The Devastating Double Standard for January 6 Rioters - by Kali Holloway

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The author does what leftists do, she parrots The Narrative. The Narrative is the official story, the talking points disseminated by talking heads and political operatives, repeated incessantly until they become the "conventional wisdom."

Such is the case with J6. The Left immediately branded it as a violent insurrection where people died or suffered life-altering injuries, which of course is a leftist fairy tale obediently repeated by the national news media and funded by monied anonymous persons. Over time The Narrative has been expanded and embellished to the point that anyone who points out what really happened is mocked and derided into silence as a conspiracy theorist or a Trump True Believer.

As is typical for leftists, the author whines and complains about the very things the Left themselves routinely perpetrate. They are the ones who tear down statutes, burn down car dealerships and corner stores, they are the ones who utter rhetoric dripping with hate, they are the ones who harbor criminals or are criminals themselves, they are the ones who are intolerant, bigoted, repressive, and homophobic.

But the author says it's the J6 demonstrators who represent a double standard. However, when leftists complain about J6 threatening democracy, well, that's exactly what they want to do themselves. When they complain about incivility, they are the ones who are uncivil. When they complain about the rich and income inequality, they are the ones with the money.

But no one on the Left gets held to account because of a complicit media and their comrades who run interference for them. That is, until they finally commit an unpardonable sin, which is when they attract public notice and become a political liability. In such cases they are thrown to the wolves, only to be rehabilitated a few months later.

Bottom line: The Left hates America, referred to as The System. The System is racist and bigoted and must be torn down and replaced by any means necessary. If blood must be shed and cities burned, well, as long as The Agenda is served, the ends justify the means.

So, keep in mind as you read that nothing you find here will be for the purpose of information, clarity, or gaining understanding. It is agitprop, created only to parrot The Narrative in order to further The Agenda.

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Letter to the editor: Who would have thought a dictator would rule U.S. on 250th birthday?

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This letter writer thinks he's pinned down the nefarious and eeeevil Trump. But like most leftists, the letter writer can't put together a coherent string of thoughts. 

This letter is a pretty good example of the left's unceasing obsession with taking out Trump. Not just to get him out of office, but to negate him, bankrupt him, destroy him, destroy his family, or even, kill him. 

This irrational hatred oozes from the letter writer's prose, so much so that he can't even see that he's being stupid. He so believes the Leftist narrative that he is unable to think rationally.

We are no great fan of Trump, but dictator? That's just dumb.

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Civil discourse is a Montana value - Chuck Tooley, Guest columnist

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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 Did we just experience a bait-and-switch? The author lures us in with the promise of a discussion about civil discourse, but immediately morphs into a commercial for The Burton K. Wheeler Center. 

We spent some time on their website and found it to be curiously non-specific about its agenda. Like the article below, great effort is expended there to make the Center seem to be above the fray, reasonable, measured, fair, and unbiased. 

This sets off alarms for us. Especially since the debates of society are not just simple disagreements, they are active hostilities. The Left in particular is actively toxic in its tactics against the Right, tactics that are almost exclusively comprised of name-calling and character assassination. For the Left, the Right is not simply wrong or mistaken, it is evil and not fit to exist. 

It is not possible to come together and have friendly discussions with such people.

This is not to say that the Right doesn't have its bad actors. It certainly does. But one would be hard-pressed to find any Leftist who has the ability to make a thoughtful case for their beliefs absent of any reference to some sort of caricature of the Right. 

The author uses the word "we" nearly a dozen times in the context of "you and I together." He thinks that all we need to do is sit down and talk. We're all a part of one big family. Let's just have a beer. We can certainly work it out together, Right?

The language and tactics of the national Left is coming to Montana. In fact, it's already here. We can't be sure, but the author feels this undercurrent and thinks the Center is the answer. That would make him naïve, for the Left isn't interested in discussion or compromise. It intends the total annihilate its opponents.

Discussion with such people is not possible.

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Dr. Martin Luther King Would Approve of Zohran Mamdani - By Dr. Lenore Daniels

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The agitprop is strong in this one, Obi-Wan. 

With nearly impenetrable prose, the author goes on and on about her caricatures, liberally employing well-worn Socialist tropes and bumper sticker slogans in a vain search for a coherent thought. 

Remember, this woman has a PhD. 

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If-Jesus-returns-kill-Him-again.com - Darwin Bedford

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This guy is a true believer. We're not going to respond, since the level of intellect at work here is self-evident. So just grab a cold one and sit down for a good laugh or two. Or, pity this poor soul who can barely put together a coherent thought.

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Letter to the editor: Congress must address climate change, for our children Angie Winter

Found here. Our comments in bold

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The letter writer is a supporter of the Citizens' Climate Lobby. This noble-sounding organization is a leftist advocacy group pushing for more taxes. They want to convince you into consenting to taxing yourselves by dangling a carrot called a dividend. This dividend would supposedly mitigate the impact of the fee. They claim: "A national carbon price, with full revenue return and border adjustments, will do four things: internalize the social cost of carbon-based fuels, rapidly achieve large emission reductions, stimulate the economy & recruit global participation. And it will do so for FREE." Yes, they really believe it is free.

Here's a chart from their website:

Notice in step one they want a carbon "fee" [tax] which would be applied "at the point where they [greenhouse gases] first enter the economy." The point at which carbon enters the economy is not the point where carbon enters the ecosystem. The only point where carbon enters the economy is when oil, gas and coal producing companies sell their products. Therefore, the intent of the Citizens' Climate Lobby is to tax oil, coal, and gas companies with an escalating tax, obviously intended to become confiscatory at some point: "The fee would start out low — $15 per ton — and gradually increase $10 each year." 

Let's try to get an idea what this tax would mean to the oil industry. The government says that burning a gallon of gasoline creates about 20 pounds of CO2, and in the U.S. we used 134,506,764,000 gallons in 2013. That generates 690,135,280,000 pounds of CO2, or 345,067,640 tons. Just from gasoline. So the amount of the tax, just for the first year level, is $5.2 billion. 

The energy business intends to operate a profit, so this additional cost of doing business will be incorporated into the price of energy. This tax will be passed down in the cost of their product, which all downstream businesses will pay, and they will do the same with the price of their products. This will trickle down through the economy until it gets to the end user. You. 

You and I will pay this tax. All of it.

According to the International Business Times, U.S. oil company profits were $33.4 billion, only a part of which is gasoline, of course. "Refineries in the United States produced an average of about 12 gallons of diesel fuel and 19 gallons of gasoline from one barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil in 2013." So this means that gasoline is about 45% of a typical barrel of oil. So roughly, $15.3 billion of that profit is from gasoline.

Now, let's do the numbers. We bring in the $5.2 billion tax and add it atop $15.3 billion in revenue. This tax, at least for the first year only, will add 1/3 to the price of a gallon of gas, minimum. My 2008 Toyota RAV4 uses about 30 gallons of gas per month, or 360 per year. With the carbon tax added in, this vehicle will cost an additional $400 to drive, and again, this is just for the first year. 

Then add a second vehicle, as well as the same tax applied to your home's natural gas, each business's heating bill, necessary wage increases, the cost of manufacturing and transporting goods, and you might as well add 50% to the cost of living. Just for the first year.

Then, tax will increase by $10 per ton each year. At the end of year three, the tax will have tripled. 

Citizens' Climate Lobby tells us that carbon tax revenue would be rebated to the consumer. This is step two, above. As one reads further, we discover each household would receive a dividend from a government "trust fund," which contains the accumulated revenue of the carbon tax. Disbursements from this fund would supposedly cover the increased cost of energy resulting from the tax. 

Step three appears to be price and competition controls.

This continues for the few years until the cost of the tax and the rebate amount are absolutely huge. And yet no one in this circle of death seems to have any incentive to lower carbon emissions. The consumer getting reimbursed, and the producer is charging what he needs to.

In effect, what we now have is a perpetual motion machine. The government taxes energy, energy gets more expensive, the tax money is given to the consumer to pay to the energy company for covering the extra expense, the energy company gets a tax increase the next year of an additional 67%, (existing tax of $15 per ton plus another $10 per ton) which they also pass on in their prices. Even more tax money gets paid out of the trust fund to the consumer.

Hmm.

Now, imagine this plan being implemented. Your income no longer covers the cost of your expenses, because you are hanging on for dear life waiting for the arrival of the rebate check at the end of the year. Surprise, the check is less than you thought. But the next tax increase has already kicked in, and your income hasn't increased that much. Now you're in an even bigger hole than before, again waiting for the next rebate check. 

By year five, you can't buy gas any more, your gas powered vehicle is obsolete and valueless, you can't afford to buy an electric vehicle, which would make no sense anyway since electricity is largely produced by carbon fuels. You can't afford to heat your house or even buy groceries, because everything has tripled in price. The rebate didn't calculate its overall effect on the economy because the government never gets stuff like this correct.

Businesses don't get a rebate, even though energy costs have been passed on to them as well. Some businesses might try to pass on the expense in the price of their products, but this makes them hugely more expensive and people just won't be buying them because their disposable income is being used just to stay afloat. Each year gets worse until the economy shuts down.

This is what Citizens' climate lobby calls a free market solution.

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Rescuing Faith from Capitalism: A Theological Response to Project 2025 - by Mike Rivage-Seul

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This tarot card-reading "theologian" wants to tell us what the authentic Christian faith is. Really. Amazingly, while proclaiming another Jesus, he is somehow able to simultaneously determine when someone is being heretical. His theology is identical to the Left's political agenda, and his presentation is brain-dead bumper sticker Leftist slogans.

As is typical for Leftists, the author does not write to inform or explain, he writes to serve The Agenda, which is the overthrow of the system. It has nothing to do with any form of Christianity, because it is a political agenda, not a faith agenda.

Thus, as far as there being a "theological response," there isn't one.

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Why We Urgently Need a Progressive Policy Infrastructure - By Rob Kall

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This author seems to believe that the 80-plus years of Leftist political domination didn't happen, that the wrecking ball of leftist policies is non-existent, and that the installation of Leftist politics at every level of government isn't actually there. The leftist control of the news media, Hollywood, public education, and corporations is near total, but not according to the author.

He thinks that the Left lacks the infrastructure to compete with the Right.

Astonishing.

The unstated truth is, the Left thought it had a lock on the power structure, but the walls of the Leftist citadel have been cracking. Conservative ideas have been seeping in, and there became more and more avenues to obtain a right-leaning perspective. Regular America has always been in varying degrees politically Right, despite American institutions tracking Leftward. 

Within the last 40 or so years prominent conservative voices began arising, like Rush Limbaugh, who articulated the things mainstream America knew in their bones to be true but never heard from the media voices. When leftist agitprop is all people see and hear, the conservative message is like a breath of fresh air.

The Leftist citadel had never been challenged before, so they didn't know what to do. But being authoritarians, dissent cannot be permitted. So rather than develop rhetorical skills or logical arguments, they simply turned to personal attacks, deplatforming, and censorship, strategies which continue to be utilized with impunity by the Left even today.

So the author wants a leftist infrastructure built to compete with the Right. He appears to have forgotten that the Left has made many abortive attempts to compete with the conservative media. Air America, Thom Hartmann, Mike Malloy, Randi Rhoads, Al Franken... None of them has gained any traction in terms of popular appeal. 

No one wants to listen to the Leftist message. 

True to form, Leftists attribute their failures to packaging, presentation, or any other reason besides the message itself. They don't understand (or refuse to admit) that their message, unless camouflaged in euphemisms and feel-good language, is just not popular. People don't like the Leftist worldview. Period.

We hope the author gets his wish, and we will witness the inevitable demise of this latest leftist enterprise, accompanied with the excuse-making as to why it failed that will inevitably follow.

It should be entertaining.

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Gallatin County Health Department - Happy pride month

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This is a very odd Faceborg post from our county health department. It's really nothing more than pandering, a simpering show of support, with tobacco usage being used as the excuse.

Apparently gays are at higher risk because they smoke more. Do they smoke more? Well, yes. But Gallatin County wants to place blame, and the blame is 100% on external factors. Discrimination, stress, targeted advertising. Why? We don't know, except for the County's clear desire to virtue signal.

As much as they want to blame society and intolerant straights, discrimination is simply a questionable reason for higher tobacco use:

...if tobacco use is conceptualized as a coping behavior resulting from psychological distress associated with social rejection and stigmatization—as is the case in the Minority Stress Model26—then what accounts for the greater disparities in use among sexual minority women compared to sexual minority men?

Indeed, Since lesbians have a higher rate of tobacco use, are they subject to more discrimination than gay men? Of course not, blaming discrimination is nonsense. 

14% of people age 18 and above use tobacco products in Gallatin County. There are 126,000 people in the county, which equals 18,000 tobacco users. We will generously grant that 5% of Gallatin County residents are gay, which is 882 people. We will round that off to 1000 because we are so charitable. 

That is 0.8% of the population. This is what we mean by pandering. 

And because of this supposed stress, Gallatin County believes it's harder for gays to quit than it is for straights. They face "unique challenges." However, there is no evidence that quitting very addictive tobacco products is harder for one category of people than it is for another. Again, Gallatin County is simply trying to ingratiate themselves.

How are gays not offended by this?

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Letter to the editor: Use of term 'illegal alien' diminishes fellow human beings - by Julia Shaida

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This letter writer regurgitates the typical leftist slogans, but she clearly hasn't thought about the issue past what she's read on some leftist website. A little bit of independent investigation might perhaps lead her to more relevant and correct information, such as

Longstanding Supreme Court precedent recognizes Congress as having “plenary” power over immigration, giving it almost complete authority to decide whether foreign nationals ( “aliens,” under governing statutes and case law) may enter or remain in the United States.

We don't wish to be disrespectful, but Ms. Shaida simply doesn't know what she's talking about.
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Letter to the editor: What would Jesus say of those who shun diversity, inclusion? - by Alfred Hanna

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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This is a confused and ignorant letter, full of leftist prescriptions masquerading as Christianity. The leftist starts with his politics, then looks to justify his politics with half-remembered Bible stories. That's what the Left does, dress up their pernicious beliefs with Jesus, using innocuous language and half-truths.

The idea that Jesus would condone any government policy is preposterous on its face. That we would approve of DEI in particular as a government policy is even more preposterous: 

Jn. 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Jn. 6:15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

The letter writer wants his Jesus in his own image. That is a dangerous position to be in.

We will mostly answer the letter writer with what Jesus Himself said. That's the best way to determine what Jesus would do.

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"I'm a liberal" - essay by Lori Gallagher Witt, attributed to Actor Ron Howard

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This poor woman thinks she's being sensible and thoughtful when in fact she's superficial and trite. Regurgitating bumper sticker slogans, the author is so self unaware that it almost causes one to laugh out loud at her.

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Letter to the editor: Depths of MAGA hypocrisy knows no bounds - letter by Cara Wilder

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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What Ms. Wilder doesn't seem to understand is that she and her leftist friends tried all this. They called Trump names, prosecuted and persecuted him relentlessly, hammered and hammered on him, yet he still was elected. None of it worked. They lost.

Yet Ms. Wilder keeps right on going.

This is because leftists like Ms. Wilder aren't creative thinkers. They are told what to think by Central Command, and they dutifully repeat the same bumper sticker slogans and tired talking points day after day. They don't have the ability to do anything else, even in the face of failure. 

Their entire ideology is constructed this way. It's simply a series of religious mantras repeated endlessly until the leftist is swept away into mind-numbed oblivion. It's a mystical reality, built on verbal formulas, reflexively offered when properly stimulated. Or, triggered.

So Ms. Wilder offers her bilge as self-evident truth even though it's a blue-pill simulation. None of it is real.

Lastly, Ms. Wilder will be unable to cite any instance of MAGA people being hypocritical. 

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Letter to the editor: Christian Nationalists trying to control all our lives - Jack Davis

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This letter is so incoherent it almost defies rebuttal. 

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Letter to the editor: Trump inauguration will make a mockery of Constitution - by Kenneth Allen

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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It's rather astonishing to us that the Left persists in their narrative no matter what. They get refuted every day but this does not dissuade them. They are proved wrong at every point but the very next day they repeat the same old bumper sticker slogans. Even though they lost the election using this blather they keep it up. Trump still must be blasted as an authoritarian, a fascist, a threat to democracy... and, an insurrectionist.

This is The Narrative, the daily talking points regularly disseminated to the faithful, the sole purpose of which is to further The Agenda. The Agenda is the overthrow of The System to make way for the people's utopia, Socialism.

So, Kenneth Allen's letter to the editor appeared in the local paper, in service to The Narrative. He is gravely concerned about supposed violations of the Constitution, you know, the document written by old white guys, misogynists, and imperialistic xenophobes. 

In actual fact the author doesn't care a bit about the Constitution, except for the momentary value it has to impugn Trump. He even quotes it, which likely puts his Google search into the FBI terrorist database. 

The author is correct that the Constitution forbids those who have engaged in insurrection to hold federal office. In the author's mind this disqualifies Trump. Because The Narrative. 

However, insurrection is a crime. So first, there must be an insurrection, and there wasn't. Second, one must be tried and convicted of insurrection to be an insurrectionist. Didn't happen. 

For a long time we thought the Left was simply being cynical, tossing around their accusations but not really believing them. It seems, though, that the author really believes this claptrap. A sobering situation, indeed.

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Letter to the editor: How could this man possibly become president again? - letter to the editor by Gary Peterson

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Let's answer the author's question. Democracy. That's how Trump became president again.

The author apparently really believes the leftist narrative. For nearly ten years the Left has unrelentingly attacked Trump. Invented dossiers, fake controversies, endless name-calling, malicious prosecutions, and repeated false claims that Trump would be a dictator... This has been the war waged against Trump, an onslaught of regurgitated talking points, bumper sticker slogans, and outrageous rhetoric designed for a single purpose: Destroy the man. 

No, not get him out of office or keep him from being re-elected. Destroy the man. Make him destitute. Strip from him his reputation, his freedom, his wealth, his family. This is not a political strategy, it is a hate campaign, very personal, that justifies any statement, any action, any behavior, that hurts Trump. Including assassination. 

No limits.

The foundation of the violent offensive against Trump is raw, unrestrained, vindictive, irrational hate. Interestingly, that's partly why Trump ended up being elected: the sheer magnitude of increasingly ridiculous rhetoric used against him. At some point a sane person comes to the conclusion that a man being called Hitler needs to at some point do or say something Hitler-like. Such a thing never happened. It didn't happen when he was last president. It hasn't happened since he's left office. 

That's when peoples' opinions start turning,  when politics as a rough sport turns into something way beyond that.

The fact that the author believes so much that isn't true doesn't speak well for his thinking skills.

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How to stop Musk - by Robert Reich

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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**Update** Dr. Reich complains about lies told by Musk as the reason to cancel him. What does he think about Alexa informing people that Trump wasn't shot? Will he call for Google's cancellation?***

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This is a truly astounding article. Dr. Reich has an ax to grind with Elon Musk, solely on the basis of opinions. Does Dr. Reich want to persuade? No. Does the case he presents carry a thoughtful, considered objective? Negatory. Is he interested in discourse and give and take? Not on your life.

Dr. Reich wants to punish Musk. Punish him for lying (actually, for expressing opinions Dr. Reich doesn't like.) He wants to bring the full weight of government down on him. Hit him hard. Because he doesn't like Musk. 

That's it.

This is the current state of the political Left. Having long abandoned 60s tolerance, love and peace, opposing the Man, and doing your own thing, these people have become what they opposed. In fact, they have became the worst parts of the Man themselves: Wielding power to silence dissent, maliciously prosecuting political enemies, punishing unapproved thoughts and speech, and instilling fear in law-abiding citizens.

Utterly lacking in self-awareness, Dr. Reich happily embraces Gestapo tactics and Fascist language, hiding behind something called the "public interest." That is, one man, Musk, is a serious danger by expressing ideas contrary to the ficticious collective interest of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Dr. Reich is a man that you should avoid at all costs.

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Social Security is not insurance: Faceborg conversation

A Faceborg friend posted this:

A conversation ensued:

Me: Not insurance.

Letter to the editor: Several questions for a 'pro-Trump' conservative - by Robert Loftis

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This is simply bad writing. Usually there is at least a superficial level of coherence in a typical leftist diatribe, but not today. The letter writer is simply copy and pasting slogans from leftist websites. And these slogans don't even make sense.

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Republican senatorial candidate Tim Sheehy’s online ads (but not his on-air ads) describe him as a “pro-Trump conservative.” As such, I have a few questions for Mr. Sheehy. (The letter writer is apparently unacquainted with the idea of calling Sheehy's office and asking his questions.

But in actual fact, the letter writer is not interested in obtaining information. His questions are designed to further The Narrative, which is the daily talking points and slogans promulgated throughout the media landscape.

He uses the obvious and based rhetorical techniques of the Left, with the intent to reframe and obscure the issues he raised. But he's a clumsy propagandist. Most leftists are.)

Has Montana really solved its housing crisis? - Susan Shain High Country News

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The Chronicle reprinted this agendized "news" article and also posted it on Faceborg. A exchange of comments, found at the bottom, ensued. Our commentary appears after.

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