Primary thoughts

The primary is over and the surprises are settling in. Tester won the Democrat primary for the U.S. senate race and will face Montana's senator from Missouri, Conrad Burns, in November. I think that the margin in the Democrat primary was the big surprise. I thought it would be closer. I would suggest to Burns, however, that that margin may have been entirely anger at the way he has conducted himself in D.C. and the morality involved. I understand that Burns would not think he has done anything immoral in taking Abramoff $150,000 because he would have essentially backed the companies against the laborers in the Marianas. In the first vote, he didn't care enough to make an issue of it. In the second vote the money from Abramoff gave him a good reason to vote no. And supporting Abramoff's Indian clients didn't hurt anybody because they were far away from Montana and his votes didn't affect his constituents and did affect his war chest. Good reasons??? I don't think so, but then I don't like anything else he's backed. After all, he's not a Montanan; he's from Missouri, a carpetbagger from the dull Midwest.

And then we have Lindeen moving into the race against Rubber-Stamp Denny, who lives on the taxpayer in his D.C. office and doesn't spend any of his own money on housing in the most expensive city in the U.S. And if baby bush stops to soon, he has to pick Denny out of his colon.

Then there was the so-called anti-obscenity vote in Yellowstone County. I couldn't believe that enough immoralists voted for it to make the race close on the obscenity issue and to pass the zoning issue. I wonder if I could get the county commission to vote against putting a church in my neighborhood on the grounds that it might make an obscenity of my Sunday mornings?

And then there was the tax increase for the roof on the obscenity at the fairgrounds called the Metra. I have to admit I wasn't upset that it passed, but I did cast my protest "no." I don't intend to vote for another bond issue, except for public safety, until the city of Billings passes a school levy again. Since so many people protest the school levy, I suggest that I should be able to protest other taxes that I might otherwise support. But if we can't support our schools, then we can't support anything else, it seems to me. And I wonder if I could get a petition signed to take that little bit of taxes we pay to support the trade port or some such thing, which does me no good, off my tax bill?