Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/donald-trump/page/4/)
I know my colleague David Crisp has already written about Sen. Steve Daines’ role in silencing Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the floor of the Senate, but David’s piece was published on Wednesday. That same day, state Rep. Jeff Essmann of Billings, chairman of the Montana Republican Party, also wrote about the Daines-Warren incident in an op-ed for the Billings Gazette. Essmann’s piece was so crowded with misstatements and misleading information that it demands a response. (more…) Continue Reading →
A bit over a year ago, I wrote a satirical piece for Last Best News about Donald Trump’s idea of building a wall along our border with Mexico. I suggested that what we really needed was a wall between us and Canada. At the time, Ed Kemmick and I had a conversation about whether readers might actually take this as a serious proposal. Satire isn’t always understood by everyone, as I knew from experience. Over 40 years ago, the first piece of satire I ever had published was in a Catholic family magazine. Continue Reading →
Without saying a word, a friend handed me a folded copy of the front section of Sunday’s Billings Gazette. No words were needed. The copy was folded to an ad that spoke volumes. (more…) Continue Reading →
Donald Trump has been legitimately elected president of the United States, and Democrats need to get over it and move on. But so does Donald Trump. Although Trump had a big victory it is apparently not big enough. He is now claiming that he should have gotten the majority of the popular vote as well as the Electoral College vote and is claiming that millions of people cast ballots illegally, and all for Clinton. This is the first time I have ever heard of a winning candidate claiming voter fraud. Continue Reading →
Donald Trump is eligible to play soccer for Scotland. The rules of the sport clearly state that a player is free to represent the country of either parent’s birth. As his mother is Scottish, there is nothing, technically, to prevent Donald John Trump scampering around the world’s soccer fields while proudly wearing the dark-blue shirt of his maternal country. (more…) Continue Reading →
You know you’re living in strange times when the maker of the world’s most popular dictionary feels compelled to send out a tweet defining the word “fact.”
As National Public Radio reported, there were actually two tweets, one defining “fact” as “a piece of information presented as having objective reality,” and a later one saying that the word “is understood to refer to something with actual existence.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Just about the first friend I ever had shared a school bus with me to first grade. The friendship didn’t last. I figured out pretty soon that nearly everything he told me was an out-and-out lie. By the time he made his most outlandish claim of all—that he couldn’t do his homework because a steamroller had run over his textbook—I was so inured to his tall tales that I remained skeptical even after he showed me the book, which looked a lot like a steamroller had run over it. (more…) Continue Reading →
With the national political uproar leading to an unprecedented rise in the use of “unprecedented,” it was almost comforting this week to see the Montana Legislature fight familiar battles. (more…) Continue Reading →
Richard Spencer is stirring up trouble in both my native and adopted states. Spencer, who created the term alt-right, is a resident of Whitefish. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in the Texas town where I used to live, at the university where I both taught and studied. Spencer has been spouting the virtues of the white race for years, but last month he gained a dubious national reputation for shouting “Hail Trump” at a conference in Washington, drawing Nazi-like salutes from his white supremacist fans. Even for many hardcore racists, invoking Hitler was going too far. Continue Reading →
Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, I hosted a discussion at Rocky Mountain College on protests. Even though the Coffee and Conversation discussion came after classes were out for the week, and even though a cold front was supposed to be on the way, 20 or so students showed up. Maybe it was the free coffee that brought them out, or the prospect of a long weekend too far from home to spend the holiday traveling. (more…) Continue Reading →
