Tag: jon tester
Tim Sheehy

Montana GOP Candidate's 'Bootstrap' Narrative Omits $100K Loan From Parents

A Republican candidate for what will likely be one of the closest US Senate races in 2024 recently admitted that the success of his business only came after he got a huge cash injection from his parents.

Tim Sheehy, a businessman running against Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), is founder and CEO of Bridger Aerospace, which is an aerial firefighting company. He's known for his rags-to-riches story, telling crowds while stumping that he and his wife lived in a tent and a barn while they built the company up "from scratch." However, the Daily Beast reports that Sheehy has until now omitted the fact that his parents provided him with a $100,000 loan when he launched his company.

"When I saw a business opportunity, I took my entire life savings — I didn't get a government loan, didn’t get a government handout — I started a business in my barn and built it from scratch," Sheehy told a crowd of supporters at an August rally. He later said on a November podcast appearance that he and his wife "bought our land, and we lived in a tent, literally, for months, and we built the barn that we lived in for four and a half years. And it was like bootstrap central."

According to the Beast, Sheehy's forthcoming memoir, Mudslingers: A True Story of American Firefighting, includes a key passage about his family's largesse. While the 38-year-old ex-Navy SEAL and his wife saved up $300,000, it still wasn't enough for the roughly half million dollars needed to buy the company's first two planes.

At that point, Sheehy wrote that he called his parents and asked them for the $100,000 they had saved up for his college fund, since he attended the tuition-free US Naval Academy. He also called his brother Matt, who is president and CEO of an energy infrastructure company, and gave him an equity stake in the company and access to his company's financial records in exchange for a "significant cash investment."

"In addition to the $100,000 loan they offered me plenty of free advice, which as anyone knows in family business, can go both ways," Sheehy wrote, adding that "nothing would have moved forward without them."

If elected, Sheehy would be one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with a net worth between $74 million and $200 million, according to his financial disclosure forms. According to Ballotpedia, Sheehy is one of three Republican challengers for the Senate seat, with Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) also contemplating a run.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Will Montana Voters Notice That GOP Carpetbaggers Are Ruining Their State?

Will Montana Voters Notice That GOP Carpetbaggers Are Ruining Their State?

We get the allure of the Great American West, the majestic landscapes, rivers teeming with trout, clean air. When TV talk show star Kelly Clarkson announced she and her family were leaving Los Angeles, she said her first choice was "Montana." She kept moving, though, landing in New York City. Business considerations, you know.

But we understand what she meant by "Montana." And during the pandemic, a lot of claustrophobic Americans thought likewise and transferred themselves to Big Sky Country. Too many for local tastes.

And that might be the boost Sen. Jon Tester needs for a reelection race that Democrats in Trump country are finding difficult. Why so many allegedly live-free Westerners would listen to a real estate blowhard from Manhattan who talks like a mobster, and thinks that way, too, over a Montana wheat farmer is a mystery.

But there's hope in the Tester camp that Republicans represent a phenomenon that could close off the wild gorgeous spaces that ordinary Montanans treasure — or even their ability to buy a house in town. There's growing discontent over the state's population boom, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In 2021-22, the state's migration rate exceeded even that of Florida. House prices have shot up 42% since before the pandemic. In Flathead County, rich outsiders are snapping up lakefront property. That means rising prices, which mean rising property taxes forcing families to sell their cabins, according to the Journal.

One likely Republican challenger to Tester is Tim Sheehy. He is already being tarred as a multimillionaire who "got rich off government contracts." What could sink him, though, is apparent evasion of Montana taxes. Despite owning a 20,000-acre spread in central Montana with about 2,000 cattle, Sheehy appears to have not paid Montana taxes on his animals over several years.

Another is Matt Rosendale, originally a real estate developer from Maryland. Rosendale is among the handful of right-wing hotheads who helped boot Kevin McCarthy out of the House speakership. Rosendale claims to be a rancher, but actually, he leases the land and others work on it.

Elsewhere in Montana politics, the Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte just vetoed a bill that would have restored $30 million to a program dedicated to improving public access and conserving wildlife habitat. Writing in the Daily Montanan, local conservationists John Todd and Christopher Servheen noted that 130 of 150 state legislators, from both parties, supported the bill. "It was a boon for wildlife and for the activities and way of life that make Montana so special, a testament to our love for the outdoors and our commitment to preserving them for generations to come."

It is hard to explain how Gianforte got elected governor in the first place. He was a rich executive from New Jersey who made a pile of money, bought a big hunting estate in Montana, and promptly made war on locals who thought they could walk to a fishing stream they used for generations.

In 2009, Gianforte sued the state to remove a public easement that gave anglers, walkers and others access to the East Gallatin River via his property. In the old days of the West, landowners didn't fret much about their neighbors crossing their property.

Gianforte is among rich out-of-state buyers from all over the world who are amassing huge tracts of land in the rural West and erecting no-trespassing signs around their kingdoms. Their friends jet in to do private hunting in the vast landscapes that are being closed off to ordinary outdoorsmen.

As for the regular people living in Montana, the right wing that yaps about freedom is fencing them off. In the end, though, they get what they elect.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Infrastructure Deal Hinges On Additional Climate And Social Spending

Infrastructure Deal Hinges On Additional Climate And Social Spending

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

UPDATE: President Joe Biden hosted the bipartisan Senate group at the White House to confirm the infrastructure deal on Thursday afternoon. "Neither side got everything they wanted in this deal," Biden said. "That's what it means to compromise, and it reflects something important, reflects consensus. The heart of democracy requires consensus." He also said the deal is "in tandem" with an additional bill funding clean energy and human infrastructure programs, to be passed solely by Democrats under budget reconciliation rules -- and that he won't sign one without the other.

A bipartisan group of 10 senators said it had reached a tentative deal with the White House on an infrastructure plan. But while their verbal agreement includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new investment in transportation and water infrastructure, several Democrats are saying they will only support it if it is paired with investments in omitted infrastructure priorities such as climate and caregiving.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) announced on Wednesday, "Republicans and Democrats have come together, along with the White House, and we've agreed on a framework and we're gonna be heading to the White House tomorrow."

"We have a framework and we are going to the White House tomorrow," said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

The group also includes Republicans Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Rob Portman (OH), as well as Democrats Joe Manchin (WV), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Jon Tester (MT), and Mark Warner (VA).

In a statement released by the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki said, "White House senior staff had two productive meetings today with the bipartisan group of Senators who have been negotiating about infrastructure. The group made progress towards an outline of a potential agreement, and the President has invited the group to come to the White House tomorrow to discuss this in person."

According to Axios, the plan would call for either $974 billion in infrastructure spending over the next five years or $1.2 trillion over the next eight. About $559 billion of that would be new spending, $20 billion less than was included in the group's earlier proposal.

The senators have not yet announced how it would be funded but claim it is fully paid for.

In March, Biden proposed the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan, which would significantly boost investment in roads, bridges, water systems, clean energy, broadband, transit, climate, child care, and caregiving infrastructure. Congressional Republicans unanimously opposed the plan, with many complaining that only roads and bridges really count as infrastructure.

The bipartisan group's plan omits virtually all funding for clean energy, climate, child care, and caregiving infrastructure.

The package would require a three-fifths supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) suggested on Thursday evening that most Democrats have not yet signed off on the plan. "My sense is that deal right now has 20 votes, not 60 votes. We are going to have to take a deep dive into the agreement they have reached, and, you know, square it with the needs of our voters," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Several of his colleagues have objected to the lack of clean energy and climate investment in the proposal and have said they will only agree to back it if enough Democrats agree to address caregiving and the environment in a separate package that could be passed through budget reconciliation without any GOP support.

Such a deal would likely also include investments in health care, paid leave, child care, pre-K programs, and other priorities included in Biden's original $1.9 trillion American Families Plan.

"We have made our position clear, that the possibility of a bipartisan deal depends on a commitment to move forward on reconciliation," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Politico on Tuesday.

"One can't be done without the other," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Wednesday. "We can't get the bipartisan bill done unless we're sure of getting the budget reconciliation bill done. We can't get the budget reconciliation bill done unless we're sure to get the bipartisan — and I think our members, across the spectrum, realize that."

"No climate, no deal," vowed Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) on June 9.

The need for investment in both transportation and climate infrastructure was illustrated this week by major news stories across the country.

In Washington, D.C., a pedestrian bridge collapsed on Wednesday onto an interstate highway. Several people were injured.

On the West Coast, climate change has fueled massive heatwaves and drought.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

At Rally, Trump Threatens Senator Who Criticized Withdrawn VA Nominee

At Rally, Trump Threatens Senator Who Criticized Withdrawn VA Nominee

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.com.

Last Saturday night, Trump lashed out at Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) over the failure of Trump’s nominee for Veterans Affairs secretary by threatening to spill unspecified secrets about Tester.

At a rally in Washington, Michigan, Trump went on a tirade about the nomination of his personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, to head the Veterans Administration. The nomination was derailed by multiple allegations of misconduct, including drinking on the job and handing out drugs to White House staffers.

Trump praised his nominee as a “truly high-quality human being,” and said that Tester derailed Jackson’s nomination by “throwing out things that he’s heard.”

“I know things about Tester that I could say, too,” Trump said. “And if I said ’em, he’d never be elected again.”

Earlier on Saturday, Trump attacked Tester on Twitter over Jackson’s failed nomination, calling for the Montana Democrat to resign. Republican Sen. Jonny Isakson (R-GA) signed off on the release of the allegations against Jackson, which Trump did not mention.

And the allegations against the VA nominee came from current and retired members of the military, not Tester’s imagination.

But more importantly, Trump is threatening to smear Jon Tester over a failure that squarely belongs to Trump. Even before these allegations surfaced, Trump’s own White House could not explain why Jackson was qualified to run the VA.

There is another sick irony to Trump’s petulant rant. Trump’s threat to divulge alleged secrets about Tester also comes just days after Trump admitted his involvement in a deal to pay $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Dr. Ronny Jackson’s nomination was in trouble from the minute Trump announced it on a whim via Twitter, but as usual, Trump is refusing to accept the blame for his own failure. Unfortunately, it appears there will be plenty more failures where this came from.

IMAGE: Dr. Ronny Jackson, who withdrew his nomination for Veterans Administration secretary.