In the Montana 2020 General Election the good citizens of Park and Sweetgrass Counties have an opportunity to elect two qualified and experienced Democratic candidates to the Montana House of Representatives. In this episode we interview Dan Vermillion running for Montana House District 59, and incumbent Laurie Bishop running for her third term for Montana House District 60.
Oct 20, 2020
59 min
In the 2020 General Election Montanans have an opportunity to elect a slate of the most qualified, experienced, authentic, and dedicated group of Democratic candidates into Montana federal and statewide offices. In this episode we interview three of the Montana statewide candidates, Raph Graybill running for Attorney General, Bryce Bennett running for Secretary of State, and Melissa Romano running for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Oct 17, 2020
1 hr 2 min
In this interview we talk with Montana’s senior, three-term U.S. Senator Jon Tester about his new book, “Grounded, A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America”. Also discussed are his views about the extreme partisanship of today’s political climate, what’s at stake for Montana and the country in the upcoming 2020 elections, and the importance of voting in this election. And there was an interesting phone interruption......
Oct 11, 2020
42 min
Superintendent of Public Instruction and U.S. Senate -
This episode includes a breakdown of the two offices and information on the candidates, Melissa Romano (Democrat) and Elsie Arntzen (Incumbent Republican) running for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Steve Bullock (Democrat) and Steve Daines (Incumbent Republican) running for U.S. Senate.
Sep 13, 2020
1 hr 1 min
Public Service Commission District 3 and U.S. House of Representatives -
This episode includes a breakdown of the two offices and information on the candidates, Tom Woods (Democrat) and James Brown (Republican) running for Public Service Commission District 3, and Kathleen Williams (Democrat) and Matt Rosendale (Republican) running for U.S. House of Representatives.
Aug 28, 2020
1 hr 3 min
Attorney General and Governor/Lieutenant Governor -
This episode includes a breakdown of the two offices and information on the candidates, Raph Graybill (Democrat) and Austin Knudsen (Republican) running for Attorney General, and Mike Cooney/Casey Schreiner (Democrats) and Greg Gianforte/Kirsten Juras (Republicans) running for Governor/Lieutenant Governor.
Aug 22, 2020
1 hr 14 min
Secretary of State and State Auditor and Securities and Insurance Commissioner - This episode includes a breakdown of the two offices and information on the candidates, Bryce Bennett (Democrat) and Christi Jacobsen (Republican) running for Secretary of State, and Shane Morigeau (Democrat) and Troy Downing (Republican) running for State Auditor and Securities and Insurance Commissioner.
In this 4-part series we will cover the federal and statewide offices that will be on the ballot in the 2020 General Election. Our intention is to provide information about the offices so you, the voters, understand how the office serves you. We will also provide information about the candidates, where they stand on issues, their political experience, and whether or not their background record lines up with what they say they will do for you if you give them your vote.
Full disclosure, ours is not a non-biased or non-partisan point of view. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the healthcare, economic, racial equality, and climate crisis our state and country are facing, this will be the most important election of our lifetime. We need to elect politicians who are experienced, intelligent, and know how to use the tools of government to find solutions to these critical problems based on reason and science, not self interest or ideology. After extensive research of both the Democratic and Republican candidates, it was clear to us who would better serve the citizens of Montana.
Aug 7, 2020
1 hr 1 min
In this remote interview we talk with Dan Vermillion who is running for Montana House District 59, a mostly rural district comprised of parts of Sweetgrass County and Park County outside of Livingston. A lifelong Montanan and avid hunter and fisherman, Vermillion is co-owner, along with his brothers, of Sweetwater Travel which runs sustainably managed fishing camps and lodges in Mongolia, Brazil, Alaska, British Columbia, the Bahamas and Montana. He also served twelve years on the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission, and as a commissioner worked extensively with ranchers and farmers, sportsmen, outdoorsmen, and business owners from both sides of the aisle to find solutions to the problems Montanans face to preserve and protect our wild places and natural resources while promoting economic opportunities.
We discuss the challenges of running a political campaign in the age of COVID-19 and how the pandemic will intensify the issues Montanans are already facing such as healthcare, mental health and social services, affordable housing and unemployment. We talk about the economic effect the virus will have on Montana’s second largest and growing industry, travel and tourism, and how in this time of political polarization it’s important to work together in a bi-partisan way to address these issues and not settle for short term solutions at the expense of jeopardizing Montana’s great outdoor heritage by relaxing regulations to increase mining and logging instead of promoting tourism. “You can find gold in other places, you can find copper in other places, but there’s no other place in the world where you can find a Yellowstone Cutthroat.”
Jun 1, 2020
1 hr
Since 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a bi-partisan organization, has fought tirelessly to protect the rights and liberties enshrined by our Constitution to every individual in our country. In the 100 years since its founding, the ACLU has expanded to include over 4 million members and supporters and has chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.
In this, our second remote interview, we talk with Alex Rate, Legal Director for the Montana chapter of the ACLU. We begin our conversation with a discussion about the case brought by the Montana ACLU regarding the threat of COVID-19 to Montana’s incarcerated population. Also discussed are important cases involving indigenous voter rights, the Border Patrol detaining two women for speaking Spanish, and an LGBTQ transgender rights case. We also talk about a shocking case involving fully armed bounty hunters bursting into the bedroom of a sleeping Montana family in the wee hours of the morning to collect a $115 bond. Perhaps most alarming, we discuss the cases involving the Keystone XL Pipeline construction in Montana and the secret and weaponizing preparations state and federal agencies are taking to treat protesters as terrorists. We also talk about how the ACLU chooses which cases to pursue, and in the Trump era, there are certainly a great deal of challenges to our Constitutional rights to keep up with.
“So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.” - ACLU founder Roger Baldwin
To learn more and to join ACLU MT : https://www.aclumontana.org/
May 10, 2020
1 hr
In this, our last live interview before COVID-19 and social distancing required us to go remote, we sat down with John Clayton, to talk about his latest book, “Natural Rivals”, subtitled “John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America’s Public Lands.” John shares how he came across an account of Muir and Pinchot camping together in 1896 at Lake McDonald in what is now Glacier National Park. He realized they were not fighting but were collaborating on finding a solution to the crisis of how to define and protect the idea of public lands, national parks, and national forests. A political battle was raging. Corruption and dysfunction in government were rampant. Robber barons were building political and financial power at the expense of human and natural resources and were degrading the environment. Scientists were being ignored. At the same time, the public was growing more and more alarmed about the loss of natural habitats, wildlife, and resources. Vast expanses of the nation’s forests were being cleared at an unsustainable rate, the passenger pigeon had gone extinct and it looked as though bison would soon follow. It was at this time that the two men, in spite of their differences, came together to form an alliance that would result in the 1897 Organic Act, a law that established the legal idea of public lands and out of which the U.S. Forest Service would emerge. Describing their different philosophies, John says, “Preservation and conservation have a lot more in common when both are set against the wanton exploitation of natural resources for immediate private gain. But they also have some conflicts with each other if you are going to preserve a spot in nature as Muir would have encouraged you to do. It would look a lot like wilderness.” We talk about how the conflict of preservation -vs- conservation continues to this day, with wildly varying views about public land use and expanding wilderness areas. Complicating the argument, the Trump administration has placed a man known for wanting to get rid of all public lands, William Perry Pendley, at the head of the BLM, the very agency that is charged with protecting and managing them. We also discuss the parallels between the division created in the crisis of the 1890’s and what our country is facing today with the climate crisis and the misery it will cause on a global scale. Again, corporate greed and wanton environmental degradation is rampant. Governmental corruption and dysfunction prevail. And again, science is being ignored.
Apr 26, 2020
43 min
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