Saying NO to Campaigning at School

Anyone see this interesting story about the Billings School mill levy campaign? It’s about time someone took the bull by the horns and actually tries to do something about this illegal campaign activity that routinely happens within our educational institutions. Way to go Mr. Austin Aisenbrey!

April 27, 2010
HELENA (AP) — A Billings elementary student is
complaining that a teacher was campaigning in
favor of a mill levy during class time.

Sixth-grader Austin Aisenbrey plans to file a
complaint with the state commissioner of political
practices.

He says the teacher handed out stickers asking
parents to vote, while at the same time telling the
students to ask parents to vote in favor of the mill
levy in an upcoming election.

Aisenbrey’s grandfather is Republican Public Service
Commissioner Brad Molnar, who is helping the boy
file the complaint.

The student says he later tried wearing a T-shirt
advocating a “no” vote, but was told he couldn’t.

Superintendent Jack Copps says no campaigning by
teachers or students is allowed

State Officials hear about Medical Marijuana problems

It appears that Havre is not the only place that is having difficulty with Medical Marijuana operations

Now Greece? What the?

What the Hell is the matter with our elected officials in Washington?

Let’s be brutally honest here from the perspective of both political parties. We haven’t had decent financial leadership in the Whitehouse since Ronald Reagan. Republicans have to take the blame for the exorbinhant spending they idly not only sat by and watched, but also participated in during the Bush years. Democrats should be incensed over the ridiculous attempts this administration is making to spend our way to prosperity. National healthcare, auto bailouts, bank bailouts, financing 11 million illegal border crossing criminals, and on and on.

Now, on top of everything else, the American taxpayers are very likely going to contribute 50 billion dollars of the 60 billion offered to Greece to prop up their economy and supposedly keep the country from collapsing. This comes on the heels of the news that Greece’s bond debt rating has been dropped to junk bond status.

I am puzzled about something. Haven’t we been in the worst recession here in the United States since the great depression? Is not business revenue down? Haven’t wages been frozen in many industries to try and cope with this down turn in the economy? Aren't we facing a huge tax hike already to finance all this wasteful spending?  Why, Why, Why, do we continue to try and be big-brother to the entire world when we are on the verge of catastrophe here ourselves?

What puzzles me the most is why we, the 300 million people that are citizens of these United States, let the 500 or so people representing us in Washington get away with this crap? Time to take back control and give the incumbents a wipe this next election.

Call your Senators Baucus and Tester and tell them enough is enough. Call congressman Rehberg and ask him why he wasn’t as financially conservative during the Bush years as he is claiming to be now?

I have come to the conclusion the political party rhetoric by both the Democrats and Republicans is just a smoke screen to enable the 545 elected officials to continue to run rough-shod over the rest of us.

Call them, I did.

Havre Pride Clean-up

Great job to everyone that participated in the Havre Pride town cleanup. It didn’t take long with many working people to make Havre look a whole lot better. If only we could now do something about some of the abandoned and boarded up properties about town.

Why doesn’t Havre or Hill County try to pass an ordinance to put some teeth into trying to clean the town up? There are numerous abandoned properties such as this one over near City Hall that are not only an eyesore but also pose safety hazards to our citizens. This specific property has been vacant for years but yet no one seems to care that it stands in this state of disrepair.  Where is our County Sanitarian? Why has he ignored this property all these years?

Cascade County is implementing enforcement of an ordinance that was made to encourage improvement of properties in the county that are unsightly and filled with excessive amounts of junk as reported in this KFBB newscast. Why don’t our city or county officials try to follow suit? Since it is an election year we would love to hear from the county candidates about what they think about following Cascade County’s lead. Or instead of a certain city council member having to yell out to the audience that “WE GOVERN YOU!” each meeting he should actually do some governing and look into advancing an ordinance to do something about the ongoing messes about town. 

Arizona Tackles Illegal Immigration

Politicians have been talking about getting a handle on the immigration “problem” for years, decades even. Arizona, one of the states over-run with illegal’s, has tired of waiting for the “fix” that has been supposedly coming “soon” for years and years and has taken action in their state legislature to get a handle on the situation.

Arizona senate bill 1070, recently signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, allows the police to determine a person’s immigration status if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally. An earlier measure requiring employers to verify the status of their workers or incur harsh sanctions has already withstood a federal court challenge. The ACLU has also vowed to challenge this bill in court.

Currently it is estimated that there are over 11 million people in this country illegally. To put that in perspective, Montana’s total population is close to one million persons. President Obama repeatedly made the campaign promise that his administration would move on immigration reform his very first year in office if elected but these promises were directed toward garnering the Hispanic vote in the presidential election with blatant promises of amnesty to the current illegal population. Obama has failed to make any move regarding illegal immigrants and apparently Arizona is tired of waiting.

What Arizona’s action has accomplished is to again bring the illegal problem back into the national news and Democrat leaders are now talking about pushing forward with immigration reform instead of the planned climate bill. Some Democrat leaders had preferred to work on the Climate bill because they are worried about the negative impact the healthcare reform will have on their ability to retain seats and the climate bill seemed the safer topic until after the mid-term elections. Senators Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif) Michael Bennet (D-Colo) and Harry Reid (D-Nevada) all face tough re-election campaigns in states with large numbers of Hispanic voters. Once again what the good people in Washington advance as priorities for the “good of America’s people” is in reality determined by the politicians by what will be “good for their respective re-election campaigns”.

The Corrector gives a hats off to the legislature of the State of Arizona for tackling this drain on America’s resources head on.

Are Agriculture Producers Captive to Big Business?

Anyone see this segment on KFBB? It seems that Montana agriculture producers are constantly being faced with a limited number of vendors and suppliers with which to do business which in turns escalates their costs. What do you think can or should be done about this in the upcoming Montana legislative session?

It’s About the Kids –Yea Right!

The propaganda forces from the school district have already begun what we used to call a “whisper” campaign back in the old days when I actually thought being involved with politics and assisting select candidates could actually make a difference. A whisper campaign consists of trying to persuade voters by spreading rumors, half-truths, innuendos or even outright lies throughout the voting community to the extent that they will begin to believe the information to be fact and would then likewise spread the message to their friends and neighbors, thus affecting how they cast their vote.

The school administration gang (and yes they are an organized group of gangsters) have began their whisper campaign. First and foremost,” it’s about the kids.” That sounds nice and fuzzy and as a voter it would make me think that perhaps I should forgive the board for all their past nonsensical decisions but is it about the kids really? This quaint little phrase is the catch words that people connected with the school are being encouraged to “whisper” amongst their friends and acquaintances to make you feel good about giving yet more money to be wasted to this school board administration.

Another “whisper” going around is “We may have to cut some programs for the kids.” What sensible parent of a high school student would want one of their kids programs cut? You know the cut won’t come from sports but rather from some worthy learning program that will tug on the old heart strings.

Next, teachers, aides and other staff are being told the “if the mill levy doesn’t pass a couple of you will have to go.” Now who really wants to be the one to “go” unless you are like the superintendent and go with a couple years salary? Spreading fear among the workforce about their very livelihood is always good to get a few wayward thinkers back into line. Hearing from the administration the words like “I hope the levy passes because we just can’t figure out how to make it without a couple of layoffs” always gets passed around between the employees and works well to instill fear in the workforce who in turn will gladly encourage their neighbors to vote yes.

The very fact that the election is held in the school actually tilts the scale in favor of the mill levy being passed. Why isn’t this election being held by mail ballot which would garnish a larger percentage of Havre citizens voting?

Let’s take a look at the “facts” of this mill levy request. The school brass has previously announced that the high school student numbers are down this year but through the wonderful management of the current school administration they ONLY need to ask the voters for a mere $44,552 on this mill levy to supplement their current $4,684,518 budget. The fact that the $200,000 or so of tax money wasted on a 6-month superintendent is being excused as a minor set-back is inexcusable. Interestingly, the super-duper highly qualified former Superintendent Mahon just recently made the short list to replace the superintendent in Geraldine, Montana but was beat out of the job by a young 20-ish person hired to take his first administrative position. So much for the “excellent” vetting the Havre board claims to have made into Mahon’s background before hiring him and then nearly immediately “retiring” him with a big bag of our tax money.



Another “fact” that has never been mentioned is the fact that the student numbers are actually up in the elementary district which resulted in an increase of $579,000 giving the elementary district a total budget of over 8 million dollars. If we have to have a mill levy increase when we are short a mere 44 thousand or so why don’t the taxpayers receive a mill levy DECREASE in the elementary district when we have abundance? What exactly did the district do with this extra money? Did they start new programs that will have to be sustained in upcoming years? Did they hire more staff? Teachers? Did anyone get a raise? Why is it that we never hear about any of this bonus money?

Considering all the facts this year and the shabby treatment the public has received from this board, everyone here at the Corrector will be voting a big NO on this mill levy request and encourage you to do the same.

Havre City Council Potentates Speak – you listen and obey

It was a very lively meeting at last night’s City Council meeting or as we like to call it, Havre Comedy Central. A packed audience anticipated the council was going to discuss an ordinance placing a moratorium on the new medical marijuana grow operations because the Havre Daily “News” erroneously reported that “fact” in last night’s paper when in reality all they had on the agenda was the proposal to prohibit itinerant venders from selling or distributing medical marijuana from a vehicle or temporary location within city limits. This proposal passed after some light discussion. Apparently the crowd agreed that they didn’t want door to door sales of medical marijuana or someone sitting up a tent on First Street for a dispensary. The actual Emergency Medical Marijuana Moratorium proposal the audience anticipated will have a hearing at 6pm on May 3rd and will be presented to the whole council at 7pm. Ya all come back on May 3rd Ya hear. Representative Wendy Warburton told those in attendance that the legislature was hosting an interim committee to explore possible solutions to the problems with the medical marijuana laws in Helena on April 27th and community members were invited to attend.


Surprisingly, what consumed most of the discussion time last night from the audience was the final reading on the ordinance allowing alcohol in certain city parks by special permit. Currently alcohol is only allowed at the 5th avenue ball field. This ordinance will allow alcohol to be consumed in Pepin, Deaconess, and the Optimist parks in addition to the 5th Avenue and slow-pitch ball fields. There was not one single person that testified that they were ok with this ordinance yet it past the final reading with a vote of 8-0. Countless people in the standing room only crowd did however go to the podium to speak out against this expansion of alcohol in the parks. Even the infamous retired former newspaper publisher, unbiased Val Murri, came with his buddy and Democrat legislative candidate Dave Brewer to speak against the ordinance.

The steady stream of people aghast at the city’s decision to allow alcohol in the parks spoke about the poor example this is to our children, their fears of increased drunk driving, one lady said she lived across from Pepin and as her children regularly played there she was concerned about drunks and the safety of her children, etc. Many people cited examples of how alcohol had affected their lives and asked the council to reconsider. Most of the council patiently listened but it was apparent that the people were not making an impact. Councilman Vies was even snorting and shaking his head as the taxpaying citizens tried to have a say in what happens in their community.

Finally, a young father asked the council if there would be a designated “safe” time in the parks where he could be certain there was no one drinking in the park so he could let his children play and councilman Vies finally blew his cork. He again started in with the snorting and tossing his head like a mad bull as his whole bald head began turning red in anger and he went into a 5 minute tirade yelling at the crowd. “We are not the parents! The council is not the parents! We have no responsibility for your kids” Vies shouted. Vies went on with a lecture about how alcohol is not bad but rather it’s the people that abuse alcohol that cause the problem. People are bad, not the drink. Vies further barked to the group that as a council “We govern you! We aren’t here to be your parents. We are just saying it is ok to be an adult and do what adults do, which is adult activities” As Vies, the apparent self appointed leader from the city aristocracy, was admonishing the dumb hicks that were his subjects he further went on to ask “Do I have to notify you every time I drive because I am a bad driver? Because I am a bad driver” Someone did dare to shout out “YES!” in an open defiance to this aristocratic pompous windbag.  Perhaps that daring person has already been drug to the dungeon to recieve his punishment for open defiance?

What was even more entertaining in my view was watching Jimmy Tripleanus, the bankrupt goat meat slinger, shaking his head up and down in agreement like a Greek bobble head doll as Vies hollered. When the meeting finally adjourned he sprinted up to shake the hands of the “important” people that comprise our council and gave his comrade Vies a hearty congratulation. Maybe he wants to be “knighted” by this roundtable of out of touch representatives we have? If you missed last night’s meeting, you missed a good one. That lady in the video we posted with the Santa Cruz City Council a week or so back looked darn intelligent compared to the goings on I witnessed last night.

The City Council’s next performance is May 3rd beginning with a 6pm curtain time. See you there.

Hunters Initiative I-161

What do the hunters in our group think about Initiative I-161? The proposed initiative would be placed on the ballot as follows;

I-161 revises the laws related to nonresident big game and deer hunting licenses. It abolishes outfitter-sponsored nonresident big game and deer combination licenses, replacing the 5,500 outfitter-sponsored big game licenses with 5,500 additional general nonresident big game licenses. It also increases the nonresident big game combination license fee from $628 to $897 and the nonresident deer combination license fee from $328 to $527. It provides for future adjustments of these fees for inflation. The initiative allocates a share of the proceeds from these nonresident hunting license fees to provide hunting access and preserve and restore habitat.

I-161 increases state revenues over the next four years by an estimated $700,000 annually for hunting access and an estimated $1.5 million annually for habitat preservation and restoration, assuming that all nonresident hunting licenses are sold. It also increases general nonresident hunting license revenues by inflation.

[ ] FOR abolishing outfitter-sponsored hunting licenses, replacing outfitter- sponsored big game licenses with nonresident licenses, increasing nonresident license fees, and increasing funding for hunting access and habitat.

[ ] AGAINST abolishing outfitter-sponsored hunting licenses, replacing outfitter- sponsored big game licenses with nonresident licenses, increasing nonresident license fees, and increasing funding for hunting access and habitat.

Opposition to this initiative is being rallied by many Montana outfitters http://www.stop161.org/issue.php

What do our hunters think about this initiative?

TBID PROPOSAL FOR HAVRE IS DEAD

The Corrector just got an update on what has been happening with the TBID district that was proposed by the Havre Chamber and a few of the local motel owners. You may recall our story back towards the end of February about the motels banding together in order to charge themselves a room assessment of one dollar per night which would be used to promote Havre and the attractions we offer. http://havredailycorrector.blogspot.com/2010/02/local-motels-band-together-to-promote.html

After taking the proposal to the Hill County Commissioners the motel owners and the Chamber was made to wait over a month while the commissioners, still stinging from the passage of the City of Havre’s recent annexation decided to punish these businesses which were now in City Limits and vote no, no, and hell no. The motel group rebanded, re-wrote the proposal and submitted it to the Havre City Council who took one look at it and voted immediately to accept this great offer to promote Havre at no cost to the local taxpayers. This room assessment would be paid by people spending the night in Havre and was estimated to be able to generate close to $80,000 per year to be used to promote Havre. http://havredailycorrector.blogspot.com/2010/03/hill-county-commissioners-give-motel.html

The laws in Montana regulating TBID assessments state that in order to implement this self-assessment 62% of the 400 rooms provided by the Havre lodging facilities must agree to this assessment. The four larger motels, the Townhouse, Super 8, Great Northern Inn, and the AmericInn all agreed and this requirement was met. Last week the Keanneallys, owners of the Town Pump Corporation, called the local Chamber of Commerce and pulled their support from the project. They said that Havre was “nothing but a bunch of backwards thinking people” and they were not going to do anything to promote Havre. They went on to say that they used to be the Premier lodging facility in Havre but Havre officials didn’t only not help their motel business but actually went against them in “allowing new motels to come in and compete with the Townhouse” A similar call was also made to the City of Havre. Without the Townhouses support the TBID funding for Havre is dead because they no longer have the mandated 62% participation level.

In light of this we have to wonder why we would continue to support a business that thinks so poorly of us “backwards thinking” people. Why oh why would the Town Pump Corporation take this attitude towards Havre? Maybe it was because their motel is now ranked #5 of the 6 ranked by the travel advising websites such as http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g45209-Havre_Montana-Hotels.html ? From the “Premier” motel to a ranking of 5 out of 6

What a kick to our collective jewels this is.

Be sure and recommend the motels that support Havre. The 3 leaders in the drive to help Havre were the Havre Super 8 @265-1411, the Great Northern Inn @265-4200, and the Americinn @395-5000

What say you “backwards thinking" peeps?

Don't forget to pay your taxes

Are Newspapers Really Fair and Unbiased?

The Corrector has taken more than a little flak over our tendency to “tilt” our stories to the conservative side. We guess that some readers don’t realize that this is a blog where opinions can be expressed and it only stands to reason that the author of any story here lets their personal convictions guide how the story is portrayed. We don’t try to hide the fact that we can be biased. What we see in the comments on many posts is the quick blame people will put on elected conservative politicians to make a counter-point to something we have reported that we allege is a bad decision or a stupid decision. In many cases comments will refer to the “fact” that the “real” newspapers always report with “fair and balanced" coverage, but is that really true?

Case in point is tonight’s letter to the editor by the Havre Daily “News” former publisher, Val Murri. Mr. Murri was blasting Jo Jones who had the audacity to write a couple letters to the editor complaining about the Obama administration. Murri went on to point out all the faults of the Bush administration as reasoning to refute Ms Jones points. Take a look at the letter yourselves in tonight’s Havre Daily “News”. We find it quite interesting that “professional” newspaper people actually believe that their political views do not come into play when they are publishing all these “fair and balanced” news stories. If our readers will recall, former Editor Datko was also prone to slanting “news” coverage to reflect her liberal views. Didn’t she immediately join the local democrat team supporting Senator Jon Tester’s campaign when she was sacked at the paper?  Haven't many of you had the "news" paper refuse to print your letters to the editor because of some obscure "problem" or another? What about the "I love the pot growers" article by Alice Campbell a few weeks ago that was written as a "news" story?

The Corrector has never claimed that we are not partisan to some degree and we freely admit that we slant the bent of our coverage. We would charge that the local “news” paper does not give the people of Havre any better “fair and balanced” coverage than do any of the scores of political blogs.

Be careful of what you believe to be fact just because you read it in print. That goes for the “real” papers as well as the blogs, this letter to the editor is just another bit of evidence that newspapers are indeed biased.

At Least Havreites are Smarter Than This

Sometimes as we attend City Council and various government meetings we get the opinion that there are some really simple minded people here in Havre that really don’t put a lot of thinking into what they are saying in public. A friend sent me this Utube video of a person’s testimony at a City Council hearing relating to the question of whether or not the City of Santa Cruz California should establish a retail business improvement district back in May of 2008.

All I can say is that the Havre citizens we hear speak at the public meetings we attend here in Havre are usually more intelligent than this young lass, but not always. Seeing testimony such as this live is why we attend so many meetings as a form of entertainment.  Why not take an evening away from the TV and join us at the next meeting you see advertised?

And the sad part is – they all vote.





Sorry, just thought we could use a little humor on such a dreary day

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Havre Daily Corrector Giving Themselves A Tune-up

Things have been getting a bit out of hand here on the blog comment section. From this point forth, we will be deleting comments that are off topic to the thread. We will also be deleting comments that go too far in attacking other blog reader’s comments. We have gotten quite a large surge in e-mail this past week from people that feel they can no longer comment because of the personal attacks that are unleashed upon them by a few that read this blog and make it miserable for everyone. We want this to be a place where everyone can express their opinions and we can have an open discourse about current events and topics of interest around town. Please stay on topic and No More copied and pasted articles in the comments section. 

The Corrector also realizes that some of our more liberal readers do not like many of our posts that are from the conservative viewpoint. Our lone Democrat blogger has suggested that we allow people with the liberal view the opportunity to post as guest editorials and we have agreed amongst ourselves to do this. You may e-mail us your ponderings to havredailycorrector@bresnan.net  and we will post the story as you have written it. We will not post stories such as “Rehberg is an idiot” etc, etc but if your story is Rehberg is an idiot because he did this, this, and this, and there is truth to your claims, we will present your side of the story.

We are here to generate an intelligent dialogue so we are willing to give something new a try. Please understand that this is an opinion blog and the stories here will contain the writer’s opinion. Even our lone Democrat blogger could be viewed as a moderate so most posts here will be from a conservative viewpoint. There are also hundreds of political blogs that express the liberal view that you can go to if you just can’t stand our blog. Also if someone wants to start a liberal viewpoint blog for Havre we would be happy to post your link here with the rest in our sidebar.

Let’s just make this a better place to vent and hear what others think.
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Highland Park School Addition and the Boy's and Girl's Club

We took a drive by the Highland Park school this weekend to see what has been happening with the infamous school addition. It appears that the excavation contractor has completed the utility line work through the new addition and is busy getting a gravel base in place for the concrete work. Not much to see, a big pile of dirt and a few pieces of equipment. There was no evidence of any concrete forms or anything to indicate that work would be commencing soon. Didn’t the local contractor that was shunned on this project by our school board in favor or the out of town contractor say back on October 17, 2009 that he would be able to start immediately to get this groundwork and foundation done before winter set in? It has been 6 months and counting.

 Currently the Highland Park School has been pinched for space and is using a north portion of the old Devlin School for four of their classes. When, or if, this addition ever get done the Havre School Board has suggested that they sell the old Devlin School property to the Boy’s and Girl’s Club for one dollar. While we agree that the Devlin School needs to be sold to stop the ongoing expenses the school district incurs with this building we wonder if it is feasible from the perspective of the taxpayers to just be happy with a dollar. Aren’t they short of funds to even  to the point of having to run a mill levy election this year? We agree that the Boy’s and Girl’s Club makes some necessary and important contributions to the community with their after school programs but couldn’t they at least make a token payment of $45,000 or so which is what the school district will be asking the voters to pony up this spring?

The Devlin School property currently inhabits a full city block of property in the 500 block of 1st Avenue. A full block of property in this area of Havre would allow the placement of 12 housing lots and considering that said lots would potentially sell for around $35,000 each shouldn’t the school board at least consider just selling the property to the highest bidder? This property could potentially generate $420,000 less whatever it cost to tear the existing building down. In addition, considering that an average $100,000 dollar home on these lots would generate property tax revenue of approximately $1,000 each per year that goes directly to the school system wouldn’t the taxpayers be better served with an ongoing revenue source that could potentially generate $12,000 per year to their coffers that would be never ending? A non-profit like the Boy’s and Girl’s Club pays no property taxes.

The Corrector realizes that the programs at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club provide benefits to the area residents and students. We are posting this suggestion for feedback from the taxpayers view. What say you readers?

Don't forget to vote in the school mill levy election

Medical Marijuana robbery in Great Falls

KFBB TV ran this report of a robbery of a patient’s Medical Marijuana at gun point in Great Falls. The Corrector is posting this without comment for your opinion.

"No Earmarks Ever" Tester Gets a Dose of Montana Anger

Senator “No Earmarks Ever” Tester spoke in the liberal Mecca of Montana this week. Tester’s trip to talk to the political science classes at the University of Montana in Missoula didn’t go quite as planned. Even in this den of liberalism Tester was getting some very angry comments about the Senator’s performance in Washington from his audience and finally his “handler” said “time to go” and hustled the great Tester off as the crowd chanted “Run Away” and other demands for him to return when he wanted to have real discussion. Not surprisingly, http://www.opencongress.org/people/blogs/412244_Jon_Tester  reports that Senator “No Earmarks Ever” Tester votes 93% of the time with what the Democrat Party leaders demand.

The Corrector is just guessing here, but we would wonder if the response was this bad in a strongly liberal area, what will happen when “No Earmarks” visits a conservative town?

Read the full story on the Montana Kaimin, the University campus newspaper. http://www.montanakaimin.com/index.php/articles/article/tester_faces_angry_audience_during_campus_visit/1040

Health care donations

I wonder if all this money being donated to political candidates had anything to do with the way the recent health care overhaul was completed and the verbage of the final bill?

AND SO IT BEGINS

The Nuts Walk Among Us (and vote also)

What’s with all the people threatening our elected congressional representatives? We are hearing reports of people upset because ObamaCare got shoved down our throats throwing bricks through representatives home windows, others calling and leaving threatening messages on home and business phones and yet others rallying in front of personal homes and scaring our elected officials spouses and children.

Yesterday, Gregory Giusti was arrested in San Francisco for threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Numerous other elected officials have endured a host of threats including Democrat Washington Senator Patty Murray and House Minority Whip Republican Eric Cantor. I wonder if these people making these hostile actions realize that a threat towards one of our elite elected officials does not carry the same sentence as a hostile assault similar to what would be made at one of our local taverns. The threats made upon Pelosi could earn her harasser a 10 year federal jail sentence and a quarter million dollar fine.

Understandably many voters are very unhappy with our elected official but can it be possible that we have angry people capable of uprisings like we see in the news today in Kyrgyzstan, where between 40 and 100 people were killed in an uprising against the government? Even in our local region, Great Falls residents saw an altercation between their Mayor and a local group of tax protesters that were flying the United States flag upside down.

While the Corrector does indeed advocate that you call your congressional delegation and voice your displeasure we condemn violence and threats towards our elected officials, local or otherwise. Let your vote speak for your displeasure this November and in the mean time you are welcome to vent on this blog

(And by the way, we did do a little research on this and many or these people were Democrats that had voted and supported those they threatened.  They were not all right-wing nuts or tea party people though there are reports of threats from them also.  Idiots come in all partys so you can refrain from those comments please)
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Bob Bergren Hempfest video pulled from UTube

Apparently some people didn’t like our post of Speaker of the Montana House of Representatives Bob Bergren speaking at the Missoula Hempfest as the video was pulled from UTube and set to private after our previous blog. Bergren was introduced by Hemp activist / performance artist / philosopher Angela Goodhope who expounds on the benefits of hemp at the Seattle Hempfest in August of 2008 wearing her all hemp outfit. We are searching for someone that may have copied the previous Utube video of Bergren’s speech and will get it back on if possible. I guess his speech wasn’t something he wanted anyone to see now that he is running for a Senate seat. In the meantime enjoy Angela’s speech from the Seattle Hempfest.

Anyone that happened to make a copy of the vid from our previous post e-mail us a copy please

Showdown Set for Havre City Council on Marijuana

A showdown is set to begin for the Havre City Council tomorrow night at their regular meeting.  The Council is scheduled to vote on a 90 day zoning moratorium and begin work on a new zoning ordinance for the City of Havre.  This discussion is coming on the heels of the last several meetings of the City Planning and Development committee where Mayor Tim Solomon tasked the committee with researching and determining what to do about medical marijuana in Havre. 

This issue has been hashed over in the Havre Daily News, at the local coffee shop, in our churches and schools and of course on this blog since the first meeting of the committee.  We at the Corrector have taken some heat for our decision to post the photos of one grow location as well as a post of a witnessed buy taking place.  Both posts generated significant comments about the pros and cons of our decision.  Please note that this was a conscious decision we made and we stand by our right to post them and their validity, right or wrong in the minds of our readers.  What is more to the point though is the comments echo those on the street and that most people are concerned about the welfare of our community.  Citizens of this fair city should know that we are not alone in this.

Indeed many communities including Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman, Missoula, Kalispell and smaller communities of Three Forks, Livingston, Whitefish, Hamilton and Deer Lodge are wading through the sea of restrictions and rules associated with regulation of medical marijuana as well.  In Havre several loosely organized citizen groups have surfaced on this issue too, the caregivers and their patients and a group of concerned citizens who have been attending virtually every public meeting of the Council to voice its concerns over this seemingly exploding issue.  What to do, what to do? 

The Corrector was able to catch up with a couple members of the Council and the consensus from them was that the moratorium will more than likely pass, but what permanent rules might come of this conversation is not as clear.  It seems as though Councilman Bob Kaul's suggestion that the City of Havre work with Hill County to simply "ban it" has caused a few lines in the sand to be drawn.  As one Councilman put it, there is probably 3-4 votes to ban it, although those are not certain and there are probably as many as 4-5 who would be willing to place significant restrictions in place to protect the health and welfare of Havre.  That means 3-4 members must be unwilling to restrict medical marijuana, right?  The member would not go that far, but did suggest that several members do not seem as concerned about the issue as others saying that we weren't worrying about this 6 months ago and it was here, why should we be concerned now. 

The Corrector believes this is an oversimplification of the issue and as such does require the Council to do something, nothing is not an option.  We look forward to the deliberations but we do ask the Council to withhold emotion and do what is best for all of Havre.  These issues are far too important and will have longstanding consequences for years to come.

Bob Bergren Talks Up Hemp

A Corrector reader pointed out this video on Youtube where Speaker of the House Bob Bergren, D-Havre was speaking at last summer's Hempfest in Missoula. 



The Speaker spends a portion of his speech thanking various people for their hard work on the issues and in particular thanks event coordinator Angela Goodhope.  Ms. Goodhope, who works for the Montana Hemp Council, also is a major advocate for medical marijuana legalization throughout the nation.  We at the Corrector also enjoyed Ms. Goodhope's "legal" discussion in this video about standing up for your rights to possess cannabis by following the three rules.  1) Don't consent to a search, 2) Don't speak, 3) Ask for a lawyer.  While all three of these rights are as Ms. Goodhope pointed out afforded each and everyone of us by our founding fathers, it is interesting that people who are not breaking the law have to invoke their 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination if they are not doing anything illegal.  Our understanding is that possession of hemp is not illegal in the United States and why would someone carry industrial hemp around in their backpack?  Could it be you are referring to the other cannabis plant?  We think so. 

Check out the other related vids posted on Youtube related to Ms. Goodhope, they are a hoot.

Bergren was speaking about the benefits of hemp for Montana's economy. While we at the Corrector acknowledge that there are many economic benefits to allowing the free cultivation of hemp, we do wonder what Speaker Bergren's thoughts are on the related medical marijuana discussion. Since most advocates of hemp also advocate for medical marijuana.  I find it laughable that the Speaker asks people to call Baucus, Tester and Rehberg and demand that they get off their #$$^S and respond to the people.  What have you done Mr. Speaker about the medical marijuana mess that the Montana Legislature left for local government to deal with? 

What say you Mr. Speaker?

Hill County - where crime goes unpunished

What’s going on in the Hill County attorney’s office? Every case they bring to trial seems to end in a mistrial or the defendant walks. Maybe we should save the taxpayers a few bucks and just turn everybody loose from the get go?

A 41 year old guy is charged with sexual intercourse without consent with a young girl and also with supplying meth and alcohol to the girl and her friend. Deputy county attorney Lorang took the case to trial, spent two days in court and the guy gets off with a hung jury after 5 hours of so of deliberation. By the way, Randy Randolph was the defense attorney

Last week, a guy that was arrested for a DUI that actually blew a .13 pleads not guilty and a jury of 6 people selected by the defense attorney Jeremy Yellin and deputy county attorney Lorang found him not guilty. Not only was the county attorney’s office poorly prepared they also left a tavern owner that had a couple of prior DUI’s himself on the jury. The jury on that open and shut case deliberated 8 minutes and came back to let the guy go. What the?? After making a few inquiries we have learned that Lorang’s win record in district court for the past year is a dismal 30%. Why are we spending tax money to take these cases to court if everyone is going to be set free?

Earlier this summer the Hill County Attorney’s office charged a young man with a felony because he and a cousin were shooting each other with BB guns and a BB pierced through a tent that was pitched in the yard striking another cousin, a 10 year old boy, in the side of the head. The boy’s father called the police and the County attorney jumped all over this big case, charged the kid with felony assault with a weapon and set his bail at $75,000. The family couldn’t get a bond to get their son out so he sat in jail for 6 days until his bail was reduced to $5,000. County Attorney Gina Dahl finally offered a deferred prosecution with a big laundry list of –to do’s, such as having the kid pay the court cost incurred thus far, go to anger management counseling, pay for a psychological evaluation and on and on. The family turned down Gina’s kind offer and plead not guilty. This happened back in august and the case was finally settled a couple of weeks ago.

What is up with prosecuting all these cases and not being prepared to make any charges stick? Or on the other hand, why are they even bringing charges in some of these cases?

It is you and I that are paying taxes to fund this nightmare.  County Attorney Gina Dahl is up for re-election this year and is being challenged by deputy county attorney Lindsey Lorang and also by private attorney, Randy Randolph.

The sad part is -- somebody voted for him

Ever wonder what is really wrong in Washington?  This is one of the guys that just voted on the Health Care plan.