Kontextmaschine

10th October 2016

Link with 26 notes

Montana Republicans Warmly Embrace a White Nationalist's Legislative Candidacy →

Huh.

“I’m a pro-labor Republican,” he said. “I think the record is clear in history that the best jobs are union jobs with higher wages and benefits.”

When asked whether or not he would, as a state legislator, support a “Right-to-Work” (RTW) law which would allow workers in unionized industries to choose for themselves whether or not to join the union, Rose said that he goes “back and forth” on that issue, saying that he understands the desire to give workers the right to choose membership, though he say he worries that RTW laws only serve to “empower corporate elites.”

“I lean ‘no’ on Right-to-Work,” he said. “However, I can’t make a commitment yet, because every Right-to-Work bill is different.”

Huh.

The realignment proceeds apace.

That’s just outside of Whitefish. I wonder if Richard Spencer’s got a hand in this. Of all alt-right types he always seemed the most likely to found a caucus and not just a mutual jerkoff society.

Course not sure I have the causalty right there. Could just be Montana. America still has a frontier and it is fucking wild.

Was in Missoula for a cousin’s wedding one summer. The college, “blue” town of Montana. Honest to god grizzled prospector-looking guys in the bars getting into fights over real-money card games, people passing out drunk on the sidewalk in mid-stride, proud celebration of the town’s founding bordellos. Wild west.

My Sandpoint story - it’s good and telling but I’m starting to get attached to it as my Noodle Incident. That was the Idaho panhandle but it was in coming back from Montana, the motorcycle fan/aircraft builder/missionary who really saved my bacon (and served great witness) was a Pacific Islander and at one point he mentioned in passing, with an eye roll, how sometimes when he’d go into town those Aryan Nations guys come down from the hills would think he was Mexican and give him shit.

Like, boom, the fuckin’ backstory you had to imagine to that.

Next day on my way west, passing through the farms with all the giant Ten Commandments signs that guy paid for, stopped in Post Falls to get some food. Some sort of festival in the parking lot across the way, I’m like holy shit, are they doing a Jars of Clay cover?

Go inside, it’s like a Denny’s specializing in wild game almost. All sorts of homey signs, and taxidermied animals, and I’m like “yes, yes, the outdoors and Christianity, I get the concept by now” Then… I forget if this was a sign like right behind the welcome counter or prominently on the menu, but I remember a line proudly being like “God may not be welcome in the SCHOOLS, but he sure has a place HERE”

Like, boom.

At any given time about one in every 6000 Montana residents is a state legislator, term limited to a maximum of 8 years in each chamber. Standard sessions are a maximum of 90 days every other year and are paid $82.64/day, the equivalent of a daily worker making $10.33/hr. Per diems on top of this are $112.85, making the total payout just short of $17,600 per semiannual session.

The most prominent item on the front page of the Montana legislature’s website is a link to this form soliciting Helena-area homeowners looking to rent rooms to legislators.

Tagged: montana