Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

The Great State of Montana corrals 989,415 souls within its borders, for which Our Great Nation bestows it two Senators and one Congresscritter. (The Great District of Columbia bats zero for three because its 601,723 souls don’t count.) And fittingly, for a state that doesn’t know how lucky it has it, that Congresscritter is Republican Denny Rehberg, who would like you to know he feels your pain:

REHBERG: I’m a small businessman. My wife is a small businessman. She hasn’t taken a salary in ten years as a result of business. We’re struggling like everyone else. With the ecnoomy.

CONSTITUENT: What’s your salary?

REHBERG: I’m land-rich and cash-poor. Like ranchers and farmers and small businessmen throughout Montana.

Cash-poor Denny Rehberg was worth $31 million in 2009, which puts him among the 422 poorest Congresscritters. But hey, like he says, his capital was tied up, so he only had his $174,000 salary to draw from. Which he’s been drawing since 2001.

Before which, small businessman Denny Rehberg drew what we’ll generously assume was a living wage as lieutenant governor of Montana from 1991 to 1997.

Not to mention the pay and per-diem he drew as a Montana House rat from 1985 to 1991.

If we were not being so generous, we might insinuate that cash-poor Denny Rehberg doesn’t know how to manage his money, especially for someone who claims that “As a small business owner Denny knows how to balance a budget.” But we’re above that sort of thing.

And besides, we got curious about how Denny Rehberg is like other ranchers and farmers and small businessmen throughout his Great State. He’ll tell you on his website that he’s “a fifth-generation family rancher who has managed more than 600 head of cattle and, later 600 cashmere goats.”

But what he won’t tell you there is that he subdivided the family ranch for a housing development. Which his small-businessman wife manages.

And which prompted them to sue the City of Billings and the Billings Fire Department last year, “because the fire department breached its duty during a [2008] wildfire that burned more than 1,100 acres in the subdivision”. A fire that took a hundred people to fight. In hundred-degree weather.

But it makes sense that land-rich inheritor Denny Rehberg would shit on cash-poor firefighters. Fits the profile for a privileged asshole.

33 Comments

I’m struggling with that blonde leather.

@Benedick HRH KFC: I first read your comment as “blonde IN leather” and was looking for him in the picture.

That section of the house seems to suffer from an alarming lack of structural support, or maybe that’s just the Earthquake Country resident in me coming out.

My eye has been successfully fooled by all that faux fieldstone hanging from the ceiling.

@SanFranLefty: I think it’s modular. It won’t so much collapse as come apart at the seams. Not unlike the Republican party.

Doesn’t look like a SubZero fridge in the kitchen. How can he hold his head up?

@Benedick HRH KFC: The house may be worth $359K but the furniture looks like it was bought for $3.59 at the Billings Swap Mart.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: All the fittings look like Home Depot to me. Did not know he was a lesbian.

I’m personally bewitched by the half landing with the polyurethaned pine banisters (use real shellack, people, you will be amazed by ease of application of beautiful finish) leading to the bedroom ‘wing’. I sense a ‘media’ room lurking somewhere.

@Dodgerblue: This would not wash on the UWS. It’s the kind of thing gets you banned for life from Zabar’s.

Poor poor twisted me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnlz49w1nss

Album cover art is “Blood and Semen” by Andres Serrano

@Benedick HRH KFC: I wish I had the SubZero franchise for West LA/ Brentwood / Beverly Hills. I’d be driving a much nicer car.

@JNOV: I’m a Miele fanatic, which is weird because I can’t cook–I don’t even like being in the kitchen really–but their appliances are simply gorgeous.

@¡Andrew!: Imma cry now. I don’t want to be poor anymore!

@JNOV is with Busey: Actually, I’ll just take what’s in the fridge. ;-)

@JNOV: Yeah, it’s best to not look up the prices. I’m hoping someday I’ll have a kitchen that doesn’t scream KENMORE ’87. Fiddle dee dee!

@¡Andrew!: Heh. I’m learning about injection steam ovens now. Damn.

@¡Andrew!: My oven is so small, I asked the manager what wattage light bulb would cook food the fastest.

@JNOV: Just wait till you get to the laundry care section. (suh-wooon!)

If appliance porn is a crime, then I’m guilty in the first degree.

@¡Andrew!: I am so not looking at the laundry section. I take photos of my cart as I drag my laundry to the laundramat. My laundry has been outside the locked gates of the gov’s mansion, and as the weather gets better, I’ll photograph the cart at the bus stop to and from the farmers’ market. I have a picture of it in the elevator at the Hilton (long story). Might start (another) blog to document the life of my cart, cuz four neglected blogs aren’t enough.

C’mon–you know you wanna. That sweet, rock-hard washing machine drum wants your eyes all over it.

I am so not looking at the laundry section.

@JNOV is with Busey: Dude. The paint is peeling off those Bo-Bo Flash shirts we bought offa eBay. QUITE unhappy with the seller.

Bo-Bo: n. Cheap shit, usually sneakers (AKA tennies, but not in Philly) bought in a big-ass bin near the checkout line at the supermarket. “Maaaaaawm! But I can’t be wearing them bo-bos to school! PLEASE! MOM!”

The song (sung to the tune of, um, some other song the march song from The Bridge on the River Kwai, you know, where they whistle and shit):

Bo-Bos! They make your feet feel fine.
Bo-Bos! They cost ah dollah ninety-nine
Bo-Bos! They’re meant for Hobos!
So, go get your Bo-Bos today!

@JNOV: You can program the W 3039i to give you status updates on your delicates in six languages, and it has mood lighting in the interior. It costs as much as Toyota, but it’s totally worth it!

@JNOV: Hey a boy can dream. Some people have to look at sepia-tinted photos to remember what kitchens and laundry rooms looked like when One Day at a Time was on the air–I just have to turn on the lights.

@¡Andrew!: Yeah, but you’re doing this “Misery Loves Company” thing to me. So mean! <3

I'll check out the laundry stuff tomorrow. Today was rough. I don't need any more psychic pain. I'll be stronger tomorrow. Or in jail. I'll let you know.

ADD: I couldn’t get past the first two seconds of the theme song. Oy!

@JNOV: That show really takes me back. Schneider was a total secksmahsheen.

@¡Andrew!: Ha! I had no idea you were old enough to see it. Must’ve been on Nick at Night.

@JNOV is with Busey: AND THEN, Valerie Bertanelli married Eddie Van Halen! So! Not! Fair!

Hey — I think I’m going to watch something uplifting like The Stoning of Soraya M. Later, Sweet, Gorgeous You.

@JNOV is with Busey: You should create a blog or FB page that’s just the shopping cart and what its activities are. You could make paper print outs to size and fans could take pictures of the paper version of your shopping cart at various landmarks (i.e. the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Alamo) for your blog.

Just a suggestion if you’re looking for something to do.

@SanFranLefty: I like!

Watching that movie was a huge mistake.

@SanFranLefty: I think I’ll start out with humor, but I’d like people to understand what it’s like to live in a CITY without a car or decent public transit. Pfft. What it’s like to live in a capital without decent public transit. Most people that work in the Capitol Complex commute in and leave. No one gives a shit about the people who live here.

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