Will Trump hurt Gianforte and Zinke come November?

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 1 Comment
Ryan Zinke and Teen Wolf at a 2014 Republican debate in Great Falls

Ryan Zinke and Teen Wolf at a 2014 Republican debate in Great Falls

If you write about politics, don’t try to predict the future. Every right prediction seems obvious in retrospect, and every wrong one will haunt your career, unless your dad was the editor of Commentary. The wise commentator will limit himself to expressing opinions on things that have already happened, so that when people point out his obvious stupidity, he can distract them with the claim that reasonable people can disagree about matters of opinion. I know from experience. This week, though, I have broken my own rule and prognosticated on the fortunes of Rep. Ryan Zinke and gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte if they appear on the same ballot as Donald Trump—or on one from which Trump is conspicuously absent.

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With DAD Act, Commander Zinke invades the realm of satire

By Dan Brooks in Fighting 1 Comment
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) visits a Special Forces parade in Helena.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) visits a Special Forces parade in Helena.

Those readers who fail to live in Montana may not be familiar with our lone delegate to the US House, freshman representative and former Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke. He is a war guy. His public persona centers on his identity as a former member of one of the world’s most selective fighting forces, sometimes to a degree that verges on parody. For example, his office consistently refers to him as “Commander Zinke,” not “Representative Zinke.” During the 2014 election, his campaign gave away an AR-15 in a raffle. And of course there was the time he criticized President Obama’s participation in the Paris conference on climate change because it wouldn’t do anything to stop ISIS, then levied the same criticism against gun control a month later.

He’s a character, in other words. I have enjoyed Commander Zinke’s hooah schtick, and so have voters in Montana, a state where 13% of adults are veterans and a substantial number of those who aren’t might be described as lifestyle conservatives. As the Republican Party continues to corner the market on warlike patriotism, Zinke is the killer app. But I cannot abide his recent behavior, in which his gung-ho act invades the realm of satire.

Last week, Commander Zinke co-sponsored the Draft America’s Daughters Act with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a former US Marine. The DAD Act would require women between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for the draft, just as men do now. Lest you think Zinke and Hunter are at the forefront of gender equality in military service, here’s the latter in a public statement:

It’s unfortunate that a bill like this even needs to be introduced. And it’s legislation that I might very well vote against, should it be considered during the annual defense authorization process.

It turns out the DAD Act is a jab at Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who in December instructed the US military to open all combat specializations to women, including infantry and other front-line positions. Zinke and Hunter object to Carter taking that measure “without regard for the research and perspective of the Marine Corps and special operations community.” If you let women join armor divisions or become SEALS, they argue, drafting them is the next logical step.

This venture into satire might be funnier if Commander Zinke had ever sponsored a bill that actually became law. As it is, his record in legislation lags far behind his record in war. Although he is a fixture on Fox News and anywhere flags come together with guns or motorcycles, he has yet to propose an idea the House actually took up. Maybe now is a bad time to sponsor laws he doesn’t actually support, since he his success rate stands at zero with laws he actually does. You can read all about it in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Daines, Zinke decry president’s “unconstitutional gun grab”

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 2 Comments
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R–MT) grabs a gun constitutionally.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R–MT) grabs a gun constitutionally.

You don’t need to print the American flag on an AR-15. If you’re holding one—indoors, with your finger on the trigger, as former Navy SEAL and current representative from Montana Ryan Zinke is well trained to do above—people will know you’re American. Guns are an essential part of the American experiment. They’re what separated us from Britain in the 18th century, and they’re what separates a new generation of Americans from their faces in the 21st. The Second Amendment guarantees that we all get as many as we want. And despite juridical and popular disagreement over what the authors of the Constitution meant by “well-regulated militia,” I think we can agree it’s unconstitutional to regulate guns at all.

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Zinke on wife’s birthday: Wouldn’t you agree our anniversary is coming?

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 3 Comments
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and a gun in the living room

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and a gun in the living room

Montana’s man in Congress, Representative Ryan Zinke, unleashed a novel argument last week: the President shouldn’t have attended the Paris summit on climate change, because ISIS is the bigger threat. Commander Zinke pestered Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on that subject in a House Armed Services Committee meeting shortly after Thanksgiving.

“We have ISIS, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, North Korea, an emerging China and Russia. Mr. Secretary, where would you rack and stack global warming with that list?” he asked. Although Carter initially declined to order that list of terrorists, nations, and weather patterns, Commander Zinke pressed on. “Would you agree the imminent threat, the 5-yard, 5-meter threat—the most damaging threat facing us today—would be ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the non-nation state terrorist activities?”

Carter agreed ISIS was the imminent threat, probably because hearing “rack and stack” and “5-meter threat” made him dive into a combat roll and shout “affirmative!” But man, I’m pretty sure another two feet of sea level will dampen us whether they’re beheading apostates in Raqqa or not. And I’m pretty sure the number of people who will starve, steam, or thirst to death in 2080—probably in the billions, if our grandchildren ever meet somebody nice—is more than ISIS could kill with a whole battalion of radicalized health inspectors. But the immediacy of ISIS makes global warming a bullshit problem, as Commander Zinke explained on Facebook:

I agree with President Obama that his climate summit will “send a message” to ISIS. The message is crystal clear: Obama is out of touch, he doesn’t understand the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, he is more concerned about his legacy than anything else, and he is willing to do anything to avoid confronting ISIS head-on.

It was kind of a stretch. I submit that Commander Zinke would rather talk about ISIS than global warming or virtually any other subject because it’s the kind of problem you can shoot at. They are bad and we are good, which makes them easier to discuss than how to get billions of people and dozens of industrialized nations to sacrifice money and comfort on behalf of animals and people who haven’t been born yet. You can read all about it in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links!

Zinke calls estate tax “tax on the American dream” in House repeal

By Dan Brooks in Class Warfare 0 Comment

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed HR 1105 to repeal the estate tax. Before we go even one sentence further, know that the estate tax applies only to inheritances greater than $5.43 million. That’s very few; according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, approximately 0.2% of deaths in 2013 involved estates large enough to be taxed. Perhaps that’s why Republicans invariably refer to the estate tax as the Death Tax: 99.8% of Americans will not pass on taxable estates, but everybody dies. On Twitter, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) called it “a tax on the American Dream.” Speaking in favor of the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015, he said:

“I rise to bring awareness to a pervasive tax that threatens the very livelihood of the future of generations of Montanans…This tax punishes Americans that have worked hard, played by the rules, and want to pass that legacy on to their children.”

I submit that 0.2% is “pervasive” the same way inheriting more than $5 million is the American dream.

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