Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/donald-trump/page/5/)
An open letter to the president-elect:
Perhaps we can help you bring us together on the most important issue facing humankind. More than 97 percent of climate scientists have given you a flying start. They’ve proven that global warming is real, and we are causing it by burning too much fossil fuel. (more…) Continue Reading →
There has been no lack of disappointing, discouraging news over the past few months, but I don’t think anything I read was as depressing as these two sentences:
“Six months ago, Wade and his business partner, Ben Goldman, were unemployed restaurant workers. Now they’re at the helm of a website that gained 300,000 Facebook followers in October alone and say they are making so much money that they feel uncomfortable talking about it because they don’t want people to start asking for loans.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Ed Kemmick’s recent story about racist and misogynist comments on social media by a local businessman drew so much interest that it crashed the Last Best News website. It also may have crashed the prospects of the Coffee Tavern, the business Larry Heafner was planning to open. But none of that was the most striking thing about the whole affair. What struck me was this quote from Heafner: “I’m not racist by no means, and I’m not a woman hater.”
The funny thing is, I believe him. Not that he isn’t racist—the evidence in the story is overwhelming—but that he doesn’t believe he’s racist. Continue Reading →
JOLIET — Dave Engel has been making and restoring wagons, coaches and other horse-drawn conveyances for almost 40 years, but the commissioned project he’s working on now is likely to be seen by far more people than anything else he’s done. Working out of Engel’s Coach Shop on Joliet’s Main Street, just off Highway 212, Engel and one employee have been laboring since last February to build replicas of two of the wagons once used to haul borax in California’s Death Valley. (more…) Continue Reading →
U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., has been placed in the “Snow Job Caucus” by Talking Points Memo. The caucus, according to TPM, consists of members of Congress who have used “Word Salad to Avoid Giving a Position” on House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to replace Medicare with some sort of private insurance and voucher system. Zinke “told a TPM reader that there was no plan to phase out Medicare, therefore he does not support a plan to phase out Medicare,” the liberal web site reported. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was placed on the “We’ll Get Back to You:” list of those “whose offices were caught unaware, or claimed they would pass on constituents’ concerns.”
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., was listed as opposing the Medicare changes. TPM disputed Zinke’s claim that there is no plan to replace Medicare: “What Zinke’s office says isn’t true. Continue Reading →
They got their country back. And they are welcome to it. Colleagues in academia were commiserating last week after Donald Trump’s stunning presidential win. A couple of them stopped by my office for long talks as the results sank in. One wondered how she would explain to her kids that bullying and sexual predation are not OK, no matter what the president says. Continue Reading →
Well, the election is over, the dust has sort of settled, and the most obvious post-mortem on it is that political pundits didn’t have a clue as to how it would turn out. During the primaries Trump was dead meat. How could he win against all those qualified Republican candidates? OK, he won that primary, but if he continues to say outlandish things people will get wise to him and his support will plummet. OK, he won the nomination, but he can’t possibly win the election. Continue Reading →
An old newspaper joke says that the job of editorial writers is to go onto the field after the battle is over and shoot the survivors. The election is over; let the shooting begin. ♦ Cheapest shot: Democrats ran ad after ad pointing out that Greg Gianforte comes from New Jersey, as if failure to be born in Montana disqualifies candidates for public office. (more…) Continue Reading →
The news media are more biased than ever—as well they should be. Whoever said the media ought to be above petty partisanship, blatant favoritism and payback shenanigans had it all wrong. We do expect some professionals to be above bias. Doctors should mend the homeless as conscientiously as they stitch up millionaires. Court-appointed attorneys, underpaid and overworked though they may be, ought to be as conscientious defending a homeless vagrant as a debutante shoplifter. Continue Reading →
Is it really still October? Starting about six weeks ago, time slowed down in a way I’d never experienced before. There were some stories I wanted to finish before Election Day, but every time I’d try to remind myself how many weeks I had until then, my first thought was wrong. (more…) Continue Reading →
