by Travis Mateer
Having spent time last session in Helena watching the sausage making, I thought I had seen the cultural. nadir of idiotic Republican behavior, but no. After wasting an entire week not being able to agree on the rules, among themselves, these stupid fucks walked right back into the cultural trap of bathroom politics (emphasis mine):
In 2023, the Legislature passed the bill banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, though a court later overturned the law — a frequent fate for the most extreme of recent Republican social issue legislation. This year, in his state of the state speech, Gov. Greg Gianforte told lawmakers he would welcome yet another similarly minded bill to his desk: House Bill 121, which proposes restricting the use of bathrooms and dormitories on the basis of sex as defined by a person’s chromosomes and their production of eggs or sperm. The bill, which has gained notoriety as the country’s first state-level bathroom ban this year, says that anyone who “encounters another individual of the opposite sex in the restroom or changing room” can sue the facility.
Lawmakers in the House gave preliminary approval to that bill this week on party lines.
If this was the extent of the early-session idiocy, I wouldn’t be this negative already, but it gets worse, and I’m talking DEATH PENALTY worse.
A perennial proposal to restore or reverse Montana’s status as a death penalty state arrived this week at the Capitol.
Montana does allow the death penalty, although a 2015 court ruling that found the specific substance in the law could not be used has precluded the state from executing someone ever since. Two people in Montana, one convicted in 1983 and the other in 1992, are currently on death row.
House Bill 205 from freshman Rep. Shannon Maness, R-Dillon, proposes to remove the problematic language in state law, that being “an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent,” and replacing it with, “a substance or substances … sufficient to cause death.”
In effect, the bill would put the death penalty back into action. How legislators vote on these proposals tends to be a proxy vote on capital punishment itself.
Yes, Montana DOES already have the death penalty, and it doesn’t need legislative clarity to be dispensed by ANY Sheriff Office across the great state of Montana. All a badge has to do is know how to point and shoot a gun and BAM, they become walking, talking executioners. If you need something less obvious, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office has refined the approach to killing people, using the power of the CORONER to euthanize Sean Stevenson, an act of lethal cowardice I will never let them forget.
Meanwhile, I continue researching the cultural roots of the counter-culture, and that research is more fascinating than ever, but it’s not something I plan on just giving away for free, like some synchronistic researchers are angling for with their database projects (I’m looking at you, Mr. Knowles). While I’m more plagued than ever with this strange phenomenon, I’ve never been more certain that it’s critically important to understand, so I’m going to keep documenting the craziness as it comes at me, like that truck that hit Denver Henderson last week.
I’d like to say more, but this is one of those FREE blog posts that you don’t have to pay anything to read. You just have to endure my constant suggestion that, if you see value here, you donate to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little amount helps.
Thanks for reading!