Tagged: Bob Fanning

Posted: June 11, 2012 at 12:18 pm

Let’s Talk About Rick Hill’s Record

Now that Rick Hill is the Republican nominee for Governor of Montana, it’s a good time to take a closer look at his record. It isn’t good.

The Democratic party has already pointed out that Hill led the effort to create a new 4% sales tax. He supported the privatization of Social Security, voted against increasing the minimum wage, and backed special tax breaks for big corporations. As head of the workers compensation board, he set up the most expensive worker’s compensation system in the U.S.

Democrats aren’t the only people with concerns about Hill’s abysmal record. Here’s how members of Hill’s own party explained why Hill would make a terrible Governor.

Corey Stapleton first pointed out in a campaign ad (which was later backed up by the Associated Press) that Rick Hill not only made a king’s ransom renting office space to the Montana state government in the 1990s and 2000s, but that his wife Betti used her job in Governor Judy Martz’s office to steer business his way. Thus did Rick and Betti Hill become very wealthy people. Stapleton also pointed out the sales tax Hill proposed.

Ken Miller raised concerns about how much time Rick Hill spends in California, saying “perhaps Congressman Hill should have spent more time enjoying what Montana has to offer,” instead.

Neil Livingstone said Hill failed with Montana’s work comp system, “I think a lot of the problems that we have today we can attribute to Rick and his tenure there […] he really didn’t get his arms around the problem. Today there are 19 people working in the State Fund that make more than the governor […] and they give each other big bonuses of several hundred thousand dollars a year”

Bob Fanning expressed concerns at a GOP forum about Hill’s support in Congress for the de-regulation of banks and the management of the U.S. economy:

“Mr. Hill, during your tenure in the 106^th congress, I pointed out that there were four (4) sectional charges placed underneath the American economy that blew it up. Number one (1), The Community Reinvestment Act and the expansion of Fannie Mae between 1993-2001. Number two (2), the continued de-regulation of credit default swaps, which are the instruments that blew up the economy. Number three (3), the repeal of the Glass-Stegal Act, which ultimately turned our banks into securitization mills and blew up the economy. And, number four (4), the Commodity Modernization Act. With three million people out of their homes, and 14 million people out of their jobs, do you feel any reason that you should be held to account for our financial crisis because your votes were all yea [in favor of these measures]?”

Now that the primary is over Montanans will start to look deeper in to Rick Hill’s background. Given what’s known already, its unlikely they’ll like what they see.

Posted: April 18, 2012 at 6:22 am

Ken Miller Wins Straw Poll

Former state senator and Republican Party Chair Ken Miller on Monday overwhelmingly won the Lewistown TEA Party straw poll following the most recent candidate debate. It’s a sign that the tide may be turning against former Congressman Rick Hill among base voters where he had previously appeared to be on course for an easy win.

Miller took first place in the informal post debate survey with 49 percent. Stapleton placed a distant second with the votes of 15 percent of participants. Former Congressman Rick Hill took third with 12 percent.

The remaining votes came it at 11 percent for Livingstone, seven percent for Jim Lynch, and three percent each for Bob Fanning and Jim O’Hara.

The survey comes less than three weeks before mail ballots go out.

Posted: April 2, 2012 at 9:33 pm

The Fellowship of the Right Wing

The GOP Gubernatorial primary and “The Lord of the Rings” both concern alternate realities, too many characters to follow, and talking about either of them repels members of the opposite sex.

In “The Fellowship of the Ring,” a hobbit of The Shire journeys with eight companions to defeat Mordor so they can return to Middle Earth.

In the GOP Primary, has-beens from decades past journey with their companions on a quest to regain the power that has been in the hands of the wing-nuts’ arch enemy, Brian Schweitzer, for eight years. They hope to return Montana to the era where the Dark Lords reign.

Posted: April 1, 2012 at 7:08 pm

There They Go Again

Responding to a Lee Newspapers questionnaire in today’s Helena Independent Record, the seven GOP gubernatorial candidates all said that Montana must “develop our natural resources” as a way to reduce unemployment and make our economy strong, and that “red tape” and “excessive regulations” are standing in the way of such development.

Which raises an interesting question: what resources, exactly, are we not developing? Are there oil wells known to be pregnant that have not been tapped, because of regulations? I doubt it. The amount of exploration taking place in Eastern Montana is comprehensive. Landowners often receive giant checks from oil companies just for the right to test the ground and search for oil. Any identified oil deposit whose recovery would not be hindered by some geological problem is already being drilled.

And coal? The rights to the Otter Creek coal deposit are now owned by the largest coal company in America, with designs on extracting it after paying an up front bonus of $80 million to the state of Montana. To my knowledge, the Arch company has not indicated that any rules or regulations are causing a hindrance to development. Nor have the owners of any other coal deposit, or oil field.

As is well known, Montana is developing its resources at a faster rate than at any time in the state’s history. So the question that should have been asked of these candidates is: What resources are not being developed? Where are they, precisely? Who owns them? And why are these owners not registering the same complaint as these seven buffoons running for Governor?

Perhaps the able newspaperwomen and men at the Lee company will ask these follow-up questions in the future.

Posted: January 23, 2012 at 9:55 pm

TEA Party Republicans Target Key Bigot Voting Block

The level of stupid among TEA Party Republican candidates running for office this cycle is certainly astounding. We have seen this before in legislative races, but for some reason the GOP primary for the Governor has attracted some of the absolute stupidest human beings that have ever lived. Every now and then, one of them miraculously gets an article in the local newspaper.

This is the case of Bob Fanning and Chuck Baldwin, who recently took legal action that will appeal to a certain key GOP voting bloc: bigoted conspiracy theory morons, or, as they are called in TEA Party circles “states’ rights advocates.”

The TEA Party Republicans are suing to change the way census figures are used to draw congressional districts. They say by following the Constitutional mandate to include undocumented workers in the count, a black person who some call President Barack Obama is “rigging the census.” It’s a “monstrous” conspiracy to dilute the political power of citizens who live in districts with lots of white people, such as Montana.

Says Baldwin:

“This rigging will keep Montana from having a second congressional representative,” Baldwin said. “If the illegals in California, Texas and Florida are not included, then Montana will receive two congressional seats and four electoral votes. Under Obama’s rigging plan, Montana will continue to have only one congressional seat and three electoral votes.”

If Fanning and Baldwin are successful, undocumented workers won’t be counted when Congressional delegations are counted, meaning they would be paying taxes without being represented within their state.

Perhaps Fanning and Baldwin were home-schooled, otherwise they would surely be aware of a certain fight over this involving events known as the Boston TEA Party and the Revolutionary War.

Posted: December 13, 2011 at 12:15 pm

No Date Yet for Rick Hill

I’m hearing that GOP front runner Rick Hill is striking out–left, right and center– in his search for a running-mate.

Word is that several notables have turned him down, perhaps worried about his baggage (meaning, his winkie getting dipped and sipped, at the sip and dip).

It’s unusual to see a guy leading so strongly in fundraising and yet having trouble finding a date to the dance.

Then again, its not like he’s got any urgency in the matter. The eight dwarfs– meaning Essmann, Miller, Fanning, Livingstone, Turiano, Lynch, Stapleton, and whoever the eighth guy is-are not presenting much of a threat.

But if you ever have the opportunity to hang out in GOP circles (incognito, in my case) you will invariably hear a refrain that goes something like this: “Hill is not the right guy,” says the local GOP person, with his nose a little bit crinkled and a slight squint to his eyes. You hear it over and over again.

Which is all good news for Steve Bullock.

Posted: December 5, 2011 at 7:29 am

GOP Gubernatorial Race Update: Hill Still the Big Favorite

Rick Hill is still leading strongly in the nine-way GOP race for governor, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted this past week.

Hill polls highest among those who describe themselves as liberal or somewhat liberal, but that goes down to 31% with very conservative voters. Hill’s lead is unsurprising, given that no other candidate has any name ID– nor have they shown an interest in going after the front runner, nor even in trying to take some risks and attract attention to themselves. The percentage of voters who answered they’d like “someone else or undecided” is similar to or greater than the number supporting Hill among the full range of GOP voters polled. This is further indication that most people haven’t heard of any of these guys yet and that being a state legislator means jack in terms of name recognition.

The one wild card was Neil Livingstone, who is now known mainly as having been Muammar Qaddafi’s lobbyist. For a few million bucks worth of TV ads, Livingstone could have make up the deficit against Hill and probably surpassed him. But word on the street is that he is closing up shop and getting out of the race, his campaign having all but derailed. Perhaps he doesn’t have the cash, or else why would he have tried prostituting himself to Qaddafi for the big payday, in the middle of a governor’s race?

The rest of the field is a bunch of yahoos. Stapleton has raised a decent clip of cash but will not have nearly enough to close the gap. Essmann has spent all his money on munchies for campaign events; Ken Miller has a comb-over. The full results of the poll can be seen here.

Looking beyond the primary to the general contest, the Washington, D.C. based Politico has, for the third month in a row, declared Attorney General Steve Bullock as the “winner” of the moment– giving him that distinction every month since he joined the race. The the political news source has ranked the Montana gubernatorial contest as one of the top races in the nation.

Posted: November 15, 2011 at 12:03 pm

Keeping Up with the GOP Gov Kandidates

There’s a whole lot of crazy tumbling out of the GOP Kandidate Klown Kar this week. The latest? TEA Party blogger Ed Berry writes on the Oathkeeper’s website that the Reverend Dr. Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 Constitution Party’s presidential candidate, has jumped onto the ticket of far-right candidate Robert Fanning to be the Republican Party nominees for the Governor’s office.

Now, governor candidate Robert Fanning, an expert in economics, finance, wildlife and resources, has been joined by 2008 presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin as his lt. governor running mate. Fanning made this historic announcement last night at a Gubernatorial Forum in Billings.

Speculation that Baldwin would run for Montana statewide office began earlier this year, when in a speech to a packed room at the Outlaw Inn in Kalispell last January Baldwin warned the audience that “There’s a fight coming.” In his speech, which some thought seemed to call for a civil war, Baldwin described “waking in the middle of the night and imagining himself as governor of Montana.”

he all but declared his candidacy, describing the prospect as, “so thrilling I just get goose bumps.”

To win a Republican nomination, a candidate has to move right, recant absolutely any past position that violates the current conservative dogma and never, ever dare to speak the truth that the Democratic Schweitzer administration has managed the state budget better than any time in state history.

Fanning and Baldwin are already so far right they won’t have to do much moving. Consider the anti-Semitic sermon written by Baldwin, in which he lashes out at the Jewish Banking Conspiracy and refers to Jews as the modern day “moneychangers” which Jesus banished from the temple. He also says these same moneychangers control the media and thus will never report on their own banking conspiracy, and so of course it is he, Chuck Baldwin, who must bring us the truth about them.

“They are destroying America,” Baldwin says, “but Christians don’t see it,” and so he implores Christians to wake up to the reality of what Jewish leaders are up to.

Baldwin was heavily involved in the modern-day incarnation of the White Citizens’ Council that supported segregation and opposed the Civil Rights Movement.

Baldwin said he was drawn to the Flathead and the Rocky Mountain West by what he described as a “freedom-minded spirit in that area that is superior to most places in the country.” He spoke in May at the “Liberty Convention” in Missoula, and at a conservative gathering in Hamilton last year.

The Liberty Convention was the event that included headliners several white-supremacist speakers including Red Beckman, Baldwin and a small handful of others. Red Beckman is guy whose name you have probably heard before. In addition to refusing to pay his taxes, Beckman believes that Jewish people are the literal children of Satan, and people of color are sub-human “mud people.”

In a recent Flathead Beacon article, it was reported that Baldwin has written a column in which he expressed this view:

“The South was right in the War Between the States, and I am not a racist,” he wrote. “Neither do I believe that the leaders of the Old Confederacy were racists.”

Fanning and Baldwin must know at some level that not all of their ideas are fit for prime time. Or maybe it’s just that there are some conspiracies that are too sensitive to discuss publicly. That’s because on their website, their position on Agenda 21, the insidious UN Black Helicopter agenda in favor of food for hungry people and bike paths, is for certain eyes only, and is password protected. Here’s a screenshot:

They should keep all of their ideas far from public eyes, because the more Montanans learn about this pair, the less there is to like.