Suddenly Defeating Trump Enabler Steve Daines (R-MT) Becomes Even More Important

Jack Ballard

"The sanctity of the historical trust that has endured for generations will be lost with the stroke of a pen and, once the damage of exploitation is done, the beauty bestowed by God could be lost for all eternity."
-Dr. William Steding

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Trump's nominee to manage federal lands wants to sell them. Steven Mufson wrote that "Trump’s pick for managing federal lands doesn’t think the federal government should have any. This week, Trump’s Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order making the Wyoming native William Perry Pendley the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management… By placing Pendley in charge of the agency, Bernhardt has installed a longtime crusader for curtailing the federal government’s control of public lands. In the three decades since serving under Reagan, Pendley has sued the Interior Department on behalf of an oil and gas prospector, sought to undermine protections of endangered species such as the grizzly bear, and pressed to radically reduce the size of federal lands to make way for development. 'The Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold,' he wrote approvingly in a National Review magazine article in 2016. He said 'westerners know that only getting title to much of the land in the West will bring real change.'" Or as Ed Brayton noted at Patheos, another fox to guard the chicken coop.

Time and time again, Trump has nominated, or picked without Senate approval, people whose goal is to virtually, if not literally, destroy the agency they are put in charge of. Scott Pruitt, his first leader of the EPA, was an enemy of pretty much all environmental regulation, as is Trump himself. Despite promises to “drain the swamp,” he continually puts former lobbyists in charge of the agencies that regulate the companies they lobbied for. It’s corruption and corporate control of policy. Welcome to the plutocracy.

This is not an endorsement... although it could turn into one. One of the country's foremost conservationists, Montana author and photographer Jack Ballard, just declared he's running for the Montana Senate seat held by corporate shill and Trump tuchas-licker Steve Daines. Don't expect some fancy introductory video announcement. From what I've read, I don't think that's who Ballard is. And that welcome to the plutocracy line above-- that definitely not who Jack Ballard is. He lives in Red Lodge (population 2,286), the county seat of Carbon County, Montana, in the south central part of the state. Bernie beat Hillary there in 2016 but Carbon County is red-- and it's Trump country. Trump beat Hillary 3,729 (62.8%) to 1,824 (30.7%). And Governor Steve Bullock lost to Greg Gianforte there 3,130 (51.4%) to 2,763 (45.4%). But Bullock won statewide-- and Ballard thinks he can too. Last year Senator John Tester was reelected against Trumpist Matt Rosedale 50.3% to 46.8%.

Photo by Jack Ballard

Brett French, writing for the Billings Gazette reported that "It was like a 'kick in the gut' for Jack Ballard after he was told by state Democratic officials that he would need to raise $1 million to run in Montana’s U.S. Senate primary race. Then he got 'really mad... 'What’s the country coming to when a person (from a rural state) needs to raise a million dollars just to get to the stage?' he said. So the Red Lodge author and conservationist has announced he will join two other declared candidates in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Steve Daines, a Republican. If elected, it would be Ballard's first time to hold a public office."

Ballard said he’s already started the process of calling friends and family for donations, what he called a humbling experience, yet he’s been overwhelmed by the support.

“I will do everything in my power to get money out of politics and get thoughtful, committed, middle-class people on stage,” he said.

Noting that millionaire candidates can contribute large amounts of cash to their own campaigns and hire high-dollar consulting firms, he said the “system is so tilted toward wealthy people from the get-go.”

Calling himself an outdoor guy from Red Lodge, Ballard says one of his top concerns is the Trump administration’s management of public lands to benefit extractive industries, like mining and the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of native habitat and wildlife. He also chided Daines for his proposal to release the state’s wilderness study areas from protection without first discussing it with constituents.

To that end, Ballard said he has a strong commitment to public access to public lands and management that promotes the recreation economy in Montana.

“It seems obvious to me we need to invest in better management and emphasize activities on public land that are better for wildlife habitat,” he said.

Another of his top concerns would be to attempt to reduce medical costs for Americans.

“Without cost containment there’s no meaningful health care reform,” he said.

He said there’s no need to invent a new system; rather, the U.S. could borrow the best ideas from other countries and should consider a price cap on services to contain costs. To start, however, the United States needs a thorough analysis of the system, he added.

As an example, Ballard pointed to charges he faced for a wrist brace following an injury that landed him in an emergency room. When his bill arrived, the brace’s cost was $226. A similar one could have been purchased online and delivered to his home for $65. When he called the California-based brace company to complain, the representative was blunt in rejecting his argument.

“We have a serious health care problem in the United States,” he said. “We pay a lot more on a per-capita basis and receive in some cases inferior service compared to a lot of other countries.”

Ballard, the second youngest of seven children, grew up on a ranch his grandfather homesteaded between Three Forks and Whitehall. He attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 1989. In 1994 he received a masters in education at Montana State University Billings. For 12 years he taught at the College of Education at MSUB.

He is now a full-time writer, former president of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and author of 13 books. He has been married to Lisa Ballard for five years and has three internationally adopted children from his previous marriage.

“One of the most satisfying things I’ve done in my life is try to give those kids a way to be successful in a country that gives them more opportunity,” Ballard said.

He also criticized Daines for supporting President Trump’s tax cut, calling it a mistake for Montana while adding to the U.S. deficit at a time when the economy is doing well. In addition, Ballard said Daines has done “nothing to check” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “worst instincts on bottling up legislation.”

Ballard said he is neither related to the Ballard Oil Co. family nor the Orioles baseball player Jeff Ballard, who was born in Billings.

“If it’s a Ballard who is famous or has money, they are no relation,” he said.

Peter Nelson is the Defenders of Wildlife director of federal lands. Earlier this week, he wrote that "Some of America’s most precious wildlife habitat could be splintered by roads and auctioned to the highest bidder under a proposed new rule. And if the rule goes into effect, there’s not a thing you or I could do about it... Under this proposal, more than 90% of projects to log, mine, drill or develop our national forests would bypass public participation and environmental review. President Trump has declared that aggressively expanding logging is his highest priority on our national forests. This regulation would pave the way by enabling the Forest Service to ignore the harmful impacts of roadbuilding and logging on wildlife, watersheds and other public values... At a time when habitat loss and climate change are accelerating the loss of species, it is unacceptable for the Forest Service to sideline science and the public to achieve President Trump’s dangerous vision for our national forests. Let’s call this proposal what it really is-- a thinly veiled attempt to make it easier rubberstamp permits for industry to exploit our national forests and harm wildlife. We can’t let that happen!"

Wendell Barry's poem, "The Peace of Wild Things" has been circulating online this week as word of Trump's nominee leaked out.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.