Tag Archives: Montana

Corruption In Big Sky Country – the COPP

Posted on by Aside 4

COPPOnly in Montana could the incumbent ruling party be judge, jury and executioner of any candidate from the other side who dares to run against them.

The Montana Commission of Political Practices – COPP (or as I call them, the Corrupt Office of Partisan Politics) must be blown up and redesigned.  The first step is to approve House Bill HJ1, which calls for “an interim study of the structure and duties of the office of the Commission Of Political Practices.”  Failing a reorganization, the legislature must refuse to re-confirm political hack Jim Murry as commissioner.

The COPP is charged with administering Montana’s laws and regulations pertaining to ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance.   That sounds like a noble and necessary function.  The problem is, the commissioner is appointed by, and serves at the behest of, the incumbent governor.  Current commissioner Jim Murry was appointed by Governor Brian Schweitzer.  Murry, the former head of the Montana AFL/CIO, Schweitzer campaign finance chairman, and a long-time leading Democrat apparatchik, was touted by Schweitzer as having “years of labor management and bipartisan experience”.

AFL/CIO head and Schweitzer money man – that’s about as bipartisan as you can get.  What do you think are the chances any Republican accused of any transgression will get a fair shake before the COPP?

The sponsor of HJ1, JoAnne Blyton (R-HD59), expressed concern that the small COPP staff is overworked, citing the “lengthy backlogs of complaints that don’t get resolved.”

One of those many backlogged complaints was the trumped-up case against Ken Miller, 2012 Republican candidate for governor – a case study of the grotesque and transparently political antics of the COPP.

Miller is a no-nonsense guy who ran a no-frills campaign.  Unlike most candidates for the governor’s chair, Miller did not have deep-pocket political connections, or much in the way of financial support from his party.  He invested his family’s savings and put 100,000 miles on the family sedan, criss-crossing the state, shaking hands, and picking up small contributions from working-class Montanans who shared his conservative values.   His grass-roots message resonated and if he won the nomination, he would have been a serious threat to the Democrats’ gubernatorial hopes.

Early in Miller’s campaign, an ambitious political wannabe, Kelly Bishop, sought to be his running mate.  Unqualified for that position, she accepted a commissioned fund-raising job, but that, too, was beyond her ability, and she was released.  Her parting shot at Miller was a call to the COPP office to see if there was any way she could squeeze some money from the campaign on her way out.  Commissioner Murry smelled blood and invited Bishop to “file a complaint”, even though she had no specific allegations.

Murry then launched his attack on Miller, alleging violations that were all either disproved or corrected.  All were inconsequential and would serve no purpose to Miller, even if true.

Four days before the primary election the COPP released its “findings” of unreported contributions to the press only hours after e-mailing them to Miller, who was on the road campaigning.  Before Miller even knew what happened, news outlets all over the state had reported that he was found guilty of a number of violations.

The Miller camp compared their records with the COPP’s and were shocked to find that the “missing” records were clearly displayed on the COPP’s own website.  The charges were blatantly false.

Miller held a press conference at the state Capitol, refuting every charge,and  pointing to the COPP’s own website data as proof that the allegedly missing contributions were clearly reported.  The media was largely disinterested, and only one correspondent mentioned the event.  Murry’s tactic had succeeded – the damage was done.

The next day Murry said that if the Miller campaign could prove their defense, he would retract the charges.  Miller threatened legal action, but nothing could restore the voters’ confidence only one day before the primary.  It was the old “October surprise” trick.

In the aftermath, Murry retracted all of his first findings, and issued a new set of allegations, equally untrue and/or insignificant.  He did not question or sanction any other candidates, although their reports contained errors and violations, according to the COPP’s website.   Murry made a half-hearted offer of settlement, but the amount of the fine was so unaffordable, and the stench of the corruption so pungent, that Miller found no alternative to filing suit against the COPP and Murry.

41 states currently have political practices commissions which are operated in non-partisan fashion. Let’s hope 2013 is the year that Montana joins them.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Liar, Liar
Pants on fire!
Your nose is longer than
A telephone wire!

Garage band classic – Liar, Liar by the Castaways

You Paid $3,652 For My Short Flight. Thanks!

Posted on by Standard 7

Silver Airlines*update 6/13/2013 – common sense prevails as Essential Air Service subsidies for Lewistown and Miles City are finally cancelled! 

 

Thank you, taxpayers!

I just booked a flight from Lewistown to Billings.   I fly frequently out of Billings, and usually I just drive to the airport – it’s only a two-hour trip.  I often stay overnight at a Billings hotel so I can leave my vehicle there until my return, because long-term parking at the airport is pretty expensive.  But last week I read in our local paper that we are only averaging one passenger per day through our Lewistown airport.  That’s one passenger for two flights in and two flights out.  Per day.  Kind of embarrassing.

So I thought I would check it out.  My airfare was only $71!  Heck, I would spend that on gas taking my truck to Billings and back, plus I would have to pay for a hotel or parking.  Why not?

How, you may ask, can air transportation from a little town like Lewistown be such a bargain?  It’s called Essential Air Service.   You wonderful taxpayers subsidize our tiny airline to make sure we don’t have to buy gas from a greedy privately-owned gas station and spend money at some evil, profit-hungry privately-owned hotel.  It’s one of those programs that our federal government says we just can’t live without.   In fact, they absolutely must raise our taxes because programs like this are . . . well, essential.

I am just overwhelmed at your generosity.  I looked up the Essential Air Service subsidy for Lewistown to see how much you are paying for my trip.   Let’s see, the most recent annual contract provides a $1,325,733 subsidy to Silver Airlines for serving Lewistown.  One passenger per day for 365 days, that’s about 365 passengers per year . . .  hmm, according to my simple math, you taxpayers are paying about $3,632 for my short trip to Billings.

Denny Rehberg and Jon Tester and Max Baucus are all big supporters of Essential Air Service.   Some other stingy Congressmen tried to shut down the program, but your Montana buddies don’t have any problem with you guys paying $3,632 for me to fly to Billings.   Oh, plus $3,632 when I return.  I mean after all, heh heh heh . . . it’s not their money!

So thanks again, I’ll be thinking of you as I glide over the Rimrocks into Billings-Logan airport to make my connecting flight.  You know, the Rimrocks sure are pretty, you can look right over the fiscal cliff . . .

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideGimme a ticket for an aeroplane
I ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby just wrote me a letter!
I don’t care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to my baby again
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby just wrote me a letter!

The Letter – by the Box Tops

EPA Puts Bicyclists On Endangered Species List

Posted on by Standard 5

I pulled out of the Costco parking lot in Helena and stopped at the stoplight.

“Geez,” I exclaimed to my wife.  “Look at all the painted lines through this intersection.”  Cars whizzed by left and right as we waited out the light, blinking and screeching and zooming through at the last second, or even a little late.   It was barely-organized chaos.  I looked to my left, and there was a narrow lane with a bicycle icon – RUNNING RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF A SIX-BY-SIX LANE BUSY INTERSECTION.

I was startled.  I tried to picture riding a bike through that mess.  Heck, driving a car through there is practically suicidal.  What kind of moron would take that chance on a bike?  For that matter, what kind of moron designed the bike lane?  And how many days of the year can you ride a bike in Helena, anyway?

Welcome to the crazy world of AGENDA 21, under the innocuous title “Complete Streets”.  It has taken root in most cities in Montana and across the country.

While you were asleep, or watching football, or shopping, your city leaders were feverishly studying the Agenda 21 and ICLEI guidelines set out by the United Nations and a worldwide network of socialists.   They don’t really know why they are doing this, but they have to keep the promises they made in exchange for a couple thousand bucks from George Soros.

Agenda 21 is a very ambitious and complicated plan.  Think “We Can Change the World”.  The main goal is “social justice”, where rich nations give their money to poor nations:

All states and all people shall cooperate in the essential task of eradicating poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease the disparities in standards of living and better meet the needs of the majority of the people of the world. – (Agenda 21 – Principle 5)

In order to make more of our wealth available to transfer to the poor nations, we rich nations need to cut back on extravagances, like driving around in cars. That’s where “Complete Streets” comes in. If we ride bikes instead of driving cars, then we will have left-over money to send to the Congo so they can drive cars. Plus, we will create less pollution, so that all the new cars in China won’t need expensive smog controls.

As a Montanan, it’s hard for me to understand the merits of these crazy bike lanes.  So I put on my Socialist Cap and tried thinking “globally.”

I considered that if more bike riders are killed, it reduces the pressure humans are putting on Mother Earth.  Yeah, that’s it!  That’s why we need bike lanes!

But wait, that would reduce the number of Democrat voters.  Hmmm.

I’ll have to think about this some more.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

There’s too many ahead of me
They’re all tryin’ to get in front of me
I thought I could find a clear road ahead
But I found stoplights instead

Expressway To Your Heart – the Soul Survivors

Sick of the USA? Let’s Move to Guernsey!

Posted on by Standard 2

Ah, the digital age.  From the middle of nowhere, with a few strokes of my keyboard, I can reach and influence people from . . .  well, another middle of nowhere.

Today I glanced at the hit statistics for my blog site.  As always, most of my hits are from the United States.  A few from Canada, Australia, and the UK.  And the usual smattering of others from assorted spots around the globe.

Today, I got a hit from the nation of Guernsey!

What, you never heard of Guernsey?  Well I have.  There was a little news item about Guernsey a month or so back, and somehow I saw it, and it registered about 18k of information in a deep, dark crevice of my ever-shrinking grey matter.

I remembered reading that there is this little island off the coast of England, where the main industry is selling business and shipping licenses to people who don’t want to be under the thumb of any other recognized government.  They have a radio station, some cows, a few pubs of course, and I remembered they have a really neat sovereign gold coin.  They act like Brits, but are really an independent nation.

That’s about all the info you can fit in 18k.

So when I saw that I actually got a hit from Guernsey, I did a web search and discovered their really cool little website.    I found that their government is mainly by committees of the states, and they choose a Chief Executive of the States.

Now I think I have about 21k of knowledge in there.

Anyway, if – after the election – you have had it with the United States, and can’t think of any place you want to move to, give some thought to Guernsey.

Or, alternatively, if we Montanans decide to secede from the United States, maybe we could go to Guernsey and take notes.

Anybody know how to milk a cow?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place – the Animals

Budgeting For Dummies

Posted on by Standard 1

My wife and I were so excited when we bought our first home back in the 1970s, just a few miles west of Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls.   We hadn’t been there more than a month and were outside in the yard, raking leaves.  Suddenly we saw a huge plume of thick, black smoke rolling out of the base.

“What the heck is that?”  We looked at each other, and guessed that a plane must have crashed and exploded.

We looked in the newspaper the next day, and watched the TV news, anticipating a story about the mystery explosion at the base.  But there was no report.

Still curious, a few days later I asked a friend who worked at Malmstrom, “What was that big cloud of smoke at the base all about?  Was there a plane crash?”

Puzzled, he said nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.  Then he said, “Wait a minute, was that Friday?”  I said yes.  He said, “Oh, that’s normal.  On the last day of the month, they always pour their excess jet fuel on the ground and burn it so they get their full allocation for the next period.  They call it fire fighter training.”

It’s common knowledge.  The way budgeting works in every government department is thus:  you get what you got before, plus a little more.  Whether you need it or not.  Whether your department is functional or not.  Whether the program is still needed or not.  Whether we have the money or not.

Is it any wonder our governments are bloated, inefficient, and ineffective?  Can you imagine any family or business running like this?

Our US Senate has not even bothered to write a budget for over three years.  Didn’t seem to matter much, did it?

I can give countless other examples of the idiocy of our government budget process, but I’m sure you have plenty of your own.

Rick Hill, Montana candidate for governor, really got my attention when he said he would work to implement “Priority Based Budgeting” if elected.  It didn’t get much of a reaction in the press, but I think it is the singular most significant promise I have heard this year by any candidate for any office.



Imagine if Hill’s common-sense idea were implemented at all levels of government.  We would find thousands of government buildings and other assets no longer needed, agencies who compete inefficiently with each other to provide the same services, and buildings full of desks full of people whose purpose became obsolete long ago.

There is no excuse for the laziness of our elected officials, who shirk their oversight responsibilities for the myriad of government agencies and departments.

If elected, Rick Hill and Mitt Romney and other elected executives have a golden opportunity before them: they can press the RESET button.  It might work like this:

  • CITIZEN RESET – Every citizen who receives an entitlement (other than social security) has one year to re-apply for program qualification.  Are you receiving disability?  Let’s make sure you are still disabled (or ever were).  Are you on unemployment?  You will be required to show that you are actively making yourself available and employable.
  • GOVERNMENT RESET – Every department has one year to justify its existence, demonstrate and quantify the value it offers taxpayers, and request its first zero-based budget.  The executive will require legislative oversight that is meaningful, detailed, and transparent.  And all payments made by the government will be audited against the budget.

Using the data management capabilities that are commonplace in business today, fraud and waste in government are easily preventable.  In spite of their promises, our elected officials have never even tried, and there is no time like the present.

Oh, and all government employees will be required to read “Budgeting for Dummies.”  There will be a quiz.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Zero-based budgeting,
according to Billy Preston
(gotta love the hair!)

Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
You gotta have somethin’
If you wanna be with me

Nothin’ From Nothin’ – Billy Preston

Sandy Welch Understands Economic Literacy

Posted on by Standard 1

Has there ever been a politician who didn’t tout the importance of a good education system?  I’ve never seen one.  They all agree.

Ask any citizen or businessperson what’s really important for success individually, or as a nation.  The answer will almost certainly include, “a good education.”

I find that education is like the weather – everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

We now have a chance to do something about education.  We can elect Sandy Welch as Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction.

A former math teacher and a successful school administrator, Welch certainly has the academic chops to qualify her for the position.  More important to me is her understanding of economics.

Schools today fail to equip our students with economic literacy.   We continue to turn out graduates who do not understand the basic facts of economic life, and they are walking targets to any financial or political shyster.  No subject is more critical.  Every American sets out each day to improve his or her family’s standard of living.

Sandy Welch gets it.  Early in her career, she worked for an accounting firm.  She wrote a book about financial fundamentals for teens.   She supports a curriculum that emphasizes a firm, internal understanding of basic economics that will accelerate every student’s success in life.

Welch has a clear understanding of the State Superintendent’s role on the State Land Board.  Unlike the incumbent, Denise Juneau, who lines up with environmentalists in opposition to coal extraction in Montana, Sandy Welch appreciates the importance of resource development to our school funding, and to the state’s economy and jobs.

We don’t do anything about the weather because we can’t change it.   But we can no longer consider education a spectator sport.  It’s time to do something.  We can get involved directly with our student’s coursework and classrooms.  We can participate in school board meetings and provide input to administrators.  We can view our schools as more than athletic venues.

And we can elect Sandy Welch as our next Montana Superintendent of Schools.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

The dancing is kinda weird, but you gotta
love the sound of those great Fender amps –
It’s only two minutes . . . watch this
oldie but goodie by Herman’s Hermits

Don’t know much about geography
Don’t know much trigonometry
Don’t know much about algebra
Don’t know what a slide rule is for
But I do know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be

You Take 16 Credits, What Do You Get? (Another Day Older and Deeper In Debt)

Posted on by Standard 4

Politicians, economists and educators continue to trumpet the importance of a college education.  At the Montana Conference for Education Leaders in Billings this week, academic experts nodded to each other that in our modern knowledge-based economy, finding a job without a degree will become increasingly difficult.

Yesterday we learned that two-thirds of college graduates last year had student loan debt, averaging $27,000.  Half of recent graduates can’t find jobs, and if they do, they find starting salaries have declined.

The issue is pretty complex.  College tuitions have increased at a greater rate than inflation.  Few students now work while at school.  Employers say colleges are not preparing students to meet their needs.  Americans  have become less nervous about debt and more comfortable with relying on government financial help.  Parents and students have not saved for college.  Many students use loan proceeds for all kinds of spending that is unrelated to school.  Some who receive loans and grants are not really students at all.

Add it all up and we face a $1 trillion student loan bubble.  And if you think all of that debt will be repaid to the taxpayers, I have a bridge . . .

Like the housing bubble, there will be a hue and cry to forgive the debts.  Some will say college education should be free – just like (gulp) Greece.

Is it a hopeless situation?  I don’t think so.   Here are just a few of many course corrections for our state universities that could turn the college cost/benefit dilemma around in fairly short order:

  • Limit student loans to educational costs only – tuition, books, perhaps on-campus room and board, and monitor recipients’ school attendance and performance
  • Take a hard look at the cost-drivers at our state-funded universities – is that new stadium necessary?  Are professor salaries commensurate with student benefit?
  • Eliminate the kickback corruption in the textbook industry – replace printed texts costing over $100 each with electronic media
  • Require student borrowers to have a documented plan for their educational path that leads to economic success – would a commercial bank make a business loan without a plan?
  • Allow and encourage employers (yes, those terrible profit-hungry abusers of the common people) to collaborate on-campus to make a direct connection between education and employment
  • Break up the radical left-wing academic bloc, eradicate their failed social engineering objectives and culture, and replace it with economic realism – the understanding that the reason one attends a university is to improve one’s ability to generate wealth for him or herself, a potential employer, and our nation.

Most important of all – we must prepare our K-12 students with a fundamental working knowledge of economics so that they are equipped to make rational career decisions at graduation.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You load 16 tons –
What do you get?
Another day older
And deeper in debt

Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford

The Spinning Wheel of Soft Corruption

Posted on by Standard Reply

Two political television ads for opposing candidates are running concurrently in Montana and they illustrate with startling clarity how our national politics has devolved.

One says Senator Jon Tester can’t be trusted because “he received more money from lobbyists than any other DC politician”:





The opposing ad rips Congressman Denny Rehberg for publicly stating that “lobbying is an honorable profession.”





Both candidates are guilty as charged –  they accept money from lobbyists.  A lot of it.  Because they have to.

It is the spinning wheel of soft corruption, and it spins day after day, election after election, in races large and small all over the country.  It takes a lot of money to get elected, so politicians accept donations from special interest groups who seek to control or influence their votes.  The special interest groups have a lot of money to give them, because of the huge profit opportunities that exist in a “government gone wild.”

Can a candidate avoid the spinning wheel?  Is it possible to raise a competitive war-chest of funds without selling at least a part of one’s soul?

Ask Sharron Angle, who challenged the Godzilla of the Democrat party, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for his seat in 2010.  Her brilliant new book “Right Angle” peels back the curtain to reveal how ugly the political process has become.  Sharron tells the story of a fellow assemblywoman in the Nevada legislature who admitted she couldn’t support Angle’s bill because she had accepted a contribution from the casino lobby, as did nearly every legislator in Nevada – except Sharron Angle.  Sharron confronted her (former) friend:

“You can say you hate the bill.  You can say that it is unconstitutional for government to interfere with regulations on private business.  You can say that it is not Republican and would send the wrong message about its support of less government regulation.  But do not ever tell me you’ve been bought!”

I said it so coldly that I shocked even myself.  She was stunned, too.

“I have not been bought!”  She was emphatic.

“Really?” I said.  “Let’s review our conversation.”

Sharron Angle could not be bought, and was still able to win a seat in the Nevada legislature.  She narrowly lost in the big race against the incorrigibly corrupt Reid, whose special-interest contributors included, against all reason,  the National Rifle Association.  She says,

“It takes courage to resist.  It takes insight to recognize the trap.  Some do, many more do not.  Easy money is the lobbyists’ deadly Kool-Aid.  It is the same corruption that John Adams recognized and said would destroy our Republic.”

Last year in a brief personal visit with Denny Rehberg, we were bemoaning this very issue – the spinning wheel of money and soft corruption that makes the political world go ’round.  Rehberg said, “I don’t need to run for the Senate.  My spot in Congress is probably secure for as long as I want it.  The only reason I decided to put myself and my family through this is we can’t afford to leave the Democrats in control of the Senate and this seat is important.”

That makes me feel a little better.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Another timeless classic featuring
David Clayton Thomas

What goes up, must come down
Spinnin’ wheel, got ta go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony,
Let the spinnin’ wheel spin

Spinning Wheel – Blood, Sweat and Tears