Our radio friends Chris Griffin and Michelle Wolfe took a ride…took a ride in the BearCat in Bozeman (that armored vehicle getting all the attention). Check out their video below. Plus, the NRA being attacked over Ebola? Watchdog.org has Bullock’s “pre-k boondoggle.” Daines is on the port side. And, new polls show former Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke (R) takes a more commanding lead over John Lewis (D), a former staffer to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). All that and more is in this week’s Weekend Wrapup.
But first, check out this great tweet from Katrina Schweitzer- the daughter of former Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT). Schweitzer has been discussed as a potential presidential contender in 2016.
Chatted w/ Sen. Conrad Burns @ the @msubfoundation dinner. We squashed our beef from the 2000 Sen race. #thankgodmydadsnotasenator #mtpol
— Katrina Schweitzer (@KMSchweitz) October 3, 2014
Burns (R-MT) defeated Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) in the 2000 US Senate race, but Schweitzer carried his campaign on to become Governor. Hats off to Katrina for chatting with Conrad. I first met her at the Big Sky Honor Flight return ceremony at the Billings airport as we greeted the WWII veterans coming back from DC. Class act. If I’m not mistaken, she was cruising around with Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch.
Now, back to politics. Check out what James Conner, a liberal blogger from the Flathead Valley of Montana shared via Twitter today:
#mtpol Gravis poll. Curtis gains on Daines, but Lewis loses ground to Zinke. Analysis at http://t.co/SwP3h5e9oO
— James Conner (@jrcflatheadmemo) October 3, 2014
From Conner’s blog:
Gravis Marketing’s latest Montana poll on behalf of Human Events reports Amanda Curtis gaining on Steve Daines, but still 13 points behind him, and John Lewis 10 points behind Ryan Zinke. Gravis’ polled 535 likely voters on 29–30 September. A Gravis poll of registered voters, taken 22 July, reported Zinke was leading Lewis by eight percent. Graphs of the Senate and House polls from July through today are below.
Curtis, at 41 percent, has reached former Democratic nominee John Walsh’s high point. It’s late, and she’s still a long shot, but she’s closing the gap. Democrats and friends should shovel money into her campaign.
Even Cosmo is wading into the US Senate race in Montana. (For those of you who haven’t heard, they started some left wing blog apparently)
Cosmopolitan.com: Can This 35-Year-Old Math Teacher Become the Youngest Member of the Senate?
According to Rebecca Sive, author of Every Day Is Election Day: A Woman’s Guide to Winning Any Office, From the PTA to the White House, there really isn’t a downside to Curtis’s run. “People can say she’s young, people can say she hasn’t had enough experience, people can say she’s too liberal for the state,” Sive said. “These are all already known facts. So what she is going to do is she is going to show that she knows how to do it, and that’s she’s willing to take a shot, and that is a really important quality right now for women candidates.”
If Curtis doesn’t win, Sive says, it was a long shot anyway so there’s no status lost. “There are two kinds of wins here,” said Sive. “One is that you actually win the office. The other is that you show you are a credible candidate and make your case.”
(Except the way she’s been hiding out and running from her past positions and from the voters…probably makes it more likely we won’t see her on the statewide ballot ever again)
Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT) is on the port side, as The Bellingham Herald reports:
A Republican congressman from Montana is urging approval of a Washington state coal port as a way to boost the mining industry in his home state.
U.S. Rep. Steve Daines toured the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal in Bellingham, Washington on Thursday. It would handle up to 48 million tons of coal bound for Asia annually.
KTVQ-TV: Daines says proposed west coast terminal would help Montana
“It is critical we make this facility happen,” Daines said. “This will serve as an important economic driver, both for the people of my home state of Montana, as well as the people here in Washington, who will greatly benefit from the increased export capacity the terminal will bring.”
Ben Unterseher, Montana Legislative State Director for the SMART Transportation Division, and Jason Small, Northern Cheyenne Tribal member, rancher, and Boilermakers 11 Union member, joined Daines on the tour.
WatchdogWire.com- MT: BULLOCK’S PRE-K BOONDOGGLE
A major question not often addressed is the factual basis, or lack thereof, for Bullock’s (Governor of Montana) assertions regarding the benefits of universal pre-K. The assertions made are derived from data related to “at risk” children, but that fairly relevant bit of information never seems to make it into his talking points.
The Washington Post, among others, has reported on another central question: how lasting are the effects of early childhood education?
Predictable scapegoat emerges for spread of Ebola (Hint: It begins with ‘N’ and ends with ‘RA’) http://t.co/s5LHJ1Bhxk #MTPol
— Aaron Flint (@aaronflint) October 3, 2014
So can the NRA be blamed for this? The Daily Caller- PRESIDENT EBOLA: In 2010 Obama Administration Scrapped CDC Quarantine Regulations Aimed At Ebola
In October 2014, the first patient on American soil infected with the Ebola virus sits in isolation in a Texas hospital, prompting calls for travel restrictions between the United States and Ebola-stricken countries.
Meanwhile, four years ago, the administration of President Barack Obama moved with virtually no fanfare to abandon a comprehensive set of regulations which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had called essential to preventing international travelers from spreading deadly diseases inside the United States.
The CDC had proposed the regulations in 2005 under the administration of George W. Bush, reported USA Today in 2010. The original impetus for the regulations was fear that avian flu would spread unchecked.
The armored vehicle given to the Bozeman, Montana police is sure generating a lot of discussion. Want to take a look inside? Well, thanks to our good friends Michelle Wolfe and Chris Griffin in Bozeman radio- you can. Their video is below:
Chris Griffin, KMMS-AM Morning Show Host, and Michelle Wolfe, Morning Show Host for our sister station The Moose visit with Captain Steve Crawford and the much discussed BearCat