Zoom Chron Blog

Good people just don’t want evil data centers in their communities and Missoula is FULL of good people who have clearly internalized the DATA CENTER BAD messaging and will therefore be BIG MAD that a lawsuit dropped on Missoula for its zealous effort to craft zoning restrictions that allegedly violate the Right To Compute bill passed during the last legislative session.

For context, here’s Montana Free Press reporting on the lawsuit I knew would be coming:

Missoula company CubCloud AI has sued the city of Missoula over a recent zoning change that blocks data center development within the city limits, citing the state’s Right to Compute Act.

The company, represented by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute through the Big Sky Legal Project, argues in the lawsuit filed Nov. 4 that the city’s rules preventing it from expanding its business are not supported by a “compelling governmental interest,” nor are they narrowly tailored as required by the Right to Compute Act.

“The City’s new ordinance targets data centers because it considers them the wrong type of business,” said the Goldwater Institute’s Dave Roland in a press release. “The fact that the ordinance’s blanket restrictions sweep in CubCloud shows they are not narrowly tailored toward protecting the public from excessive noise, light, pollution, etc., as the Right to Compute Act requires.”

Before I get to the actual policy and the actual lawsuit, I want to address the “conditioned hatred” of data centers I continue to see, like in comments on the technology platform created by the guy who first tried rating hot college girls from his dorm room.

That’s right, I’m talking about Facebook, where the following comments were uploaded with the help of HOW MANY “data centers”?

The visceral emotions I saw being drummed up by this national “debate” last spring is one reason I remained skeptical of the data center opposition as I attended public meetings and actually SPOKE with the man who manages the Bonner Mill site where Krambu proposed building its dastardly node of evil.

This skepticism, combined with my hyper-local focus, allowed me to get a piece of information NO ONE ELSE COVERED in the local reporting, and that’s the fact Mike Heisey GAVE UP a discharge permit years ago that essentially protects the Blackfoot river from what the lumber mill had been doing LEGALLY to the river for years.

For more on my coverage of this controversial topic, you can read these posts:

“Putting The Proposed Krambu Data Center For Bonner Into Context” (March 23rd, 2026)

“Step 1 For Stopping Data Centers: Become Less Retarded” (April 14th, 2026)

“Step 2 For Stopping Data Centers: Identify Retarded Stakeholders” (April 15th, 2026)

“Do Data Center Drama Queens Understand What’s Actually Happening?” (May 20th, 2026)

“AMERICA UPSIDE DOWN, Part IV: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Data Center” (April 30th, 2026)

“Celebrating Saint Dixon, The Krambu Killer!” (July 7th, 2026)

“Who Will Meet The Spiritual Needs Of The Youth?” (September 8th, 2026)

“Silicon Satan, Jeffrey Epstein, And The Surprise Of Black October” (October 25th, 2026)

While the last two posts on this list expand the issue of “data centers” to the cultural role of Artificial Intelligence for college students and the “fictional” ethos of Silicon Valley, it’s important to emphasize my skepticism of data center opposition is rooted in local hypocrisy, like how ONLINE comments referencing NATURAL resources, like water, are coming from the same types of people who IGNORE (or don’t know about) what “urban campers” are doing to trash Montana’s most-prized natural resource, its rivers.

While I can’t be too overt with what I’m about to say next, since that well-known RIGHT to free speech doesn’t exist for me, there IS a connection between failed policies on homelessness, Montana Democrats, and the fight shaping up next year in Helena over homes for data.

Instead of being overt, I’ll just offer the following screenshot from this source and hope the NEW prosecutor on my criminal case, Matt Jennings, doesn’t interpret this as a felonious screenshot:

Similar to the FIRST Amendment, the Right to Compute bill compels local jurisdictions to NARROWLY craft restrictions, which is exactly what the city of Missoula is being accused of violating.

To better understand this provision of STATE law, here’s how the Montana Free Press reported on local implications a few months ago, before this local lawsuit dropped:

The law links the development of computational resources, like data centers, to constitutional rights like property and freedom of expression. As with other constitutional rights, government infringement on the right to compute is limited except in cases where the limitation is driven by a compelling governmental interest, like the preservation of public health and safety.

“Government actions that restrict the ability to privately own or make use of computational resources for lawful purposes, which infringes on citizens’ fundamental rights to property and free expression, must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest,” according to the law.

Morse said that language is vague enough to leave it unclear what actions he and other county commissioners across the state can take to regulate data center development without prompting a lawsuit and risking a court’s unfavorable interpretation.

I guess Jennie Dixon didn’t get this memo as she gleefully destroyed the chances of Krambu doing business in Bonner.

While Jennie Dixon works for the COUNTY and will, I’m sure, get her day in court, this particular lawsuit is against the CITY, meaning the Ryan Sudbury head of the two-headed City Attorney’s Office will be the one making legal noises costing THOUSANDS of dollars, covered, of course, by the Missoula taxpayers.

Go get ’em, Ryan!

Missoula City Attorney Ryan Sudbury told Montana Free Press that, as of Monday morning, the city had not been served with the lawsuit but that he was aware of the case. Sudbury said city officials had internal discussions about the Right to Compute Act while crafting the zoning amendment and that the city plans to defend the change.

“Nobody knows what the law is intended to do or what it means,” Sudbury said. “It has not been tested in court. … If we get served, we will defend the city’s action.”

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, I am in FULL support of the data center haters. Wouldn’t I want my elected local policy makers to be more cognizant of the unintended consequences of NOT doing what state law specifically required? Because now, as the easily discernible consequence of legal action materializes (I told you so), Missoula could set a very PRO data center precedent when they get their asses handed to them in court.

You know, those “NON-PARTISAN” courts.

By placing a TEN YEAR restraining order on me, which includes FOUR restrictions zones–including the Capitol building in Helena and most of UM’s Missoula campus–Judge Vannatta has successfully insulated the leading Democrat voice on future data center development in Montana from any real, independent scrutiny, which I can make a good case I’m in a unique position to deliver on if First Amendment protections actually applied to my work.

Montana Democrats need scrutiny NOW more than ever, and the people in the know doing damage control, like Jesse Mullen, might want to pay attention to what I’ve had to endure in my failed effort to be a content creator with MONETARY value instead of what I chose to value more than money, which is the TRUTH of what’s REALLY happening, who is doing it, and why.

For a more specific example, if the other head of the City Attorney’s Office, Keithi Worthington, does NOT bring criminal charges in the theft case of my personal property (a piece of priceless Lego art), Jesse Mullen might be surprised at the kind of context I could provide about local power dynamics as he finds Jon Tester’s evolution to be “strange”.

It’s the kind of context that would be best delivered in person, preferably outside my TEZs (Travis Exclusion Zones).

While people across the country use up the cognitive RAM space that Sam Altman has a hardon for, and hopelessly accept the pendulum of the electorate as the only expression of national angst worth investing energy in, I’m going to keep telling LOCAL stories like I’ve been doing at this digital address for over a decade.

Drop some digital dollars here if you want to help a human out before the third-party ai agents in your personal bank account takes it, and stay tuned, I’m hopeful there’s more fruitful things to come.

Thanks for reading!

Since June of 2015 I have published 3,018 posts here at “Zoom Chron” (formerly “Reptile Dysfunction”). If I were to apply the value of $50 dollars per article, which is what I was paid when I did some freelance work, then I could place a $150,900 dollar valuation on what I’ve spent that last 10 years developing.

While this number is a good place to start, it doesn’t capture what I think is the true value of what I’m trying to quantify here, which is a slice of local history, created and compiled by a local writer, that could GO AWAY just like that.

If you don’t believe me just try searching for the blog “Left in the West” online and what you’ll find is a news article behind a paywall describing how this local political blog went away when the writers were done writing about Montana.

Since I, as a local writer who has NOT stopped doing local work, make the extra effort to get AROUND those pesky paywalls, part of MY value is documenting the history of blogging by pointing out what we’ve already lost:

Two days after Election Day, writers for one of the state’s longest-running and most popular liberal political blogs announced that they’re logging off for good.

Left in the West contributors Jay Stevens, a Missoula writer who moved to Pennsylvania about a year ago, and Matt Singer, former executive director of Forward Montana, wrote farewell posts to readers on Wednesday, both, for the most part, citing a need to focus their attention elsewhere both personally and professionally.

“Blogging has been a thrill, and it’s been a grind,” Stevens wrote.

For Singer, however, it’s more than a farewell to blogging. The 27-year-old political activist is also saying farewell to Montana. Singer, the creator of Left in the West eight years ago, co-founded Forward Montana with a dozen friends from Missoula and served as the nonprofit’s first executive director. That grassroots effort has grown, linking up with similar political nonpartisan groups in other Northwestern states to form a national organization dedicated to helping outfits like Forward Montana flourish.

The Bus Federation is a coalition of four nonprofits – Forward Montana, the Oregon Bus Project, the Washington Bus and New Era Colorado – all of which share the same mission: trying to encourage greater involvement in the political process, mainly through volunteerism, and electing a new generation of leaders. In August, Singer became the federation’s executive director.

Arguably the three most veteran and well-read political blogs in the state are Left in the West, which focused largely on state politics; 4&20 Blackbirds, which emphasizes Missoula news; and Electric City Weblog, a conservative blog that touches on state, national and local issues, said Steve Dogiakos, a multimedia-savvy young local Republican. So the loss of Left in the West, at least to the blogging community, is significant.

Left in the West reached its readership height several days prior to the 2006 general election when the site received between 3,000 and 4,000 page views, Singer said.

This article came out in 2010, the year I began contributing content to 4&20 Blackbirds, which you can STILL read here.

How about Left in the West? Nope, all that content is gone, as is the content of other blogs, like Don Pogreba’s “Intelligent Discontent”. That’s because the reality is, if no one is willing to continue pay the hosting fees, or do other basic maintenance, then entire bodies of writing can just disappear in the blink of the eye.

For an idea of the numbers I’ve generated over the years, here are two screenshots from my stats page, starting with the statistical breakdown of the entire life of the blog, then a break down of the just the last few months:

In both screenshots you can see the impacts of lawfare on my numbers, with the year 2025 being particularly difficult, yet the October comparison in the second screenshot shows how strongly I’ve bounced back this year, which is both GOOD, if this metric can be monetized, but also BAD, since the people and institutions I’ve been exposing clearly don’t like my style of scrutiny.

For an idea on the two stories that have gotten the most attention over the years, the next screenshot shows which posts have been the most popular. Long time readers of the blog probably won’t be surprised which names appear in this short list:

While there’s more I could say about value, like listing the stories I broke before other PAID members of media did, or highlight other appearances I’ve made, I’m finishing up today’s post from Justice Court, where I have a jury conference hearing, so it’s not that easy to focus on what MY value might be when I’m still very broke and very targeted by very real lawfare.

Before I wrap up today’s post (number 3,019) I will provide a link to my GoFundMe page, since donations might help chip away at the minimum credit card payments I can’t afford, but don’t worry if your support can’t be monetary. I’ve benefited from LOTS of non-monetary support over the years, and, at the end of the day, there’s more to life than money.

Like freedom.

Thanks for reading.

A man accused of a double-homicide died in custody after experiencing a “medical emergency” at the Missoula County Detention facility last Wednesday and audio of the 911 call from this alleged medical emergency was captured and released to the public.

For more context on how local media reported this death, here’s an article from KPAX:

The suspect arrested after the deadly shooting of a Lincoln Co. deputy and a woman died after experiencing a medical emergency in the Missoula County Detention Facility on Wednesday, according to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

50-year-old Kalispell resident Matthew Dye was charged with two counts of deliberate homicide in connection with the deaths of Lincoln County Deputy Ryan Terpsma and Merissa Walker, along with one count of attempted deliberate homicide.

Wednesday evening, officers responded to Dye’s cell after he appeared to have a medical emergency. The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office says Dye was transported to the hospital after detention medical staff assessed him.

Dye became unresponsive during transport, and life-saving measures were initiated. He was pronounced dead at St. Patrick’s Hospital, according to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Jeremiah Peterson requested that the Missoula Police Department investigate the death. Video and documentation have been given to the police department while Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputy coroners conduct coroner duties.

The 24 second audio clip was NOT officially released by authorities, like I originally thought. Instead, according to this article, the audio clip was captured by an app that monitors first-responder audio channels. Here’s the audio clip:

After listening to this clip several times and reading the account of what the media has been told, something is off. To explain what I mean, let’s start with the sequence of events that led to Matthew Dye being placed in a “wrap” restraint. Did this happen BEFORE the thrashing or AFTER? Because the only scenario that makes sense is that the wrap was used BECAUSE of Dye’s conduct.

To explain what I’m talking about, here’s the excerpt from the link that includes the language of the 911 call:

“On the evening of November 4, officers at the Missoula County Detention Facility responded to Matthew D. Dye’s cell, after observing he appeared to be experiencing a medical emergency,” the press release stated. “Detention medical staff responded, assessed Mr. Dye and requested he be transported to the hospital via ambulance. During transport by EMS, Mr. Dye became unresponsive and life-saving measures were initiated. Mr. Dye was pronounced deceased at St. Patrick’s Hospital.”

The audio of the emergency dispatch call was captured from an app that records publicly available emergency broadcast signals. That app listed the call as being made at 5:28 p.m.

The audio reveals that the 50-year-old inmate was conscious when he was found.

A dispatcher can be heard saying that an emergency response, including medical, was needed at the Missoula County Detention Center.

“This is for a gentleman, a 50-year-old male, who’s conscious and breathing, has a traumatic injury, bleeding,” the dispatcher says. “He is being put in a wrap and violently throwing himself around.”

Some obvious questions come to mind, like whether or not Matthew Dye was alone in his cell, but those questions won’t be answered any time soon. That said, at least someone at the Missoulian did ask them:

The Missoulian asked Smith if Dye had a cellmate, if there were cameras in his cell and if a wrap is a typical restraint used by officers.

Smith said she was unable to answer those questions but that more information will be released in coordination with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the City of Missoula Police Department as it becomes available.

Smith said Dye was being held at the Missoula County Detention Facility at the request of Flathead County.

I don’t have to speculate that plenty of people are VERY HAPPY that Matthew Dye died in the manner that he did because all anyone has to do is read the Facebook comment section of any of the articles about this death and you’ll see that sentiment expressed.

While I don’t consider every armchair commentator on Facebook to be relevant for their expressions of joy over Dye’s death, one person’s commentary DID get my attention, since retired Detective, Guy Baker, is no mere armchair commentator. That’s why I think it’s pretty interesting Baker had this to say:

Another place I saw this sentiment pop up is from an X account handled by multiple people who are trying to be Montana media influencers.

Who is “we” I asked these anonymous wannabes?

While I didn’t get a direct response, this account’s opinion is interesting to me because the people who operate it are trying to be an official news publication, according to their pinned tweet:

Who are these social media influencers in Montana pitching paid work to write for them while celebrating the death of a homicide suspect?

Since “theSOURCE406” hides behind anonymity, I don’t know who they are, but they’re definitely on my radar after I saw their business pitch to pay writers while also claiming how politically diverse “they” are in a curious post defending Governor Gianforte as a self-made example of successful business acumen.

Going back to the dead people law enforcement are responsible for either killing or allowing to die, like Dye, south of Missoula, in Ravalli County, an old man pressed a medical alert device and the response he got from the FEMALE Sheriff Deputy was a bullet, killing him in the doorway of his own home.

While this happened in 2024, the Coroner’s Inquest a year later gave Deputy Cassi Kopsa the ALL CLEAR for killing an old man in medical distress, so now the family is suing:

In the early hours of Nov. 20, 2024, Laurence “Larry” Conklin Sr. pressed his medical alert device. The device was designed to protect his health, but court filings indicate it played a key role in Conklin’s death.

Soon after the medical alert was sent to local first responders, a Ravalli County sheriff’s deputy arrived at Conklin’s home outside of Stevensville.

Less than five minutes later, that officer fired a single, fatal shot through Conklin’s screen door, killing the 85-year-old who suffered from severe hearing loss, according to documents and video obtained by Lee Montana.

…

“Without any cause or justification,” Conklin’s family alleged in their lawsuit, the deputy “shot and killed Conklin through his glass storm door as he stood in the entry of his own house.”

When asked for comment on the incident, the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office referred Lee Montana to the Montana Association of Counties, which is representing the office in court. Attorneys for the MAC did not respond to a request for comment from Lee Montana.

Efforts to reach a lawyer representing Deputy Cassi Kopsa, the officer who fired the fatal shot, were also unsuccessful.

Further down in this article, which is behind a paywall and therefore NOT being widely read, the reporter admits how a dead white man killed by a Sheriff Deputy barely got any attention, despite Conklin being one of four men shot and killed over the years in Ravalli County by law enforcement.

Conklin is one of four people who have died in law enforcement encounters in Ravalli County since 2016, according to data provided by the sheriff’s office to Lee Montana.

Conklin and one other man, Zachary Athearn, were shot by law enforcement officers.

Besides an initial story announcing the officer-involved shooting, Conklin’s case has received scant coverage since it occurred.

It’s no mystery to me why “scant coverage” occurs when law enforcement kills people. These types of deaths can become very explosive, as we’ve seen in the highly publicized deaths of black men, like George Floyd, so of course this is where narrative control flexes its toughest muscles.

One of those muscles is the Montana Association of Counties, the entity named in the article above as doing the PAID work (I’m assuming) to defend the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office in court from this wrongful death lawsuit. For those who don’t know, Missoula’s own County Commissioner, Juanita Vero, is leading this organization after Mineral County’s Commissioner, Roman Zylawy, led it a few years ago.

Hmmm.

Juanita Vero ran unopposed this election cycle, just like Missoula’s Sheriff AND County Attorney. Add Sheriff Petersen’s wife to the mix–who can help with narrative control from her position at Saint Patrick’s hospital, where Matthew Dye officially died–and you’ve got an impressive amount of concentrated power to control how narratives emerge for public consumption.

Is that why Lake County wanted Missoula to take Matthew Dye?

If Sheriffs in Montana think they’re untouchable, well, they pretty much are, as evidenced by the writ of Mandamus/Brady cop/nothingburger fiascos overseen by the judge that just awarded Sheriff Funke’s lawyers $25,000 grand.

At least Mineral County citizens had a choice this election cycle!

If you want to know more about where my extreme cynicism comes from, here are some of the posts I’ve paid a heavy price for writing over the last few years:

“The Extensive, Yet Incomplete, Collection Of Articles On Sean Stevenson And The Magic Chokehold + Sheriff’s Office Act That Killed Him” (October 26th, 2023)

“Pulp Dictation? MIA Sheriff? Dead Grandma?” (January 31st, 2024)

“Mineral County: The Fucked Up Western Gateway To The Failed State Of Montana” (April 10th, 2024)

“The Curious Text Exchange Between A Detective Guy And A Journalist Guy” (May 31st, 2024)

“Reddit Does Better Investigations Than The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office” (July 23rd, 2024)

“What The Funke Is Wrong With Mineral County, And Is It Spreading?” (January 16th, 2025)

“Scoop Confirmed: Detective Guy Baker “On His Way” To Retiring” (July 24th, 2025)

“AMERICA UPSIDE DOWN, Part II: The High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area And Law Enforcement Inversion” (April 28th, 2026)

“Enjoy Nibbling Sheriff Funke’s Nothingburger, Judge Mandamus” (May 15th, 2026)

“Mineral County Elects New Sheriff To Fight The Demons!” (June 4th, 2026)

“How Is Lance Jasper Going To Run His New Law Firm?” (September 10th, 2026)

“What Does Missoula’s Police Chief, Mike Colyer, Know About The Death Of Sean Stevenson?” (September 21st, 2026)

“Looking At Jack Maxvill’s Role In The Setup To Kill Johnny Lee Perry With New Eyes” (October 1st, 2026)

“If Cameras Inside The Mineral County Courthouse Have Ears, Who, Besides Sheriff Funke, Could Be Listening?” (October 27th, 2026)

“Montana Democrats, Political Bribery, And The Problem Of The Political Sheriff” (October 29th, 2026)

With all this close watching of local power’s total lack of accountability over the years, do I think Matthew Dye was set up to die?

Yeah, I sure do, and I think Guy Baker’s commentary is representative of how brazenly the people with qualified immunity think they can kill people, whether it’s in a private hospital room, a “secured” jail cell, or out in the woods where the guns out numbered the machete many to one.

Tomorrow, before my “jury conference” hearing in Justice Court, I’m going to put up a post about what I think the value of this blog is, in terms of hard numbers, then I may go dark for a week while I work to make some changes behind the scenes before the WordPress business account that I can’t afford fails to renew and freezes me out from an asset I’ve spent 10 years developing, with over 3,000 posts and well over a half million views.

So stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

When the 2013 film White House Down came out, the Secret Service took notice that one of their own was making the media rounds. Thanks to the Decoding Culture Foundation and PsyOp Cinema, a simple email from the archives confirms this awareness:

The movie plot features Jamie Foxx as the black president who makes an unpopular move in the Middle East and then, in his own “white” house, he gets targeted for assassination by a disgruntled “white nationalist” group.

Of course.

U.S. president James Sawyer makes a controversial proposal to sign a peace agreement with other nations to remove military forces from the Middle East. Divorced veteran John Cale works as a Capitol Police officer assigned to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson, whose nephew he saved while serving in Afghanistan. Cale hopes to impress his 11-year-old daughter, Emily, by interviewing for the Secret Service and getting tickets for them to tour the White House. His interviewer, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Carol Finnerty, a college acquaintance, deems him unqualified for the job.

A bomb is detonated in the United States Capitol, sending Washington, D.C. into lockdown. Finnerty escorts Raphelson to an underground command center in the Pentagon, while Vice President Alvin Hammond is taken aboard Air Force One. A paramilitary team led by corrupt former Delta Force operator Emil Stenz infiltrates the White House, after killing various Secret Service agents, seizes the first family’s home. The tour group is taken hostage in the Blue Room by white nationalist Carl Killick, but Cale escapes to search for Emily, who was separated from the rest of the tour group. Retiring Head of Presidential Detail Martin Walker brings Sawyer to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), beneath the White House Library. Inside, Walker kills Sawyer’s task forces and reveals himself as the commander of the White House attack; he is evidently seeking vengeance against Sawyer for a botched mission in Iran that killed his Marine son Kevin a year earlier.

Unsurprisingly, this movie echoed real-life tensions simmering at the time between the Secret Service and the Obama Administration, though the “morale” problem was attributed to shifting administrative oversight of this agency from the Treasury Department to the relatively new Department of Homeland Security.

Here’s an NPR article describing these tensions, with Mickey Nelson making an appearance to help publicize these Secret Service problems.

Low morale could be partly to blame for the recent spate of security lapses at the Secret Service.

The agency with the responsibility for protecting the president, vice president and their families rates in the bottom third in job satisfaction rankings within the federal government.

The root of that discontent could be bureaucratic. The Secret Service, which was created in 1865 to fight counterfeiters, traces its heritage back to the U.S. Treasury Department. It didn’t get into the business of protecting presidents until 1901 after the assassination of President McKinley.

After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the service was transferred from Treasury to the newly created Department of Homeland Security. It became one of 22 agencies thrown together in response to the terrorist attack.

…

Like other federal agencies, the Secret Service lost part of its funding due to the sequester of the operating budget last year.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary at the time, vowed that those cuts would not be taken from the protective side of the service’s budget. In fact, Congress gave the service more money than it asked for last year because lawmakers felt the Obama administration had underfunded the agency.

But Mickey Nelson, former assistant Secret Service director, says he agrees there has been much more scrambling for resources since the service became part of Homeland Security.

“The Secret Service mission pretty much stayed the same, unlike some of the other agencies that were brought over,” Nelson says. “Now, what has happened over a period of time, of course, you’ve got quite a few components within DHS fighting for what seems to be an increasingly smaller budget.”

What kind of security lapses had the Secret Service already experienced by 2014? According to this NBC article, several. Here they are in sequential order:

November 2009: A Washington couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, crash Obama’s first state dinner. The Secret Service later acknowledges that officers never checked whether they were on the guest list. A photo emerges showing that they shook hands with the president. Sullivan, the director, says that he is “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the breach. The Salahis parlay their fame into an undistinguished career in reality TV.

November 2011: A man with a semiautomatic rifle parks in front of the White House and fires at the building, with Sasha Obama inside and Malia Obama on her way home. A Secret Service supervisor, mistaking the shots for car backfire, orders officers to stand down. The service does not figure out that shots hit the building for four days, and only then because a housekeeper noticed broken glass. The president and first lady are infuriated, The Post reports years later.

April 2012: Eight Secret Service agents doing advance work for a presidential trip to a summit in Colombia lose their jobs after allegations that some took prostitutes from a strip club back to their hotel rooms. A Justice Department investigation finds that two Drug Enforcement Administration agents arranged one encounter between a prostitute and a Secret Service officer. Obama later says: “When we travel, we have to observe the highest standards.”

May 2013: A Secret Service supervisor leaves a bullet in a woman’s room at the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House, and allegedly tries to force his way into the room to retrieve it. An investigation finds that the supervisor and a colleague sent sexually suggestive emails to a woman subordinate. The supervisor loses his job, and the colleague is reassigned. A Secret Service spokesman says: “Periodically we have isolated incidents of misconduct, just like every organization does.”

March 2014: Three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting Obama in Amsterdam are placed on leave after a night of drinking, in violation of Secret Service rules. One of the agents is passed out drunk in a hallway, The Post reports. The newspaper reports that the three are part of what is known as the counter assault team, a last line of defense responsible for fighting off assailants if the president or his motorcade comes under attack.

Sept. 16, 2014: In perhaps the most chilling of the Secret Service lapses, a security contractor with a gun and an assault record gets on an elevator with the president during a trip to Atlanta. The Post, citing people familiar with the incident, reports that the contractor used his cellphone to take video of Obama and did not stop when Secret Service agents told him to. The Secret Service only learns that the man has a gun when he is fired on the spot and turns it over. Obama was not told, The Post reports.

Sept. 19, 2014: An Iraq war veteran with a knife jumps the White House fence, dashes through the North Portico doors and makes it deep inside the building, into the East Room, before he is tackled, and only then by an off-duty Secret Service agent. The Secret Service first says only that the man was apprehended after getting in the door. A congressman tells The Post that a security alarm was disabled because staff nearby found it too noisy.

By the time Trump’s team took over, the Secret Service moved from having sex with hookers to having sex with actual members of the Trump family.

Wow.

With Philip Rucker, Leonnig also co-authored A Very Stable Genius: Donald J Trump’s Testing of America, a well-received 2020 White House exposé.

In her new book, she writes that Secret Service agents reported that Vanessa Trump, the wife of the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr, “started dating one of the agents who had been assigned to her family”.

Vanessa Trump filed for an uncontested divorce in March 2018. Leonnig reports that the agent concerned did not face disciplinary action as neither he nor the agency were official guardians of Vanessa Trump at that point.

Leonnig also writes that Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, broke up with a boyfriend and “began spending an unusual amount of time alone with a Secret Service agent on her detail”.

Secret Service leaders, the book says, “became concerned at how close Tiffany appeared to be getting to the tall, dark and handsome agent”.

Agents are prohibited from forming personal relationships with those they protect, out of concern that such feelings could cloud their judgment.

The clouded judgement of the people tasked with keeping the President and his family safe is still a concern, of course, but it’s a concern that has to compete with more pressing issues, like a Holy War going nuclear.

In the fantasy world of Hollywood movie-making, the Sawyer/Obama figure thwarts the white nationalists, names “Cale” to his security detail, and ends all wars.

Sawyer names Cale his new special agent and takes him and Emily on an aerial tour of D.C. on Marine One. During the tour, Sawyer receives word that other nations have agreed to his peace deal after learning of the events at the White House, calling for an end to all wars.

And in the real world, in 2026, even shit heels like Jack Posobiec know who they have to thank for the 11-3 bloodbath.

And what do the American people deserve, Jack? Maybe we’ll address that question in a future post.

Until then, thanks for reading.

If you don’t have money to hire a lawyer you don’t have rights in America, it’s that simple.

Sure, poor people get “public defenders” when they’re accused of crimes, but for other legal actions, like defending yourself from criminal defamation, or suing a media outlet, like Jake Eaton tried doing, you either need money, or you need to be a lawyer yourself (or married to one, like Eaton).

For a quick look at Jake Eaton’s case, here’s some context on the dismissal and subsequent awarding of lawyers fees by the judge to Eaton’s media adversary:

A state court has dismissed a lawsuit filed in May against a Montana news outlet over its reporting on a complaint about a political consultant, citing a new Montana law designed to protect press freedoms. The judge also awarded attorneys’ fees to the defendants.

The 13th Judicial District Court dismissed the lawsuit from Republican political consultant Jake Eaton in an order dated Oct. 6. The order was distributed to defendants on Friday, Oct. 30. Attorneys’ fees haven’t yet been calculated.

The state law at the root of the decision is the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, passed by the Montana Legislature in 2025 as the state’s first anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”

What are anti-SLAPP laws? Great question. To better understand this acronym, here’s a description I found useful:

If you’ve ever hesitated before posting a review, signing a petition, speaking at a school board meeting, or calling out a powerful person online, you already understand the basic goal behind a SLAPP lawsuit.

SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. These lawsuits weaponize the legal system against free speech. People file these cases to punish and intimidate critics, not to win on the merits. The point often sounds simple: Make speaking up feel too expensive, too stressful, and too risky.

Journalists, activists, neighborhood leaders, researchers, whistleblowers, and everyday residents can all end up in the crosshairs of a SLAPP lawsuit. Even if the defendant ultimately wins, a SLAPP can still drain time, money, and energy along the way.

Have I been drained of time, money, and energy? Yes, and worse, but so far I haven’t inspired people to donate large sums of money to my cause, unlike the young man facing felony charges for shoving some Indians and telling them to go back to their country.

How much has THIS dude raised so far? About twenty grand in the first 24 hours.

Impressive.

A fundraiser for a Helena man accused of shoving a man of Indian descent and telling him to “go back to your country” raised more than $20,000 in its first 24 hours, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement supporting the charges.

Jaxton Tayte Collins, 21, was arraigned Oct. 27 on one felony count of malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights and one misdemeanor count of assault.

An account on X, formerly known as Twitter, started the fundraiser last Wednesday on the platform GiveSendGo, a Christian-focused online crowdfunding website. The account, using the name Tom Hennessey, describes its owner as a “demonetized white independent journalist.”

What’s the secret sauce for inspiring people like this? Is hating foreigners more profitable than exposing local corruption? I guess it is, though I’m not doing what I’m doing to get money.

Speaking of hating foreigners, I wouldn’t say John Velk hates foreigners, because he’s a lawyer who could sue me, but what I will say is there does seem to be a political theme to his Facebook postings recently, like these two posts he made between “suing” and “grooving”:

One critical skillset lawyers must possess is the ability to communicate effectively, since their whole job is making legal arguments with words, but when I shared John Velk’s post about a Municipal Court judge’s controversial decision regarding a Congolese “woman beater”, the words I got from former Oregon lawyer, Kevin Hunt, were immediately condescending and dismissive.

I guess pointing out how John Velk was one of the many lawyers in Missoula who I tried reaching out to was somehow triggering to this member of the gatekeeping legal community, since Mr. Hunt immediately (and grotesquely) misrepresented what I consider to be “problems” in Missoula with this comment:

Am I upset that I can’t find a lawyer who will take my case “for free”? Of course I’m frustrated, but taking a case pro bono, or on contingency, isn’t simply doing legal work with no chance of financial compensation, it’s just more of a risk because the potential for compensation is deferred to either a settlement determined by a jury, or a judgement determined by a judge.

There’s also the risk of doing pro bono work if your client is a woman who turns around and files a complaint against you for not keeping her informed about her case.

Right, Kevin?

After looking at this reprimand, it appears that Mr. Hunt was so busy working the system that he forgot about the human he was ostensibly “helping” through the process, which is its own form of punishment when you’re dealing with lawfare.

Which brings me to the gatekeeping of the entire legal profession, a function I hope AI will destroy.

Are lawyers worried that their entire business model could be wiped out? You bet they are, so let’s look at how this problem is being framed, since the idea of freeing up MORE time (which you can bill for) should be seen as a mostly POSITIVE impact derived from AI-driven efficiencies. From the link:

Lawyers are expected to gain five hours per week from AI-driven efficiency, according to recent Thomson Reuters research; however, nearly two-thirds of them now view AI as a threat to their jobs or livelihoods.

This paradox exists because AI does not just make legal work faster, it also changes which work exists, who gets to do it, and most consequentially, how the next generation of lawyers develops the capacity to do it well.

Over the past year, a convergence has emerged among interdisciplinary experts within the legal profession. Technologists, legal executives, law firm leaders, academic researchers, and legal reformers — individuals who rarely share a stage — have independently arrived at the same diagnosis, which is that AI is hollowing out the developmental pipeline through which capable lawyers have been built for generations. What is alarming is that the profession is making this worse by treating this as a technological problem, when it is, at its core, a human and lawyer formation problem.

The question facing law schools, law firms, and the broader legal ecosystem is whether they can protect and deliberately cultivate the distinctly human capacities — which include judgment, fiduciary care, business acumen, and client trust — that AI cannot replicate. The five hours gained each week represent a choice, and what the profession does with them will determine whether lawyers remain essential or start to become, gradually and by their own hand, redundant.

Before I get to the legal case John Velk brought to my attention with his Facebook posting–the case I agree sets an insanely bad precedent by Municipal Court judge, Jake Coolidge–I want to highlight some of the posts I have written about lawfare and our totally fucked criminal justice system.

“My Marsupial Court Marijuana DUI Final Report” (January 27th, 2025)

“Will I Abide By A Plea Deal That Torches My First Amendment?” (March 12th, 2025)

“The Relationship That Nearly Ended My Life” (April 16th, 2026)

“Lawsuit Gatekeepers, _______, And The Bias Of Selection” (April 24th, 2026)

“Lessons In Lawfare” (May 22nd, 2026)

“University Of Lawfare” (June 22nd, 2026)

“Friendly Reminder To Local Officials That Open Meeting Laws Are Actual Laws” (August 23rd, 2026)

““Family Justice Center” Or Lawfare Central?” (September 25th, 2026)

“More Lessons From The University Of Lawfare” (October 13th, 2026)

“Does Montana Have A Structurally Misandrist Future Forming For The Victim Industry?” (October 22nd, 2026)

“When Does The System Become The Abuser and The Process Become The Punishment?” (October 28th, 2026)

“Let It Burn!” (October 31st, 2026)

Another impact of lawfare I’m going to highlight before highlighting the case of the Congolese woman beater is the social isolation that results, which is aided and abetted by poverty if you’re not wealthy enough to have private lawyers on retainer.

Those going through similar targeting, like Brandon Bryant, have confirmed how lonely it can be when you do what you think is the right thing, then get punished for it. When I saw someone online post something about loneliness, knowing a small bit of what he’s going through, I took a screenshot.

While divorcing someone I spent 25 years with (we were both 19 at the time) has been bad enough in terms of radically altering my housing, quality of social interactions, and financial resources, the last year has been fucking brutal, and there’s no end in sight.

One of the major differences between my situation and the Congolese woman beater is that legal action against me started as CIVIL actions, which lowers the standards of proof and removes my ability to get a court-appointed lawyer, since civil actions don’t risk jail time, therefore don’t warrant Public Defenders.

The man accused of physically hitting his partner DID face a criminal charge, but a criminal charge posed the additional risk of deportation, which apparently was too much consequence for Judge Jake Coolidge, who dismissed the case. This decision seems VERY wrong and will do SERIOUS damage to the court’s credibility in the larger fight playing out between Justice Court and City/County prosecutors, especially if local media amplifies this story.

Here’s some of the language of the appeal (I’m assuming) explaining the back and forth of this case between the courts:

There is much more at Velk’s original post, so give him a follow if you want the kind of insights we’re not supposed to be making in Missoula, like noticing when you see another act of alleged violence attributed to the same surname, or you find a woman who doesn’t understand that she shouldn’t be outing her clients on social media:

An incident around bar closing time in Missoula Sunday morning ended with gunfire. Now, two men are in custody.

One faces a charge of attempted deliberate homicide.

The other made his initial court appearance today on charges of criminal endangerment and a third DUI.

Court documents state on April 5 around 2:19 a.m., 33 year old Anthony Brodie was standing on the sidewalk of Ryman Street when he was struck by a vehicle.

Police say the vehicle was driven by defendant 36 year old Laurent Mugondozi.

For those keeping score, we’ve got a sexually confused stabber of math teachers getting no charges, a woman-beating Congolese refugee getting seeming special treatment for his criminal act, then felony charges for a shove and some mean words from a drunk kid, and criminal charges against me for the technical violation of a protection order that took civil claims like this:

…and turned them into one of four Travis Exclusion Zones, with my downtown TEZ banning me from this geographic area:

I’m not proud of the time I spent homeless, living in my box truck, but I did lean into it, and much of that conduct has now been cited and referenced in multiple cases against me, but it’s precisely because of my homelessness that a coffee shop like Break Espresso–which opens EARLY and closes LATE–was important to me and other “marginalized” people, like Steven Dailey, who I saw there regularly before he moved to Bozeman, murdered a woman, and then shot himself, allegedly.

In summary, it’s not just the lawfare that can destroy a person, it’s also the psychological wounds that one receives from larger cultural trends that literally allows victim cards to be played for some of the most horrendous crimes, like killing babies, trying to kill someone with a knife, and showing your host nation your appreciation by slapping a woman and clogging up an already fucked criminal justice system.

To counter the threat of total demoralization I have some acronyms I’ve developed, but the time isn’t right yet to share the #HeToo related one I’m still field-testing, so stay tuned.

And, as always, thanks for reading.