Are miners at the Stillwater Mine about to get the shaft? That’s the concern among the miners I’ve spoken to, as a marketing campaign from the company raises questions. That story is in this week’s Political Trough. Plus, trade pact stirs angst on the right. Baltimore burning. A pattern of benefit with Clinton cash. What happened to the Delta Smelt in California? Why is Adam Sandler under attack? And- Havre, Montana is on the map…for sports bras.
Those stories and more are below…
Montana is #1 for poorly paid first year teachers according to this map…
Posted by Aaron Flint on Saturday, April 25, 2015
Is the Schweitzer-led Stillwater Mine about to shaft the workers? They’ve already dlready exported executive jobs out of Montana, what’s next?
Billings Gazette- Union: Stillwater ad makes workers look ‘greedy’ during contract negotiations
Scott McGinniss, president of the United Steelworkers local 11-0001
McGinniss added that Stillwater officials are aiming to garner community support with the contracts of 900 union miners in Nye and Columbus set to expire at the end of May. It’s the union’s first negotiation with Stillwater’s new management team, which has taken major steps to cut costs over the past year, including layoffs and employee buyouts.“Everybody that works for the mine knows (the campaign is) a political ploy. The head of the company (former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer) is a professional politician. It’s all about trying to convince the community that if something goes south with the negotiations, that we’re a bunch of greedy bastards,” McGinniss said Friday.
The ads include the televised ad, a billboard on Interstate 90 west of Billings and radio advertisements and other print material. The company has not disclosed the cost of the ad campaign.
The Western News: Bullock signs controversial water compact
Gov. Steve Bullock signed the bill to ratify the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Water Compact into law Friday afternoon, despite a lawsuit filed to block the controversial agreement. Bullock was accompanied by Sen. Chas Vincent, who championed the bill through the Legislature, and by tribal chairman Vernon Finley.
In other news…why would the Montana Conservation Voters (an anti-resource development environmental special interest group) be taking credit for passage of the CSKT Water Compact?
From The Big Sky Business Journal “Hot Sheet:” Havre Company Markets to World
For the past 22 years, Enell, Inc. has quietly been doing business in Havre, serving a niche market – one ignored by the big companies. ENELL, Inc. makes sports bras for well-endowed women. Renelle Braaten, inventor of the Enell bra and company founder, developed the bra out of necessity as a young woman wanting to participate in sports. After obtaining patents, Braaten planned to sell her idea to an established company, but no one was interested. So, she started her own company. Enell, Inc. is a business that probably wouldn’t be, without the internet – certainly not in Montana. Without the advent of modern communications and computer technologies, running a manufacturing business, that relies on world-wide sales, from a small town in northern Montana, would not be possible. And, if she had had to move from Havre, Braaten said, she would never have started the business.
The Hill: Trade vote stirs angst on the right
“The polling is bad, and some people are getting nervous,” said a GOP senator who requested anonymity to talk about his conversations with colleagues.
Senate Republicans are looking for political cover to vote for trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation, which would empower Obama to negotiate the TPP — a trade pact with 11 nations — that could not be amended or filibustered in Congress.
While the trade deals are popular with the business community, they are controversial among the conservative base in states — such as Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina and South Carolina — where Republican incumbents are running for reelection next year.
Politico Playbook
–“Baltimore descends into chaos, violence, looting,” by The (Baltimore) Sun’s Kevin Rector, Scott Dance and Luke Broadwater: “Roaming gangs of mostly young men clashed with police in the streets, seriously injuring officers; tore open businesses; and looted their stocks. … [S]tate police requested as many as 5,000 reinforcements from neighboring states. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake instituted a weeklong citywide curfew from 10 p.m. [tonight] to 5 a.m. [tomorrow] …
“Carron Morgan , an 18-year-old cousin of [Freddie] Gray’s, said the violence … was ‘not what my family asked for.’ ‘This is not justice. This is just people finding a way to steal stuff,’ Morgan said. He said Gray’s family and neighbors were not rioting. Instead, he said, ‘we’re going to be out tomorrow cleaning up, for sure.'” http://bsun.md/1Ehwbic
WSJ’s Capital Journal: GOP WEIGHS HOW TO UNDERCUT OBAMA’S CLIMATE TALKS
President Obama and Congress are headed for another power clash on the international stage, as key Senate Republicans challenge his efforts to forge a global pact on climate change. The White House considers the agreement with nearly 200 nations a historic opportunity to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions world-wide. But some GOP senators view it as executive overreach, and they are quietly considering ways to warn other countries that the president doesn’t speak for them and may not be able to deliver on his promises to slash emissions.
FoxNews.com: Author Peter Schweizer on following the ‘Clinton Cash’ trail
SCHWEIZER: I am a journalist, and so, I don’t have access to government records. I certainly don’t have access to her e-mails. It doesn’t seem like anybody does. But the fundamental question is, with this deal and the others we cite in this book, is it coincidence — is it coincidence in a pattern we see repeated dozens of times where large Clinton supporters are — have business before the State Department. They make large payments and favorable actions are taken. I don’t think that coincidences occur that frequently.
WALLACE: All right. Let’s take another one of your case studies. And that is Haiti after the devastating earthquake there in 2010. Bill Clinton goes to Haiti and becomes co-chair of the Haitian Relief Committee which approved millions of dollars in new projects, part of the relief. In 2010 and ’11, Digicel, a mobile phone company, gets more than $2 million in U.S. taxpayer money to set up a money transfer program in Haiti. The company’s owner, Irish billionaire Dennis O’Brien, arranges four speeches for Clinton for $825,000 and also contributes between $1 million and $5 million — because that’s the disclosure, there’s no more definite than that — between $1 million and $5 million for the Clinton Foundation. Peter, again, it doesn’t look good but what evidence do you have that Bill Clinton helped — first of all, that he did anything to steer this project to Digicel and he did it for the good auspices of this a rich billionaire who got him these good speeches.
SCHWEIZER: Well, again, I was not subject to the conversations they had. I did not have access to internal memos, but again, you see this pattern of benefit. And I think that’s really the key question. The analogy I would use it like insider trading. I wrote a book a couple years ago on members of Congress who were potentially engaged in insider trading. When you talk to prosecutors, they will tell you, most people that engaged in insider trader don’t send an e-mail that says, I’ve got inside information by this stock. The way that give prosecutors, by looking at the pattern behavior, did somebody who has access to the information conduct a series of well-timed stock trades that warrants further investigation? And that’s my contention here, that you see a series of actions that enormously beneficial. In some cases, Hillary Clinton is reversing course on policies that she embraced before for the benefit of Clinton donors and I’m saying, this warrants investigation.
The Hill: ‘Clinton Cash’ author sees ‘pattern of benefit’
“The Clinton Foundation has jumped through hoops to justify its failure to disclose donations,” said Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, in a statement. “The fact of the matter is by accepting millions in undisclosed donations from foreign sources, it violated both the letter and spirit of the agreement it signed with the Obama administration.”
Washington Examiner- Mainstream Scream: Stephanopoulos goes to bat for former boss Clinton
The hostility by some in the mainstream media to Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer has been noteworthy.
One series of questions from ABC’s This Week host and former Clinton White House communicator George Stephanopoulos reached that level Sunday, making him our choice for this week’s Mainstream Media Scream.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “It sure must be nice to be a liberal when your bad behavior is exposed. Since it’s so easy for your aides to move into jobs in the mainstream news media, they can serve as your advocates and use their journalistic platform to discredit your critics — a piece of ammunition your opponents to the right will never have.”
In California, it takes about 1.1 gallons of water to grow an almond; 1.28 gallons to flush a toilet; and 34 gallons to produce an ounce of marijuana. But how many gallons are needed to save a three-inch delta smelt, the cause célèbre of environmentalists and bête noire of parched farmers?
To protect smelt from water pumps, government regulators have flushed 1.4 trillion gallons of water into the San Francisco Bay since 2008. That would have been enough to sustain 6.4 million Californians for six years. Yet a survey of young adult smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta last fall yielded just eight fish, the lowest level since 1967. An annual spring survey by state biologists turned up six smelt in March and one this month. In 2014 the fall-spring counts were 88 and 36. While the surveys are a sampling and not intended to suggest the full population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that “the delta smelt is now in danger of extinction.”
Herein is a parable of imperious regulators who subordinate science to a green political agenda. While imposing huge societal costs, government policies have failed to achieve their stated environmental purpose.
The Daily Caller:Liberal Indian War On Adam Sandler Is A Political Hit Job
This week, comedy filmmaker Sandler was roasted in the liberal press for allegedly demeaning Indians and women in his upcoming straight-to-Netflix Western “The Ridiculous Six.” About twelve Indian actors, extras and crew members staged a walk-out on the set because of some jokes in the movie. Here are the jokes that caused the actors to blow their little bighorn, according to statements that two protesters gave to Indian Country Today:
“We were supposed to be Apache, but it was really stereotypical and we did not look Apache at all. We looked more like Comanche”
Oh God, no. The Indians in the Adam Sandler movie looked more like Comanches than Apaches? Shit, somebody call Sacheen Littlefeather.