Posted: May 23, 2013 at 8:35 pm

Stapleton Releases Web Video

Former Billings state senator Corey Stapleton has posted a new video on his website, telling us why he is running for the US Senate. It is 60 seconds worth of typical Republicanisms. Not a single proposal or idea, but rather a series of general complaints and representations. He complains about our national deficit, tells us that he “understands what ordinary Montanans” are going through, says he “wants to make life better in Montana” and that he “worked to balance the budget” as a state senator (which he did not).

And, he does it all with his shirt hanging out, presumably thinking that this looks cool or edgy. It looks ridiculous. Casual wear is fine, but Corey, tuck your shirt in. Even Schweitzer does that.

You can watch the video here

Posted: May 23, 2013 at 5:40 am

Militia of Montana: A Closer Look

Now that the president of the Montana Senate has come out publicly in support of a Militia of Montana affiliated leader for the Montana Republican Party, its time to take a closer look at this group and what it stands for so we can get a better sense of Essmann’s vision for the MTGOP. As a recent report by the Montana Human Rights Network reveals, its not pretty.

As I wrote in my previous post, Essmann is supporting Jennifer Fielder for Montana Republican leadership. She and John Trochmann are leaders of the “Sanders County Resource Council,” which is the name the group Militia of Montana is using to try to appear innocuous. As, the MHRN reports, the group was started by a bunch of low-lifes with ties to white supremacists.

John Trochmann and members of his family started the Militia of Montana (MOM) in 1994. Prior to founding MOM, Trochmann spoke at and attended meetings at Idaho’s Aryan Nations. In the mid-1990s as MOM attempted to portray itself as mainstream, Trochmann tried desperately to distance himself and MOM from racist beliefs and Aryan Nations. Richard Butler, leader of Aryan Nations, responded with a letter asking why Trochmann lied about the number of times he had visited the hate group. The letter also stated Trochmann attended several of the group’s Bible studies and helped draft a code of conduct for the Aryan Nations compound. Over the years, MOM distributed material by well-known white supremacists, racist websites, and activists who deny the Holocaust. Its newsletter also published articles claiming Jewish people are the “synagogue of Satan” and control the government.

MOM grew out of another group Trochmann helped organize, United Citizens for Justice (UCJ), the MHRN reports. Some well-known white supremacists were leaders of the UCJ. They included a self-proclaimed neo-Naz, an editor for editor of a “Christian Identity” magazine (that’s the religion of the Aryan Nations), and a former leader of the Texas Ku Klux Klan. This group eventually folded due to infighting, and reformed as the Militia of Montana.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this Trochmann character is the only Sanders County Resource Council activist with a history with the white supremacist militia either. Again from the MHRN report: “Ed Dosh is a [Sanders County Resource Council] activist. A longtime MOM member, Dosh worked the gun-show and preparedness expo circuit with the group during the 1990s. He’s been a close associate of John Trochmann ever since. Dosh was also a founding member of the Church of True Israel, a white supremacist group that splintered off from Aryan Nations in the mid-1990s.”

One final thing that’s important to note from the MHRN report is that Trochmann and the Militia of Montana havn’t been about to avoid trouble with the law:

In 1995, Trochmann and others were arrested in Roundup, MT, following an armed confrontation with law officers after Trochmann’s group tried filing documents supporting the Montana Freemen. When they were arrested, the “patriots” were equipped with plastic restraining devices, $80,000 in cash and coins, and numerous weapons. Charges against Trochmann were later dropped. In 2005, Trochmann faced charges of kidnapping and assault in Spokane after roughing up his niece, because he believed she had stolen a firearm from him. The charges were eventually dropped, but not before MOM shelled out $10,000 for an attorney.

If all of this weren’t enough, check out what happened when Trochmann’s brother tried to kick him out of the Militia for cheating on his wife. Trochmann went and formed a new group that he called the “Coalition for Men’s Rights.” This group was made up of men who had restraining orders against them for spousal abuse. So this is quite a crew and it will be interesting to see if the rest of the Montana Republican Party believes that this is the kind of people they want to follow.

Posted: May 22, 2013 at 6:40 am

Essmann Backs Candidate for Republican Leader with Militia Ties

The leader of the Montana Senate is backing a candidate for Vice-Chair of the state Republican Party with ties to the militia movement. Senate President Jeff Essmann put his support in writing–sending a letter to GOP convention delegates on official state letterhead backing Jennifer Fielder, who is a prominent member of a group linked to the Militia of Montana and a state legislator from Sanders County, where the Militia of Montana is headquartered. (This also appears to be a misuse of the state seal and official letterhead–which is supposed to be used for official state business only, not for partisan politics.)

Fielder is a leader of the innocuous sounding Sanders Natural Resource Council–the organization is the latest incarnation of the Militia of Montana. Fielder is on the group’s board of directors, according to her website. Here’s the screenshot in case this gets taken down.

Fellow Militia of Montana leader John Trochmann explains in this radio interview why the Militia of Montana is currently operating under the name Sanders National Resource Council–to evade detection by federal agents. Organizing an armed anti-government para-military group is against the law.

“For you federal agents that are listening, this movement is growing. There are sweet little units everywhere. Government, you figure it out…

Here in MT it is impossible to start an armed militia and take ‘em out and train them because of state laws…so if you want to train you have to do one thing at a time. You go out and target practice or you go out and do your skills as camping out or cold weather survival, especially like communications. We do that very well here, undetected hopefully…the name may be changed but we are still the same. “

Right now, that name is Sanders Natural Resource Council, Trochmann explains. If you wonder why the Militia of Montana would want to pose as an anti-environmental group, consider this. The militia leaders say that the biggest threat the militia sees right now is from attacks by “globalist organizations” of “environmental wackos.”

The Sanders Natural Resource Council (pronounced “SNaRC” by locals) believes that conservationists who support wildlife management of local bear populations are part of a conspiracy to conduct surveillance on the militia movement. Here’s how the bear surveillance conspiracy works:

“If you try to do anything with these bears–they have collars on them. If you try to plug a bear and the heart stops there will be a satellite over the top you instantly to take your picture of you and call out the game wardens instantly.”

“What if you plug one of the game wardens?” the host asks. To be sure, the host goes on to clarify his remark :”I was being somewhat facetious–but only somewhat, with that.”

And so, to fight the ominous threat of bear-activated satellite surveillance systems, the SNaRC Militia set about spreading fear with a spree of “town hall” meetings. GOP candidate Jennifer Fielder led the meetings, saying the Forest Service was planning a conspiracy to close down the entire forest.

At the meetings, the militia members raved that private property rights are at risk over grizzly management lines that they only just learned of. Problem is, the bear management lines have actually been on the map for thirty years.

The Militia of Montana organized from the remnants of an earlier organization, United Citizens for Justice. That was the group of angry white supremacists that formed in the 1990′s after the wife and son of white supremacist Randy Weaver were killed in a standoff with federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The Alliance Defense League reports that “nearly all of its leaders and chief supporters were white supremacists, including Louis Beam, former ambassador at large for Aryan Nations.”

A screenshot of Essmann’s letter can be seen below:

Posted: May 21, 2013 at 12:37 am

Intimidation Tactics

The Billings Montana Shrugged TEA Party is preparing for another angry anti-government rally today. They are calling it a protest against the IRS, but they should be calling it a celebration of their success in stopping existing U.S. laws from being enforced.

What the TEA Party doesn’t understand (and its big money donors are hoping no one does) is that the law IRS to investigate political dark money groups–even if congress and several administrations have failed to enforce them.

As Floyd Norris explains in the NYTimes business section: there are two reasons that the IRS is involved in political contribution rules.

The first reason is that while 501c3 charities (such as the March of Dimes) are exempt from gift tax laws, there isn’t an exemption in the law for c4s–like American Tradition Partnership. That means that if the laws were actually enforced, donors who gave more that $13,000 to a c4 like ATP should be paying taxes on that donation.

This would certainly constrict the massive flow of cash into these organizations –conservative and liberal both, though of course there is much more conservative money. As ABC news reports, there has been a big uptick in 501 c4 applications from right-wing groups like American Traditions Partnership recently.

There is a second reason the IRS has a role here. While your donations to the March of Dimes (a C3) are tax deductible, donations to c4s like ATP and ALEC are not. However, corporations may be deducting their support for groups like ALEC anyway, calling their donations “necessary business expenses.” No one knows whether corporations are doing this or not–and we never will since the TEA Party has bullied the U.S. government to the point that its afraid to do its job and even investigate the matter.

That’s why the GOP is so up in arms about the latest IRS attempts to find out what’s going on. They’ve learned that any time the IRS makes a move to actually enforce current law, the TEA Party, the GOP, and Fox News can simply freaks out and the IRS and the administration backs down. Here’s how Norris explains it:

As the political furor grew this week, President Obama forced out the acting commissioner of the I.R.S. Does anyone think his successor, or his successor’s successor, will have any appetite for trying to enforce the tax law’s restrictions on political activities by so-called social welfare groups? After all, any political group can contend that an audit reflects partisan politics.

It would be much better if someone other than the tax collection agency had to decide whether to start investigations, but that is not what the law now says.

Posted: May 16, 2013 at 6:07 am

National Watchdog Group Profiles Jason Priest’s Dark Money Group

Michael Beckel has just published a new profile on the dark money group a GOP state senator used to influence the Montana state Supreme Court race and block the Medicaid expansion.

The profile shows how Priest used dark money to demonize Supreme Court candidates Ed Sheehy and Elizabeth Best in support of a TEA Party candidate. Priest also used the dark money group to send out attack mailers to kill the Medicaid expansion. Because of Priest’s actions, 70,000 of Montanan’s most disadvantaged working poor won’t be able to get health care.

Beckel, who writes for the Center for Public Integrity, published the report on the heels of a new analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics that found Montana is one of 35 states where rules regarding the disclosure of political spending by independent groups are less stringent than federal election law.

There’s much more on this, so check out the links in Beckel’s story above.

Posted: May 14, 2013 at 5:58 am

Small Claims: Wittich sues former client for $93.99 of unpaid bills

Art Wittich, the Montana Senate Majority Leader and Tea Party stalwart, has been in court lately to try to get what he believes is rightfully his.

Wittich, a lawyer, had once provided legal services to a Bozeman couple. There was an outstanding balance of $93.99 that the couple had not paid Wittich. Wittich was not going to abandon the matter, and not only collected the debt but got himself a tidy reward, an additional several thousand dollars.

It appears, as best I can tell from a not-very-clearly-drafted court opinion (the link to the decision is below), that Wittich quietly got a default legal judgment against the couple, for the $93.99, even as his office was in talks with the couple over possibly arriving at a settlement over this piddling amount of money. After successfully getting the judgment, he began efforts to collect it. After some time, he managed to persuade the court to award him not only the $93.99, but $2,900 more for “fees, costs and interests” that he claimed to have incurred as a result of spending his time trying to collect the $93.99.

A divided state Supreme Court, shockingly, upheld the judgment. Justice Cotter dissented, calling the decision [UPDATED pdf] “unconscionable” and an “affront,” scolding Wittich for “financial carnage wreaked upon [the Bozeman couple] for their refusal to pay a disputed $93.” Justice Baker grudgingly voted in favor of Wittich because there was apparently a contract, which Wittich had gotten the couple to sign, including a clause that allowed him, ultimately, to get this outrageous amount of money from them in the event of a collection action. But Justice Baker strongly cautioned him to review the rules of the State Bar which address lawyers and their billing practices, and are designed to prevent lawyers from fleecing their clients.

And Cotter notes that when the dust finally settles, the couple will probably owe north of $5,000 to Wittich, because Wittich will try to recoup additional costs from them, namely, his costs in litigating the case of the $93.99 in front of the Supreme Court.

In essence, Whittich did what he could, not what he should. Nice guy.

Oh, and one other point, which goes without saying: if Wittich ever thought he could run for statewide office, that dream he can now kiss goodbye.

Posted: May 13, 2013 at 5:10 am

Would-be “Peaceful Ethnic Cleanser” from Montana Makes National News

A white supremacy group leader who has called for a “peaceful ethnic cleansing” that would clear parts of North America for only white people was profiled on the Rachel Maddow show this week.

Here’s the clip:

The Human Rights Network has done some research on this group, which calls itself the National Policy Institute.

In 2011, they held an event at the National Press Club to release its report called “Majority Strategy: Why the GOP Must Win White America.” The report urged the Republican Party to “reach in” to its base of white voters instead of “reaching out” to minorities. The report told the GOP to embrace immigration restrictions, end civil rights laws, and stop all forms of affirmative action.

The group’s leader, Richard Spencer, recently moved the group from Georgia to Whitefish. He says: “It is perfectly feasible for a white state to be established on the North American continent,” adding, “I have a dream.”

You’ll want to go read James Conner’s post on this, which is up at the Flathead Memo.

Posted: May 9, 2013 at 10:31 pm

Former TEA Party Lawmaker’s Trial Gets Weirder

Today’s TEA Party news comes to us courtesy of former GOP lawmaker Joel Boniek, who is using his trial to put forth conspiracy theories and frivolous arguments to defend himself against charges that he ran a police roadblock in 2012. Because of his behavior, the court was forced to issue an official ruling to limit what Boniek can address in his upcoming trial to try to keep him on topic.

Cowgirl readers will recall that last year, Boniek was hauled into court to answer charges that he’d sped through a roadblock in defiance of an officer’s order to keep out. Boniek was trying to get to his house, but his house was in an area where a forest fire was burning and had been evacuated and blocked off due to the emergency. As a devoted Tea Partier and general wingnut, Boniek did not recognize the authority of the policeman to keep him away from his private property. Also, during his encounter with the officer before he crashed the barrier, Boniek allegedly reached for a gun that he had with him in the front seat. As the Livingston Enterprise reported, he:

“allegedly argued with the officers and eventually ‘dropped his left hand near what looked like a holster’ before a deputy brought him to the ground….The deputy removed a loaded handgun from the holster, according to court documents.”

For his day in court, Boniek brought with him an angry mob of supporters, who shouted down the Judge and Prosecutor in such a menacing way that they fled the courtroom fearing for their safety. At that point, Boniek stood up and proclaimed himself regent over the courtroom, and decreed himself innocent of all the charges (before the bailiff told him otherwise, while brandishing his own weapon).

Boniek, who is representing himself, has been asked to stop bringing up a number of frivolous and conspiracy-related arguments.

The first is “jury nullification” which is when a jury ignores the evidence and or instructions of the judge and returns a verdict of “Not Guilty” despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation he or she is charged with. This appears to be a primary focus of Boniek’s self-defense, and the case is being closely followed by the jury nullification crew, as you can see from their press release on the case. He and his band of TEA Partiers have also been ordered not to distribute TEA Party pamphlets around the courthouse before the trial tomorrow, May 10.

During a hearing of his court case on Friday, the Livingston Enterprise reports, Boniek himself “lodged multiple complaints and objections, including that the court is fraudulent and that officials are treating him as an “artificial person” because his name appears in all capital letters on legal documents.”

He’s also accused the judge and everyone involved with the trial of being “fraudulent” so therefore his trial should not proceed. Boniek alleges that the judge will see personal financial benefit from his trial and any fines related to it.

Boniek is also angry with the Livingston Enterprise,who he has demanded show him every story they write about him before it is printed. The whole Enterprise article on the case’s latest developments is a must read.