Steve Daines is Fighting for Montana, the Missoulian is Fighting for Steve Daines, and Some Montanans Will Fight to Stay Warm
by lizard
The next time I hear about or read about a Republican politician depicting environmentalists as job-killing obstructionists for using the courts to mitigate the destruction of extractive industries, I’m going to think about this government shutdown.
Let’s take Steve Daines, who decided to participate in this congressional extortion obstructionism. After helping to inflict the wound, watch Congressman Daines put on his other face for Montana’s national parks.
Steve Daines, fighting for Montana. And to think, just two weeks ago Daines was getting himself some good Missoulian in this op-ed:
Supporters of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act have new reason to hope that action will soon be taken on this important legislation.
For one, a Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee held hearings on the bill in late July. For another, the bill’s primary sponsor – U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. – says his fellow Congress members are showing a growing understanding of the FJRA and its benefits. It certainly helped increase the bill’s stature when U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., signed on as its co-sponsor in February.
Even more significantly, Montana’s sole representative in the U.S. House is showing serious interest in working with Tester on making the bill something Montana’s entire congressional delegation can support.
Montana’s newly elected Rep. Steve Daines has, admirably, kept an open mind and a listening ear, meeting with Tester often as well as hearing from Montanans with a range of opinions on the FJRA.
The act is rooted in the efforts of a diverse coalition of Montana groups to move past the longstanding gridlock that had left the state’s forests without new wilderness designations or significant timber activity for far too long. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project and the Three Rivers Challenge all succeeded in bringing together environmentalists and loggers, recreationists and conservationists to the same table.
Tester introduced the results of their hard work into Congress in July 2009 with the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. It would mandate logging on at least 100,000 acres of national forestland in Montana, change 370,000 acres of wilderness study areas into recreation areas and designate 667,000 acres as wilderness.
Some folks quibble that the bill doesn’t do enough to satisfy wilderness advocates. Others argue that it fails to guarantee timber projects won’t be locked up in court battles.
You can read more at the link, but you get the idea.
You can also read more about what a nice messaging-vehicle the Missoulian is for Steve Daines, but I’d read it here.
It’s fun watching a newspaper play patty-cake with a politician who is inflicting pain on its readers. Thanks, Missoulian!
Which brings up a good question, are those feeling the impacts of the government shutdown actually consumers of the Missoulian’s product? I hope the Missoulian’s editorial staff doesn’t share the sentiment that their industry’s in decline because it can’t sell newspapers to single mom’s with a panoply of baby daddies. That’s what an editor by the name of Chris Powell apparently thinks, because he said this:
Newspapers still can sell themselves to traditional households — two-parent families involved with their children, schools, churches, sports, civic groups, and such.
But newspapers cannot sell themselves to households headed by single women who have several children by different fathers, survive on welfare stipends, can hardly speak or read English, move every few months to cheat their landlords, barely know what town they’re living in, and couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription even if they could read. And such households constitute a rising share of the population.
Nice.
Going back to the language of the Missoulian’s op-ed, in the last paragraph from the quote, notice the use of the word “quibble” versus the use of “argue”. Also notice which side gets which word.
Subtle, and more to the point, effective.
I think the woes of newspapers like the Missoulian may get a soon, much needed boost. Since winter is coming, and this shutdown is getting going, and the debt ceiling is right around the corner, the people losing their energy assistance (probably single moms with large litters of kids) will need newspaper to start barrel fires in the backyard, you know, for warmth, and newspaper will come in handy for starting those fires.
October 1, 2013 at 11:51 pm
My daughter just lost her job, and place to live, working at a private concessionaire in a national park that was forced to close down and lock up shop.
Fuck Daines and all his hypocritical asshole comrades, and all the bloggers/commenters who would support him and the shutdown. Fuck all of you. Forcing hardworking youth into becoming homeless and jobless “takers” on unemployment; breeding cynicism about the “american way.”
October 2, 2013 at 5:36 am
McDonalds in Dickinson ND paying $18 an hour.
With bennies.
October 2, 2013 at 10:55 am
Have you seen the crime rates for meth and prostitution in Dickinson, particularly? Or the Bakken in general? Have you seen the housing prices? $500/week for studios, Apartments are running $1,000-1,500 per bedroom/month if you can get one.
$18/hr may look good on paper, but when you have to pay out the nose for housing, have to fight off meth heads (“…assaults in Dickinson, N.D., have increased fivefold in just two years.”) and pushers, and rapists, pimps and human traffickers on your way to work, McDonald’s in the Bakken is just another hellhole. Not a place I’d want my 22-year old daughter living.
She went to work for Vail Corporation thinking that working in the national parks was a good way to get started in a career involving the outdoors, and in a backcountry environment.
But no, the teaparty has to take my daughter’s (private sector) job hostage to prove a point about what they feel to be an illegitimate presidency.
October 2, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Here’s a test JC.
More meth arrests in Dickinson or Missoula?
October 2, 2013 at 10:40 pm
400% increase in drug arrests in the bakken oil patch in the last 9 years:
“From 2003 to 2012, drug arrests in the 12 counties deemed the Oil Patch increased 405 percent, from 115 in 2003 to 581 in 2012, according to the statistics released Tuesday by Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem.”
Your turn. Whatcha got?
October 4, 2013 at 8:14 am
3/4 of the 581 arrests when pot busts.
Being from the Missoula area your daughter will feel right at home.
October 4, 2013 at 9:37 am
You’re quoting historical (last ten years), statewide percentages. That’s not the case in the patch. Actually, it’s kind of funny you’d even suggest that. Pot isn’t really an oil patch problem. Meth, cocaine and heroin are the drugs in demand there.
You’re not going to win this one, no matter how flippant you are, Swede. Shit’s getting bad in the patch, and ND in total. Go see if you can find any good news here: total violent crimes and aggravated assaults in ND have tripled in the last 10 years, forcible rape doubled. And this article about the problems in Sidney MT paints a really pretty picture.
October 4, 2013 at 10:56 am
Rapes? (being even more flippant) sounds we can call the Bakken East Missoula.
October 3, 2013 at 5:09 am
JC,
Good guy that may help her get started:
Please delete his email from public view after you save it.
Thanks Chuck!
October 2, 2013 at 7:44 am
Sorry to hear about your daughter. Young folks need to get the hell out of Missoula to find opportunities we had. It sounds like daughter was doing that.
You might have your daughter talk to Shawn (at the email below). Good luck to you and your family.
shawnw@ci.williston.nd.us.
Chuck
October 2, 2013 at 3:04 am
Two weeks ago?
That was then. This is now.
October 2, 2013 at 5:10 am
At least with his paycheck still coming Steve won’t have to apply for SNAP.
October 2, 2013 at 1:13 pm
I did read that Daines is donating his paycheck to Big Sky Honor Flight but when you’re a multi-millionaire that isn’t too big a sacrifice.
October 2, 2013 at 1:20 pm
Does ’em a helluva lot of good when they can’t see their own memorial.
October 2, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Good point.
October 2, 2013 at 6:11 am
If you’re shivering in the cold at least your electric rates won’t be going up.
(Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.
Among those furloughed would be most workers at the Office of Air and Radiation, which is in charge of writing and implementing most of the EPA’s major air pollution rules. The clock would also stop, for now, on the EPA’s eagerly-awaited proposal on renewable fuel volume standards for 2014.
October 2, 2013 at 7:46 am
do you agree with obstructionism as long as the political goal is one you agree with?
October 2, 2013 at 8:24 am
Obviously, Comrade Barky does.
Let’s review shall we? The right wing extremist wanted Ocare dead and buried. The compassionate and caring lefties wanted his 25K page bill enacted.
After several go around the wakos said ok ya get what you want with a couple exceptions. One year delay on the individual mandate (matching the corporate delay) and all DC legislators/staff have no exceptions.
Who’s obstructing?
October 2, 2013 at 8:42 am
then allow the vote, obstructionist.
October 2, 2013 at 9:21 am
The Senate voted.
Wanted their gold plated insurance plan over JC’s daughter’s job.
October 2, 2013 at 8:42 am
The local TV stations have their tongues way up Daines’ ass too.
October 2, 2013 at 9:08 am
Montana print and tv — both largely owned by out-of-state investors — are both heavily dependent on how effectively Daines, Tester and Baucus “bring home the bacon.” Whether it’s campaign cash or ag, energy or timber subsidies, it all spends the same. Campaign ads keep Montana tv in the black, and print can’t survive without print ads greased with appropriated federal reserve notes, and the fed’s “gift” of low-low interest rates and $85 billion/month in bond purchases. Face it, we’re a colony of Wall Street.
Who’s in the White House today dictating “the deal” to Obama? Any bets on Obama’s next veto?
October 2, 2013 at 9:19 am
Ya know who I feel sorry for?
Congressmen/women pushing their own elevator buttons.
http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/01/congress-must-push-own-elevator-buttons-and-seven-other-ridiculous-claims-about-shutnado/#.UkwwVRan8IQ.facebook
October 2, 2013 at 9:48 am
Well the government is shut down, and yes people will suffer who are connected to this government. Having been in the military for 2 shutdowns, I too suffered a bit, including missing a payday.
Although necessary for so many things, it is very sad that people should be so dependent on government assistance when they should have neighbors to help them. Why is it so necessary that money be sent to Washington, go through the hands of hundreds of bureaucrats with better pay and benefits than any other government on the planet, yet still corrupt in too many ways, just to be sent back to the poor neighbor next to you? It is time that we eliminated the middle man so that charity and love will prevail.
Jesus said, ““Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’”
(Matthew 25:34–37 ESV)
Last night, even though the government was shut down, 120+ hungry souls were fed at the Ronan community center free of charge. The 60 pounds of hamburger was donated, and so were the salads, cookies, and wonderful au gratin potatoes. All was carefully prepared, and served by the volunteer hearts and hands of Ronan local churches. The hungry stomachs fed, laid eyes directly upon the ones who gave, and saw their smiles, and knew their charity.
Instead of complaining about a government shut down because the Senate refuses to even place the budget passed by the House months again on the table for debate, please keep your hearts and arms open for your neighbors in need. Skip the middle man!
October 2, 2013 at 11:07 am
Your church prepared to pay for your neighbor’s cancer treatment, Rev? I applaud your charity feeding hungry people, but you’re still just treating the symptoms of the capitalist’s disease: rampant inequity. When’s the last time you’ve lobbied for a higher minimum wage, or held a sign in front of Walmart protesting lack of benefits?
While noble and necessary, just feeding the poor without addressing root causes does little but assuage the guilt of the better-heeled. This I know because my father spoke like you, yet admitted before he died that he wished he could have done more than just ring the bell at christmas, shaking down pocket cash to level out disparities between the haves, and the have nots.
October 2, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Just who is stonewalling cancer treatment for kids?