A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Gianforte’s religious beliefs are a legitimate campaign issue. Montana Cowgirl reports that conservative Republican Ed Berry, a scientist, is skeptical of Gianforte’s embrace of young earth theology. That speaks well of Berry. Young earth theology is an Ussherian cult.
The U.S. Constitution forbids establishing a religious qualification for office. But it does not forbid voters from taking a candidate’s religious beliefs into account when deciding whether to vote for that candidate. In fact, commonsense requires close scrutiny of exotic religious beliefs; for example, a belief in human sacrifice.
Will a hard hats versus hiking boots clash harm progressive candidates? That seems possible. Logicosity reports that Montana’s AFL-CIO is again supporting Republican Steve Gibson over Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell in Helena’s House District 80. Dunwell won by 23 votes in 2014. She should do better this time, even if the unions go after her because she supports a clean and healthful environment and doesn’t ask “how high” when labor tells her to jump.
Apart from the issues specific to HD-80, there will be considerable tension in this election between the green and labor caucuses in the Democratic Party because of fears — or hopes — that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will force the shutdown of the Colstrip electric power plants and the coal mine that feeds them.
This is a complex, divisive issue. Colstrip’s power plants are nearing the end of their economic life unless massively rebuilt. They’re not as thermodynamically efficient as newer plants or combined cycle natural gas fired combustion turbines, but they provide jobs that pay well. Labor is understandably committed to preserving those jobs, and is under no illusion that most displaced Colstrip workers and miners can be retrained for high paying jobs in other occupations. Environmentalists are rightly concerned that Colstrip is a major contributor to global warming, but sometimes they can be too righteous about it.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t support reparations for slavery. That doesn’t make him a white supremacist. But Ta-Nehisi Coates, again writing in The Atlantic, thinks it does. Coates, a black racist who hates white people, but who apparently supports Hillary Clinton, thinks Sanders is a doddering old fool who doesn’t even understand the argument for reparations. It’s an ugly, malicious attack that The Atlantic should be ashamed of publishing.
I suspect Coates’ Bernie’s a white supremacist screed is part of the vilify Bernie blitzkrieg that HRC’s campaign launched over the weekend. He’s also being called a foreign policy ignoramus, and his support of single-payer health care is being derided as downright unAmerican.
Sanders marched with Martin Luther King. Coates should march to a place where he’s never seen nor heard from again.