All posts tagged "Montana"

Jim Acosta sees a Republican-held House seat slipping away, and a major MAGA spending group appears to be thinking the same thing.

On Friday's episode of "The Jim Acosta Show," Acosta told Sam Forstag, the Democratic candidate running in Montana's 1st Congressional District, that he has "more than a fighting chance" against Republican Aaron Flint. Forstag said the main MAGA super PAC had just moved $1.9 million more into the race "because they're scared."

Acosta pointed to recent polling from NonStop Local Montana showing Forstag neck and neck with Flint, a right-wing talk radio host. "You could win this thing," Acosta told him....

CHICAGO — Dakota Adams is not your typical Democratic delegate.

First, there’s the superficial: His long, blond hair hangs loose about his shoulder. The 27-year-old wears eye liner, and a metal dumbbell through the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows, and black nail polish. He wears a denim vest over a black T-shirt and nearly matching black parachute pants. His tennis shoes are spattered with white house paint.

More notably is what lies deeper: Adams’ father, Stewart Rhodes, founded the Oath Keepers, a militia group instrumental in helping President Donald Trump attempt to maintain his grip on power after losing the 2020 election. Rhodes is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol....

Republican businessman Tim Sheehy, who is running for U.S. Senate in Montana, reportedly hired a staffer whose social media account liked and shared racist posts.

The Daily Beast on Saturday published an exclusive piece alleging that the candidate "hired a campaign staffer with social media accounts and public statements emblematic of the fringe far right."

"At first glance, Caleb Oriet’s social media accounts look typical of a young member of the fringe, online right, featuring likes and reposts of far-right influencers and white nationalists expressing incendiary and bigoted views about racial and religious minorities," the report states, noting that Oriet is a self-proclaimed “Anglo-Saxon Protestant” as well as a “menace to society."...

Nearly a year after Montana began receiving millions of dollars to invest in efforts to combat the opioid crisis, much of that money remains untouched. Meanwhile, the state’s opioid overdose and death counts continue to rise. The money is part of the approximately $50 billion that states and local governments will receive nationwide in opioid settlement funds over nearly two decades. The payments come from more than a dozen companies that made, distributed, or sold prescription opioid painkillers that were sued for their role in fueling the overdose epidemic. Many places have begun deciding wh......

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge late on Thursday blocked Montana's first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short-video sharing app TikTok from taking effect on Jan. 1. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to block the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban "oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users." TikTok, which has more than 150 million U.S. users, is used by more than a third of Montana residents, the company says. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)...

Since the turmoil of the 2020 election, where numerous county election departments faced recalls, vote challenges and even threats of violence, more than half of Americans in the Western United States are served by new election officials — because so many experienced ones have left.

And those election officials who left — often because of harassment — took with them more than 1,800 years of combined experience, leaving new civil servants with a steep learning curve to support complicated voting processes, often with little federal support, according to a new report from bipartisan political reform group Issue One.

“This exodus of election officials isn't happening in a vacuum and isn't happening out of the blue,” said Michael Beckel, research director for Issue One. “There has been a concerted and coordinated campaign of harassment against many election officials.”...