My Blog

Blaming an Airport For Your Divorce

From the NAM "Focus" Newsletter - Legally Insane Column:

"Stanley G. Hilton blames 37 organizations for the collapse of his marriage and is seeking $15 million from each of them ($555 million total). He alleges the defendants - the city and county of San Francisco, San Francisco International Airport and every airline based there, airline engine manufacturers and the real estate agencies involved in the sale of his house - failed to warn him that the house he purchased was very close to the airport. As a result, he argues, he suffered from noise and air pollution that caused physical and emotional injuries."

I hope the defendants use Rule 11 and get this lawsuit dismissed with sanctions against the plaintiff. Ridiculous.

Bozeman Tennis Court Debacle

The city of Bozeman's decision to use stimulus funds to build tennis courts grabbed the attention of many conservative news outlets, including Fox News and the Drudge Report.

Thinking he may have an opportunity to get on the "fiscal conservative" side of this issue, Governor Schweitzer showed up to Bozeman City Council to express his displeasure with this poor use of funds. What he got was a mayor ready to stand up to him. Here is the exchange as reported by the Flathead Beacon:

Schweitzer: I didn’t come here to blame the city council. You absolutely have the right to do this. You have the green light through the Department of Commerce because they can’t turn anybody down. That was the legislation. It was not the intent of the dollars that came to Montana

Krauss: So if you’re perceived as being a person who has attacked the city of Bozeman. And maybe because you’ve been used by the media or you’ve used the media to do just that. 

Schweitzer: Mayor, what were my words? Do you recall?

Krauss: It was a quote about how you did not approve of this. Didn’t approve of this. That this wasn’t appropriate and you didn’t approve of this.

Schweitzer: That’s correct and that’s what I’m saying today.

Krauss: Right. But we have a letter from your administration approving it.

Schweitzer: Sure.

Krauss: So you approved it before you disapproved it.

The report from the Chronicle also brought up how the council questioned the Governor's use of his airplane to fly down to the council meeting, and whether that was a good use of taxpayer dollars. Interesting stuff.

Federal Attempts to "Create Jobs"

Over the next ten months Congress and the President will be debating budgets, bills, tax revisions and more to supposedly "create jobs." Thomas Oliver of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a great article about the difficulties in this line of thinking. The federal government can make all the new tax credits it wants, but that is not going to create jobs.

I don't know who originally coined the axiom, "First, do no harm," but that is what the government needs to do in order to get us even close to thinking about an economic recovery. As Congress debates and the President presses for sweeping changes in health care, climate change (cap & trade), card check, different tax rates for investors, different rates for income tax payers, death tax revisions, huge financial and banking reforms, and record deficit spending, my question is this - who would want the risk of hiring new people in a time of record uncertainty? And not just economic uncertainty, but uncertainty largely created by government officials and regulators.

It's not an easy time to be a business owner right now, especially a small business owner. I think most are thinking they are safer just treading water than trying to expand, and it's due in large part to many things being debated in Congress right now. If we want to get our people back to work, we must first understand what's been keeping businesses from hiring new people. Tax credits aren't going to get people back to work in any large numbers.

Government "Solutions"

When I think about Washington DC's attempts at health care reform, climate change proposals, stimulus bills, and the new budget unveiled by the Obama administration, I think this sums it up pretty well. To check out more of these "demotivators", go to www.despair.com.

SEIU Now A Small Business Advocate

Jay Stevens over at Left in the Western Part of Pennsylvania continues his knee-jerk dislike for all things Chamber by promoting a diary entry from John Firehammer of "Montana Change that Works", a political advocacy arm of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Firehammer doesn't always identify which Chamber he's talking about, but in this case it doesn't matter because every Chamber I've run into is opposed to the issue he discusses.

I read with some amusement as Firehammer claims to be representing Main Street businesses who want to see the federal government spend billions of new taxpayer dollars on a new federal government bureaucracy as proposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). Apparently small businesses are just clamoring for this federal financial savior to ward off the evil bankers and Wall Street firms, and chambers of commerce around the state are just not listening to Main Street.

So which specific small businesses are Firehammer and SEIU claiming to represent? Which Montana businesses did Firehammer or Stevens personally talk to that are demanding this new government agency? When was the last time either of them actually talked to a real Montana small business owner who is actually employing people (yes, Jay, a MONTANA small business owner)? How do they know that a majority of small businesses even want this bill passed? Don't forget, these are the same people that oppose small businesses that are organized as a corporation from having free speech rights when it comes to campaign contributions as laid out in recent the Citizens United case.  

As a staff member at the Chamber of Commerce, I have the privilege of hearing from Montana small businesses on a daily basis. Our membership has a higher ratio of small businesses than the statewide average. Our board is made up of all kinds of businesses, both large and small. I don't think I've received a single call, email or message from any Montana business asking for the Consumer Financial Protection Act to pass. Even if I did get one, two or three, should we ignore the hundreds of other members who are opposed to the bill, including small business that are mad about how much the government is spending, or worried this may further dry up credit, or concerned this will end up putting more regulation on their backs?

Coincidently, when I went to find out what "Montana Change That Works" actually was, it brought me to the SEIU homepage where I also saw a nice ad to get the "SEIU for You" Credit Card through Visa. But wait, aren't those credit card companies and Wall Street firms bad news? I suppose not if you get kickbacks from them through credit cards you promote to your membership. Classy.

Targeted Legislative Seats for 2010

You may have noticed our months of non-blogging. Although there was no legislative session in 2010, we have kept very busy this past winter. Blogging fell to the bottom of the priority list.

We're back now, and we've updated our "Targeted Legislative Seats" page now that filing season has concluded. If a district made it on the list, it does not mean the Montana Chamber is targeting the race. We are simply making educated guesses about the legislative seats that both parties are likely to target. Check out the list here.

Take a moment to look at the list and tell us how we are wrong (or correct). Did we leave one off the list that should be there? Is the a race on the list that will not be competitive? Did we provide any wrong information that needs to be corrected? We would love to hear your thoughts on some of these races, including any inside scoop you may have on any of the races.

WAITING AROUND

Some of the heifers that have yet to calve lounging around in the evening with the moon coming up behind them. The colors were interesting to me.

 

WHO DESERVES IT

Judge sentences man to 60 days for sexual assault on young girl

Mark Hulett admitted repeatedly sexually assaulting a young girl for four years. Sounds like he deserves the rope. Judge Edward Cashman sentenced him to 60 days in jail. Kind of sounds like the judge might deserve the rope too. The story gives a lot of reasons for the light sentence but it's wrong. This girl is scared for life and all the Judge in concerned about is getting the offender treatment. How about the abused girl? Does she get any treatment or justice? Not with a sentence like this.

On to another one.

Parents leave kids home alone to gamble in Vegas

A California couple left their 5- and 9-year-old children home alone for the weekend while they went to gamble in Las Vegas.

I'm not real sure this one deserves the noose. They don't deserve the children but the noose might be a little extreme. Maybe if we used the noose on those people that harmed children these folks wouldn't have left them like they did. I don't know for sure but it's worth a try.

CLONED CRITTERS

FDA allows cloned beef, but many not so sure

Cloned beef, in the eyes of the Food and Drug Administration, tastes the same as that coming from cows made the old-fashioned way, but Billings butcher Gary Pollock still isn't swayed.

He thinks the FDA's recent decision allowing cloned meat and dairy products in the marketplace smells funny. There won't be any cloned meat on the chopping blocks of the Meat and Poultry Palace in Billings anytime soon because Pollock said he's seen the FDA jump the gun before.

I'm sorry, I don't see any problem with cloned animals. I've studied how it is done and there is not a problem that I see. It might be a little more complicated than some other reproductive techniques used in the purebred industry, but not that much different than some of the in vitro stuff they do today. It's to expensive to use on animals in the food chain, right now it would be used for genetically valuable seedstock. Then that progeny would be used for breeding in a herd like mine.

Sorry, if you expect me to yell and scream about it, I won't. There are more important things to worry about than this shit.

NAIS FEASIBILITY

A little review to start with. What is the purpose of NAIS and how is it going to be accomplished and who is the lead agency in it's implementation?

NAIS is a program by the USDA to allow them to track every animal in the US from birth to death. This is going to be done in cattle by means of an ear tag which even without the RFID technology will allow theUSDA to figure out where a particular animal has been from the time of it's birth.

Why do I bring this up? I bring this up because of a little story about a South Dakota farmer and his experience with tagged cattle. It appears this farmer went to an auction yard and bought a bunch of calves to feed on his farm. He fed the calves until they were fat and then took them to the slaughter house for his pay day. He was in for a surprise though.

The packing plant would not pay him for seven head of his cattle and condemned the whole load of offal. Why? Because the seven head in question were Canadian cattle and were not supposed to be in this farmers possession.

"Unfortunately, it appears that USDA is not keeping track of the cattle being imported from Canada - under USDA's rules, these calves should never have been allowed to be sold in a South Dakota auction market. The Canadian officials apparently haven't been able to trace back the movements and origin of the calves, despite the official Canadian tags found in their ears." Fox said that USDAimplemented a rule in 2005 to allow the importation of Canadian feeder cattle under 30 months of age, but only under very strict conditions.


"The cattle are supposed to enter the U.S. in sealed trucks and be transported directly to an identified feedlot. They are then to remain in the identified feedlot until they are hauled to a slaughter plant in a sealed truck," he said. "The fact that these calves showed up at a salebarn in South Dakota, were allowed to intermingle with U.S. cattle, and were not represented as Canadian cattle, indicates that USDA is not monitoring the very system it created.

The USDA wants to track all the cattle in the US, around 100 million cattle, and they can't even keep track of the small amount of cattle, I'm sure no more than 10 million, which come into the country from Canada. This is the perfect example of why NAIS is not going to work. The whole integrity of the program depends on the USDA being able to track these critters and here they prove on a smaller scale that they are incapable of doing just this.

Remember this example when the USDA official show up on your doorstep to sign you up for NAIS. Point out their proven inability to track cattle in the market system. See what they have to say about it. I bet they don't have an answer for you.