A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Bullock’s next LtGov need not be a woman. If I’m reading the signs correctly, the usual suspects want Bullock to exclude men from the list of potential lieutenant governors. That would be a mistake. I urge those making that case to back off. He’s going to have a hard enough time finding someone who is willing to take the job. There’s no reason to double the difficulty of the task by halving the talent pool through gender discrimination.
Internecine warfare within Montana’s liberal blogosphere. My gentle and respectful message to my friends and colleagues is: there are not so many of us, and so few of them, that we can afford the indulgence of using our blogs to knock the hell out of each other. Our differences with each other, both petty and profound, pale in comparison with our differences with the far right. Let’s stick to the real issues instead of sticking it to each other.
Syrian refugees and hysteria. At Montana Cowgirl, State Sen. Christine Kaufmann, has an eloquent, perceptive, essay on the situation that is informed by her recent service helping refugees on a Greek Island. At Salon, Bill Curry reports:
In five years of civil war, 200,000 Syrians have died and 9.5 million have fled their homes. Germany has taken in 38,500 of them. The United States: 1,854. Half are children. Most of the rest are women or elderly. Two percent are single men of combat age, the demographic from which most terrorists hail. (The 9/11 hijackers’ average age was 24. The elder Boston marathon bomber was 26.) Vetting a refugee takes up to two years and produces a fat dossier, which is why so few terrorists try to get in that way. We say the world looks to us for leadership, but every other nation that might join a coalition against ISIS is doing more than we are to meet this crisis. They no longer want our “leadership” — just our soldiers, our arms and our money.