Would I like to go to the James Welch literary festival?
Yes, I would, because many years ago my attendance at the University of Montana wasn’t for journalism, it was for creative writing, specifically poetry.
But, when I read about the locations where events for this festival would be held, the reality of my ankle accessory set in.
This year, there will be panels and workshops on poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art. Jones is well known enough that he’ll have a moderated talk to himself at MCT, since he has a dedicated fan base.
“Wherever he is, they kind of show up in droves,” HolyWhiteMountain said.
Heather Cahoon, a poet and professor at UM, will give a keynote address.
At a reception at Radius Gallery, Lois Welch will give a talk about “Riding the Earthboy 40” and Welch’s poetry as a whole.
Sze has taught at the Institute for American Indian Arts for years and will speak on a panel with some of his former students.
“Many, if not most of the major Native poets working right now were all his students,” HolyWhiteMountain said.
For those keeping track of how local authorities are tracking me, this Travis Exclusion Zone (TEZ) is the NEW version, slightly reduced to allow me access to Interstate 90 and Orange Street, so when Mommy drives me home she can take the most direct route–a real gas saver! THANKS LOCAL AUTHORITIES!
Part of the voluminous documentation heaped upon my poor Public Defender this week is a poem I wrote and published this spring (a link may be illegal, so find it yourself), and the poem was entered into evidence as an actual exhibit because, it was claimed, the imagery of Jesus and the “juice box” was evidence that violence was imminent.
Despite explaining to the judge that “juice box” was code for zealous members of a certain faith who are currently bathed in the blood of a Holy War, the decision did NOT go my way. That’s why it’s up to the Montana Supreme Court now to be more discerning readers my criminally-awesome writing skills.
For evidence of how deeply I once invested in my love of poetry, here’s an image of a signed copy of James Welch’s first book of poems, titled Earthboy 40, which I’m the proud owner of:
And here’s the poem that concludes this 1971 publication:
This is a FANTASTIC poem, and one I will be using in a lengthy piece of writing I’m wrapping up that connects Missoula’s controversial academic, Leslie Fiedler to Ira Einhorn (more on him later), and this connection comes through a poet I am now thoroughly disgusted by–the likely sexual predator and possible abuser of Leslie Fiedler’s own kid, Allen Ginsberg.
Before I share MY poem, let me be clear with this disclaimer that the spider, and the spider’s plan, is NOT a reference that should be interpreted as part of a nefarious plot, by me, to do anything harmful in meat space, where I am currently monitored by jester-maxxers.
Are we ready?
THERE'S A SPIDER ON MY BUDDHA
there's a spider on my buddha strand by strand it builds call the porch light Lucifer for moths, the softest kill
breath held deep for several seconds Lynch, he was a fan humble like a Polish rabbit Lynch could sell 'em crayons!
don't forget to exhale don't forget the role a spider on a buddha does not scheme for souls
watch it, yes, you watch it closely tucked beneath its cloud light is not the fight, my son, it's bait before the shroud!
WAIT!
words they walk on breath and breath is tiny wind now the strands will vibrate and now the plan begins...
but don't be rude to buddha that attitude is wrong peaceful as the spider wraps you... buddha hums a song:
dawn will break to take you to see another world forget the porch light of your mind and give in to the twirl...
or spawn another avatar if your spark plug has that itch to learn and learn again... karma is a bitch!
Tomorrow I have a post ready to go about a Missoula power-couple, along with a detail I caught in an article about the NON-lethal stabbing reported at the same time as the lethal stabbing hit the headlines. It’s the kind of article that, were the writer/reader roles reversed, I might be inspired to give a donation for.
When people are arrested and booked in jail, like Jeremy Means was this week for allegedly stabbing and killing Vaughn Tlustosch, a mugshot photo is taken, but that photo is NO LONGER SHARED with the public. Here’s why, according to a 2024 article from The Pulp:
Missoula County is no longer posting booking photos — more commonly known as mugshots — on its online jail roster. The change began on Nov. 1, according to a press release from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, but caught the eye of the broader public when Missoula Mugs, a locally popular if controversial website that posted mugshots from the jail roster, announced that it had been “gutted” by the county and would no longer operate.
Questions from The Pulp to the sheriff’s office about the change were directed to Brian West, a deputy county attorney. West told The Pulp that the decision to remove mugshots from the jail roster — the names and charges of those held in county jail are still readily available online — came from an ongoing discussion that began in the spring between the county attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office, the jail commander and other county officials. The county started reviewing the practice, West said, because an individual had complained that the administrator of an online page had attempted to “extort” money in exchange for removing the mugshot.
To see what this alleged killer looks like I found a Facebook post from the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office from 2019, which I’ll post below, along with a few prescient comments about this violent offender who living, non-compliantly, in Missoula.
While the sentiment expressed by Stephanie Hensley is understandable, trash like Jeremy Means often find themselves in places that support them, like Missoula and Great Falls–two GREAT places for violent and sexual offenders to hang out without bothering to register themselves as offenders.
How many NON-COMPLIANT violent and sexual offenders does Missoula have? After setting some filters on the registry site I discovered Missoula has 52 non-compliant offenders, including Coty Low, the guy who tried kidnapping a 10 year old girl from a Missoula park in 2014.
A man accused of grabbing a 10-year-old girl as she played with her brother in a Missoula park has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping.
The Missoulian reports 34-year-old Coty James Low appeared before District Judge Karen Townsend on Tuesday via video from jail. She continued his bail at $100,000.
Prosecutors say Low ran up to the children on June 21 and grabbed the girl by the leg. He carried her about 25 feet before the girl’s kicking and screaming caused him to drop her.
The girl’s father chased after the man and held him for police.
Low initially said he was trying to save the girl from a dog, and then told police he was looking for companionship and wasn’t thinking when he grabbed the girl.
Prosecutors say Low was convicted of sexually assaulting a nurse in April.
Another article goes into more detail about what Coty Low’s 2014 criminal history looked like before the attempted kidnapping of a 10 year old girl at Lion’s Park, which, incidentally, is the SAME park near the California Street bridge, where Jeremy Means is accused of his heinous crime.
Deputy Missoula County Attorney Jessica Finley told Justice of the Peace Amy Blixt that Low has a criminal history that has recently been escalating into more serious offenses.
“He was convicted of sexual assault in April for reaching up a nurse’s skirt and touching her genitals,” Finley said. “During the same weekend as this incident in the park, it was reported that he took off his pants and exposed himself to a mission group who helps the homeless. It looks like the offenses have graduated from indecent exposure to sexual assault on an adult, and now this attempted abduction of a 10 year-old girl. For that reason, the defendant poses a significant threat to the community, so the state is asking for bail of $100,000.”
How does a man convicted of sexual assault in April of 2014 find himself free in July of that same year to attempt a kidnapping? I mean, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS TOWN?
Unfortunately it’s NOT just Missoula. Great Falls, where the stabbing victim went to high school, is increasingly getting put on my radar for being a significant part of the trafficking world, which includes “homeless” people like the young tweaker living at Buckhouse bridge before getting arrested on meth charges in March.
With so many non-compliant offenders in Montana, you might think some outside help would be appreciated, but that is NOT the case in Cascade County, where Alex Rosen recently called out Great Falls authorities for being VERY uninterested in using his evidence of local offenders trying to fuck children to stop them from, you know, fucking children.
Why don’t you want any help catching sex offenders, Sheriff Slaughter?
Something is seriously rotten in Montana and I’m going to keep digging into the stink of this state’s corrupt criminal justice system even as it targets ME in another round of lawfare.
If you appreciate my work and want to help out, financially, my new GoFundMe page is currently taking donations. Any little bit helps.
A local podcast about dead people is getting some more media hype because Apple named it one of the best new podcasts of 2026.
A podcast borne out of a journalism classroom at the University of Montana has been named to Apple Podcasts’ “Best So Far” list for 2026.
In an arena full of thousands upon thousands of programs, what was it that made this one stand out? UM News Service tells us that Apple’s “Best-So-Far” List for 2026 has recognized this Griz endeavor as one of the year’s standout new shows.
As a podcast failure and financial loser who never got any of the important people to care about the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office killing of Sean Stevenson, maybe I should take some notes about how a professor at the University of Montana managed to get important people, like Jad Abumrad, to take her dead-person storytelling to the next level.
Abumrad was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow; the foundation cited his “engaging audio explorations of scientific and philosophical questions” which “captivate listeners and bring to broadcast journalism a distinctive new aesthetic”, while using “his background as a composer to orchestrate dialogue, music, and sound effects into compelling documentaries that draw listeners into investigations of otherwise intimidating topics.”
…
In 2018 Abumrad hosted the four-part podcast series “UnErased,” which tells the stories of survivors of gay conversion therapy.
One clue about how Jule Banville managed to get a successful podcast up and running about dead people is that she knows where NOT to tread when it comes to certain stories, like a young Native man who allegedly shot himself after local law enforcement pulled him over.
To show you what I’m talking about, here’s a screenshot from The Obit Project’s website with the part of the narrative summary stating what this story is NOT about highlighted for emphasis:
Since my interest in dead people tends to focus on HOW they became dead, especially when the facilitators of death wear badges and act cagey about disclosing information to family members in a timely manner, I’m still curious about what transpired in THIS case with Galbreath’s family, according to the reporting at the time from Montana Free Press:
The early description of the incident began with Galbreath being pulled over on Missoula’s Great Northern Avenue shortly after midnight. While details of the stop and any interaction between the police officer and Galbreath remain undisclosed, police scanner audio first published by the Missoulian depicts an officer saying “he’s taken off on me,” apparently referring to Galbreath driving away.
Officers communicated over radio as they pursued Galbreath in their vehicles with sirens blaring until police brought the chase to an end on Stephens Avenue close to 1 a.m. Soon after, shots were fired.
The police department has said that officers on the scene provided medical assistance and called for Emergency Medical Services. Galbreath was transported to St. Patrick Hospital, where he later died.
Even after Monday’s announcement, many details of the incident remain publicly unknown. In a Friday interview with Montana Free Press, LaFromboise said Galbreath’s parents were not aware of their son’s hospital admission until medical staff called to tell them he had died. LaFromboise said that call came in around 5:20 a.m., roughly three hours after Galbreath had reportedly been admitted to the intensive care unit.
Missoula EMS and the Missoula Police Department have declined to say when Galbreath was transported to the hospital.
In this case, and others like it, the investigating agency that helps clear law enforcement 99% of the time is the Department of Criminal Investigation, or DCI.
Here’s how that path was laid out by Brian Lockerby for Galbreath’s family:
Lockerby announced that DCI will not be making any additional public statements as the investigation continues.
“Our agency makes no assumptions and draws no conclusions. We gather facts and produce a comprehensive investigative report,” Lockerby said, adding that the division’s final report will be delivered to the Missoula County attorney. After that, he said, the case will “likely” become a coroner’s inquest.
When the “likely” coroner’s inquest eventually materialized, it produced the predicable conclusion of NOTHING TO SEE HERE, which is what every coroner’s inquest I’ve seen and/or researched has concluded. And larger media platforms just let those narratives solidify without challenge, like Banville did in this case.
Is this a relevant factor in her podcast’s success?
Another episode of The Obit Project covers the death of Wayne Boyes, the late farmer/husband of a bad-ass woman I recently chatted with, since her family helped end Ryan Funke’s embarrassing tenure as Sheriff of Mineral County.
Part of this effort to fire Ryan Funke from his Sheriff position entailed publicly sharing painful details of a personal tragedy for the Boyes family that Ryan Funke made WORSE by bringing DCI in to cover his ass, directly referencing the heat he got for his role in mishandling the Rebekah Barsotti case (a case I wish I had never gotten involved with) as his justification.
The episode that really drove home for me how a successful podcast operates is the dead homeless man Banville curated for her NPR-loving audience.
Ok, I think I’m starting to understand now. This gnome-looking homeless man from Billings, who notably lived “off-grid” by choice, is definitely a safer and therefore smarter “obit” story to document than what I chose to dive head-first into.
For additional context, the homeless obit story I stupidly decided to give a shit about examines this weird idea–one that’s apparently a foreign concept to authorities in Big Sky country–and that’s the idea that a family should get a say in WHEN authorities pull the life-support plug on a beloved family member.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for Sean Stevenson and his family.
A member of Sean’s family did finally come to Missoula this year, though only briefly, to survey the geography where Sean lived before the coroner killed him, but I’m saving the details of that story for another time, since to tell it the way I’d like to tell it would put me in further legal jeopardy right now.
If you sympathize with how loudly I’ve failed over the years with my unique and costly shit-giving about the wrong kind of dead people, please consider donating to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
Dave Stalling is a gay Veteran with PTSD and he wants you to feel bad that he wasn’t treated like a prince at a local grocery, so he wrote an op-ed about what happened.
Dave Stalling didn’t approach Yolks to shop for food, it was to beg for help after this Veteran left his house with no shoes, no wallet, and a barely-charged phone that ran out of power shortly after his car ran out of gas. It was in this sorry state of total retardation that Dave Stalling tried to get help from some local working stiffs on West Broadway:
I’m the guy who runs out of gas. The guy who forgets his wallet. The guy who somehow ends up barefoot in places where shoes are apparently required. My son once told me that hanging out with me was like living inside a Seinfeld episode.
He’s not wrong.
Yet somehow I’ve managed to build a pretty good life. I’ve become a successful writer. I’ve led wildlife conservation organizations. I’ve become a popular public speaker on grizzlies, wolves, and other wildlife. I’ve met with senators and members of Congress. I’ve testified before the U.S. Senate about climate change and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
People know I’m a little crazy, and mostly they laugh with me.
Lately, though, something feels different.
Maybe the world has changed. Maybe people have become less patient. Less willing to see the human being standing in front of them. Maybe I’m becoming more crazy. I don’t know. But something feels different.
I also have PTSD.
With this introduction, Dave Stalling is setting up the reader to sympathize with his sad plight, when the reality is he expected to be treated like a special little toddler who should get the red carpet rollout by a grocery store manager who has to deal with dangerous insanity and real violence every day, since Yolks is in the homeless war-zone near the location where someone was literally stabbed to death in the early morning hours yesterday.
Despite this harsh cultural reality, here’s how Dave goes on to describe his sad plight of being a retarded gay Veteran with PTSD who ran out of gas and found himself on West Broadway with no wallet, shoes, or a functioning phone:
So there I was. No gas. No money. No phone. No shoes.
Just another day in the life of Dave.
I decided the first priority was getting my phone charged so I could call someone for help.
I walked across the street to the gas station connected to the nearby grocery store, Yolks (formally a Safeway). Before I even went inside, I stood in the doorway and called out,
“Sir, I know I’m not supposed to come in without shoes, but I’m in a real jam.”
The employee couldn’t have been kinder.
He listened. He understood. He had empathy. He wanted to help.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a phone charger. He suggested I try the grocery store.
Dave walks directly to the main store, burning his feet because he’s retarded, and almost gets compassion until the mean upholder of rules arrives to explain to Dave something the military should have drummed into his retarded head years ago: rules are rules, and you are NOT a special snowflake, Dave.
I guess he didn’t the memo.
Inside, another employee listened while I explained that I knew I shouldn’t be in the store barefoot but I was in a real bind and just needed to charge my phone long enough to call for help.
He was incredibly kind.
He found a charger and even let me sit near the entrance while my phone charged.
Then the manager walked over. His name is Rich Thornock. Before I could explain anything, he told me to leave.
I tried.
“Sir, I’m in a jam…”
“I don’t care. Rules are rules. Out!”
“I’m a Marine Corps veteran…”
“I don’t care. Rules are rules. Out!”
“One of your employees was kind enough to…”
“I don’t care. Rules are rules. Out!”
Over and over.
He wouldn’t let me finish a sentence. He wouldn’t let me say a word. Nothing mattered but the rules.
At one point I even joked, “I suppose that’s why they call them rules… because they’re rules?”
It must have been REALLY TOUGH for Dave Stalling to use the phrase “I’m a Marine Corps Veteran…” and STILL not get special treatment, but that’s what happened. Then, after his smart-ass joke routine also fell flat, Dave eventually resorted to a verbal assault like a toddler throwing a tantrum:
I was exhausted. My feet were burned. I had no gas. No money. No phone. I wasn’t asking for money. I wasn’t asking for special treatment. I was asking another human being for help. Instead, all I got was, “Rules are rules.”
Someone later told me the store is near the homeless shelter and store employees deal with people experiencing mental illness every day.
So what? If the manager thought I was homeless, so what? If he thought I had a mental illness, so what? Is that a reason not to listen? Is homelessness a crime? Is mental illness? Is desperation?
Because if that’s the standard we’ve adopted, we’re in deeper trouble than my dead phone, empty gas tank and shoeless feet.
Eventually Rich threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead.
Yes, I got angry. But my anger didn’t come first. It came after being given absolutely no opportunity to explain my situation.
I knew the rules. I even knew that the rules are rules. I wasn’t asking him to pretend the rules didn’t exist. I wasn’t asking him to let me shop barefoot. I wasn’t asking for special treatment.
I was asking him to listen. For thirty seconds. He wouldn’t.
Actually, Dave, you WERE asking for special treatment because apparently you think you ARE such a special guy that the rules SHOULD HAVE BEEN suspended for you, and, when that didn’t happen, you put a grocery store manager into the position of calling the police.
If you’re worried about how the cops treated Dave, don’t be, because we’re NOT talking about Brandon Bryant here and the violence visited upon HIM last August after he didn’t make those cowardly Missoula cops who beat him up on the sidewalk feel safe by putting his big stick down fast enough so they could assault him.
No, since Dave Stalling really does appear to be a special case, this is how our fine law enforcement officers put the kid gloves on and dealt with him after he lost his temper and started verbally assaulting the grocery store manager:
After a while it became obvious that he wasn’t responding to me as a person anymore. I had become a problem to remove instead of a human being standing in front of him.
That was frustrating. That was humiliating. And yes, it made me angry.
By then my Marine Corps vocabulary had returned in full force. I told him exactly what I thought of him. It included a lot of profanity.
I’m not proud of that. Losing my temper didn’t help anything. But pretending it came out of nowhere wouldn’t be honest either.
The police arrived cautiously. I don’t blame them. But here’s what happened next.
They listened. They asked questions. One officer smiled. “What rank were you In the Marine Corps?” “Sergeant.” “I can see that,” he said.
The police understood. The police had empathy. The police helped me. They asked me to leave the property, which was perfectly fair. Then they called the crisis response team.
Isn’t this nice? Instead of killing him, like the cops did to Ross Robertson, or beating him up, like they did to Brandon Bryant, they called some crisis ladies to pat Dave Stalling on his retarded little head.
Two wonderful women showed up. They listened. They understood. They had empathy. They helped me. They gave me a gas card. They got me back on the road. They wished me well.
Imagine that. Human beings helping another human being. That’s all I’d been looking for.
Dave finally got what he had been looking for in the paid response of crisis ladies arriving on-scene once the paid response of cops was no longer required, and once the crisis ladies were able to deal with this grown adult man incapable of putting some flip-flops on his fucking feet before leaving the house, Dave was able to calm down and start reflecting on the larger societal ramifications of his retarded plight:
This story isn’t really about one grocery store manager. It’s about a society that says it supports veterans, people with PTSD, people experiencing mental illness, and people in crisis—until those people actually show up.
We put “Support Our Veterans” magnets on our cars. We hold mental health awareness campaigns. We tell people to ask for help. Then, when someone actually needs help, we hide behind policies.
Rules matter. But compassion matters more. Rules exist to serve people. People were never meant to serve rules.
What Dave might not understand, since he appears to be quite retarded, is that rules derive from taboos, and taboos derive from observing and adjusting behavior based on seeing and understanding undesirable outcomes, like how fucking members of your own family makes retarded babies. That’s why, Dave, in order to AVOID producing retarded babies, we turned taboos into rules and laws, and we did this to improve society. Based on your story it’s obviously more needs to be done.
Is Dave done bemoaning his treatment and what this means for Missoula and for America? Nope. He’s got a few more rounds left in the chamber to fire off before hopefully packing a go-bag in preparation for his next excursion into the wilds of West Broadway:
No one was asking Rich to abandon the store’s policy. He could have asked me to step outside while my phone continued charging. He could have spent thirty seconds listening. He could have found any number of ways to enforce the rules while still treating another human being with dignity.
Instead, the rule became more important than the person.
Maybe I am a little crazy. Maybe I always will be. But I believe the measure of a community isn’t how it treats people who have everything together. It’s how it treats the people who show up with burned feet, a dead phone, no wallet, no gas, and nowhere else to turn.
Because someday that person might be you.
And when that day comes, I hope you meet someone who understands that sometimes the most important rule isn’t written in a policy manual. It’s simply this:
Listen first. Help if you can. Remember the person standing in front of you is a fellow human being.
Show some understanding. Show some empathy. Show some kindness.
Since Dave doesn’t get it, let me explain what he’s missing.
West Broadway is the ugly transportation corridor in Missoula that really showcases what TOXIC empathy has done, and it was done to this town by some very toxic people who have been exploiting Missoula’s kindness for many years.
To better help Dave have some understanding, this is the part of town where drug addicts burrowed beneath the literal road and cost the Department of Transportation $20,000 dollars to patch up the hole.
It’s also the part of town where a CITIZEN was arrested for picking up trash because picking up trash angered those hole-burrowing drug addicts in their natural, meth-fueled environment.
And, last but not least, it’s where I got down and dirty with a like-minded friend to do a homeless camp cleanup and found a fully functional and disgusting homeless sex swing, which I dismantled and eventually got arrested for myself during the state of the community event where I tried making this retarded community LESS retarded through education (but instead got schooled by the University of Lawfare).
One final note before I conclude this rhetorical dismantling of Dave. Since he likes Grizzly bears, and nature, and is pictured wearing a “Trout Unlimited” hat, I’ll offer Dave an opportunity: help me (a fellow retarded person) understand why the Buckhouse bridge landfill isn’t being fully cleaned up, because it’s really stumping me, and doing the research I need to do is a lot more difficult when you’re forbidden from going downtown without permission from your ankle-monitor professional.
Anyway, if you, dear reader, appreciate someone dumb enough to say what others just walk around thinking, please consider donating to my citizen journalist mental health fund. Any little bit helps as I try to mitigate the costs of taking classes at the University of Lawfare.
Krambu killer, Jennie Dixon, really wanted the process to play out. In fact, according to Dixon, she encouraged Krambu to stay the course because Missoula County could have been the first county in ALL OF AMERICA to show the country how to do this data center thing the RIGHT way.
“I was surprised they decided to withdraw their application,” said county planner Jennie Dixon. “I was encouraging them to stay the course because, wouldn’t it be fantastic if Missoula could be the poster child for how to do a data center the right way? That’s our goal with this interim pause, to figure out how to be the example for the country on how to do these the right way.”
The “interim pause” being proposed allows local officials to “study” this issue. Part of this process includes sending a lame-duck County Commissioner to the National Association of Counties to assess that the data centers of 2023 are NOT the data centers of 2026. Amazing insight, Josh!
Commissioner Josh Slotnick attended a meeting with the National Association of Counties earlier this year where data centers were a point of conversation, he said.
“This was the biggest topic,” Slotnick said. “The data centers of 2023 aren’t the data centers of 2026.”
Another person who should be celebrating this data center development is the guy who did a petition. YOU REALLY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE the NBC Montana headline shouted! All you need is a COMPUTER (the irony) and the gumption to say NOT IN MY BACKYARD!
NBC Montana caught up with Paul Barmore, who started the petition “Reject permits for the AI data center in Bonner, MT.” The petition has garnered over 48,000 signatures throughout the process.
When asked if he thought he’d be interviewed on Monday without the petition, Barmore said, “I don’t believe so, no.”
Change.org, the internet petition website that NBC Montana points out is the only reason they gave a shit about interviewing Paul Barmore, received financial backing from Reid Hoffman, according to Wikipedia:
Change.org makes revenue through a subscription membership model and people promoting petitions on the site. In 2013 the organization’s CEO stated its mission: “Our role is to empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see.”
Change.org is a for-profit, “venture-backed company that hosts activist petitions written by members of the public, gathers email addresses from signees, and encourages people to circulate the petitions heavily on social media. While for-profit, Change.org is a public benefit company with B Corp status.” It has raised US $72 million from backers, including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
And Reid Hoffman, for those who don’t know, is heavily connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Reid Hoffman has defended his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as limited to “fundraising,” via a handful of calls, emails and in-person meetings that ended in March 2018. But documents recently released by the US Justice Department suggest a longer and more personal relationship that’s drawing scrutiny to a major Democratic Party donor.
The LinkedIn Corp. co-founder and venture capitalist first met Epstein through fundraising work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, five years after Epstein pled guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution and served time in jail. Over the years they exchanged gifts — dumbbells for Hoffman, a metal surfer statue for Epstein — with Hoffman staying at both Epstein’s Caribbean island and his townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side.
And in May 2018, emails show Hoffman reaching out to Epstein about investing in a new fund being raised by entrepreneur Joi Ito, then the director of the MIT Media Lab. Billionaire Hoffman was putting his own money into the fund, which was unrelated to the university.
“Joi says that you’re on the fence around investing in the fund — worth scheduling a skype call for that? OK if no,” Hoffman wrote.
“Always can make time for a Reid skype :)” Epstein replied.
I hope these uncomfortable facts about Epstein and his investor pal sinking money into the same online protest infrastructure used by 48,000 idiots doesn’t dampen the celebratory mood because people really do need to feel like they have some control left in a world run by billionaire child-fuckers.
So HOORAY! You killed the data center, kids! Now go make an Instagram reel about it and maybe you’ll go viral.
If you appreciate my local reporting on this data center freak-out, like how I was the ONLY ONE to report that this former mill site no longer has a discharge permit, then consider donating to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps as I defend myself against the latest round of lawfare that no paid reporter in Missoula appears motivated to report on (yet).
