Big Sky Cairn

With all the prefab outrage at Congressman Denny Rehberg’s “Idaho Travel Package” critics are coming out of the woodwork to pile on attacks and name calling. You’ll never find a greater bed of intolerance than among the liberal left demanding tolerance.

My feeling on the issue is that one, the joke wasn’t that funny but maybe you had to be there and two, you have to dig pretty hard to find offense in it. The primary point of contention is the shirt “My Senator may not be gay, but my governor is Butch.” The thing is, I don’t know any gay people who are offended by this, but I do know plenty of bleeding hearts of are offended for them (since they’re too weak to know what’s best for them).

Look, if you want it bad enough, you can find offense in just about anything. To test that theory, let’s review a recent Top Ten List that Senator Max Baucus put together for Big J over at KRSQ. Max put some work into this one too, and was so proud of it that he posted it on his official site for some time (although I can’t seem to find it now). Without further ado:

10 Buy Britney Spears’ new CD, Blackout to replace Yanni on my iPod
9 Head out for an evening of cow tipping with my buddy Jon Tester
8 Check all Billings restaurants for illegal aliens
7 Get all hopped up on Red Bull and start a mosh pit at the Ozzy Osborne show
6 Shotgun a Mad Dog 20-20 and hit the Corn Maize with Brian Schweitzer
5 Put your tax dollars to work at Lucky Lil’s
4 See how long it takes to get bounced out of Club Carlin
3 Watch the Raiders get their butts kicked at Tiny’s
2 Show Barry Manilow who’s boss with my Karaoke performance at The Red Door
1 Ask Big J if he would be willing to be the official morning show of the United States Senate.

So let’s put together a list of groups or individuals who could - if so inclined - be offended by Baucus’ insensitivity. I’ve included contact information so the Offense Grass Roots Brigade can start to generate the outrage.

1) MADD Montana - Sure, alcohol is a part of Montana’s culture, but that’s probably why Montana consistently ranks near the bottom when it comes to alcohol related driving accidents and fatalities. These are real events with real consequences - real lives are ruined. Out of the ten items on Max’s list, five of them deal directly with consumption of alcohol or a drinking establishment. Shotgunning an MD 20-20 isn’t exactly responsible drinking, and as role-models go Britney Spears and Ozzy Osbourne aren’t exactly positive. You can begin the outrage avalanche by contacting MADD here.

2) Chris Crocker - just wants you to leave Britney Spears alone. Why does Max have to make her the butt of a joke? You can let Chris know about this outrage through his MySpace profile.

3) RIAA. Max clearly states that he intends to buy a CD for his iPod. As he undoubtedly knows, an iPod doesn’t play CDs so it will be necessary to rip that CD. Based on the laws the Max helped to write, ripping a CD for personal use is illegal. You can report Max’s public support for intellectual piracy here.

4) R-CALF - When it comes to ranchers who are already facing a dire economic situations, the last thing they need is for their state’s two United States Senators to risk damaging his herd - and livelihood - for a few juvenile seconds of cow-tipping. Contact R-CALF to express the anger at 406-252-2516.

5) PETA - If the plight of the rancher doesn’t capture your attention, maybe the plight of the poor helpless cow will. Cow tipping isn’t funny, and PETA wants to do something about it. Supporting Ozzy Osbourne, who notoriously bit the head off of a living dove won’t really fly in their book either. PETA recommends that you call the police, but if that doesn’t accomplish what you need, they provide a phone number for their hotline here.

6) Montana Restaurant Association - Illegal immigration is a national problem, so it’s unfortunate that Senator Baucus felt the need to single out restaurants in his quest to curb illegal hiring practices. For the sake of your local watering hole, contact the MRA here: (406) 256-1005.

7) Any number of Illegal Immigrant Advocacy groups - Great! A vigilante United States Senator rounding up any illegal immigrant looking folks (mostly identifiable from their darker skin and broken English, I hear) for deportation. There’s a lot of rage to be generated here since Illegal Immigrants have been gaining political power for some time. The Open Borders Coalition is a good place to start. It’s 130 organizations with the shared goal of preventing Baucus-style racism. Call them for a total list of members at 617-350-5480.

8.) D.A.R.E. - getting ‘hopped up’ on a foreign chemical is a glorified reference to drug use. Replacing an illicit drug type with “Red Bull” merely coats the payload while maintaining the problematic content - sort of like putting LSD on a cube of sugar. A United States Senator ought not set an example of using a drug - be it LSD or Red Bull - for the purpose of getting hopped up. You can contact D.A.R.E. here.

9) Focus on the Family - Ozzy Osbourne is well-known for his fascination with the occult and his encouragement of experimentation in Satanic ritual. There are any number of Evangelical Christian organizations that are perfectly geared to generate the kind of outrage we want. One of the most powerful is James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. The contact web form is here. Of course, your messages will go further if you are able to pepper them with scripture. Ask yourself - rhetorically - why is Baucus promoting the occult?

10) Montana Frat Boys - Max claims that he is going to shotgun a Mad Dog 20-20. But MD 20-20 comes in glass bottles and any self-respecting binge-drinker knows you can only shotgun out of a can. Sans can, you’re not shotgunning so much as beer-bonging. Where to begin the outrage on this one? It’s a hard choice, but contacting the Greek system at MSU (greek@montana.edu) and U of M (greeklife@umontana.edu) is a good place to get in touch with individual fraternity chapters. Ask for the social chairs.

11) Americans for Tax Reform - ATR is just one of a lot of organizations that would have a lot of interest in using tax dollars to gamble. We can cover the gambit here, from people offended by the mis-use of money that could go to giving stuff to poor people to those who want taxes eliminated all the way to the people who think that the Federal Income Tax is illegal. Contact ATR at friends@atr.org.

12) A Better Montana Without Gambling - Gambling isn’t a joke - especially when it helps destroy lives, families, communities and entire states. Contact Tom Shellenberg at BMWG here.

13) Students Against Violence Everywhere - Why would a United States Senator advocate any activity that would precipitate the necessity to “bounce” him from a bar? In most cases, that activity is some combination of drinking too much and violence (usually inspired by the drinking). SAVE will not be happy to hear of this sort of rhetoric, and the grr-factor of a student organization is always formidable. Get the grr going here.

14) The Raider Nation - This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but you can get the ball of rage rolling here. You might also want to try the City of Oakland or any member California’s Congressional Delegation (they are quite rage savvy).

15) Barry Manilow International - What is the deal with Baucus attacking Barry Manilow fans? Personally, I think if this is done right this could be one of the strongest sources of rage ever. One key to rage is anger, and there’s no anger like the self-hatred of anyone who would be a member of the International Barry Manilow Fan Club. Get rockin on the message boards by clicking here.

16) CREW - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington did a great job of generating rage in 2006. Let’s see if they’ve still got the touch. See, Baucus is asking a private for-profit organization to be the Official Spokesman of the United States Senate - a promotion specifically forbidden by Senate Ethics Rules. Sure, he’s scoring some points with the media but he’s doing so at the expense of the integrity of his office. Get your ethical rage on here.

Look, this is just the tip of the iceberg. For every organization listed with grounds for righteous offense, there are thousands more. Of course, my point is less that you should contact any of these groups (if you feel inclined to, have at it), and more that anything can be offensive to someone.

And you know what? That offends me, which is what we call a paradox. Happy anger-mongering folks!

I harbor no great hopes for fair and balanced editorial control at the Billings Gazette. However, even for the Gazette, today’s letter by Jeff Simkovic is rare for its perfect combination of pointlessness, coupled with self-interest, and topped off with a political smear job.

My problems with the letter are two-fold. First, from a public policy standpoint, this letter puts forward no proposal. From the lead-in, one would imagine Mr. Simkovic is asking for assistance correcting some unspecified problem with certain Blackfeet housing units. Yet, less than 50 words after assailing Congress for inaction the author lets slip the reason why nothing has been done.

“Baucus’ office explained to us how Congress was procedurally unable to help…”

In absence of a clear policy motive it becomes apparent to me that this letter is nothing more than a cheap political hit against Denny Rehberg. Without going into any details, Mr. Simkovic feels comfortable lobbing the potshot; “Rehberg late to help with Blackfeet housing.” Although the letter refers to Congress as a whole, the Representative is singled out for inactivity.

Max is praised for his “real interest,” whatever the hell that means, while Senator Tester is not mentioned at all. The second part should seem a bit odd given that Senator Tester sits on the Indian Affairs panel. Although, I suppose when the point of the letter is a cheap smear details do not matter all that much.

Doing a bit of research, the details of the case Jeff Simkovic is talking about are complex. At issue is whether or not 8 individuals who received 1970s era housing units from the Blackfeet Housing Authority have standing to sue HUD and the tribal government over unsafe living conditions. In January, a judge in Great Falls ruled no, citing the sovereign immunity clause which shields entities such as the Blackfeet Housing from private lawsuits.

Mr. Simkovic has been working on this lawsuit for five years. He is understandable upset about losing a reliable fee. But to infer the Congressman doesn’t care about Natives is absurd.

The icing on the cake of this adventure in conjecture is the close.

“The only hope for the Blackfeet people living in these homes is the courts. The Blackfeet families who live in these homes are in no way responsible for these problems and have nowhere to go.”

Hope lies only in litigation when you are a trial lawyer. Why? Simple it is the only place where folks like Jim Hunt and Jeff Simkovic can make a buck. Despite rhetoric that Jim and Jeff are out looking for the little guy, they are only out to get their name in the paper and collect a fee. In biology they would probably be classified as parasites.

Remember when everyone was upset that the majority party was sacrificing good, effective policy for the benefits of their special interests?  Oh yeah, that was now.

Jason over at Intelligent Discontent is upset that Max is spending tax dollars to tell us things that the media has already told him.  Made me think about how nice it must be to be a Democrat - where you don’t have to promote yourself because the media is doing it for you…

But he’s got a point - why is Mr. Money Bags appropriating himself tax dollars when he’s been bragging about how rich he is.  Sort of like a millionaire taking welfare.

Or a rich kid on state funded health insurance.

I’ve hypothesized before that Senator Jon Tester is violating Senate Ethics rules in the process of conducting a Senate Ethics Audit to determine whether or not he is violating Senate Ethics rules. That would be kind of problematic for him since the whole point of the audit is to show Montana how ethical he is. Anyway, check this out.

So the problem I have is with the nature of the service being provided Tester - or more accurately the cost of the service. As I’ve pointed out before, John Sheehy is doing the audit work for free. Trouble is those pesky ethics rules that gave Tester the nails to crucify Conrad Burns with also have something to say about certain work being done for free. They call it an in-kind contribution and it is prohibited.

Senate Rule XXXVIII (38) is a prohibition of unofficial office accounts. Sounds unrelated, except that the Senate Ethics Manual (pdf) has this to say about Interpretive Ruling 443 (from page 105).

‘‘Senate Rule 38 prohibits unofficial office accounts, that is, private supplementation of expenses incurred in connection with the operation of a Member’s office and the activities of a committee as well. Thus, private contributions of money or private, in-kind contributions of goods or services for official purposes are prohibited by Senate Rule 38.”

Of course, there are exceptions for work centered around the legislative process - the drafting, debating and enacting of laws. We don’t want to prevent a Senator from soliciting expert advice. But when it comes to the administrative aspects of running of an office - the stated goal of Tester’s audit - it’s pretty clear:

As stated in Committee Interpretative Ruling 444 interpreting Rule 38, however, neither official nor officially related expenses, goods, or services used in the operation of a Senator’s office may be provided or paid for by private parties. This rule provides a broad prohibition on the use of private resources to do the work of a Senate office.

So what’s the big deal? I mean obviously Tester is trying to do the right thing, right so why rake him over the coals with an ethics manual so darn antiquated that they say “XXXVIII” instead of “38″?

The reason that in-kind contributions are forbidden is that they establish a tit-for-tat relationship between the provider of the gift and the men and women elected to hold tremendous power on our behalf. Anyone with an elementary grasp of persuasion or sales knows that giving someone something for free puts them into a debtor situation where social norms drive them to return the favor - often times at a rate much greater than the initial gift.

The concern is that by accepting free services from Sheehy, Tester is putting himself and his staff in a situation where they may feel indebted to him. That’s the problem with “special interests” isn’t it? That individuals exercise more influence than Joe or Jane Montana. So unless you have something you can give or provide for Senator Tester, I’d be a little worried about that fact that it took less than a year for Jon to settle into the you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours culture.

Here comes the Max Baucus media blitz designed to scare people out of the race. It’s no secret that Baucus plays in the arena of scorched earth political destruction - making him the only Montana politician who has ever insinuated an opponent was homosexual for political gain (where’s the outrage?)

Baucus broke the 2008 election hymen in 2007 with his ads about State Children’s Health Care, or SCHIP. SCHIP, by the way, will be the biggest Heisman Vote issue of this election cycle. According to Max, SCHIP is going to feature highly in the his second volley. The only problem is this: Baucus hasn’t actually done anything other than brag that he’s done something. He oversaw a bill that he knew would be vetoed, and feigned outrage. He knew he didn’t have to votes to override the veto, but when the veto-override failed, he feigned shock. But Baucus is known for exaggerating his success when reporting accomplishments to Montana. We’re too stupid to learn the truth, right?

So anyway, you’re probably wondering what that title means. Go ahead and say “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi.” That took you about three seconds.

Now, whenever you are subjected to one of Max’s 30-second commercials when you’d rather be watching Stargate Atlantis, just count “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi.” That’s a tiny fraction more of that 3-second spot than was paid for with Montana funds. The rest - 90 percent - came from special interests in California, New York and everywhere else.

“One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi.”

I wrote before on Tester’s public relations stunt to hunt out his own impropriety.  From the Gazette:

“We’re going to look and see what Judge Sheehy has to say about it, and we’ll respond from there,” Tester said. “If he finds problems, we’ll address them. If not, that’s good for us.”

Here’s my question.  Since Senator Tester has promised to make the results of the audit public, won’t be an awful lot of pressure to keep any “problems” out of the report.  I mean, I can’t see him publicizing a point-by-point description of his ethical lapses.  That would be sort of like doing opposition research for them.  For this kind of report to be helpful, Tester would have to keep the report private - at least at first - so that his auditor can be honest with potential violations.  Publicize that the audit is happening and take the results seriously.

Asked if he expected criticism because of Sheehy’s past political ties, Tester said, “I really don’t. Judge Sheehy was a very fair, honest guy and a distinguished Supreme Court justice.”

Hahaha.  Haha.

Okay, but seriously, I still think Sheehy is making in-kind contributions to Tester.

Brad’s post about Dune reminded me of something I noticed when I was reading Heretics of Dune.  Frank Herbert wrote the original Dune in 1965.  By 1977, when George Lucas released Star Wars IV, Herbert had published three of the six books he would eventually write.

Now if you’ve read to Dune books and seen the Star Wars movies, you’ll notice the similarities.  They are striking.  Tattooine is Dune complete with the Fremen/Sand People.  The Jedi are Bene Gesserit (with X chromosomes).  The list goes on - in fact Herbert counted sixteen points of what he called “absolute identity” between his book and the movie.

So as I’m reading Heretics of Dune, and in the middle of the book on page 322 Frank Herbert goes on a completely random tangent about building materials it seemed a bit out of place.  So I re-read it.  Here’s what it said.  See if you can figure out what Herbert is saying:

In the time of the Old Empire and even under the reign of Muad’dib, the region around the Gammu Keep had been a forest reserve, high ground rising well above the oily residue that tended to cover Harkonnen land.  On this ground, the Harkonnens had grown some of the finest pilingitam, a wood of steady currency, always valued by the supremely rich.  From the most ancient times, the knowledgeable had preferred to surround themselves with fine woods rather than with the mass-produced artificial materials then known as polastine, polaz, and pormabat, latterly: tine, laz, and bat.  As far back as the Old Empire, there had been a pejorative label for the small rich and the Families Minor arising from the knowledge of a rare wood’s value.

“He’s a three P-O,” they said, meaning that such a person surrounded himself with cheap copies made from déclassé substances.  Even when the supremely rich were forced to employ one of the distressful three P-Os, they disguised it where possible behind O-P (the Only P), pilingitam.

Did you catch it?  “Cheap copies,” “déclassé”, “distressful”… all called the three P-Os.  The 3 P-Os.  The 3POs.  Herbert doesn’t write things randomly, and his modus operandi is meanings within meanings within meanings.  Given that this passage serves no obvious function, I can only think that Herbert was taking a (well deserved) shot at George Lucas’ intellectual heist.

Feints within feints within feints.

Possibly the most brilliant analysis of the race I have seen so far. It is a wonderful job by the folks over at Snarky Bastards.

The Dune Theory of Democratic Politics

We were wrong; Barack Obama is the the Democratic Party’s Kwisatz Haderach. He is the shortening of the way, the one who shall give meaning to our lives and make our planet anew.

Like Paul Muad’Dib, his youth was shaped by the untimely loss of his father, who was not of this land. He has been rigorously trained, and recently endured a painful test at the hands of a Bene Gesserit Witch. He achieved a surprise victory in his first combat and it is said that his greatest power is his voice. By some reckonings, he has come before his time.

I leave you with an eerie quote from the collected wisdom of the Bene Gesserit:

“When religion and politics ride the same cart, when that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing can stand in their way.”

Barack, may your campaign chip and shatter.

Via The Western Word, comes Jon Tester’s first annual ethics self-audit. In theory I think this is a great idea, but I also think it would be a lot more useful if the results stayed private. When you publicize them you create one hell of an incentive to audit through rose-colored glasses. It becomes nothing but a publicity stunt.

And not a very smart one. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Retired Justice John “Skeff” Sheehy of Helena, a Democrat, agreed to perform the audit. He will look at hundreds of documents at no charge and submit a written evaluation to Tester by April 15, if possible.

I wonder who is going to determine whether the Sheehy’s generosity constitutes an illegal in-kind contribution?