Okay – I think I get it. We have to do the bail-out thing, because Congress hasn’t been able to get it right for the past thirty years.

It was during the Carter years when “affordable housing” first somehow crept into the Bill of Rights. One of those secret amendments, y’know. Not a whole lot of impact during the Reagan era, but things really took off while Bill Clinton was enjoying the perks of the Oval Office. By then, clever community organizers in big cities like Chicago found ways to haul in millions and millions of taxpayer funds to create great wealth for special friends and simultaneously create super fabulous rat-infested dumps for the community. What a deal.

Seems nobody was paying a whole bunch of attention to the goings on at Freddie and Fannie’s, while the money geniuses on Wall St. discovered a shell game where they could leverage the mortgage loan packages about thirty times – and – even better could indulge in naked short sales (sounds like a Clinton thing, huh?) until they finally reached critical mass. And the whole thing fell down or blew up. Whichever. Bang. Boom. Bust.

So now “we the people” get to charge to the rescue. Why am I not thrilled with the opportunity? Perhaps because I don’t think they’re going to get it right this time either.

So what can we do about it?

Probably not much – but I figure I’ll start my own little protest and anyone can join in. Since it’s a given that Max will win again anyway – instead of voting for him – or the always popular “NOTA”, I’m going to cast my ballot for Bob Kelleher. If enough of us do that, the vote could be close enough to scare Max so he and Jon will get the message that we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

My first-ever – as it’s happening post…

The Fox story about Gov. BS’s claims of committing voter fraud.

Prelude is BigBri’s ad about how he – personally and all by himself – stopped the “Real ID” for Montana. Set the audience up for questioning Brian’s credibility if they knew how that really went down. Probably too much inside baseball for most though.

Eric Shawn framed the story well and hearing the tape of the gov’s own words remains damning. Brad Johnson did fine – sounded very serious, professional, and non-political. I wish he would have been a little more explicit about how fast McGrath’s refusal to investigate was, but Eric didn’t give him much time or ask the follow-up questions.

Personal opinion, here – Conrad didn’t help move the issue forward. His focus on the fact that nothing can change the outcome of the election and the fact that our election laws are fundamentally weak, while valid and certainly worth discussing, diminished the point that we’ve got a donkey’s butt in the governor’s office who – by his own admission – tampered with an election. And that demands an investigation.

Of Note: Fox interviewed BS earlier in the week, and to the best of my knowledge, they haven’t run any of that tape. Wonder why? Perhaps they didn’t have enough meat after they edited out the bull.

Bet it’s not too much fun around the dinner table at the Governor’s Mansion in Helena these days. The Schweitzergate Scandal just won’t go away. Since breaking in the Dextra Blogosphere on September 5, the story of the gov’s, shall we say, intemperate comments about fixing the 2006 election for his good buddy Jon Tester has appeared in newspapers, radio, and television around the country. Now it’s evolving into a national cable story as Fox News plans a live interview of Secretary of State Brad Johnson on Sunday morning. Eric Shawn will be discussing the issue of voter fraud as we head into this year’s election – a subject that most Americans don’t find particularly humorous. We heard that BS was interviewed by Fox earlier this week, so the whole country will probably get to hear him bragging, boasting, and bloviating and then see him trying to brush it all off as jus’ shuckin’ and jokin’ by an innocent, down home, good ol’ boy who’s bein’ unfairly attacked by his political opponents.

I don’t know how this whole mess will eventually be resolved. The US Attorney’s Office has opened a file on the case, and we’ll just have to wait and see if the investigation results in indictments, a perp walk, a trial, and possibly jail time. We are already seeing the rising star start to fall out of the sky. It was only three weeks ago that the buzz was all about Schweitzer as Obama’s Energy Czar – now even BS himself is minimizing those expectations by claiming he really wouldn’t want to live in DC anyway – just in case anybody’s asking. Which they aren’t.

Reminds me of a Kentucky Derby thing. The winner of the 2003 Run for the Roses – a gelding named Funny Cide – out of Distorted Humor. Poetic justice – or just a hoot?

Several of the liberals’ comments about Brian’s Schweitzer’s speech to the Trial Lawyers have chided those of us who were insulted because we don’t have a sense of humor. Well, let’s see if they think this is as hysterical as we do…

Ring Ring:

Hello Mike McGrath here. Brian is that you?

Big Mike, what’s happening?

Brian, I’m starting to get a lot of calls about that speech you made.

Mike, did you see all them folks in Denver cheering me on. It was great, national news media loved it. You never know where one good speech will take a guy, just look at BO.

Not that speech Brian, the one in Philly that you gave to the trial lawyers. Folks are calling for an investigation….

Oh yeah. It was great too. Raised a lot of cash on that trip. Hey Mike, maybe I could introduce you to those guys and you could get a little help with your campaign to the state Supreme Court.

Boy, that would be great Brian-just fax a list of contacts on over.

Say Mike, was there anything else that I can help you with? I’m kind of busy playing fetch with Jag right now.

No Brian, that about covers it. Have a good day and send that list over right away. Bye Bye_

—INVESTIGATION COMPLETE—

**Posted as a comment on Missoulopolis by Anonymous 9/12/2008

Mike McGrath is the current Democrat Attorney General. He is term-limited out of that position, so being as how he has been sucking out of the public trough for virtually his entire professional life, he is now looking to be elected Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court – a supposed NON-PARTISAN position. However, when the governor’s mouth got him in legal trouble, he went to his good buddy, Mikey. And Mikey, like the good little Party lapdog that he is, came galloping to the gov’s rescue with such speed and alacrity that he finally gave Ron Waterman a chance to offer the voters a clear picture of the contrast between the two of them.

Ron is an exceptional, intelligent lawyer with a breadth of legal experience and the kind of judicial temperament that demands a careful and thorough analysis of the information before him before making a decision. Unlike McGrath who has his mind made up and doesn’t need to be bothered by the facts. Montana cannot afford to have a Supreme Court led by such a legal and intellectually retarded political hack.

Mike didn’t do himself or the governor any favors with his lightening-speed refusal to investigate a legitimate complaint by a Montana citizen. Perhaps there is insufficient cause to arrest the governor for conspiracy to commit election fraud, election fraud, intimidating a public official, or extortion, but in the light of Schweitzer’s own admission of guilt in these matters – which may or may not rise to the level of evidence because that speech can be considered as “statements against self-interest”, our Attorney General certainly would have better served us and the governor had he conducted an honest and complete investigation. Instead of at least making it look like he was doing the responsible thing, Mike confirmed to all Montanans that he is no more than another puppet dancing to Brian Schweitzer’s tunes.

Call me crazy, but don’t you find it interesting that the jump in the unemployment rate comes about a month after the hike in the minimum wage?

I know for a fact that at least two people at one local business were laid-off because the business could not absorb the increased costs. Admittedly those jobs didn’t provide a living income – but in one of the two cases above the job provided additional income to a struggling family – and now they have to find a way to replace not just the difference between the old rate and the new rate, but the old rate and zero. Zippo. Zilch. And there’s no unemployment insurance either – he hadn’t been at the job long enough.

Way To Go! all you caring, benevolent, progressive liberals. Basic economics has taught us that when the cost of doing business goes up one of two things will happen: Business passes the increases on to the customers (Inflation), or they cut costs (Unemployment) because the only “business” that has a printing press in the back room is the federal government.

I know that the folks who generally have minimum wage jobs probably don’t have the educational background to understand the economic system, but the people who pushed for the higher minimum wage (like Steve Bullock – candidate for Attorney General) surely do – and they have chosen to ignore economic realities for political feel-good demagoguery.

Shame on them.