special election could be a bellweather event. In part a referendum on Trump, talking populist, entrenching billionaires and plutocrats. If some Montana Trump voters feel buyer's remorse, it will show. May 25 will be a day of interest, nationwide.

For context on the second video, the litigation was widely reported in Montana; e.g., here, here and here.

It would be no big surprise if Rob Quist and Bernie Sanders campaigning in Montana were to book and the Montana Democratic Party were to widely publicize a major campaign event at that river access spot, with the fast-food carload invited there along with representatives of the state and national press. A happening. Smaller than Woodstock, but potentially big.

Gather there to bury the access spot's neighboring Caesar, not to praise him?

Can you imagine a give-em-hell Bernie speech about overreaching self-infatuated plutocrats, at that locale? It would be a humdinger.

UPDATE: The spot would also be good for a congregation event that Greg and Susan would have a difficult time voicing any effort to stymie, being who they publicly hold themselves out to be and all.

That could be a post-election event, depending on how things turn out.

Outsource partners? Wait a minute, he did clearly say "outsource partners."

On Fox he said, job outsourcing is our RightNow facilitation skill.

Steve Timmer is again actively posting at LeftMN.

You should bookmark it if you have not already:

http://left.mn/

Of recent items, without any quoting because readers are most strongly urged to follow the links: here, linking here.

There also is an embedded video Timmer values enough to embed; so rotor over and check things out.

One Montana election issue akin to the sulfide mining worry in the northern Minnesota Boundary Waters neighborhood.

For Minnesotans and others viewing public lands debate in Montana during the special election ramp-up; this websearch, hat tip to here, where Crabgrass first took notice. It appears late Obama presidency trending was to protect public lands adjacent to or near Yellowstone Park via a mining and mineral extraction lease ban. Now the appearance is that legislation would be needed given a current presidential disinclination to protect public lands. The linked "first notice" item links here, to this letter from Senator Tester to the administration.

click image to read it

Why resurrect the MN Progressive Project's world famous Norm Coleman Weasel Meter? Because he is. Also, was and will be. Nancy Pelosi cannot sing, but Norm's minions care not; in TV hijinks aimed against Montana's best and brightest hope for a future, Rob Quist. Only a weasel would do that.



Anybody wanting to know who Rob Quist really is should take the half-hour it takes to view this video, and leave the half-minute and minute-long GOP mud-slinging stuff alone as the pure out-of-state toxic waste it is.



world-famed metered weasel
was-is-will be

College Weasel, Norm Bullhorn
Congressional Leadership Fund's Board Chair, former single-term Minnesota Senator, Norm "College Bullhorn Agitator" Coleman, (who backed into his Senate term because Paul Wellstone died on election day eve), has a post-college history and a present reach.

As an ongoing agitator, this time a GOP outside agitator with a weasel-paw reach into Montana, Norm remains who he's been; as Rollcall reports:

GOP Super PAC Ties Montana's Rob Quist to Nancy Pelosi - Congressional Leadership Fund begins $800,000 media campaign
(Posted Apr 21, 2017 6:00 AM -- by Simone Pathé)

House GOP leadership is deploying House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a new TV attack on Democratic nominee Rob Quist.

The ad, which will debut Friday on broadcast and cable, marks the start of an $800,000 media buy from Congressional Leadership Fund. The super PAC ran its first TV ad against Quist last month, using many of the same attacks.

But this new ad adopts the longtime GOP strategy, which CLF has used on TV repeatedly in Georgia in recent weeks, of tying Democratic congressional candidates to Pelosi.

“Rob Quist talks folksy,” the narrator says, opening the spot. “But his record is more Nancy Pelosi than Montana,” the narrator says.

“Whether it’s cuts to the military or doubling down on a health care system more expensive than Obamacare, Rob Quist continues to prove he is more in-tune with Nancy Pelosi than Montana,” CLF executive director Corry Bliss said in a statement.

The ad also goes after Quist’s personal financial troubles, hitting him for a “long pattern of failing to pay his bills” and late taxes.

“Rob’s reckless financial past is a scary indication of how he’d treat Montanans’ hard-earned dollars. CLF will continue to expose Rob for what he is: out-of-touch and untrustworthy,” Bliss said.
[links in original]

Come on. Pelosi cannot sing and wears no hat. Beyond that, she's one of the corporatist Dem millionaire Congress members, and not the people's true populist and progressive Quist is. She's vanilla DC. Quist is eternal Blue Sky country legit.

As to Quist's openess about past financial stress, it qualifies him to represent real people who know distress as a too familiar unwelcome lifetime companion. Quist's pre-existing medical dilemma was a cause of piled up out-of-pocket medical bills he has since paid off.

Unlike Trump, no host of bankruptcy court meanderings. Facing a debt Quist paid it off. Something all of Congress cannot or fails to want to do for the nation's debt, so why would this line of Bullhorn be relevant? Because Norm knows his one way, and little of other ways and his superPAC cronies [super-lobbyist Minnesotan Vin Weber on that same slushPAC board according to Wikipedia] must be happy with his Chairmanship since he's still in that boss honcho saddle.

Go figure. The quality of the advertisements mirror the quality of the string pulling leadership team. Outsiders might be leaving an oilslick wherever they reach into Montana. And the truth is that attack-advertising Bullhorn Coleman dissing Quist's financial hardship must, himself, know something about hardship, given this one involving Coleman's reported past benefactor, Kaziminy. (Yes, a Chap. 11, a reorg and not throwing in the towel, it is fair to note that).

Like that mud-slinging ad says, "Rob Quist talks folksy." But the fact is, he's not a grifter.

______________UPDATE_____________
Color it green. Should Norm and Vin's thing at all set a hook, and you believe Nancy Pelosi might not know what's best for Montana and have Montana's best future in mind; why in the world would you think otherwise of Las Vegas gambling house magnate Sheldon Adelson, who knows certainly what's best for Sheldon (from Ballotpedia, Norm and Vin's Congreessional Leadership adventure's green; with no more recent data yet found on the web):


So, on a nationwide basis, Norm Bullhorn and his Tonto, Vin, only do negative ad publishing; and the casino deep pocket is their prime green valley. Trust such a bunch, or trust Rob Quist or Greg Gianforte? As another Minnesotan, having that and only that in common with Norm and Vin, I also am an outsider to Montana. At least I've driven the interstate through there, and stopped for a fine dinner in Missoula. That likely is a step ahead of Norm, Vin, or Sheldon and family. So, trust me more; but mainly trust the candidates and not outsiders, especially dirt throwing advertisements (which takes little skill, as can be seen from the two things Rollcall linked to in giving a flavor of the brand).

Now if you've any faith in a claim Rob Quist has ever even talked to Nancy Pelosi or to any of her campaign people or House staff; please in a comment identify when, where, and who.

It simply is a manufactured totally fake claim.

Brought to you as Norm and Vin sideshow barking on Sheldon's bucks. Sheldon's casino cash.

________________FURTHER UPDATE________________
A gentler critique of the one-term former Senator, sort of, by another from Minnesota, here.

_______________FURTHER UPDATE________________
In advising Montanans, trust the candidates, that means take the time to show up and listen when either is in your town. See the person, the cut of his jib, the sincerity or falseness you might feel, in person. Trash half-minute TV stuff is for the super lazy, the ignorant, and the GOP shall likely outspend the Democrats in that direction.

To counter Sheldon's casino cash TV trash blurbs, send Rob Quist's campaign a check. I did. I likely will cut another soon. I don't need credit for it, I need a better House of Representatives:

Rob Quist Congressional Campaign
PO Box 1917, Kalispell MT, 59903