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David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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August 28, 2007 10:29 AM
As Montana Faces Fire Emergency, State GOP Embarrasses Itself...Again
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) "called lawmakers into a special session of the Montana Legislature to set aside $55 million to combat the wildfires that have already charred more than 400,000 acres this summer," according to the Helena Independent Record. This is the second special session this year in Montana. Like last time, the Montana Republican Party is once again publicly showing itself to be one of the most inept parties in America (something the Billings Gazette has basically reported already).
For instance, out of the gate, House Speaker Scott Sales is trying to politicize everything, claiming “Every other administration for the past 100 years has been able to pay for fires with (after-the-fact extra money) and moving money around. Every other governor I know of has been able to handle these types of situations nicely without having to have a special session."
Good try, Scott - but you should check your facts before you read your talking points. As the newspaper notes, "In the 1990s, forest fires burned an average of 150,000 acres a year in Montana and cost the state an average of $3.5 million [but] since 2000, fires have been burning an average of 700,000 acres a year in Montana and costing the state an average of $23 million."
Then there's that little matter of Republicans creating the need for this special session in the first place. The newspaper points out that the Schweitzer administration "has twice tried to increase money set aside for firefighting and lawmakers have twice turned down his ideas, including at the 2007 Legislature." In other words, thanks to Republicans who stopped Schweitzer's proposals, Montana taxpayers will have to cough up $65,000 a day for a special session.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
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The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Speaking of Republicans not being able to read...
Montana has led the nation, this year in the number of major fires, except when it was tied for first with Idaho.
Anyone who is computer literate and has internet connectivity can go to the National Interagency Fire Center www.nfic.gov/index.html and find the current fire information for the whole country.
Darn, I said that L word that the Republicans don't like. They probably don't like computers either then. ;-P
Since they're anti-literate, that means that they aren't capable of taking educated guesses, so they couldn't foresee that the Global warming that doesn't exist would cause a hot dry summer with lightning strikes setting dry beetle killed pine trees and dry prairie grasses through out the state.
That would take just too much intellectual thinking for a Republican to handle.
Besides they probably prefer another vacation in beautiful downtown Helena, and another chance to throw a tantrum with the media watching.
Tantrum throwing, it's a thing that Republicans and two year olds do best.
The Repukes have always been and will continue to be heavily and desperately dependent on us voters being stupid. Yeah, we red state voters especially in MS will always be angry as hell but as much as I'm happy as hell to shoot the GOP out with my vote, I ain't being given a party with which to actually REPLACE it with, only a different name equivalent.
You know if the MT GOP had a ounce of brains they'd STFU and approving any spending to fight those fires. By throwing a tantrum all they are doing is slitting their own throats politically like the way the party is doing nationally.
But maybe thats the price you pay when you chase away your moderates and old school conservatives and replace them with fanatical pinheads and crooked businessmen. Basically people I wouldn't trust to babysit a pet rock.
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