Steve Daines takes bold stand against methamphetamine

“The way I see it, heaven is a big, dark cave, and you can climb all over the walls and ceiling…”

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: American politics have come to a bitter pass, and what one voter holds dear is likely to enrage another. In these fractious times, Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) is doing what he can to bring the country together by standing up for what people still agree on. Last month, he celebrated Flag Day by proposing a constitutional amendment to ban the desecration of Old Glory. That probably cost him some votes in Tehran, but it seemed like a safe move otherwise. He followed it up with an editorial in the Missoulian and other Lee papers last week, in which he spoke out against methamphetamine. Beginning by noting that 95% of participants in his recent telephone town hall agree meth is a problem, he argues for 500 words that meth is, indeed, a problem. He concludes by saying that now is the time to raise awareness.

I suppose that last 5% of awareness is always the hardest. Still, one cannot help but think of other issues Sen. Daines might address, including the massive, secret, and extremely controversial health care bill his caucus is currently trying to ram through the senate. That bill might be why Daines keeps holding telephone town halls instead of regular ones. He hasn’t been back to Montana in a minute, and he lobbied to cancel the August recess. With all the flags-are-good and drugs-are-bad rhetoric coming out of his office right now, he’s starting to look like he might be trying to duck the issue. You can read all about it in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll probably be talking about Daines more in the near future, since he introduced that single-payer amendment he doesn’t actually support. Start working on your goblin jokes, and we’ll meet back here tomorrow for Friday links.

Friday links! James Comey, Historical Figure edition

In the year 2016, mild-mannered James Comey is working in the FBI library when he is bitten by a radioactive history book. From that moment on, the 56 year-old boy has the power to change history—but it is a power he cannot control. All he gets is a feeling of mild nausea when it’s about to happen. Doomed to shape history but never on purpose, he is: James Comey, Historical Figure. Today is: Friday. Won’t you chronicle our hero’s exploits with me?

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Why Glenn Beck is not entertainment

We all knew he loves America, but just look how much he loves his grandmother.

We all knew he loves America, but just look how much he loves his grandmother.

Those of us who spent the last two days eating Twix for breakfast and hurtling across America in a rocket-powered supertruck missed out on a few current events, not the least of which was Barack Obama’s speech to Congress about health care reform. Fortunately, it turns out that we didn’t need to listen to the President’s speech, because it didn’t matter. That’s the contention of Glenn Beck in this editorial at Fox News.com, brought to our attention by the vigilant and unmerciful Ben Fowlkes. Beck’s argument—which he calls, eerily, The One Thing—is that the content of Wednesday’s speech didn’t matter because the Obama administration is pursuing a broader course of action that is not yet clear. Presumably, a speech to Congress about what that course of action is might address that problem, but Beck isn’t interested, and he doesn’t think you should be, either. “While we don’t know what their grand plan is,” he writes, “it feels more and more like a plan designed by the Teamsters, the seemingly criminal elements that run ACORN or Hugo Chavez’s regime.”

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