James Knox was bashing Billings firefighters since before it was cool.
“James Knox” a longtime collaborative intertube phenomena run by a “team” of spiritualist San Francisco computer experts in his head, set up shop and has gone public with a website aimed at criticizing the actions of Billings firefighters, linked to him here. This is a ground floor opportunity that you aren’t going to want to miss folks. If you act now, you can become a CitizensTruth.com volunteer or even a staff reporter or even an editor–and that way Knox won’t have to play this game all by himself.
Apparently not content with posting nonsense in the Billings Gazette online comments — so passé— the “team” acquired CitizensTruth.com (the name refers to the inability of actual truth to attempt to impose a reality check on the world of “James Knox”) as a repository for their more intellectual, philosphical work such as “Billings Wins Sprinker ULP!!!” Triple exclamation points for everyone.
The entire site is written in Knox’s cerebral, literary style. But, though the site pretends to be statewide, it contains only posts about issues in Billings, issues specific to the Billings Heights city council race that Knox lost in 2009. The other pages are all blank, like this “Helena” page.
Here is a list of the site’s posts, and a quick summary of each:
- Billings Citizens win with QRV vote! (Because firefighters lose!)
- Does the city have the right to investigate complaints against the Fire Department? (Hope so, because they suck, get it?)
- A Near Miss is all right with Firefighters! (Because they are sub par!)
- Billings Wins Sprinkler ULP!!! (Couldn’t be bothered to read this one, as the title was so boring.)
- New Board Appointments! (Hopefully some people that hate firefighters-Yes! One is James Knox.)
- Chief Dextras And Quick Response Vehicles (Qrv) (He’s a fire chief, so probably a Satanist.)
- 2003 Fire Station Staffing Study (Should somebody try to find out how lazy these firefighters actually are?)
- Heights Pool Update (Very important issue, for real. Note the (mis)use of Knox’s favorite word “shall” here.)
Like any good completely unbiased humanitarian intellectual, “James Knox” spends a lot of time on self-referential material. For example this:
We have learned that Union Representative, Joe Sands has actively expressed his concern and disapproval for one citizen’s appointment. James Knox will be appointed to serve on both the Traffic Control Board and the Emergency Medical Services Board.
And this:
Someone forwarded an email union representative Joe Sands emailed out attempting to rally the union members to protest Mr. James Knox a Billings Heights citizen who is running for the interim chairperson position of the Heights Task Force. Please take a moment to read this attacking email and note some of the email addresses it was sent too[sic]!
Knox has proven previously to be super creative and hesitant to take credit for his own work in the past (surely out of modesty). The site’s only external link is to the Billings “Montana Shrugged” Tea Party.
So Mr. Crazy Fox is an a–hole to just like him main man Denny. Well lets beat this teabagging right wing son of a b-tch in November. Vote for his opponent even if its a three leg one eyed dog named lucky we need this guy in a mental health center not in our legislature
‘Mt Cowgirl’ – I have an unsolicited observation for you –
You don’t pick your battles very well.
HD47 is a safe GOP seat.
Ellis pulled 593 votes in the primary.
The two GOP candidates pulled 1627.
James Knox received 1236 of those.
Of the handful of people in Montana who look at this blog, few live in HD47.
You might have been better off attacking Denny for the McDonald campaign.
Please, keep on smearing Republicans in safe seats. Good tactic – LOL.
Uh, hey Eric. Primaries generate additional turnout, which explains the R over vote. Nice try buddy. This is a swing seat and one of the top competitive races in the state. You are defending this guy?
Might be good to revisit this exchange in November, as Eric’s theory (more voters equals electoral win) seems more plausible than yours (Democrats keeping their ink in the pen until they actually have to write something.)
What appears obvious to me by these numbers is enthusiasm – there doesn’t seem to be very much among Democrats. That usually spells electoral defeat, and, I might add, well earned.
Swing seat? R’s have creamed the D’s every time.
General Election vote tallies:
2008 – 3388 R votes to 1752 D votes
2006 – 2893 to 1449
2004 – 2851 to 1958
The R’s need a few more of these “swing seats”.
Dude, that was when the seat was held by the incumbent, Dennis Himmelberger. Incumbents win 90% of the time. You seem sharp, you know this. Now the seat is open.
By the way, why isn’t the incumbent endorsing Knox, huh? Could it be because he is kkkoo-coo?
Yes, the seat is open. And now all the D’s that voted for Himmelberger are going to rejoin the party and vote D again. OK. I am not going to take the time to analyze the Precincts involved and see how they voted for Congress and President – but from appearances, it appears to be a solid R district.
I have no idea why Himmelberger has not endorsed Knox. Perhaps because Himmelberger was pretty moderate (almost a RINO – 33 score on the MCA ratings and 36th on legistats) and Knox appears to be more to the right. Perhaps because Himmelberger doesn’t like the groups/people (tea party/Sales) that supported Knox in the Primary. You could send him an email and ask him if you are really curious.
Himmelberger is no moderate. That’s a funny joke.
You mean all the swing voters, hence the name, swing district. There are more than just Rs and Ds in the world Mike. There are independents, undecideds, unknowns, etc. “looking up precincts” isn’t going to prove anything.
Then you site Koopman’s group to tell who is a moderate and who is conservative enough? That guy thinks everyone is a RINO. Not a good gage.
Himmelberger seems pretty moderate by some standards. Less so than O’Hara or McNutt, more so than Randall or Smith. I guess it is all relative.
I guess we just wait and see which way all the swing voters swing. There certainly are more voters than R and D and both those parties are losing “membership”. More and more are aligning with no party.
Having a viable 3rd Party would make life much more interesting especially if no party had a majority. It would certainly force more collaboration and compromise. Which might not be a bad thing.
Its not surprising that Himmelberger tried to come off as a moderate, given his district. Knox isn’t going to be able to do this. He got 100% on his tea party survey. Even Warburten and McGilvray didn’t get 100% and they are as far right as it gets, in terms of current elected legislators.
We might have slightly different definitions of “right”. To me, Randall, Wagner, Bennett, More, Smith, and Boniek (won’t get re-elected obviously) are pretty far to the right – and maybe more so than Warburten and McGilvray. Warburten pretty much a single issue, pro-life person and McGilvray is very pro-family and more fiscally conservative than Warburten. All are very socially conservative. The top 20 or so on the legistats list are all pretty far right, IMO. But that list is more about fiscal than social conservatives.
http://spending.miamontana.com/groups/2
Note that McGilvray is 21 and Warburten is 26.
As for Koopman’s list, he just chooses the bills that he believes are “conservative” and then tallies and scores the way the legislators voted on them. Seems to me that everyone has the same chance to get a high (or low) score.
I’ve seen it said elsewhere – get the Republicans out of my bedroom and the Democrats out of my wallet. Sounds good to me. Too bad there are not more candidates like that
Regardless, thanks for your substantive comments. Though we may disagree, I think you’ve done a great job of adding to the discussion. I like fiscally conservative dems too.
Recently legislative services released a list of the 15 dumbest people in the capital during the session. It’s funny how close it is to Mike’s good republican list.
Wagner
Boniek
Randall Bennett
More
Smith
Warburten
McGilvray
Butcher
Sales
Mendenhal
Peterson
BTW Cowgirl – I get a weird feeling here that you chose two very unflattering photos here of Mr. Knox for nefarious purposes. The center photo is a good one, as he looks like a nice fella. But the other two could have been avoided, as it puts him in a bad light.
Since we don’t even know what you look like, it would be pointless to ask you to put up a bad photo of you to compensate for this behavior, but isn’t this a shallow thing to do?
Are not feminists beyond this sort of stuff?
Mark, that’s pretty tawdry, even for you.
And no, feminists are not beyond showing ‘unflattering’ things. In fact, most feminists rail against pictures that are staged, manipulated and photoshopped to hide the reality of what people look and act like. That would be kinda the point of feminism, that we get rid of the illusions that surround us, especially those that ‘show’ males as objects of higher being and females as more desirable … to men. That you, Mark, don’t understand this is hardly a surprise.
I get it! I find nothing more attractive than the feminist male. And we have all changed now – women don’t dress like women or advertise their women parts. Good to know. Makeup sales are down, what we see is real. And for sure, feminist males are reproducing in droves, as women find those kinds of men more attractive.
You and Jay should get together and talk mangina.
@ Mark T;
Gonna have to disagree re the center pic of your boy Knox is a “good one” and that he “looks like a nice fella.”
Looks like a screwball to me. Makes you wonder if Colonel Klink and Donald Pleasance ever had an illigetimate child together.
But I guess if he’s wearing his Flag Lapel Pin he must be a “Real American,” ehe?
I think all the pictures make him look like, well, a guy. Pretty typical American – sometimes he takes bad pictures, sometimes he takes silly pictures. It’s quite possible for a person to be a ‘nice fella’, and also have exceedingly radical political views or simply not have good political skills. I don’t know Mr. Knox, so he may be a screwball or not, but just because he’s not the best candidate for the office doesn’t mean he couldn’t also be an alright guy.
I have meet him. He is not.
Thank you Mike for your viewpoint – you were probably as surprised as I was to hear the ‘Mt Cowgirl’ thinks this seat is vulnerable.
And as far as the rest of you go, you obviously don’t know James is all I can say.
I don’t get to Billings very often and don’t know Knox at all so I haven’t really been following this one, Eric. Most of what I know about him comes from this site which I am sure is not presenting any positive points (if there are any.)
The Brown/VanDyk race should prove more interesting. As should the Murphy/Cohenour and Gibson/Cohenour races around the Helena area. Another one to watch is the SD44 race. Dan Cox jumping in as a Libertarian spoiler could be just enough to let the D win that seat. I’d like to think Liz Bangerter had a chance against Don Judge in Caffero’s vacant seat but we all know that the odds of downtown Helena sending an R to the legislature are somewhere between slim and none the way those districts are gerrymandered.
Just my opinion – worth exactly what you paid for them :-)
Eric, why don’t you call Knox and ask him to come on this site as himself and make his case? I would really like to hear from the guy himself. You’re down there in Billings. It’s a local call. I think it would be fun. I would treat him with respect, as I’m sure other posters would. But it would be interesting to hear his take on the discussion. Hey, we can only exist on character references for so long. “He’s a nice guy” schmeel gets old. Well, let’s let HIM show us that he’s a nice, qualified individual.
Sorry Coobs, But I’m not sure how much people here will trust your political knowledge, given that you weren’t able to pull off a win in your own race.
You should follow the news a little ‘Mt Cowgirl’.
You are obviously a rookie.
I never said I was going to win my race. You can google me up until you wear out your computer and you won’t find that.
And I never smeared my opponent, because I don’t speak ill of fellow Republicans.
I said that running in a primary, against a 4-term incumbent was a long shot. I pulled 42% of the vote anyway, because a lot of people in Yellowstone County realize that I know what I’m talking about. I pulled over 8,000 votes while spending less than $2k.
I know the numbers and voting trends here.
If you want to keep beating a dead horse you go right ahead.
I figured you might have learned your lesson when you gave up on Dennis McDonald.
BTW – I couldn’t care less if bloggers trust my political knowledge – LOL
It’s so cute when you use the Internet, you troll.
I love the power of your prognostications. You are boldly bragging about picking a five term incumbent to defeat a first time challenger all over the Internet. I will make a comparable prognostication: your next post will be an illogical and ill-informed recitation of conservative talking points.
Sadly, your old blog has vanished from the Internet. Care to republish some of your keen predictions from 2006?
Eric, regarding your first comment – some of us are not devoted to one political party – I don’t know about Cowgirl’s personal philosophy, but for some of us, things that are foolish, naive, or show bad judgment ought to be pointed out, swing district or no.
Also, some of us speak ill of whoever needs it – you seem like a smart guy, Eric, and I haven’t had contact with you long enough to claim to know much about you, but when you say things like “I don’t speak ill of fellow Republicans” in such definitive tones, it makes it seem like you’ve let your judgment get clouded by your party affiliation.
Hey since every one is talking racs what about eastern Montana Im interested in Getz v. Rosendale, French v. Knutsen Mcheschy v. Small and Randall v. Drew what are the thaughts on those anybody
Sounds like some interesting races you bring up. I have heard that these are among the “hot” races too. I would also be interested to see what people are hearing.
I LOVE the center pic from Knox’s campaign site. Knox must have used his mad computer skills to do his own photoshop. I love how he cut off his left arm to make himself look thinner. If he had only done something to round off that pointy head.
Eric: Of course, I will never forget your predictions — nay, your ironclad certainties — back in 2008. You said, on your old blog, at least 25 times, that Barack Hussein Obama (God, how you loved that middle name!) would never, ever win the election. Once you even stated, not in a mean, racist way, but simply as a matter of fact, based on your intimate knowledge of the American electorate, that your fellow citizens were not ready to elect a black man, plain and simple.
Your predictions, like nearly all of your political “ideas,” are laughable. But you’re a nice guy, damn it, you know I always add that.
Anyone willing to search my archives (which I’m not at this very moment) can find that as of 2008, Eric had made one correct prediction, and only one. He picked Rehberg over Lindeen. His second correct prediction was that Montana would go for McCain over Obama, but that was after pontificating with 0% accuracy that Hillary would win the Democratic nomination. Also, that McCain in Montana pick was coupled with McCain winning the general. So, forgive Eric his safe bets. He’s just warming up.
Ed, I’ve never claimed to be correct all of the time, just most of the time.
When Denny ran last time the liberal blogs were almost orgasmic over Monica Lindeen and they didn’t belive me when I told them she would lose huge either.
But I can’t take credit for that prediction, because I learned something from Tracy Velasquez. She was on the radio station in Bozeman, talking about lack of party support for her campaign. They gave up on her race too. They did the same thing with Lindeen, and they are doing the same thing for Dennis McDonald. So I’m not going out on a limb much calling this race 61-39 for Denny.
I don’t mind putting some insight up here, and since nobody reads the blogs in any signifigant numbers, the info is pretty much useless to the libs.
As far as the Montana legislature goes, the GOP wins both houses, with a majority, but not veto-proof. Bummer.
This is going to be a GOP year, thanks to Barack Hussein Obama (for you Ed), Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.
And the libs are waaaay late in trying to get something going.
In Yellowstone County, the mail in ballots go out in 4 weeks. The election is over here in 5 weeks that means, since the mail-in ballots are huge here.
When I ran my race, I had time to walk 9 precincts before the mail-in ballots went out. I won all nine. In the last 3 weeks before the election I walked 6 more. But everybody had already voted. I learned that lesson too late, when I walked into the Metra to vote at 9:30 am on election day and I was the 4th person to vote from my precinct in person, and the absentee ballots were over 700.
To this date, no Dem candidate has dropped off a piece of literature, or knocked on my door.
So I’ll keep tabs on the liberal blogs for 4 more weeks, mainly to refute liberal smears (yes, you Pogie, Cowgirl, and Jay) and to generally disrupt the liberal circle jerks as they appear.
Nuff said.
BTW Rob – I quit keeping statistics when I broke the 90% barrier on being correct, because once I got past that threshold, the numbers didn’t change very fast, and was a waste of effort.
Well Eric, the House reelection rate is 96%, so I think I could probably match your prediction accuracy just picking an incumbent every time, too. I predict (with heavy heart) that Rehburg will keep getting elected until he retires or resigns. But he has no accomplishments and no charisma, so I don’t see how his endorsement of his successor will accomplish anything. And since most party changes occur in an open seat, that’s when Dems will pick up the Montana seat (it’s a long-term prediction, I know). Until then, we’ll keep pointing out his missteps primarily because, unlike the TEA Party, the GOP has figureheads, leadership, and organization, all of which are hurt when their highest ranking state official does stupid things.
I think it’s possible for McDonald to beat Rehberg. Rehberg has become more and more a right-wing nutter. The following letter appeared in this morning’s Montana Standard.
Editor, Montana Standard
I haven’t seen polling on this yet, but as things stand now, the odds seem to be against Dennis McDonald defeating Denny Rehberg in November. The biggest thing going against McDonald is how much less money he has than Rehberg. According to OpenSecret.org, Rehberg has raised well over a million dollars in this campaign cycle (a large part of it from large corporations) while McDonald has raised less than $200,000.
Rehberg still has over $600,000 to spend on his campaign while McDonald has only $18,000 left. As the race tightens, look for Rehberg to try to bury McDonald under a deluge of negative TV ads.
In Rehberg’s Bozeman debate with McDonald, where McDonald skillfully took him apart over his voting record (consistently voting against working-class people and for large corporations and the wealthy), Rehberg looked quite weak. He had no real defense for his record. Instead he retreated to vague slogans like “Stand up for America.”
Rehberg is pinning his hopes on low-information voters, especially older people. He’s not even trying to reach younger, better-educated voters. I gather, from watching the Bozeman debate, that his strategy is to attack President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, though he never explains why they deserve to be attacked. All he knows, or all his handlers know, is that uninformed voters have been conditioned by Glenn Beck and other right-wing charlatans to react negatively to the words “Obama” and “Pelosi.”
Speaking of right-wing charlatans, do people know that in July Rehberg joined, along with thirty-nine other extremist members of congress, Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus? Bachmann (R-MN), some will recall, has urged people to protest Obama’s nonexistent reeducation camps for young people. She want to investigate “un-American” members of congress, and she’s dead-set against the census and incandescent light bulbs, both of which she considers government plots.
But Rehberg, by so enthusiastically joining this crazy woman’s caucus, has shown he’s okay with her delusions. Or, if he knows they’re delusions, he thinks he can use them to manipulate gullible people.
The only reality-based Montanan running for congress this year is Dennis McDonald. Too bad he doesn’t have more money. Voters shouldn’t let vague and delusional thinking win the day just because it has strong corporate backing.
Let’s beat the odds in November and elect Dennis McDonald to congress.
As I’ve posted before Turner, the DCCC could throw $1,000,000 into this race and not miss what it cost, since the Dems are the party of the rich.
But in their behind-closed-doors meeting it was decided to only invest in races they thought they had a chance to win.
Are you smarter than the leadership of your own party now? – LOL
Eric, please make more predictions. What are your legislative guesses? They will make for some great fun post election.
Hey (offensive insults removed) if you actually had guts you would put your name to your blog, Just like Mr. Knox does anything he associates himself with. Got guts or just farts?
(Editor’s note: This is the same “Sammy” who has earlier defended Knox, and is now trying to do so while to pretending to be someone else. “Sammy does this here http://mtcowgirl.com/2010/09/08/the-many-faces-of-james-knox-more-knox-personalities-come-to-light/ and here http://mtcowgirl.com/2010/08/27/meet-pam-ellis-the-woman-who-must-defeat-james-knox/
“Sammy”, this is not allowed.)
We already know Knox doesn’t sign his name to everything he does. Instead, he signs names like Nancy L and many others. While you’re here “Sammy” perhaps you could explain why Knox didn’t sign his name to his firefighter attack website?
Perhaps because that was a really bad idea?
Perhaps because he was trying to pretend to be someone else for the express purpose of praising his own actions? What say you?
You should have the tools here to look at IP addresses – that’s one way to find trolls.
Eric, don’t forget your prediction that Conrad Burns would hold his senate seat.
Todd I did say that, and I qualified it by saying it would be very,very close.
And it was.
I’ve never claimed to be correct all of the time, have I?
Eric – Democrats don’t come to your door because they have a Voter ID system. Why on earth would they waste their time hitting conservative doors? They know you would never vote for them.
Welcome Brooke! I think this level of strategy might be a little over the heads of Eric and his team of local Republican Central committee political experts. It doesn’t appear to have occurred to them before, at least according to their most vocal member.
Anyone know who this guy beat in the R primary? Guessing this is one of those races that the party was secretly hoping would not end up with this man as the nominee.
Charles Bott
In the western portion of the Billings Heights, Republican James Knox was defeating Charles Bott in HD47 by more than 700 votes for the chance to take on Democratic candidate Pam Ellis in November. Ellis was unopposed in the primary.
Don’t forget Dr Zoid – that this is a heavy GOP district – and it has been for the last decade –
I don’t expect that to maybe change until the next redistricting.
Don’t worry Brooke – the Dems always come campaigning here because my wife tells them she’s a Dem -
I was just quoting the billings gazette
[...] understanding (74)Just who is backing the Montana Tea Party? (61)A quick feminist point (52)As if Rehberg Firefighter Suit Wasn’t Bad Enough–GOP Candidate Knox Piles it On w/ Billings Fire…Three Things You Can Do Right Now to Stop the Bigots (49)Tea Party in MT Not Bigoted Enough for [...]
[...] James Knox used his website www,citizentruth.com (it has since been removed but check out this link about it) to degrade city firefighters. Here is a screenshot of his Facebook account where he [...]
[...] Knox was bashing Billings firefighters since before it was cool. Apparently not content with posting nonsense in the Billings Gazette [...]