Posted: August 17, 2012 at 5:09 pm

A Fitting Welcome

The Tester campaign had some fun with Congressman Rehberg today with a full page ad in the Great Falls Tribune.

Here’s the ad, which you can click on to allow you to see a larger version.

Rehberg is having a fundraiser tonight in Great Falls at which John McCain will appear, the Great Falls Tribune reports.

The Tester campaign’s ad thanks John McCain for his opposition to Citizens United, which McCain called:

“the worst decision of the United States Supreme Court in the 21st Century.”

The ad then asks that McCain “join us in asking Congressman Dennis Rehberg why he supports this dangerous, out-of-touch Supreme Court decision.”

Congressman Dennis Rehberg defended the U.S. Supreme Court’s unpopular Citizens United decision, and has benefited from the massive piles corporate money that are being spent to run ads to help him get elected.

One of the most prominent corporate groups helping Rehberg is Americans for Prosperity, the TEA Party organization founded by Big Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch. The Citizens United organization endorsed Rehberg last fall.

Protesters are expected at tonight’s Rehberg event.

Posted: November 7, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Political Quick Hits

Supporters Wanted

Supporters of the right-wing City Commission candidate Lorabelle Behlmer took to the streets in support of her candidacy this weekend–or rather a supporter did. A Cowgirl tipster captured this photograph of Behlmer’s “Honk and Wave” event. It doesn’t look like her candidacy was able to garner much of a turnout. Matt Elsaesser and Katherine Haque-Hausrath are running against Behlmer.

More Time Off for Rehberg

Congressional Republicans released their 2012 House calendar recently. Did you know that there is no month in which they plan to work more than 14 days? As the Slate Political Gabfest reported on a recent podcast, there are only two weeks of 2012 that the House plans to put in a five-day week like the rest of us. The House will be in session 109 weekdays, and on recess 151 weekdays. That’s 14 more vacation days than last year.

Mississippi to Vote on Birth Control Ban Tomorrow

A Mississippi initiative so broad that it would likely mean not just a total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life, but also a ban on birth control and in vitro fertilization will be voted on tomorrow. As USA Today points out in an editorial page piece against the measure:

Backers of “personhood” angrily deny that some of these things would happen, but the amendment says what it says, not what they say it does.

The law is so far outside the mainstream that no state has passed it. Mississippi’s extreme government intrusion initiative could appear on Montana’s ballot in 2012. Montanans have twice declined to sign enough petitions to get it put on the ballot and Colorado voters have twice panned the proposal. According to the same article, only 20 percent of Americans support a total ban on abortion. If the measure passes in Mississippi (or in Montana or other states facing petition drives–OH, MI, and FL among others), it would certainly face immediate constitutional challenges. Whomever is Attorney General in those states would then defend the initiatives against the challenges.

Caught on Tape

Congressman Dennis Rehberg was caught on tape this weekend waving around a picture of Obama as Qaddafi. Talking Points Memo has the story, picture and video. A Rehberg staffer says that the Congressman was just being “polite” by brandishing the cartoon. But if someone hands you something that ridiculous isn’t the ”polite” thing to do putting the cartoon away, not promising to give it to a campaign staffer, as he appears to do in the video? I mean, if he had been handed, say, pornography would he have done the same thing? As this Missoula Independent article points out, a classier candidate would have handled the situation differently, while Rehberg “didn’t exactly stand up and set the record straight like McCain did in 2008.”