While I suspect that Republican candidate for State Auditor Derek Skees would himself be more

inspired by another general, it seems that the words of Napoleon are most fitting for this most unusual candidate for statewide office. Napoleon wrote, “the great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means,” and no political candidate in Montana today better represents the divide between ability and ambition than Derek Skees.

Rather than an extended narrative about the reasons Mr. Skees is unsuited for the office of State Auditor, I thought I’d offer just a sampling of the arguments against his election.

• James Conner at the Flathead Memo offered the best introduction to Mr. Skees in his 2010 run for the Legislature. In the piece, Conner describes Skees as a Civil War history revisionist with a penchant for right-wing conspiracy theories couched as history.
• During his single session as a legislator, he offered 23 pieces of legislation—all of which died, despite massive Republican majorities. Among his priorities? Ending public input on nuclear power, allowing students to bring firearms to schools, and nullifying federal laws.
• He offered a bill which would give Montana the right to allow human trafficking and slavery if we wanted, because of the “traditional Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty.” Don’t believe me? Listen to the recording.
• He was publically mocked by Republican Representative Ken Peterson for presenting an absolutely idiotic bill to reduce the size of the Montana Supreme Court.
• Specifically, he sports Confederate clothing and believes that the Civil War was “an unconstitutional war declared by Congress and President Lincoln and involved Yankee Trader greed and Southern honor.”
• A high school journalist in Whitefish got Skees to admit that we should build nuclear power in the Flathead, that oil is a never-ending resource, that environmentalism is communism, and that “gays invented the idea hate language.”
• He told a candidate forum that he opposed Social Security.
• He supports a sales tax that Montana voters have repeatedly rejected.
• He worries about the dangers of human micro chipping.
• His keen sense of budgeting led him to believe the state of Montana was engaged in deficit spending, which was not only factually incorrect but unconstitutional.
• He was a featured speaker at the John Birch Society, an odious hate group which peddles conspiracy theories of the worst kind.
• He is connected to Rick Breckenridge and attended his white-power fueled Liberty Convention in 2010 that led to an FBI investigation of one of the key speakers.
• He may have generated the best letter to the editor of 2011, when Mike Donohue described a a rambling two hour Skees speech, saying that “the pain was so excruciating most of his audience were fighting off sleep deprivation.”

I think you get the idea.

Mr. Skees is out of touch with Montana voters, out of touch with even radical Republican values, and frankly, out of touch with reality. His inflated self-worth is only matched by his complete lack of knowledge and experience for the position. Frankly, it’s an embarrassment to the Montana Republican Party that he will be their standard bearer in this race.

Make the easy choice. For competent, professional leadership of the State Auditor’s office, throw your support behind Monica Lindeen.

Monday: Secretary of State
Tuesday: Superintendent of Public Instruction
Wednesday: State Auditor
Thursday: Attorney General
Friday: Governor

Today, Senator Olympia Snowe announced that she will not be seeking re-election.  No doubt, many of us have disagreed with some of the votes and positions elected officials like Sen. Snowe have taken.  Read the comments on this blog (and others) and the same could be said about almost any Democrat serving in congress.

Senator Snowe is retiring because of the extreme partisanship that has dug its nails into our society. “I do find it frustrating…that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions,” she said Tuesday.

Snowe’s retirement is great news for Democrats looking to keep control of the U.S. Senate, but it should also serve as a moment of reflection for our Party.

From Sen. Specter to Sen. Snowe, Republicans are leaving the GOP, are being pushed out of GOP, or feel that the GOP has left them.  Where will these “moderate Republicans” go?

Democrats can either choose to embrace moderate Republicans or Democrats can shun them just like the TEA Partiers and extremists that banished them.

I encourage we Democrats embrace them.   This is a pivotal moment.

We both extend our hand and build a party based on reasonableness and responsibility or we shut moderates out and become just as insolated, incestuous, and out-of-touch as the GOP of today.

Of course, extending our hand means compromise, but it also means we have a better chance of defending and expanding our most cherished institutions and ideals.

Simply put, we should avoid litmus tests and embrace those who are abandoning extremism.

Mitt Romney paid a 13.9% tax rate in 2010, on an income of $21.6 million dollars.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney earned $21.6 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent of that amount in income taxes, using the preferential rate on investment income and charitable deductions to pay a smaller share of his earnings than top wage earners typically do.

I’m a public school teacher and small business owner. I paid 17.6% on an income just under 10% of the decimal point in Romney’s income. That’s what TurboTax tells me, anyway.

While Mr. Romney seems to believe that I am envious of his success, he’s wrong. I’m not envious; I’m angry. I’m angry that he has the gall to be proposing a tax cut that would decrease his burden when he’s already paying less than his fair share. I’m angry that he demonizes a government and regulations that have largely been built to benefit his kind of income at the expense of the rest of us.

As my friend Matt Singer said, I’m angry that “he won’t pick up his share for roads, schools, defense.”

Now, Mr. Romney’s supporters will say that he deserves those tax breaks because he is a “job creator.” How, precisely, living off the sweat and misery of others in “destructive capitalism” creates jobs remains a mystery to me, but Mr. Romney certainly isn’t creating any jobs now—other than for Republican operatives.

But I am a job creator. I create jobs every day. I help students realize their potential to reason, to write, and to achieve their ambitions. Every teacher in America is a job creator far more important than Mr. Romney.

But we’re not the only ones.

My union brothers and sisters who plow the roads so we can get to work are job creators and those men and women who build the roads, rails, and ships that carry American goods are job creators. The single parents who struggle give their kids opportunity working two jobs are job creators, as are the public servants who keep us safe and keep us informed.

Another famous Massachusetts politician once famously asked Americans “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."

Isn’t it time for Mr. Romney to start asking—and starting doing—for the America he so loves?

Part of a periodic series of reminders that, when Republicans in the Montana Legislature and members of Montana TEA Party organizations tell you they represent the mainstream of Montana views, they might just be wrong.

Park City Republican member of the House David Howard believe that Obama is little different than German, Japan, and Italy during World War 2. No word on WW2 Hungary, though.

TEA Party stalwart Eric Olsen believes that statues of athletes and entertainers are part of the Marxist agenda. You can criticize my President, my nation, and my party, Mr. Olsen, but leave your lies about baseball off my Internet.

Republican candidate for State Auditor and opponent of government (confused as I am?) Derek Skees might want to work a bit on his campaign messaging just a bit. He’s certainly right about that “least capable” bit, but he should probably apologize to the good people of the Flathead. I’m certain they wouldn’t vote for him again.

Bob Fanning’s running mate, Chuck Baldwin, in his typically understated way, argued that the passage of the NDAA has turned the United States into a war zone:

Pastor Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party’s candidate for President in 2008, wrote, “Americans should realize that, coupled with the Patriot Act, the NDAA, for all intents and purposes, completely nullifies a good portion of the Bill of Rights, turns the United States into a war zone, and places US citizens under military rule.”

Fanning and Baldwin also have a Confederate-style plan to save Montana:

Which of the Gubernatorial Candidate teams have a plan to set up and execute a sovereign state economy, independent of the federal economy, with our own banking system independent of the Fed Money Monopoly, as needed for our state’s survival for when this End Game of Federal, State, and County collapses occur?  Only the Fanning/Baldwin team have a contingency plan, or even a clue as to what to do and how to do it.  This is the reason for their strong 10^th amendment stand as part of their campaign message.

Vote for Reason. Vote for a Democrat.

Highlighting some of the most interesting and provocative posts in the past week at Montana blogs.

D Gregory Smith pointed out, that despite constantly talking about his availability to Montanans, Representative Rehberg has been awfully unwilling to meet with them lately.

Montana Cowgirl found it interesting that Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill would depict himself as someone who struggled as a single father, given the reasons he became one.

I’m not sure that I agree with much of anything Ed Berry says, but I wonder if he’s right that far right conservatives will not support Representative Rehberg because of his support of the Defense Authorization Act and HR 1505.

Rob Natelson managed to blame liberals for the Citizens United decision. It’s really a conservative jurisprudence must-read.

Barb Rush showed once again why she should not ever be elected to the School Board.

Over here, I kept yammering on about Representative Rehberg’s continued dishonesty about Pell Grants, new poster Winston wondered why campaign web sites weren’t in better shape, and Gabriel Furshong argued for the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.

The Washington Post reports that the Post Office used bad data, including inaccurate information about profitability and distance when it decided which offices to shutter:
The U.S. Postal Service relied on questionable data to identify more than 3,600 post offices and other retail operations to study for closure, an oversight panel has concluded.

In many cases the selection process ignored whether an alternate post office was nearby and which closures would reduce costs the most and lacked sufficient data and analysis to make the best decisions, the Postal Regulatory Commission said.

While Congressional meddling is responsible for a large share of the current troubles the Post Office faces (thanks, Representative Rehberg!) Congress should pay attention to this report and put more pressure on the Post Office to make good choices about the branches to close and convert into “village” post offices.

The Post Office simply needs to do better than this:

But the oversight commission consulted economists and other experts who concluded that other factors should come into play: How many miles away is the nearest post office? Would closing deny service to large groups of customers, such as seniors, who would have trouble finding alternatives?

The Postal Service also has a poor idea of how much money the closures will save, the commission said. Postal officials combine revenue from retail sales with day-to-day costs of operation. Balance sheets for several stations and branches are lumped together, making it hard to know which facility loses the most money.

“So when you’re deciding, I want to close this station as opposed to that one, it’s not clear which should go, except for the gut feeling of the postmaster,” Goldway said.

Given the national media’s apparent interest in the endorsements of former fringe candidates for public office and that I ran to become Montana’s governor at least as credibly as Christine O’Donnell ran to become one of Delaware’s senators, it only seems appropriate that I offer my endorsement today for the best GOP candidate for President:

It’s time for the Republican Party to stop embracing candidates who want to weaken the social safety net, especially when they have a candidate who has already tried to destroy it. It’s time to elect a man who puts the Id in the Republican Party’s idiocy and the dick in their Dickens.

That candidate is Newt Gingrich.

When Republicans have a candidate who unabashedly argues that millionaires should pay fewer taxes while children should work longer hours, the choice seems clear.

ABC, get in touch.

P.S. Lest anyone think I am not serious, I’d suggest my endorsement makes more sense than that of Ms. O’Donnell, who wrote of her preferred candidate, Mitt Romney:

He has been consistent since he changed his mind.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about poverty lately. When people ask me why I am a liberal, it’s always this that comes first to my mind: the fact that in the richest country in the world there are so many people who lack access to basic economic and health security—and our systemic unwillingness to confront it.

The truth is that I’m doing better than I was before the recession. While some conservatives will no doubt see this as a sign of government spending run amuck, I’ve seen small, incremental increases in my teaching salary and I’ve picked up some independent, part-time gigs to add to the bottom line.

I’m not writing this to boast—or to suggest that I am currently more successful than others who are struggling because I work harder or am better in some way. I write it, because I think that I, like many other people, have not personally felt the impact of our struggling economy.

The fact is that the recession has been invisible to me—in my own life.

But at work, in the faces of students who clearly aren’t getting enough nutritious food to eat, who clearly don’t have access to basics like sundries and laundry, and who increasingly depend on services available at the school and the community, it’s impossible to ignore the crushing reality of poverty.

Whether it’s the Missoula Food Bank running short of turkeys for Thanksgiving, the new Census numbers showing a huge increase in poverty, homeless shelters overfilled with residents, or the ever-growing ranks of those who need to rely on food assistance, the evidence of the impact of the economic downturn is all around us, though many of us aren’t experiencing it.

As the gap between those who are making it and those who are not grows, we are undermining the very structure upon which our society became the greatest and richest country in the world. We’re undermining faith in the very idea that made America exceptional for so long, that effort and merit can result in greatness.

Telling people they just need to work harder may play well in a GOP Presidential debate, but try telling that to a child too hungry to concentrate. Or to a parent who has to decide between enough food and an educational opportunity for her child.

Those of us who are doing well might not feel these impacts immediately, but a future of increasingly economic disparity and diminished opportunity for all citizens presents a very real danger that we will never truly get ourselves out of this economic mess, one created by the very people who are still benefiting most from it.

George Packer, in a a stunning essay for Foreign Affairs, discusses this reality:

The surface of life has greatly improved, at least for educated, reasonably comfortable people — say, the top 20 percent, socioeconomically. Yet the deeper structures, the institutions that underpin a healthy democratic society, have fallen into a state of decadence. We have all the information in the universe at our fingertips, while our most basic problems go unsolved year after year: climate change, income inequality, wage stagnation, national debt, immigration, falling educational achievement, deteriorating infrastructure, declining news standards. All around, we see dazzling technological change, but no progress.

Every student whose potential we lose because of poverty is an incalculable waste and an infinite moral failure. Every bridge left unstable while billionaires don’t pay taxes weakens the structure and moral fiber of our nation.

As we head into this Thanksgiving, it’s worth taking a moment to be thankful for all that we have, but we can’t be satisfied merely with what we possess. We must recommit ourselves to the idea that our society is only as strong and healthy as its weakest members.

Let’s be thankful—for our friends, families, jobs, and everything that comes from them. But let’s also be mindful of those doing without.

It’s pretty difficult to keep up with where Representative Dennis Rehberg is standing on issues these days. Whether it’s federal control of our land, the GI Bill, SCHIP, the Patriot Act or REAL ID, Representative Rehberg seems to demonstrate the same consistency on issues one expects from Mitt Romney.

The latest? His position on a controversial tax.

KXLH reported yesterday that Representative Rehberg voted to end a scheduled tax on contractors:

The Montana Contractor’s Association executive director Cary Hegreberg says the tax could force contractors to stop hiring, adding that the construction industry is just beginning to add jobs in Montana and this tax could stop that growth.

On Thursday, U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT) joined 262 other Representatives in voting to repeal the tax.

Where did a tax like this—one that hurts the construction industry and job growth—come from, you might be asking? Well the Independent Record reported last Saturday that it came from in 2006:

The measure was a provision (Section 511) of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 meant to make sure contractors pay their full share of taxes — particularly those smaller businesses more likely to be paid in cash.

And how did Montana’s tax-fighting, business-loving champion vote? In favor of the tax, which passed Congress on May 17, 2006.

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but it’s pretty frustrating to know that Representative Rehberg is trying to get political mileage out of a tax he created in the first place.

Really interesting read in the New York Times about the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement and how a little John Rawls might help:

Despite providing a remarkable venue for what Al Gore called a “primal scream of democracy,” Occupy Wall Street is leveraged too heavily on the rhetoric of rage rather than reciprocity. Rawls would argue that Occupy is fully justified in its criticism of the political and economic structures that propagate massive concentrations of wealth; he saw the “basic structure” of society as the “primary subject of justice.” But Rawls would lament the tendency of the “99 percent” to misdirect their energies into hatred of individuals in the 1 percent. He would have them save their hostility for the policies and institutions that have permitted only the wealthiest to enjoy significant gains from the past two decades of economic growth.

While there are few political questions that Rawls doesn’t provide a good framework for better understanding, it seems especially true in this case. Stop sending in SD cards for smartphones; send in some John Bordley Rawls. Used copies available on Amazon, though your local bookstore might be a better choice.