The bin Laden documentary is tops for Fox News. More illegal immigration fallout. Ted Cruz talks about a new online sales tax as “the height of lunacy” as he teams up with Sen. -Elect Steve Daines (R-MT). Reaction to a judge’s order mandating gay marriage in Montana…and much more in today’s Political Trough.
But first…
Gov Bullock’s 2017 budget based on oil prices staying at or near $100/barrel. Price today $75/barrel. Gov too optimistic? #mtleg #mtpol
— Austin Knudsen (@RepKnudsen) November 19, 2014
Montana Chamber: How the Keystone XL Pipeline Would Impact the Bakken….and Montana
Montana stands to gain as much as any state from the Keystone Pipeline Marketlink project (Baker, MT) proposed in the pipeline scenario. Tagged as a conduit for Bakken oil production (now probably less than 10% of the annual North Dakota production) it may not always be that way. New drilling technology puts Montana in position every year to discover new low-cost fields adjacent to or part of the Bakken oil reserves. So realistically, Montana producers, ancillary businesses and adjacent communities stand a very real possibility of long term benefit from the Baker Marketlink project putting us “closer to the market or a new market.” Let’s consider the over-used economic development term “Build it and they will Come” in our decision to support this project for the opportunities we can’t predict, but know we will discover. The Montana Chamber of Commerce has been firmly behind the effort since it was first envisioned 6 years ago and that has not changed.
Sidney Herald: Power in the East
The eastern Montana delegation in the Montana Legislature will have a large impact on procedures and legislation in the 2015 session. Republicans Matt Rosendale and Austin Knudsen were chosen by their peers in caucus Nov. 12 to key leadership roles in the Senate and House.
Rosendale, Glendive, is the new Senate Majority Leader, replacing Art Wittich of Bozeman. Knudsen, Culbertson, will serve as House Speaker. Three other eastern Montana legislators also were chosen to key posts for their party when the legislature convenes Jan. 5, 2015, in Helena.
“We are in a position to really help direct legislation,” Rosendale said. “We will have an extremely loud microphone to share our vision with the public.”
TheDC Interview: Rob O’Neill, The SEAL Who Shot Osama Bin Laden [VIDEO]
In an extensive interview, O’Neill revealed what it smelled like inside bin Laden’s compound, his reaction after Vice President Joe Biden divulged that SEALs took down the terror leader, what he’s heard from other SEALs now that’s he speaking publicly and why he thought he would surely die during the raid.
AP: Bin Laden documentary is tops for Fox
Fox News Channel’s two-part documentary on the former Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden is the network’s most popular documentary ever.
Reporter Peter Doocy’s interview with Robert O’Neill averaged just over three million viewers last Tuesday and Wednesday, the Nielsen company said. The second part had 3.37 million viewers, effectively tying with an edition of “The O’Reilly Factor” to be Fox’s most-watched show of the week.
Great Falls Tribune: ADF plans 130 new jobs in Great Falls
ADF International has hired a talented recruiter and given him a big assignment: filling 130 industrial job openings.
The new recruiter, Ben Wright, said there will be more openings for Great Falls and other Montana welding school graduates and he might even try to lure skilled workers from the noisy and tough working conditions at the Bakken oil patch.
The Quebec-based company has been assembling and fabricating steel for bridges and other commercial and industrial projects in the Canadian oil fields and elsewhere in a cavernous, high-tech, $25 million fabrication facility north of Great Falls since January. It’s about to open an adjoining $5 million paint facility that can do sophisticated industrial painting for ADF and other western companies.
Washington Times: Reaction on lifting of Montana’s gay marriage ban
“It is the attorney general’s sworn duty to uphold and defend Montana’s constitution until such time as there is no further review or no appeal can be made in a court of law. Fulfilling that duty, the state of Montana will appeal this ruling in light of the fact that there are conflicting federal court decisions and no final word from the U.S. Supreme Court.”
– Montana Attorney General Tim Fox
“I respect the decision made by the people of Montana, and am disappointed that an unelected federal judge has ignored Montanans’ voice in our state’s marriage laws. I strongly believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman and will continue working to defend the family.”
– U.S. Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont
MT Standard: Judge Overturns Montana’s ban on gay marriage
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that Montana’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to between a man and a woman violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Flathead Beacon: Judge Overturns Montana’s Gay Marriage Ban
Voters in the state in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Such bans have fallen around the country since the Supreme Court last year struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Montana Family Foundation President Jeff Laszloffy:
“While we’re disappointed in the decision, we will not despair, we will not throw in the towel and we will not give up. Laws may change, but the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is timeless.”
The Daily Signal: Obama’s Unilateral Amnesty Really Will Be Unprecedented – and Unconstitutional
According to the Associated Press, as well as House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., President Barack Obama’s plan to provide executive amnesty to more than 5 million illegal immigrants is no different than unilateral actions that were taken by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration and Reform Control Act, which provided a general amnesty to almost 3 million illegal immigrants. According to the Associated Press, Reagan acted unilaterally when his Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner “announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by [IRCA] would get protection from deportation.” In fact, in 1987, then-Attorney General Ed Meese issued a memorandum allowing the INS to defer deportation where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” for children of illegal immigrants who had been granted amnesty and, in essence, given green cards and put on a path towards being “naturalized” as citizens. In announcing this policy, Reagan was not defying Congress, but rather carrying out the general intent of Congress which had just passed a blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.
In short, while Reagan and Bush worked closely with Congress to implement the comprehensive legislation that Congress had passed (in the case of Reagan) or would pass shortly thereafter (in the case of Bush), Obama is bypassing Congress entirely. He is unconstitutionally revising existing law and, without congressional approval, imposing new ones that have been explicitly rejected by Congress time and time again, thereby setting himself up as a kingmaker (or king) on immigration policy.
Hugh Hewitt: A Lawless President, Salting The Fields
Lawless. Infamous. Untrustworthy. Echoes of how 1974 must have sounded to folks living in the nation’s capital.
No, Mr. Obama will be known to be a cheater and a fraud to his own party base, and especially to the people he purports to help. The people in the country illegally will know shortly that this stunt tonight does not help them and may in fact hurt them –badly. The collision of what is in essence a letter of recommendation from the president to employers with their genuine worries about liabilities under state law and about their fiduciary duties to their customers is going to be instant, and not to the good of the illegal population. Employers are going to flee the president’s testimonial that, if he were king of the forest, not queen, not duke, not earl, he’d let this person have a green card. Because he’s not king, he cannot bless this person’s employment in the real world of tort liability and state law. He cannot solve the issue of Social Security and unemployment insurance withholding. What he can –and will do tonight– is mark the illegal as someone not worth the trouble of hiring.
Whatever people think of immigration reform –and I am for it– they don’t much cater to diktats from D.C.’s first citizen as opposed to deals worked out among competing interests. That the president is an increasingly powerless lame duck makes the insult more pronounced. “How dare he?” is on not a few minds. Democratic minds. Hillaryworld minds. Hillary’s mind.
Politico Playbook earlier this week:
–“22 Times President Obama Said He Couldn’t Ignore or Create His Own Immigration Law,” by Matt Wolking on Speaker.gov, including this Obama quote: “Comprehensive reform, that’s how we’re going to solve this problem. … Anybody who tells you it’s going to be easy or that I can wave a magic wand and make it happen hasn’t been paying attention to how this town works.” http://1.usa.gov/1yROdmV
Cruz: ‘Height of lunacy’ to push online sales tax bill
“I am encouraged by the Speaker’s public commitment,” Cruz told reporters after leaving the news conference where he said it would be “the height of lunacy” for the House GOP to team up with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on an online sales tax.
Sen.-Elect Steve Daines (R-MT), who teamed up with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had this to say:
Representative Steve Daines today called on House Speaker John Boehner to “stand firm” against any attempts to pass internet sales tax legislation in the lame duck session of Congress.
“The internet has provided more than 700 retailers in my home state of Montana the ability to sell their products across the nation and create jobs in their communities,” Daines said at the event. “The internet is one of the last laboratories of economic freedom that we have left in this country that is unhindered by regulation and taxes.”