Zoom Chron Blog

It took a few days for the immensity of the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal to sink in. They were doing WHAT? They were PAYING and literally CREATING the white supremacist threat they claimed to be fighting?!? When the shock wore off my mind started taking in pieces from the last six years of my life and what I saw, reassembled in my mind’s eye, was the clearest picture yet to try and “solve” the case of Sean Stevenson and Johnny Lee Perry, both dead via actions taken by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

On the surface there’s nothing to solve. Sean Stevenson met a woman and left his subsidized housing in Denver to come to Montana for a fresh start. In Missoula, while getting services from the homeless shelter I once worked at, he met an Oakland kid with an attitude problem called “meth” and what I’ll call “nigger Tourette’s”, meaning he said the word “nigger” a lot. I even had this independently confirmed by a downtown business owner who once saw a tirade of explicit “N-bombs” dropped by Johnny as he walked down the sidewalk that he felt warranted a 911 call.

On January 3rd, 2020, an alleged fight ensued between (supposedly) only Johnny Lee Perry and Sean Stevenson. Sean—though much larger, physically, and despite Johnny’s impairment (confirmed via security footage later reviewed by the family)—was out-maneuvered as Johnny positioned himself behind Sean. At this point in the altercation, so the story goes, Johnny executed a “rear-naked chokehold”, rendering Sean unconscious. On January 5th, 2020, Sean was removed from life support inside St. Patrick’s hospital by the authority of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office and—this is the part I’ve never been able to understand—this terminal action was taken WITHOUT ANY informed consent from his family.

How could this happen?

Pulling back the lens, a common stumbling block thrown down by a skeptic when considering the merits of a large conspiracy is that, to pull it off, too many people would need to be involved. Even if the retort of “compartmentalization” is thrown back at the skeptic, it’s still easy to lose credibility the more complicated a proposed scenario must become to address inconsistencies and/or improbabilities, kind of like telling someone a few weeks ago that the Southern Poverty Law Center was having to literally make White Supremacists because they didn’t actually exist to the extent that they NEEDED THEM TO EXIST in places like Colorado, where a black man by the name of Sean Stevenson lived, and Montana, where he died.

In May of 2021, a year and a half after Sean Stevenson’s death, I had come to know enough about the events of 1-3-2020 to be rightfully suspicious of the “lone perpetrator” theory positing Johnny Lee Perry as the sole aggressor that evening in the men’s dorm of the Poverello Center. The main evidence are autopsy pictures that, to publish, would be a violation of the Confidential Criminal Justice Information (CCJI) statute in Montana’s code of laws, called Montana Code Annotated. Those images, which I have seen, show significant damage to Sean’s body, like bruising and other marks, that directly undermine the cover story of what happened, who was involved, and why Sean’s coma was turned permanent by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

When I reached out to Rachel Carrol Rivas, someone I knew from my time as a student at the University of Montana (2000-2003), it was because the organization she directed for years, the Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN), had become involved in Mayoral politics in Missoula. Jacob Elder, a candidate for Mayor appeared to be the RIGHT kind of black man for MHRN to care about, since he was being accused of having militia ties by an intern at their organization.

Since I didn’t think an intern should be engaging in this kind of political discourse while working for a non-profit, I had initially been communicating with Travis McAdam before reaching out to Rachel. Here’s my email exchange with MHRN’s Program Director:

To clarify the context of this email exchange, what I am essentially telling Travis McAdam in May of 2021 is that I had caught their intern, Maggie Bornstein, using MHRN information to facilitate a letter-to-the editor, published in the Missoulian, accusing mayoral candidate, Jacob Elder, of having rightwing militia ties.

Travis McAdam didn’t know I had already talked to Bornstein on the phone and that she had already eagerly disclosed to me where she got the information to make her public claims because, she assumed wrongly, she thought I was an ideological ally. Notice how quickly McAdam wised up to what I knew, pivoting in an attempt to do some preemptive damage control. Instead, like a naive asshole, I just tried to get him to care about the dead black man who I thought shouldn’t have been euthanized by the Sheriff’s Office like one would euthanize a cat or dog.

A few days later I messaged Rachel Carrol Rivas again, this time letting her know what I was planning to disclose about her organization. This was her response:

Five years later, post-SPLC scandal, a source sent me some screenshots last week with publicly available data on political donations made by Travis McAdam and Rachel Carroll Rivas as they distributed SPLC money to Montana politicians. I was also sent a copy of Rivas’ resume. Here’s the info:

To show how this SPLC/MHRN relationship functions with an academic like Tobin Miller Shearer, a white man teaching African Studies at UM’s campus and who quickly positioned himself upon arriving in Missoula as a victim of conservative targeting via TPUSA’s professor watch list, this 2020 article from KGVO was published just eleven days after Sean Stevenson was removed from life support.

The University of Montana African American Studies Department is preparing for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with special events and activities.

Director Tobin Miller Shearer spoke with KGVO News on Thursday and provided details of how the university and the community can take part.

“This year, we are trying to focus on King’s legacy,” said Dr. Shearer. “We’ve invited the campus community to think about how they are promoting his legacy in terms of the many different roles we fill here in the Missoula community.”

…

Shearer said he will also be speaking in February as part of Black History Month.

“I’ll be speaking about the precarious position of minority rights during the Alumni Lecture Series that our university hosts,” he said, adding that the legacy of Dr. King does live on here in Montana. “I absolutely believe it does, especially when I see it in the many people who are pushing back against the rise of white nationalism that we’ve seen, not only in our state, but across the country, particularly concentrated here in the Pacific Northwest. I see that in groups like Missoula’s Idea for Racial Justice, Montana’s Racial Equity Project, the Montana Human Rights Network, and the Love Lives Here Coalition in the Flathead area.”

Three years after helping Tobin’s mission of “pushing back against the rise of white nationalism”, the Montana Human Rights Network rebranded itself as “Catalyst Montana” in 2023 after merging with Montana Women Vote, a change I caught when attending their agitation meeting against City Council for establishing an Urban Camping ordinance.

While MHRN rebranded, Rachel Carroll Rivas moved directly to SPLC via Zero to Five, a regional initiative connected to United Way of Missoula County, an organization directly involved in the lawfare against me.

I’m worried the scope of what the Southern Poverty Law Center has done won’t be dealt with because it’s too big a scandal for Americans to process. Last week this is how the New York Post reported on the scandal:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is accused of funneling millions of dollars to at least eight leaders and members of hate groups — including a Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard and a fundraiser for a neo-Nazi group — to act as informants, which one nonprofit leader likened to paying an arsonist to help put out a fire.

The Alabama-based non-profit was charged by the Department of Justice with wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering conspiracy on Tuesday for allegedly hiding from donors the fact that it doled out more than $3 million over the course of nearly a decade to “field sources” tasked with infiltrating violent extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday.

As I kept reading I came across a name I knew from the book, The Silent Brotherhood, by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. Here’s the quote from the Post article that references the author of the infamous Turner Diaries:

One former chairman of the National Alliance was paid $140,000 from SPLC between 2016 and 2023 while being featured as part of the nonprofit’s “Extremist Files,” the indictment claims.

The page lists William Pierce as the founder and chairman of the group until his death in 2002. Erich Gliebe and Shaun Walker were subsequent chairmen.

And here’s some context from the book that has more than a few Missoula references in it:

It’s no coincidence that Tobin Miller Shearer is packing up and leaving campus at the same time that Susan Hay Patrick is retiring from the United Way. They know the con is being exposed now and they don’t want to be around to see someone like me proven right about how deeply corrupt this community has become thanks to their manipulation.

Coming up in Part II of this series, I’ll be telling a more complete story of the Missoula County Sheriff’s role in trafficking drugs, so stay tuned because it’s quite a story.

If anyone would like to help my dire financial situation, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is ready for your donation (thanks Cheryl!)

Thanks for reading!

Last Sunday I declared the day HOLY despite the date (April 19th) being the anniversary of the human barbecue America’s government threw for those weird Christians in Waco, Texas. After a homeless man yelled FUCK GOD at me, I continued my walk to a location near the First Presbyterian Church where, once upon a time, a man named John preached:

John and Clara Maclean had two sons, both of whom graduated from Dartmouth College. In 1908 the Rev. Maclean moved to Missoula, Montana, and became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Missoula in 1909.

The elder son Norman Maclean, was born at Clarinda, Iowa, in 1902 and went on to become a professor at the University of Chicago and a highly regarded figure in 20th century American literature.

Though much has changed since 1909 one thing that has NOT changed is the Bible urging believers to be NOT AFRAID. Variations of this phrase appear over 70 times in the Bible. Despite the prevalence of this Christian sentiment, the reality is that many Christians are terrified of the world and all the BAD people who do BAD things. That’s why two men are seen in the image above standing guard: they think the bad guy is ME and they are afraid of what I might do.

Another man who is afraid of what I might do recently contacted my family because I called him at his University office, then wrote about him like I’ve been doing since Tobin appeared on campus to play the victim card for himself in the larger mission of systemically demonizing conservatives, a mission Tobin Miller Shearer has been pushing for years, especially against TPUSA and Charlie Kirk before Charlie Kirks was publicly murdered.

As Tobin builds his legal case against me in order to add another restraining order to the one I just got served with on Friday, this supposed Christian man was doing the same thing my petitioner did, and that’s contact my family to tell them how terrible I am before filing their legal claims against me.

When one considers the adjective Tobin uses to describe me it’s important to recall that this is also the man who called University police because he found a “racially-charged flyer” that scared him. Knowing what I know now about his race grifter, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tobin put the flyer up himself just to be able to play the victim card.

The main source of my extreme frustration is the realization that only SOME dead black man are worthy victims for a race-baiting grifter like Tobin Miller Shearer. This realization has taken me a long time to formulate, and it’s based on the reality that Sean Stevenson, as a dead black man, wasn’t the kind of usable cultural race-product that the dead black man, George Floyd, was.

For an example of Tobin’s race-posturing around the time of George Floyd’s death, here’s an interview that name-drops Floyd for the liberal audience of retards who lap this shit up:

When you go to the link for “A New Angle”, put out by Montana Public Radio, you will see the kind of voices this “current affairs” podcast platforms:

Next week I’ll be putting politicians like Jon Tester and Greg Gianforte into the local context they deserve with some of my most explosive reporting yet about local narrative control and, specifically, what I’ve come to understand about the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal and the influence I’m finally able to understand about local organizations, like the Montana Human Rights Network, so stay tuned.

For retarded liberals who burned cities down because of George Floyd, you can say goodbye to your favorite propagandist next week at the Davidson’s Honors College. According to this announcement, “everyone” is welcome.

Don’t worry, Tobin, I know that the word “everyone” doesn’t include a white man like myself who gave a shit about the wrong kind of dead black man. Sean Stevenson’s family should be happy that an academic white man like you can make the important distinction for your ideological adherents about which dead black men are worthy martyrs to burn cities down for, and which ones are still just inconvenient niggers best forgotten because, to understand why they died, too many local power players might have to be implicated.

Tomorrow, for those who want to know how local power REALLY operates, that’s what I’m going to keep doing.

Thanks for reading.

It should be common knowledge that saying untrue things about someone can land you in court. It’s called “defamation” and, in Montana, defamation is defined as “a false and unprivileged statement, either written (libel) or spoken (slander), that damages a person’s or entity’s reputation, exposes them to hatred/contempt, or injures them in their occupation.”

For an example of what this can look like here are some defamatory statements made about ME by Ellie Boldman, a powerful Montana legislator with a law degree. Unfortunately I’ve never had a lawyer willing to assist me in taking this to court.

Have I ever been charged with a “physical assault”? No, I have not. And how many orders of protections have been served against me? Several? No, just one, and I wrote a very uncomfortable post recently about that toxic relationship that almost ended my life to help counter this digusting defamation campaign against me.

How about the claim that “nearly everything” I write is “verifiably untrue”? Again, this is absolutely false. When someone points out something that I’ve reported inaccurately, I make a correction and acknowledge it, unlike other “reporters”, who stealth-edit their “mistakes”.

I have never been sued for libel, slander, or defamation in all the years I’ve been writing, so what Ellie Boldman has claimed in her public statements are absolutely false and defamatory, but here’s the rub: so far, no lawyer in Montana has been willing to help me defend myself against Ellie’s claims, attacks which represent just one small part of the lawfare attacks against me.

Today’s post is partly in response to Jake Eaton’s effort to get Ellie Boldman’s DUI footage released. Here’s Eaton’s post on X followed by an excerpt from the IR article:

Boldman argued in court filings last week that Eaton, a political operative for several high-profile Republicans including Attorney General Austin Knudsen and western congressional candidate Aaron Flint, should not be granted access to those records for what she expects will be a harassment campaign against her.

She also claimed she has a “heightened” privacy interest because she previously notified the city that she intends to have the conviction wiped and the investigative file destroyed when the case is eligible for expungement in 2030.

The city, unsure of whether the video and investigation notes would be considered confidential criminal justice information and whether it could be publicly released upon Eaton’s request, asked a Lewis and Clark County District Court judge to decide what is releasable, and he agreed last week to take up the question.

Though it pains me to say this, I think Ellie might be correct that this is just a “harassment campaign” against her instead of what I would like to see happen, which is a well-funded legal campaign to litigate Ellie Boldman into full disbarment for a bunch of troubling behavior I believe she’s engaged in over the years while practicing law. After disbarring this public official from the ability to do damage with her law degree, I’d like to see a criminal probe into her role in the suicide of Catherine Tooley Shepard.

It doesn’t help Eaton’s effort that it’s his wife’s law firm doing the legal work challenging Ellie’s claim that she has a “heightened privacy interest” because she’s going to make all her embarrassing DUI footage go away in 2030. Despite this scenario, I gave that same law firm a call yesterday and left my contact information. If they’re actually interested in holding this PUBLIC official accountable, I’ll get a call back.

In November, Jones Law Firm, run by Billings attorney Emily Jones, who is also Eaton’s wife, filed a public information request with the city of Helena to release investigative information related to Boldman’s arrest, including any officer body camera or dash camera footage.

Jones Law Firm was acting on behalf of the nonprofit Montana Public Policy Center, which is also connected to Eaton and Jones.

In an April 15 filing, Jones argued that Boldman’s arrest materials should be public, saying her conduct as a state lawmaker needs to be open to public scrutiny.

If I do get that call back I’ll tell the Jones Law Firm everything I know, both from my direct experiences, and from what I have been told by sources over the years, like an alleged legal complaint filed against Ellie at the ODC office for billing an impossibly high amount of hours on a case for the Public Defender’s Office, a credible accusation of an unreported sexual assault, and the alleged purchasing of undergarments at Victoria’s Secret for a minor she was legally representing at the time.

Yes, lawsuits happen all the time, and many are frivolous. Laura Loomer, for example, recently had her defamation case against Bill Maher dismissed by a Federal judge, while President Trump’s recent attack on his former media amplifiers highlights the destructive financial intent of this kind of lawfare:

“…or “Crazy” Candace Owens, who accuses the Highly Respected First Lady of France of being a man, when she is not, and will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close! Or Bankrupt Alex Jones, who says some of the dumbest things, and lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims…”

My favorite recent case, though, has to be the successful two year legal odyssey of a woman seeking “justice” because she got black-out drunk on a cruise ship after being served over 14 shots of Tequila and fell down some stairs. Sadly, the social cost of this bullshit isn’t as quantifiable as the absurd judgement awarded this woman was:

A Carnival cruise passenger who alleged the ship’s staff served her an excess of 14 tequila shots in the span of eight hours has won $300,000 in damages.

Diana Sanders sued Carnival Corporation for damages in a Florida federal court after she said she was overserved alcohol despite being visibly intoxicated while on board the Carnival Radiance in January 2024.

Sanders said she fell down a flight of stairs and suffered severe injuries as a result of the incident, according to court filings.

While Diane enjoys the fruits of her litigation, Jake Eaton is actually risking giving Ellie Boldman an opportunity to play the victim for herself over the impression this move is just political theater. If political theater is the intent, and the Eatons swing and miss, Ellie Boldman will only be emboldened to keep doing what she’s been doing for many, MANY years.

For anyone inclined to help out a poor citizen journalist, it’s been several months since my GoFundMe has seen any love, so donate today if you can. With what I’m cooking up for next week, post SPLC scandal, I think it’s worth it.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, for Earth Day, I returned to a once-contentious spot in the Missoula valley where upwards of 100 people used to live. The first contacts I had with people living “un-housed” under and around the Reserve Street bridge by the Clark Fork river occurred nearly 15 years ago, when I worked for the non-profit listed beneath the NO TRESPASSING part of the signage above.

After I left my position at the Poverello Center in 2016, the energy and collaboration I had put into making inroads toward addressing this sprawling mess fizzled out. While I could understand the political impediments to doing something effective, it has taken a lot more time to understand the law enforcement dynamics at play.

For an idea of what things looked like in 2022, here are some images I curated from my camera roll:

And here are some pictures from Earth Day, 2026:

So, what’s the cost?

In April of 2022, in a post titled “I Told You, I Told You, I Told You, But NOOOOOOO, You Do This Shit Anyway” I was already harping on things like the porous fencing, the legal scapegoat of the “9th circuit court” used by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, and the unfortunate role of “soccer ball” that Bob Vosen, from the Montana Department of Transportation, was having to play.

In May of 2023, in a post titled “Exploring The Possibility I Was Wrong About Private Security Patrols Around The Poverello Center“, I acknowledged that direct conversations and new information could shift my thinking on previous stances I had maintained–specifically, as the title of the post suggests, on the role of the private security company, Rogers International.

So, again, what’s the cost? The cost, as I see it, is about $163,000 for the fencing, plus however much the state contract for Rogers International is per year, plus the public cost of being deprived convenient access to public lands, where one still finds “tools”, like machetes.

And relatively new syringes.

And fresh graffiti, perhaps honoring Detective Guy Baker’s retirement.

I have one more picture, but the context won’t be explicitly stated in this post. The context does exist in another post, but to get it you have to click the link, read the post, then connect the dots, like I do every day at great risk for no pay.

To wrap this post up I curated an amazingly sexist and intolerant comment from the Facebook page where this cleanup was promoted. Just send the men to Seattle!

Hopefully Sarah appreciates the fact only men showed up yesterday in the rain to put trash into trash bags, including some trash from feminine hygiene products left out in nature to poison poor Mother Earth’s watery tributaries. One of the men (me) was even homeless himself for several months!

I am inserting Sarah’s oblivious misandry toward men at the end of this post because there does seem to be a gendered component of the predominant POLICY problem of “urban camping”, and that component is TOXIC EMPATHY.

Despite this component, and the prevalence of women in local policy-shaping positions, the only County Commissioner to get hands dirty with an up-close look at the Reserve Street camps was Juanita Vero, so her example of rolling up sleeves and getting to work reminds me that not all people with the double-X chromosome set should be sheltered in huts like little babies when the going gets tough.

Thanks for reading!

Before adding a black for better optics it was just the Higgins brothers hanging out in Wyoming and getting sad that their home state wouldn’t give them the tax breaks their little hearts desired. Without a specific tax break, we are told, film studio creators with dreams of selling houses and apartment units on the land near their new film studio just can’t operate. Thankfully, a Republican legislator by the name of Greg Hertz helped save the day for this struggling, Yale-educated “actor” and his brother with the cool neck tattoos.

Sean Higgins, who was part of a task force that tried unsuccessfully to revive Wyoming’s tax incentive programfor the film industry, is now looking just up the road from Sheridan to Montana for future productions.

On Tuesday, Higgins and his brother Danny joined about 80 Montana filmmakers in Helena for a meet-and-greet informational session at the Holter Art Museum.

The event was sponsored by the Montana Media Coalition, and for the last few years Sean Higgins, a University of Wyoming theater grad, has served on the Coalition’s board.

After the task force in Wyoming failed in 2023 to convince the Wyoming Legislature to pass House Bill 92, Higgins focused on getting tax incentive legislation passed in Montana, and he is now lobbying lawmakers in Helena.

The above excerpt from January, 2025, explains how the Higgins brothers targeted Montana and why someone who doesn’t like tax breaks gave these industry policy panhandlers the foothold in Montana they were looking for.

At the Tuesday night event in Helena, state Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, took the stage and asked the crowd, “How did we get ‘Yellowstone?’ Utah dropped their tax credit and they came to Montana.”

As a general rule, said Hertz, “I don’t like tax credits.”

But over time, other legislators, “Educated me about movie manufacturing and as I looked at it, what you needed to do to be competitive in the movie making business, you need to have a tax credit because that’s what everybody else does across the United States,” Hertz said. “So without that, we can’t move forward.”

When I read that Greg Hertz enabled this legislation last session with the rationale that Montana should act because “everybody else does” I was very disappointed. Greg Hertz was the legislator in 2023 who tried helping tax reformers like me put policy handcuffs on Ellen Buchanan, the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, and this retarded town’s favorite tax giveaway–Tax Increment Financing–but that effort failed.

Now, thanks to Greg Hertz, the film industry is ALSO getting into the real estate game, and they’re doing it with help from the same tax giveaway the tax-addicts at the Missoula Redevelopment Agency use to run their shadow government. For a Yale-educated actor, like Sean Higgins, the path is simple: add a token black, speak magical phrases like WORKFORCE HOUSING, then watch the fawning media lapdogs, like Martin Kidston, “report” on the results.

The city in 2016 adopted the original master plan for the North Reserve/Scott Street district. That initial plan divided the area into sectors with residential to the east and commercial to the west. At the time, the Roseburg property split the two sectors and created challenges to long-term planning.

But the plant closed in 2024 and Roseburg took the first step in seeking annexation. StoryHouse – a film and television production company – also purchased 47 acres, which are included in the 93 acres annexed on Monday.

The plant’s closure and Roseburg’s partnership now create new opportunities to reinvent the entire district. The new master plan is anticipated for completion by fall.

For what the future of this area might look like I reviewed the documents given the official nod by Missoula’s City Council on Monday. I also checked out the real estate listing for what is being called “Redtail Ridge”.

Here’s the plan for the vast swath of land in Missoula where actors will be making bank selling off pieces of Big Sky Country:

And here’s the language that allows Council members and the unelected cogs of Missoula’s gentrification dream team the ability to throw public money at housing developers:

Having done more than most people to raise the alarm about the role of specific tax policies making the cost of living MORE unaffordable, I’m getting pretty fucking tired of being cast as the bad guy for calling out the people and policies leading to the outcomes everyone says is bad, and should be addressed, but then turn around and do the SAME FUCKING THING that got us here in the first place.

Instead of dwelling on those actual crazy people expecting different results from the same policy actions, I’m going to celebrate the successful cleanup of Missoula’s largest and nastiest homeless encampment on this cloudy Earth Day in Missoula. It’s nice that I can point to a piece of geography in this town where sanity won against loser narrative controllers, like Susan Hay Patrick, and all the bullshit she brought to our little mountain town.

Thanks for reading!