#Montana Senate

[batboyblog]

Senate Elections 2024!

At the Start of the year I made a post about the US Senate elections this year. However a lot has changed since then (not just that) So I thought I'd make a new version.

How successful a President Kamala Harris is able to be will come down to who controls congress. A Republican House or Senate could frustrate many of the important agenda items Harris wants to get done. Also the Senate is key to appointing Judges, right now many America's rights are being decided in the courts where Trump and Republican appointed Judges are consistently ruling against trans rights, voting rights, abortion rights etc. Any hope of a smooth pipe line of Harris judges depends on the Senate. Senate Control hangs by a knife's edge, there are 6 soft blue seats we have to hold onto, two swing seats Dems are defending, and two soft red seats we can pick up, you can make all the difference!

If you don't live in one of the states below but want to help, you can Donate to the DSCC or sign up to phone bank with the Democrats

Arizona

Ruben Gallego (Hold)

Winning Arizona will be key to the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election. Congressman Ruben Gallego was a leader in the effort to replace Democrat turned Independent Senator Sinema with a real Democrat. Gallego was raised by a single mother, went to Harvard, and is a Marine combat vet. First elected to the Arizona State House in 2010 he advocated for immigrant rights. He was elected to Congress in 2014. Since coming to Congress Gallego has been a progressive voice, gaining attention for blunt attacks on the Trump administration. Republicans nominated around former TV host and conspiracy theorist Kari Lake. Lake rose to become a Republican star by supporting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and Covid. Lake ran for Arizona Governor in 2022 and after losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs she refused to concede and still maintains she won and is the rightful Governor of Arizona. Lake has called Democrats "Demonic", totally opposes abortion in all cases, and is the self proclaimed "Trump candidate". If Gallego is elected not only will he be a reliable Democratic vote and Progressive vote in the Senate, he'd be the first Hispanic to represent Arizona in the Senate, ever. If you live in Arizona please make sure you vote, but more if you have any time between now and November, volunteer to help Gallego! and if you don't live there you can still give.

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Florida

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (Flip)

Florida's current Republican senator, Rick Scott, has spent his first term in Congress being one of the most extreme Republicans. Scott has pushed to defund education, roll back Social Security and Medicare, attacked trans rights, and wants to ban Abortion in all cases. Rick Scott is the wealthiest member of Congress and also was in involved in the largest case of Medicare fraud in US history. Scott challenged Mitch McConnell for the leadership of the Senate GOP getting support from extremists like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and JD Vance, and now is running to replace McConnell. Scott won in 2018 with less than 10,000 votes. The Democrat is former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. When she was elected to Congress in 2018 she became the first South American born immigrant and first person of Ecuadorian heritage to be elected to Congress. In Congress Mucarsel-Powell was a member of the Progressive caucus, she fought to expand medicare, and secured $200 million for Everglades restoration. After a narrow defeat in 2020 Mucarsel-Powell joined the gun control advocacy group Giffords to fight for gun control a personal issue for her. If you're in Florida please make sure you vote, and volunteer to help remove one of the most extreme Senators. Everyone else give what you can.

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Maryland

Angela Alsobrooks (Hold)

Maryland is normally an easy Democratic win but two-term Republican former Governor Larry Hogan announced he was running, turning what should be an easy race for Democrats into a real fight. Hogan is trying to sell himself as a Trump septic moderate, but he's endorsed by Trump, JD Vance, and Mitch McConnell. Hogan spent his final year as Governor frustrating Democratic efforts to protect abortion, legalize marijuana, and take serious action on climate change. In the Senate he'll be a vote in the pocket of Republican leadership. The Democrat is Angela Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George's County. As County Executive Alsobrooks got high marks for her response to Covid. She's worked to expand pre-K to all students in the county, as well expanding health care access including mental health access. As a candidate for Senate Alsobrooks has been a strong supporter of Abortion rights, pushing for more action on gun violence, and has been a strong supporter of LGBT rights her whole political life. After Vice-President Harris left the Senate there were no black women represented in the upper house. Together with Delaware's Lisa Blunt Rochester Alsobrooks could make history, if both are elected this year it'll be the first time ever that two black women have served at the same time in the US Senate. If you're in Maryland make sure to get out to vote, to volunteer as much as you're able, and everyone give whatever you can to protect abortion rights and support progressive black women!

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Michigan

Elissa Slotkin (Hold)

Michigan is a critical 2024 swing state. Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin is running to replace retiring Senator Debbie Stabenow. Slotkin worked for the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense rising to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Obama. She is fluent in Arabic and Swahili. First elected to Congress in 2018 Slotkin won and has been re-elected repeatedly to represent a swing district, becoming the first Democrat elected there since 1998. In Congress Slotkin has supported gun control, and ending money in politics. Her national security experience made her an important voice pushing for the first impeachment of Trump in 2019. She gained national attention for holding open town halls on her choice to vote to impeach Trump facing down Republican protesters. In her run for Senate Slotkin has continued to stress her support for gun legislation, ending money in politics and stresses protecting the right to choose. Republicans have consolidated around former Congressman Mike Rogers. Rogers retired to Florida after his time in the House only moving back last year to run for Senate. During his time in Congress Rogers tried twice to ban the abortion pill mifepristone. Rogers is endorsed by Trump and controversial former Detroit Police Chief James Craig. If you're in Michigan vote to protect the right to choose and stop a Trump Republican, and make sure to volunteer as much as you can, and every give what you can to help win this key swing state.

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Montana

Jon Tester (Re-elect)

Normally deep red Montana represents one of the hardest Senate seats for Democrats to hang onto. Jon Tester is the only Democrat to hold statewide office or represent Montana in Congress. Elected narrowly in 2006 Tester has beaten the odds time and time again and is trying again. In his time in the Senate Tester has been a consistent voice for small farmers and local businesses against big corporations and mega companies. Tester has fought against corruption and for openness, and is one of the most effective members of Congress consistently having the most bills past into law of any member of Congress. Republicans have embraced an ultra wealthy former CEO, Tim Sheehy as their nominee to unseat Tester. Sheehy was caught lying about being shot in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL, when he in fact accidentally shot himself at Glacier National Park in Montana. Past his embarrassing war wound story, Sheehy is an ultra rich CEO who has spent 2 million of his own money on the race so far. Sheehy has been endorsed by Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Sheehy wants to ban all abortion, repeal Obamacare, and remove any limits on gun ownership, despite having shot himself. If you can only donate to two races, this and Ohio are the most important, if you can only donate to one? flip a coin. Everyone in Montana make sure you get out to vote and just as important volunteer, there will be no Presidential or Governor or any other campaign to help Tester along its all on him, and everyone give what you can.

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Nevada

Jacky Rosen (Re-elect)

Nevada is a critical swing state in the 2024 election. Jacky Rosen first came to Congress flipping a Red House seat in 2016 and then unseating a Republican Senator in 2018. Since coming to Congress Rosen has been a champion for turning Nevada into a clean energy leader. She's also has helped pass gun control legislation and is a fierce advocate the right to choose. Republicans have nominated Army veteran and conservative influencer Sam Brown to run against Rosen. Brown unsuccessfully ran in a Republican primary for the Texas State House in 2014, and for the Republican nomination for US Senate in Nevada in 2022. Now with the endorsement of Donald Trump Brown finally managed to win a primary. Sam Brown is the only Republican candidate Trump mentioned in his 92 minute convention speech at the RNC. Brown wants to roll back Nevada's Green energy progress and boost fossil fuels, he also wants to roll back any and all restrictions on guns. If you're in Nevada make sure to get out and vote, and volunteer to keep this key Senate seat out of the hands of a Trump Republican. Everyone else give what you can.

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Ohio

Sherrod Brown (Re-elect)

Ohio is one of the hardest senate seats for Democrats to defend this year. Senator Sherrod Brown has been the only statewide elected Democrat in Ohio since 2011. First elected to Congress in 1992 and to the Senate in 2006 Brown has defied the odds by being a popular Progressive in an ever more Red state. Brown consistently ranks along side Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as one of the most left wing Senators. From his first days in Congress Brown refused the Congressional health plan, repeatedly introducing single payer health care bills going back to the 1990s. Brown has been a proud and consistent ally of Unions, particularly the UAW, and tough on banks and big business. Republicans have nominated used car salesman and crypto enthusiast Bernie Moreno. Moreno is a weirdo, he accused LGBT activists of a "radical agenda of indoctrination" and then got caught looking for "men for 1-on-1 sex" on AdultFriendFinder. Moreno supports a federal abortion ban, has been sued by former employees for wage thief and discrimination, and wants to end birth right citizenship. Moreno has been endorsed by Turning Point USA, Donald Trump Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Kari Lake, Ted Cruz, JD Vance, and of course Donald Trump. If you're in Ohio make sure you get out to vote, and volunteer to support a great Senator. Everyone outside of Ohio give what you can, if you can only donate to two campaigns this and Montana need it the most, if you can only give to one, flip a coin.

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Pennsylvania

Bob Casey (Re-elect)

Pennsylvania is a key swing state in the 2024 Presidential election. Bob Casey was first elected to the Senate in 2006 defeating right wing extremist Rick Santorum by the largest margin in state history. Starting his career as a moderate to conservative Democrat Casey has become a strong advocate for gun control since 2012 voting for every gun control measure to reach the Senate. Casey also made strong opposition to the Trump administration a cornerstone of time in office. While personally pro-life, Casey has endorsed the right to choose and voted codify abortion rights. Casey has been a leading critic of corporate greed during the inflation and authored a bill to ban shrinkflation. Republicans have nominated multi-millionaire former CEO and Bush administration official David McCormick. McCormick served in the Treasury under George W. Bush, his wife worked at the NSC under Trump. He lived in Westport, Connecticut as the CEO of an investment management firm, till he decided he wanted to be a US Senator in 2022 and he moved to Pennsylvania. He lost the 2022 GOP primary to Dr. Oz and is giving another go in 2024. McCormick is endorsed by George W. Bush, Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Karl Rove, Doug Mastriano, Jim Jordan, and of course Donald Trump. If you're in Pennsylvania make sure you get out to vote, and to volunteer to keep Pennsylvania blue. Everyone else give what you can.

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Texas

Colin Allred (Flip)

Texas Senator Ted Cruz might be the most hated man in politics. Since his election in 2012 Cruz has been on a single minded mission to be totally unlikeable. Shutting down the government under President Obama, endorsing Trump after Trump insulted his wife, supporting Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, fleeing his state to go on vacation in Mexico after an ice storm and power outage (and abandoning his dog), blaming the Uvalde school shooting on video games, yes Ted Cruz really has done it all. Cruz is one of the most right wing members of the Senate and a loud Trump supporter. Last election in 2018 Cruz barely hung onto his seat and Democrats are hoping with 6 more years of radicalism Texans are ready for change. Democrats have nominated Congressman Colin Allred. Allred is a former professional footballer, played Linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. After football Allred went to law school, and got a job with the Obama Administration. In 2018 he won an upset victory unseating an 11 term Republican in a district that had been Republican since 1968. In Congress Allred fought for gun reform, to keep down the price of proscription drugs, and invest in American infrastructure. In his run for Senate he's standing up for the right to choose against one of the most radically anti-abortion Republicans in the country. If you're in Texas make sure you vote and volunteer to give Ted Cruz the boot, and everyone give what you can to get Blue Texas.

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Wisconsin

Tammy Baldwin (Re-elect)

Wisconsin is a critical swing state in the 2024 Presidential election. Senator Tammy Baldwin is a historic trailblazer, when she was first elected to Congress in 1998 she was the first woman to ever represent Wisconsin in Congress, the first open Lesbian elected to Congress, and the first openly gay non-incumbent to be elected to Congress. She co-founded the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus. When she was elected to the US Senate in 2012 she was the first and is still the only openly gay person ever elected to the Senate. Past her advocacy for LGBT rights Baldwin has been a progressive her whole time in Congress endorsing single-payer health care, and being a strong voice for abortion rights. Republicans are supporting a California bank owner and weirdo named Eric Hovde. Strange mustache owner Hovde has attacked trans kids, flip flopped on abortion (totally against, now open to some abortion), and insulted farmers as "not hardworking" and thats why the retirement age should be 72. If you're in Wisconsin make sure to vote and volunteer to protect a progressive trailblazer and stop a California weirdo banker. Everyone else give what you can.

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Where ever you live in the US there is a critical race happening, so please check out ways to Volunteer and where ever you live there are options to phone bank text bank write letters or postcards to voters (postcards 2) but like I said wherever you are there are local candidates who need your help, and if you live in any of these critical states please give your time and energy.

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

The Senator From Montana

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A Concession of Passion

Featuring Jon Tester

The air was crisp in Great Falls, Montana, as the sun began to set on November 6, 2024. The crowd gathered at the Civic Center was a mix of supporters, family, and press, all awaiting Senator Jon Tester's concession speech. The election results were clear; Republican Tim Sheehy had won the Senate seat.

Jon Tester, a robust man with the weathered look of someone who's spent a lifetime in the Montana fields, took the stage, his face a mask of disappointment but with an underlying strength. He spoke of his gratitude, his commitment to Montana, and his acceptance of the voters' decision. His words were met with applause, some with tears, others with a resigned nod.

As the crowd dispersed, the weight of the concession settled on Tester. Walking back to his campaign office, his steps were heavy, each one echoing the end of an era. But waiting for him was Jack Lucas, his male executive assistant, whose presence had always been a source of comfort and more. Jack, with his sharp suit and even sharper eyes, locked the door behind them, ensuring privacy.

"You did what you could, Jon," he said softly, stepping closer, his hand reaching out to touch Tester's arm, a gesture of comfort that carried the weight of something more intimate.

"I know, Jack, but it's hard to let go," Tester replied, his voice low, his eyes searching Jack's for the solace he desperately needed.

“I feel like getting my dick sucked. You want to suck the cock of an old dirt farmer?” Jon's voice was rough, laced with the gravel of his rural Montanan roots, as he unzipped his fly with a practiced ease. His jeans, worn and faded from years of hard work, slid down just enough to reveal his boxers. He pulled out his cock, not yet hard, a testament to his defeat but still impressive, nestled in a thatch of dark, curly hair.

“Ain’t much to it today. Guess the loss took all the starch out of it. But I’m sure you can make it hard,” he said, giving his member a casual wave.

Jack, with his stocky, athletic build, was eager to shift Jon's focus from political loss to physical pleasure. He knelt before Jon, his lips parting to envelop Jon’s soft cock, his tongue swirling around the tip with expert precision.

"Yea, I could use a little pleasure," Jon murmured, his voice a rumble of anticipation. "Maybe it’ll help me think of something other than losing my senate seat."

As Jack worked, Jon's cock grew, hardening, filling out to its full eight inches, thick and veined, the head turning a deep, lustful red.

“That feels damn right good. Swallow it all the way. I know you can do it,” Jon urged, his hands guiding Jack’s head with a mix of strength and care.

Jon's cock was a sight to behold, a column of flesh that seemed to pulse with life. Jack managed to take it all, his throat accommodating the girth, feeling the senator's pulse against his tongue. Jon's hand in Jack’s hair was firm, controlling the rhythm of his thrusts until he abruptly withdrew.

“Come on, Lucas, let's find a room. I want to fuck you,” Jon commanded, his voice thick with desire.

In the privacy of their chosen room, he instructed, "Take off all your clothes," his own plaid shirt and jeans soon discarded, revealing his robust, slightly hairy chest and the hard lines of his belly.

As Jack unbuttoned his shirt, his eyes lingered on Jon's belly, imagining the warmth and firmness pressed against his cheek. The sight of Jon pulling down his boxers, revealing his thick, now fully erect cock, and the heavy, low-hanging balls beneath, was almost too much.

“Get on the bed,” Jon ordered as Jack stepped out of his underwear, his own cock bobbing eagerly.

Jack lay back on the crisp white sheets, and Jon straddled him, his back to Jack's face, presenting his muscular, round ass. Jon leaned back, his asshole descending towards Jack's eager mouth. “Lick my asshole!” Jon commanded with the authority of a man used to giving orders. Jack's tongue met the tender, pink bud, tasting the bitter, earthy essence of Jon. Jon's sigh was deep, resonant, his body relaxing into the sensation. Jack's tongue danced around Jon's hole, then delved in, his hands spreading Jon's cheeks apart to delve deeper.

“Oh! Yea!” Jon's shout was loud, filled with raw pleasure.

“Fuck yeah! Fuck wonderful!” He grabbed Jack's cock, his grip firm as he jerked him off.

“Stick it deeper!” Jon demanded, his body hunching involuntarily with each flick of Jack's tongue.

Suddenly, Jon spun around, lifting Jack's legs, exposing him completely. He positioned himself between Jack's legs, his large hands gripping Jack's thighs with a strength that belied his age. Jack felt the heat of Jon's cock against his entrance. Jon didn't waste time; he spat into his hand, lubing himself up with a rough efficiency.

With a grunt, Jon pushed inside Jack, the sensation causing both to gasp. Jon's cock slid in to the hilt, his low-hanging balls slapping against Jack with each thrust. The room was filled with the sounds of their bodies moving together, the slap of skin, the groans of pleasure, and the occasional curse from Jon, who seemed to find a particular joy in the raw, unfiltered expression of his desire.

“Fuck me, Jon. Give it to me,” Jack cried, his eyes locked on Jon’s weathered, handsome face. He wanted to remember this moment, this connection. Jack's hands roamed over Jon's back, feeling the muscles tense and relax with each movement.

“You like having my cock up your ass?” Jon panted, his rhythm becoming more erratic as he neared his climax. Jack, overwhelmed by the intensity, could only nod, his own release building.

“You're a good man, Lucas. A real good man!” Jon growled, pulling back to the tip before ramming home again.

“Damn if your asshole isn’t hotter than Sharla’s pussy,” he admitted, his strokes becoming more forceful, driving Jack into a frenzy of bucking and moaning.

Amidst this intense coupling, Jon leaned down, capturing Jack's mouth in a kiss fierce with passion, their tongues battling. Then, with a guttural groan, Jon came inside Jack, his orgasm shaking his large frame. The kiss persisted, passionate and unyielding, even as Jon's climax subsided. Jack wrapped his legs around Jon, not wanting to lose the connection, the intimacy.

Jon slid down, taking Jack's cock in his mouth, his eyes never leaving Jack's, his movements deliberate and skilled. Just before Jack could reach his peak, Jon pulled away, straddling him. He guided Jack's cock to his ass, lowering himself with a groan that spoke volumes of his desire. Jack's hands spread Jon's cheeks, feeling the tight clench around his shaft. Jon's body moved with a surprising grace, up and down, his heavy body a beautiful contrast to the raw act they were engaged in.

When Jack came, it was with a cry that mingled with Jon's deeper groan as his release filled Jon, their bodies shuddering together in the aftermath.

Afterward, they lay there, catching their breath, the reality of what had just transpired settling in. Jon rolled off Jack, his body heavy with satisfaction. He reached for his clothes, the moment of intimacy fading back into the world of politics and public life.

“I’m gonna miss this, Lucas,” Jon said, his voice softer now, almost vulnerable. He pulled Jack into a brief, tight embrace before standing, his movements slow, as if he wanted to stay in this moment just a little longer.

As he dressed, he glanced back at Jack, who was watching him with a mix of admiration and sadness. “Keep in touch, alright? Maybe when the dust settles, we can find some more time for… this.”

With that, Jon left, leaving Jack with the lingering warmth of their encounter and the echo of his words, a promise of perhaps more to come, in a world where everything was about to change.

Note: This narrative is entirely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes. It does not imply or suggest any real-life events, behaviors, or relationships involving Jon Tester, Jack Lucas, or any other real person.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Montana Republican Senate nominee Tim Sheehy appears to have been caught in yet another lie about his military service. NBC News reported on Thursday that despite Sheehy claiming to have been discharged from his service in the military because he was declared medically unfit to serve, his discharge records say Sheehy voluntarily resigned and did not cite any medical conditions. 

[...]

This is the latest false claim Sheehy appears to have made about his time as a Navy SEAL, service he has touted on the campaign trail in his quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. In April, The Washington Post reported a discrepancy in a story Sheehy told about being shot in the arm. On the campaign trail, Sheehy said he was shot in the arm while serving in Afghanistan in 2012. However, in October 2015, Sheehy went to the emergency room after a trip to Glacier National Park, where he reported having a gunshot wound in his arm. He told a park ranger that he had shot himself in the arm in the park by accident, and was fined $525 for illegally discharging a weapon in a national park. He later said he purposefully lied to the ranger about the gunshot wound because he hadn’t reported being shot in the arm to the military. He said he didn’t report it to the military at the time because the wound may have been from friendly fire and he didn’t want anyone in his unit to get in trouble.

[...] Questions about his military service are not the only scandal Sheehy has faced during the election. Sheehy was hit by a lawsuit in April from former employees of his aerial firefighting company of defrauding them out of millions of dollars.  Sheehy has also been slammed by Native American groups in the state after he used racist stereotypes in talking about the Native population in the state. At a fundraiser in November 2023, Sheehy talked about going cattle branding on Montana’s Crow Reservation, and said it’s “a great way to bond with all the Indians out there while they’re drunk at 8 AM.” Polls show Sheehy, a multimillionaire Minnesota transplant, leading Tester in the race, which could determine control of the Senate. Tester has an uphill battle to overcome the likely double-digit win former President Donald Trump will pull off in the state, which would require Tester to win over a number of GOP voters.

GOP Montana Senate nominee Tim Sheehy caught in yet another lie about his military service record.

This should be disqualifying, but sadly, he’ll defeat incumbent Jon Tester (D) and flip this seat (and likely the Senate) red.

[reptilia2003]

ted cruz up only one point in a GOP internal poll…hopium.jpg

[goalhofer]

2024-25 Ottawa Senators famous relations

#19 Drake Batherson: Grand-nephew of singer Matt Minglewood, Son of former St. Francis Xavier University men's hockey assistant coach Norm Batherson and nephew of former Richmond RiverDogs D Dennis Vial. #73 Noah Gregor: Son of former Birmingham Bulls LW Colin Gregor. #71 Ridly Greig: Son of former Iserlohn Hähne RW William Greig and nephew of former Mohawk Valley Comets LW the late Bruce Greig. #3 Nick Jensen: Son of former Melbourne Sharks head coach Jeff Jensen, nephew of former A.T.S.E. Graz LW the late Steve Jensen, 2nd cousin of former Rittner Baum D Dave Jensen and cousin of former Nottingham Panthers C Joe Jensen. #9 Josh Norris: Son of former Frankfurt Löwen GM Carl Norris, nephew of former Klagenfurter A.S.C. C Warren Norris and brother of former Kalamazoo Wings LW Coale Norris. #85 Jake Sanderson: Grand-nephew of Edmonton Oil Kings scout Murray Brookbank, son of former New York Islanders development coach Geoff Sanderson and 2nd cousin of Chicago Blackhawks scout Wade Brookbank & Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins assistant coach Sheldon Brookbank. #37 Donovan Sebrango: Son of former C.D.F. Montreal assistant coach Eduardo Sebrango. #7 Braeden Tkachuk: Son of former St. Louis Blues LW Keith Tkachuk, brother of Florida Panthers LW Matthew Tkachuk, brother-in-law of Providence Bruins C John Farinacci, cousin of Hartford Wolf Pack D Casey Fitzgerald, former Utica Comets C Ryan Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh Penguins C Kevin Hayes & former Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins RW the late Jimmy Hayes and 2nd cousin of New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald.

[democracyunderground]

SENATE RACES

[dhaaruni]

Bro what the fuck is wrong with Republicans???? (x)

[appendingfic]

Eclipse: Sure I can't be president but nothing stops me from being a SENATOR Shadow: Except your criminal record Silver: And your personality Wade: And, I hate to say this honey, your politics

[tomorrowusa]

Discovering that another prominent Trump supporter has racist inclinations is not exactly news. But this guy is running for a Democratic-held Senate seat in a tight race in Montana and deserves special attention.

A Republican candidate in a race that could decide control of the US Senate made disparaging comments about Native Americans at campaign fundraising events, according to recordings disclosed in local media. Tim Sheehy, a wealthy cattle rancher who has been endorsed by Donald Trump in his bid to become senator for Montana, made the remarks repeatedly at a series of gatherings where he boasted of cultivating ties and bonding with members of the Crow Reservation, the official home of the Indigenous Crow tribe. In one clip, Sheehy says he ropes and brands cattle with Crow members and calls it “a great way to bond with all the Indians while they’re drunk at 8am”. In another recording, he says: “ I was actually at the Crow Res and if you want a tough crowd … you miss that double heel shot, there’s a Coors Light can on the side of your head.” The references to a Coors Light can being thrown were recorded at three different gatherings, according to the Char-Koosta News, which covers the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. On one occasion, Sheehy says the flying cans are a sign of whether Crow members “like you or not”.

If Sheehy made a racist comment once he might get away with saying he "misspoke" – or that he may (ironically) have been drunk. But when you repeatedly make the same comment, there's no excuse. Sheehy is a racist at heart.

Sheehy, like Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, is just another Republican carpetbagger from another state.

Sheehy, 37, a former Navy Seal who moved to Montana 10 years ago, is trying to unseat the Democratic Senate incumbent Jon Tester.

Sheehy's comments are standard fare for MAGA.

The GOP candidate’s comments about Crow members are seen as particularly embarrassing because the tribe has been seen as vociferously pro-Trump. Native Americans have been a key voter bloc for Tester in his three previous successful campaigns but he has been warned that their support is not guaranteed. Calvin Lime, who lives on another Indigenous reservation in the state, called Sheehy’s comments “a slap in the face” to Crow members.

If you get a "slap in the face" then the best thing is to slap back even harder

Sheehy is a typical Republican who preaches family values but is far different in reality.

News of Sheehy’s comments is not the first potentially damaging episode of his campaign. Last year, he was forced on the defensive after sexist and racist Facebook posts allegedly written by him came to light. Insiders said the posts – made between 2006 and 2008 and since taken down – were “full of questionable photos” and featured “lewd photos of women, a caricature of Middle Eastern people and homoerotic jokes”.

It's just a matter of time before we learn of even more repulsive behavior by Tim Sheehy.

Montanans who don't want to be represented by a hypocritical, carpetbagging, racist slimeball should re-elect Jon Tester as their US senator.

Montanans for Jon Tester Defending our Montana way of life

EDIT: More Montana reaction to Sheehy's racist comments...

Tribal leaders, legislators respond to Sheehy recordings Lawmakers: Sheehy’s comments 'wrong, derogatory, hurtful'

[queer-spectre]

Did I just spend the last hour sending emails to American politicians abt the anti-trans bills? Yeah. Feel free 2 do the same if u have the energy. I keep telling myself it's just emails but it's better than nothing. I'm just trying to start local and work my way out. Fuck.

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

The Senator from Montana

CHAPTER FIFTHTEEN: On the Campaign Trail

Featuring Sen. Jon Tester

When the big old man got out of the big black Chevy Suburban with a small group of who I thought were sales people, the old man got my full attention. I even moved closer to my big front picture window in order to get a better view of him. The old man could have stepped straight out of one of my wet dreams! And as he walked toward the adjacent house, I started drooling as he had a sexually hungry aura about him.

He was burly and lumbered up the drive way as the other three followed closely behind. As he came in full view of my front window, he looked directly at me. Caught gawking at him, I blushed. His handsome face broke into a smile as they walked to the house next door. I thought I recognized him but couldn't place the face. I was so excited that I set down in my favorite overstuffed chair which just happened to face the house’s big picture window, then as I recalled how handsome man was, what he might be into sexually, I jacked off into my hand. And as I filled my hand with cum, I couldn’t help but wish that it was the old man’s cum being pumped into my palm.

I guess I would have just ignored the knocking but it didn't stop. Finally, I answered the door, buck-naked. I was surprised to see it was our US senator, Jon Tester, knocking on doors and talking with voters in every corner of Montana. Opening the door just wide enough to peek out, not wanting him to see that I was naked and with a roaring hard on. I've seen him on television before and thought he was a big guy in his late sixties, but he looked bigger standing in front of me. And drop dead gorgeous in person too.

“Hello. I'm your senator, Jon Tester.” The senator said as he reached over and greeted me with a firm handshake with his meaty paw.

“Hello. Sam ‘s my name, sir.” I responded not knowing what else to say.

“There’s so much at stake for Montanans this election, and I'm counting on folks to step up to help me win in 2024.” As he spoke, he looked me directly in the eyes. I found myself admiring his blue eyes as I opened the door wider.

He glanced down at my hard cock and smiled, “Looks like you were doing something besides changing clothes.” and gave me a wink.

He caught me off guard and it embarrassed me greatly. Was he interested in some man-2-man fun? Or was I miss-reading the situation. I certainly would be interested. I had even jerked off a few times thinking about him, but this was the first time I had any indication that he might be into guys. My face must have turned red because he added.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I jack off too. Heck, what else is there to do out here in the middle of big sky country?” He said, his eyes staring at my massive pecker.

I suddenly found myself enjoying the senator staring at my cock. I knew that I should rush into the bedroom and get my clothes but I didn’t. I just stood there in front of Sen. Tester, naked. Then he did the damnest thing. Sen. Tester went back and told his staff to going on to the houses and he'll catch up.

“Sorry, sir… I didn't mean any disrespect.” I told him, as I stepped back hoping he'd follow me in to the house.

Without answering, the senator did a quick check up and down the road before stepping in he closed and locked the door in a single motion. We fell into an embrace, sharing a long passionate kiss while I'm frantically pulling off his clothes. I didn't know if he had time to "fraternize with the constituents" before continuing on with his campaign, but I wasn't waiting to find out. The 67-year-old lawmaker was smooth with a rock-hard chubby belly, arms bigger than a tree trunk and rugged daddy hands. His dick was thick and cut.

"I don't have much time to get off." Sen. Tester said as I fondled his thick cut dick. With that being said, I kneeled down in front of him and closed my lips around his pale cut dick.

"Fuck! That feels wonderful. Yea!" He exclaimed as I felt his big hand grab my head and press it down.

I looked up, my mouth full of juicy cock, Jon was looking down at me and smiling. He had each of his nipples between his fingers, twisting and rubbing them while I began bobbing my head up and down his shaft. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed as he hunched toward me. His belly bounced invitingly against my forehead. He was biting at his bottom lip. His belly jiggled as he hunched my face. He grabbed my head and shoved his cock in my mouth. I gaged on it. I could not take it. It was just to fucking big. He backed off when he saw I couldn't take it all.

I pulled away from his cock and put a hand on his thigh, rubbing him while I jerked my cock, he let go of my head and wrapped his hand around his wet cock, stroking generously.

Suddenly I stood up and my long fat dick sprung up and stood straight out from my body. It was so hard it was throbbing. The senator's eyes got big as he looked at my thick dick. And as if the powerful senator could read my mind. The big guy spit on his huge hand, reached out and wrapped his meaty fingers around my dick. My head was swimming from the rush of sexual excitement pulsing through my body.

Then he pressing my throbbing cock against his own, his giant fist wrapped around them both with ease. I gasped as I felt my cock press against his wet prick. I felt his hand grip tighter around our kissing cocks. I liked the feel of his rough workman hand on my dick. Just seeing his hair arm moving back and forth as he jacked me turned me on.

"Turn around. And bend over and grab the chair. I wanna fuck you." He said.

I wanted the senator to fuck me. I wanted to feel his pussy-poking dick inside of me. Then I leaned over and grabbed the chair in front of me, jetting my butt in his direction.

"Nice ass." He said as I heard him spit.

A moment later I felt his slippery dick head pressing against my asshole. Then the big man almost angrily rammed his dick into me. I stiffened up from the searing pain of his brutal entry as the big head of his cock pry open my hole. He then pulled his dick half way out of me and slammed it back inside my asshole. I called out and tightened my grip on the recliner as the big man started fucking me as hard and fast as I could ever remember being fucked.

"Fucking good." Sen. Tester hissed as he leaned over me, his hand reaching around to grab my erection in his fist, and as he did, I looked down to see that his hand completely hid my dick in what felt like a vice.

The touch of Sen. Tester’s rough hand on my cock thrilled me from head to toe as he humped me like a machine. I just endured it as he continued to jack my dick painfully hard, his belly rubbing into my back as our sweat began to fly. The image of us two flashed through my mind. And damn if it didn’t excite me ever more. I don’t know how long he fucked me. Time lost all meaning. I was in heaven.

Suddenly with a loud cry, I grabbed the cushions of the chair and spewed my cum all over it. My body convulsed with each spurt as I emptied out my seed. The contraction of my ass on Sen. Tester’s pistoning dick while I went through my orgasm, brought on his own climax.

"I'm fucking cuming!" The senator cried out suddenly.

I pushed my ass against his crotch, driving his sperm-squirting dick as deep inside me as it would go, feeling his seed coat my bowels with a soothing warmth. Sen. Tester rested on top me for a couple of minutes as his breathing gradually slowed, and after his cock eventually slithered out of my ass he let go of my dick and we stood straight up.

“Damn, you're a good fuck. Hope to have your vote this November." He said as he grabbed his clothes and started dressing.

He sure does. And he left his sign in my yard like he left his load in my ass.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kevin Robillard and Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

CHICAGO ― Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stood on stage at the Democratic National Convention and made a very bold prediction. “We’re going to hold the Senate again, and we’re poised to pick up seats,” he told the delegates in the United Center. The fact Schumer feels confident in his prediction reflects the remarkable strength of most Democratic incumbents in swing states. But it also flies in the face of a tough reality for Democrats: Even if they win every swing state race, it might not be enough to get them control of the U.S. Senate. To keep the word “majority” in Schumer’s title, Democrats will need to win at least one of three states where Republican nominee Donald Trump is a significant favorite in November: Texas, Florida or Montana. Each of the three states presents distinct challenges for the party, and it’s difficult to describe them as favored in any of the three.

It’s the culmination of a long-standing problem for the party: The Senate’s bias toward rural states advantages the GOP’s political coalition, forcing Democrats to repeatedly pitch the political equivalent of perfect games to stay in control of Congress’ upper chamber. Republicans clearly believe the social conservatism of those voters will be more than enough for them to flip the Senate, with a win in West Virginia essentially guaranteed following the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W. Va.). Democrats currently have a 50-49 edge in the chamber.

“Securing the border is top of mind for voters, and Senate Democrats are delusional if they think they’re going to win with candidates like Colin Allred, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Sen. Jon Tester, who have long records of opposing border security,” said Torunn Sinclair, the communications director for Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In Montana, Democrats have the advantage of incumbency, but it might not be enough for Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to overcome a challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy. In Texas and Florida, Democrats are running against unpopular GOP incumbents Ted Cruz and Rick Scott, but are also on long-standing statewide losing streaks.

The road for the Democrats to retain even a 50+VP majority, let alone an outright one, in the Senate will be a very tough one, as West Virginia is assured of flipping Republican.

For the Donkeys to keep control, they need to either have Kamala Harris/Tim Walz win the Presidency and no other Democratic candidate lose (50+VP scenario), or flip either Texas and/or Florida and keep what they got.

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Campaign Videos from Tonight's Down Ballot Strategy Dinner!

Indiana Gubernatorial Candidate - Jennifer McCormick

Montana Gubernatorial Candidate - Ryan Busse

US Congressional Candidate for AZ-6 - Kirsten Engel

US Congressional Candidate for CA-41 - Will Rollins

US Congressional Candidate for MI-8 - Kristen McDonald Rivet

US Senatorial Candidate for Arizona - Ruben Gallego

US Senatorial Candidate for West Virginia - Glenn Elliott

[xtruss]

Tina Cordova and her mother, Rosalie, relax at Bonito Lake, New Mexico, in 1960. Cordova says the lake—which lies within the estimated radioactive fallout zone—was a water source for area towns, including Carrizozo, Alamogordo, and Ruidoso. Courtesy of Anastacio and Rosalie Cordova

U.S. Lawmakers Move Urgently to Recognize Survivors of the First Atomic Bomb Test

The 1945 Trinity test produced heat 10,000 times greater than the surface of the sun and spread fallout across the country.

— By Lesley M.M. Blume | Published September 21, 2021 | July 29th, 2023

Barbara Kent joined Carmadean’s dance camp in the desert near Ruidoso, New Mexico, in the summer of 1945. During the day, she and nine other girls learned tap and ballet. At night, they slept in a cabin by a river. Early in the morning on July 16, 1945, Kent says that she —then 13—and the other campers were jolted out of their bunk beds by what felt like an enormous explosion nearby. Their dance instructor rushed the girls outside, worried that a heater on the premises might have burst.

“We were all just shocked … and then, all of a sudden, there was this big cloud overhead, and lights in the sky,” Kent recalls. “It even hurt our eyes when we looked up. The whole sky turned strange. It was as if the sun came out tremendous.”

A few hours later, she says, white flakes began to fall from above. Excited, the girls put on their bathing suits and, amid the flurries, began playing in the river. “We were grabbing all of this white, which we thought was snow, and we were putting it all over our faces,” Kent says. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot. And we all thought, ‘Well, the reason it’s hot is because it’s summer.’ We were just 13 years old.”

Thirteen-year-old Barbara Kent (center) and her fellow campers play in a river near Ruidoso, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, in the hours after the bomb’s detonation. Fallout flakes drifted down that day and for days afterward. “We thought [it] was snow," Kent says. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot." Courtesy of Barbara Kent

The flakes were fallout from the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test, the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. It took place at 5:29 a.m. local time atop a hundred-foot steel tower 40 miles away at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, in Jornada del Muerto valley.

The site had been selected in part for its supposed isolation. In reality, thousands of people were within a 40-mile radius, some as close as 12 miles away. Yet all those living near the bomb site weren't warned that the test would take place. Nor were they evacuated beforehand or afterward, even as radioactive fallout continued to drop for days.

The Trinity test took place at 5:29 a.m. local time on July 16, 1945. It was three to five times more powerful than its creators had anticipated, producing heat 10,000 times greater than the surface of the sun. The explosion cloud may have reached a height of 70,000 feet. Photograph By Science History Images/ Alamy

In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which has since dispensed over two billion dollars to more than 45,000 nuclear workers and “downwinders”—a term describing people who have lived near nuclear test sites conducted since World War II and may have been exposed to deadly radioactive fallout.

But those exposed during the Trinity test and its aftermath have never been eligible.

For years, Senator Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, and other members of Congress have attempted to amend RECA, due to expire on July 11, 2022. In light of this looming deadline, on September 22, Lujan, along with Senator Mike Crapo, Republican of Idaho, and eight co-sponsors introduced Senate bill S. 2798 to extend RECA and expand it to make those in the estimated Trinity fallout zone eligible, as well as other downwinder communities in Colorado, Idaho, and Montana. The proposed legislation also would expand eligibility for people who have worked in uranium mines and mills or transported uranium ore. Also on September 22, Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez and 15 co-sponsors introduced a similar bill, H.R. 5338, in the House.

The plutonium bomb—nicknamed the Gadget—was set atop this hundred-foot steel tower, which vaporized in the explosion. "From the Trinity test,” a 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report noted, “it was learned that detonating a nuclear explosive device [that] close to the ground increases the radioactive fallout from the event." Photograph Via CORBIS/Getty

Manhattan Project leaders—including General Leslie Groves (center) and, to his right, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer—scrutinize the remnants of the tower at ground zero. Upon seeing the detonation, Oppenheimer thought of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Photograph Via CORBIS/Getty

“The fact that there had not been a recognition of the impact of the very first atomic detonation in New Mexico was really simply wrong,” says Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico and co-sponsor of the House bill. “We hear their voices, we see their pain, and we must act.”

This is an especially urgent and consequential moment for those living in Trinity’s estimated fallout zone—some of whom have been waiting 76 years to be acknowledged. “We have been denied justice long enough,” says Bernice Gutierrez, who was a newborn when the bomb exploded. Her family lived in Carrizozo, about 50 miles from the blast site. “It’s not like we haven’t given our all to our country. What more can you give?”

‘A Very Serious Hazard’

The blast from the plutonium implosion device, nicknamed the Gadget, produced heat 10,000 times greater than the surface of the sun and was significantly more powerful than its creators had expected. It carried aloft hundreds of tons of irradiated soil and sent a mushroom cloud up to 70,000 feet in the sky. In this experimental atomic detonation, only three of the 13 pounds of plutonium at the bomb’s center underwent fission. The rest dispersed in the fallout cloud.

A tiny fraction of that three pounds of plutonium—about the weight of a raisin—was enough to release “three times the destructive force of the largest conventional bomb used in World War II,” says Robert Alvarez, associate fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies and former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. (The Gadget released an explosive force equivalent to about 21,000 tons of TNT.)

Right after detonation, the cloud divided into three parts. One part drifted east, another to the west and northwest, and the rest to the northeast, across a region a hundred miles long and 30 miles wide, “dropping its trail of fission products” the entire way, according to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The fallout eventually spread over thousands of square miles and was detected as far away as Rochester, New York.

Nineteen counties in New Mexico were in the downwind area, including 78 towns and cities, and dozens of ranches and pueblos. Radiation levels near homes in some “hot spots” reached levels “almost 10,000 times what is currently allowed in public areas,” according to the CDC.

“There is still a tremendous quantity of radioactive dust floating in the air,” wrote Stafford Warren to U.S. Army General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, five days after the blast. Warren, the project’s chief medical officer, added that “a very serious [radiation] hazard” existed within a 2,700-square-mile area downwind of the test.

He also advised that future atomic tests be done only where there were no people within a radius of 150 miles. (Nearly half a million people in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico lived within a 150-mile radius of the Trinity test.)

“We didn’t know what the hell we were doing,” Louis Hempelmann—the director of the Los Alamos Health Group, a team tasked with managing radiation within the Manhattan Project—reflected in a 1986 interview uncovered by sociologist James L. Nolan, Jr., in his book Atomic Doctors. “Nobody had had any experience like this before, and we were just hoping that the situation wouldn’t get terribly sticky.”

The leaders of the Manhattan Project knew that civilians had been “probably overexposed,” Hempelmann said. “But they couldn’t prove it and we couldn’t prove it. So we just assumed that we got away with it.”

Many civilians living within the estimated fallout zone were unwittingly exposed and sickened. According to Alvarez, even minute quantities of plutonium can inflict disease. “Particles of plutonium less than a few microns in diameter can penetrate deep in the lungs and lymph nodes and can also be deposited via the bloodstream in the liver, on bone surfaces, and in other organs,” he says. “If inhaled, extremely small amounts can lead to cancer.”

How is it, asks Senator Lujan, that RECA covered people living downwind of the Nevada Test Site but left out “the community where the first nuclear bomb was tested on American soil? There’s not been a good answer given to me nor to the downwinders in New Mexico. There’s no question of the exposure that resulted from the Trinity test.”

The explosion seared the desert sand surrounding the tower into a green, glass-like substance, named Trinitite. Photograph Via Bettmann/Getty

Something Felt Terribly Awry

Several people living near the test site later reported that they thought they were experiencing the end of the world. The strange, snowlike substance that fell from the sky for days coated everything: orchards, gardens, livestock, as well as cisterns, ponds, and rivers—the main sources of drinking water because local groundwater was “unsuitable for human consumption,” according to the 2010 CDC report.

One family in Oscuro, New Mexico, about 45 miles from the site, hung wet bedsheets in their windows against the fallout. They felt that something was terribly awry when their chickens and their dog died. Thirty miles away from ground zero, along Chupadera Mesa, burns appeared on the hides of cattle, whose fur eventually grew back gray and white in the burned patches.

A health care provider in Roswell, a hundred miles away, noted a surge in infant deaths there—35 in August 1945 alone. When she wrote to Warren, stating her concerns, his medical assistant replied that there were no “pertinent data” and assured her that “the safety and health of the people at large is not in any way endangered.”

“They Lied To Us. I Didn’t Learn The Truth Until Years Later.” — BatbaraKent, Trinity Test Survivor

For General Groves, getting the bomb ready—in secrecy—for wartime use had trumped all other considerations, including public safety.

Yet he realized that a blast whose flash was seen in at least three states and two countries could not be wholly concealed. He ordered the commanding officer of the Alamogordo Air Base to feed a cover story to the Associated Press that “a remotely located ammunition magazine containing a considerable amount of high explosives and pyrotechnics exploded.” There had been, the report went on, “no loss of life or injury.” Local newspapers reprinted the announcement without challenge.

Barbara Kent recalls that the day after the explosion, her camp’s dance instructor took the girls into Ruidoso, where government officials were to make an announcement about the source of the blast.

“It was so crowded downtown—everyone was shoulder to shoulder,” Kent says. “What they told us—there was an explosion at a dump. They said, ‘No one worry about anything, everything’s fine, just go along with your own business.’ Everyone was confused. Some people believed it, but some people thought they couldn’t imagine that a dump explosion would do this." She continues: "They lied to us. I didn’t learn the truth until years later.”

As time passed, Kent says she began to hear disturbing reports that her fellow campers were falling ill. By the time she turned 30, she says, “I was the only survivor of all the girls at that camp.” She adds that she has suffered from lifelong illnesses: She had to have her thyroid removed and has survived several forms of cancer, including endometrial cancer and “all kinds of skin cancers.”

In this photograph from 1962, three-year-old Tina Cordova (bottom right) is pictured with her father, Anastacio (holding her baby brother, Matthew), and mother Rosalie. The young family lived in Tularosa, about 40 miles from the blast site. Everything they ate, Tina recalls, “was raised or grown or hunted," adding that the bomb’s “ash got everywhere, in the soil, in the water—everything was contaminated." She says her mother and father developed cancers, and she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was 39. Courtesy of Anastacio and Rosalie Cordova

Tina Cordova is a fifth-generation resident of Tularosa, about 40 miles from the blast site. Thanks to an extensive ditch system in the area, the town was an oasis in the desert, and Cordova’s family’s home, like many others, had an orchard and garden.

“You could literally go out into your yard in the summer and eat peaches, apricots, cherries, figs, dates, pecans, walnuts—everything you could think of,” she says. Local people harvested and canned their fruit and collected rainwater for drinking from rooftop cisterns. Milk came from local dairies. People made their own butter and butchered farmyard animals or hunted wild animals for meat, including deer, quail, rabbit, and pheasant.

“Everything that people were consuming in 1945 was contaminated,” Cordova says. “But they didn’t know [the fallout was] dangerous. They went about their lives.”

After the test, she says, health problems began to plague her family, all of whom lived in and around Tularosa. According to Cordova, two of her great-grandfathers died of stomach cancer, and both of her grandmothers developed cancer. Two aunts had breast cancer, and one died from it. A cousin developed a brain tumor. Her mother had mouth cancer, and her sister has skin cancer. Her father, who was four at the time of the blast, suffered from various cancers, including prostate cancer and tongue cancer. Doctors had to remove part of his tongue and his lymph nodes. The cancer eventually spread to his neck and became inoperable. Cordova says he weighed about 125 pounds at his death in 2013 at the age of 71. She says that she herself was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1997, when she was 39.

‘When Are They Going To Hold Our Government Accountable?’

After the U.S. leveled Hiroshima with a uranium bomb on August 6, 1945, the secret history of the creation of atomic weapons was released and widely publicized. Many New Mexicans now realized that the blast that had shattered their windows and blanketed their homes in warm ash was not, after all, an ammunition dump explosion. Although they still hadn't been informed by the government about the nature of that ash or monitored for adverse health effects, they were encouraged to be proud of the part they’d unknowingly played in bringing about the dramatic new atomic age.

“When I was a child, the government fed us propaganda about how much pride we should take in the part we played in ending World War Two,” Cordova says. “We still did not know what that meant from a health consequence perspective. Our mom actually took us to the [Trinity] site for a picnic. We brought home as much Trinitite as we could and played with it.” (The Trinity Site is now a National Historic Landmark, open to visitors twice a year, and anyone can go online and buy radioactive fragments of Trinitite—a green glass created from sand and other materials that melted in the immediate blast zone.)

The U.S. Army erected this monument at ground zero in 1965. Ten years later, the National Park Service designated Trinity Site as a National Historic Landmark. It’s open to visitors twice a year, on the first Saturdays in April and October. Photograph By Tony Korody, SYGMA Via Getty

In 2004, Cordova read a letter from another Tularosa resident, Fred Tyler, to the editor of a local newspaper. She says that the letter changed her life. “He said, ‘When are they going to hold our government accountable for the damage they did to us?’ ” Cordova says. “I called him and said, ‘I feel the same way you do. It’s time to start an organization to more fully push the government about this issue.’ ”

In 2005, Cordova and Tyler founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) as an advocacy organization for Trinity test downwinders.

At that time, she recalls, they weren’t aware that the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act had been in place for 15 years and already had provided onetime, $50,000 compensation to other downwinders who “may have developed cancer or other specified diseases after being exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing or uranium mining, milling, or transporting.” Downwinder eligibility initially was limited to those within specified areas around the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles north of Las Vegas, where a hundred aboveground tests were conducted before a moratorium on atomic testing took effect in 1992.

In 2000, an amendment to RECA expanded eligibility to include some uranium miners and millers in New Mexico. Military and government workers who were “on-site participants” in the Trinity test were also eligible for compensation, but civilian downwinders remained ineligible.

Cordova, like Senator Lujan, says she has “never been able to get a straight answer” about why civilian downwinders were excluded from the legislation: “Even from people who were serving in Congress at the time, I’ve been told, ‘Well, no one was connecting the dots that anybody was harmed.’ ”

Bill Richardson—a Democrat who served as New Mexico’s governor from 2003 to 2011 and was a representative for the state’s Third Congressional District in 1990 when RECA was enacted—says, “I don’t think there was opposition [to their inclusion], just perhaps a lack of awareness. I didn’t know about their claims until I started reading about it when I was governor, and I was sympathetic.”

To raise awareness, Cordova and her colleagues at the consortium began to gather testimonies from and distribute health surveys to downwinders who were alive at the time of the Trinity test, along with their descendants who have lived in areas surrounding the test site. To date, the consortium has collected more than 1,000 surveys, and Cordova says that 100 percent of those questioned describe adverse health conditions—from thyroid disease to brain cancer—that can result from radiation exposure. Often participants describe similar cancers that have ravaged many family members over several generations.

‘A Now-or-Never Moment’

Cordova describes this effort to extend and expand RECA as a “now-or-never moment.” Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican and co-sponsor of the Senate bill, says there’s a “dire need for Congress to extend RECA … [and] to include victims in states across the West.”

“It is beyond time for the federal government to right a past wrong that caused harm to countless innocent Americans,” he wrote in a letter on March 24, 2021, to the chairman and members of the House Judiciary Committee.

“We Hear Their Voices, We See Their Pain, and We Must Act.” — TeresaLeger Fernandez, Representative to Congress, New Mexico

“When [RECA] was first introduced, no one considered the impact on the first downwinders,” Representative Fernandez says. “But we are in a place now where we recognize an injustice when we see it.” Her family lived in San Miguel and Guadalupe Counties in New Mexico, areas of potential exposure. She says her mother and sister—both nonsmokers—died of lung cancer. Her father died of esophageal cancer, she says, and her grandmother, who grew up near the Trinity site, died of leukemia.

Fernandez and Lujan say they’re also going to push for new epidemiological and environmental studies of the Trinity test’s aftermath and possible long-term effects.

Assessing Trinity’s exact “fingerprint” based on current fallout levels is “complicated and subject to large uncertainties,” says health physicist Joseph Shonka, co-author of the 2010 CDC report. He notes that residents of New Mexico have higher positive plutonium levels in their tissues than residents of any other state but says that tracing those levels back specifically to Trinity fallout might be difficult.

New Mexicans also may have internalized plutonium from various additional sources, he says, including general global fallout, releases from New Mexico’s Los Alamos plutonium operations, and fallout that drifted down from Nevada’s Test Site. The CDC recommended prioritizing Trinity’s aftermath for future studies.

Last year, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) released its findings from a nearly seven-year study of the Trinity nuclear test. The study’s lead investigator, Steven Simon, calls it the “most comprehensive study conducted on the Trinity test and its possible ramifications for cancer risks in the estimated fallout area.”

The researchers concluded that up to a thousand people may have developed cancer from the Trinity test fallout and that “only small geographic areas immediately downwind to the northeast received exposures of any significance.” They also said that the “plutonium deposited as a result of the Trinity test was unlikely to have resulted in significant health risks to the downwind population.”

The researchers also acknowledged their study’s limitations. Calculating exposure for those alive at the time of the detonation is “complex and is subject to uncertainties,” Simon explains, “because all of the needed data is not available."

Shonka says the new NCI study “failed to address early fallout adequately.” He says he questions some of the methodology and is preparing a counter-article addressing what he says are inconsistencies with previous findings. Other critics of the NCI study say it doesn’t address ongoing family cancer clusters and the reported 1945 spike in infant deaths in the region, documented in a 2019 paper in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, co-authored by Robert Alvarez.

The NCI responds that its researchers focused on exposures received among “New Mexico residents alive at the time of the test,” and that they didn’t investigate the infant mortality because it was “not a cancer effect.”

Senator Lujan calls the NCI study “limited” and says that he wants to “make sure that there’s accurate data that truly is looking at the exposure that families face.”

“How can someone say that families in proximity to a nuclear blast were not exposed?” he asks. “It goes against everything that I’ve learned and data sets that I’ve seen from different parts of the world where this has happened, whether it’s been from meltdown of nuclear energy generation facilities or where weapons were deployed.”

Lujan continues, “People died as a result of the Trinity test—that’s a fact. People are still suffering—that’s a fact. The U.S. needs to come forward to address this liability, this wrong.”

Cordova says she and her community will be closely watching the RECA bills’ progress. The new legislation asks to expand compensation for individuals from $50,000 to $150,000. But beyond financial restitution, Cordova says, they’re also hoping simply for a government apology.

“We’ve never had an opportunity to live normal lives,” she says. “They can never say that they didn’t know ahead of time that radiation was harmful or that there was going to be fallout. We don’t ask if we’re going to get cancer; we ask when it’s going to be our turn. We are the forgotten collateral damage.”

— Lesley M. M. Blume is a New York Times best-selling historian, journalist, and author of Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.