Zoom Chron Blog

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!

Damn! Did the MTGOP really “WHEREAS” all this embarrassing shit? Yes, they did, and before we get to the list of Fireweed Frauds I want to explain what seems to be happening to Montana Republicans, starting with this guy.

Llew Jones is widely considered to be the political architect of Montana’s “nasty nine” grouping of Republicans who aligned with and, more importantly, VOTED with Democrats last session. While this political power was critical to the “successful” effort of pushing through Governor Gianforte’s property tax debacle, it undermined Art Wittich, the titular head of the MTGOP, and significantly eroded his political credibility with the base.

Here’s how Art Wittich was positioning himself politically after the 2025 legislative session concluded:

Wittich promised new strategies for how the MTGOP will do political business, including creating a “red policy committee” to research and review new legislative proposals. Another change he floated: establishing a “conservative governance committee” to vet candidates and hand out party endorsements — a stamp of approval that could be leveraged during Republican primary elections.

And here is how that same article (Montana Free Press) frames the “internecine fight” that is sure to dominate Montana’s next legislative session:

Wittich is no stranger to the internecine fights that have defined Montana’s Republican Party for much of the last decade. By some accounts, his name is woven into the origin story of the modern GOP’s feud between conservative centrists and hardliners. That tug-of-war over which sorts of Republicans get elected to the state Legislature has led to some wins for Wittich and his allies — and some bruising losses. In 2016, a state district court jury found Wittich guilty of violating campaign finance laws by illegally coordinating with third-party political groups during a primary election. The now-MTGOP chair was fined $68,232.58.

Throughout his convention speeches, Wittich offered thinly veiled criticisms of the so-called Conservative Solutions Caucus — the amorphous faction of Republican lawmakers spearheaded by Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, that has for years backed hardliner-loathed policies including Medicaid expansion and education funding reforms.

In an attempt to regain control of the party it would appear that Art Wittich allowed AFP money to target conservatives in primaries across the state. To counter this influence, some of those candidates who were targeted chose to up their political game by hiring a “Montana” company called Fireweed. When the easy-to-find context of Fireweed’s Democrat ties broke on social media, the Republican rift became an abyss where loyalty rides and traitors die, figuratively speaking, of course.

Now, after yesterday’s scorched-earth move by the MTGOP to end the civil war, it will be interesting to see how these candidates respond:

In another Montana Free Press article about this scandal I caught the name of a behind-the-scenes promoter of this civil war and SURPRISE! It’s someone Zoom Chron readers should be familiar with–Burt Caldwell!

In a March 30 email sent to nearly 75 people and addressed to a Missoula-based group called the “League of Liberal Advocates,” a copy of which was obtained by MTFP, one donor explicitly laid out his personal rationale for donating to Republican candidates.

“Guess what I’m doing? I’m contributing to a slate of candidates the MT legislature needs. Guess what else? They’re Republican,” read the email from Burt Caldwell, a Missoula resident.

“In these races the final outcome will be a Republican,” the email continued. “The best chance for a reasonable Legislature is to elect moderate Republicans who work for their constituents, not ‘the party.’”

Isn’t this interesting? Lauren Caldwell’s daddy, Burt, is pushing a strategy of supporting moderate Republicans after Democrats utterly destroyed their brand in Montana, losing every significant political race the last few cycles. That’s why Burt Caldwell is emailing his pals and pushing a strategy that ALSO just so happens to help his daughter get paid.

The email listed a slate of specific Republican candidates running to represent House and Senate districts that span the state, from Plentywood to Hamilton to Belgrade.

Those candidates include Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad; Rep. George Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls; Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda; Rep. Linda Reksten, R-Polson; Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton; Rep. Ken Walsh, R-Twin Bridges; Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade; and Rep. Curtis Cochran, R-St. Regis. Other candidates referenced in the email are Susan Geise, Russ Nelson, Chisholm Christensen, Doug Martens and Michele Binkley, who did not serve in the Legislature last year.

I’m glad Burt Caldwell is putting his thumb on the political scales because it validates my contention that the UNIPARTY in Montana is all about LAND and what happens on land with regards to houses, recreation, jobs, and private-sector development in different forms, like the one currently being targeted with politically-hyped FEAR in order to serve larger agendas–the evil DATA CENTER!

The “nasty-nine” gave Llew Jones power and Governor Gianforte a Franksenstein property tax bill suddenly thrown into limbo as tax checks are literally in-coming. For those with the stomach to watch this rancid sausage-making the spoiling of this legislation is quite astounding:

The Montana Republican Party on Thursday asked a state District Court to void the entirety of a transformative new property tax law enacted by state legislators and the Gianforte administration last year.

In a brief filed in an ongoing case in Gallatin County District Court, the Montana Republican State Central Committee sided with the plaintiffs — three current and former Republican legislators — and argued that “there are no surviving constitutional provisions to save” in the new law.

The property tax spikes that hit after Montana’s pandemic-era real estate boom put many Montana homeowners in a financial bind. When legislators gaveled in for the following legislative session in 2025, one of their top tasks was implementing property tax reform.

I’ll have more on this Uniparty land/housing, high-stakes play for Big Sky Country soon. Until then, here are two other posts on Fireweed that exemplifies the value a citizen journalist NOT named Nick Shirley should have if the information landscape wasn’t as Mockingbird-psyop’d as it obviously is with those capable of seeing it.

“The Challenge Of Spotting Political Chameleons In Montana” (March 30th, 2026)

“More Fireweed Fallout For Montana Republicans” (April 2nd, 2026)

Thanks for reading!

When the owner of Snowbowl, Brad Morris, received criticism about the quality of his ski hill in 2012, he took the vindictive step of banning the skier from future ticket sales. This reaction should help the public determine how to navigate the current issue with Brad Morris and his Snowbowl parking lot problem.

The owners of Montana Snowbowl near Missoula really, really don’t like criticism. So after a skier complained, they refused to sell him a season ski pass, or even daily tickets at a reduced rate during the pre-season. Jim Sylvester says that he put a comment in a handy suggestion box at the ski area, noting that a concluding run that funnels skiers seemed too congested and rough. When nothing happened, Sylvester, who is a former president of the Missoula Ski Education Foundation, called the Lolo National Forest office to find out the name of Snowbowl’s insurance carrier so he could warn it about what he considered the “unsafe skiing conditions,” reports the Missoulian. Nobody got back to him, but the run was groomed, and Sylvester thought no more about the matter for some months, until he sought to buy a season ski pass. He was refused twice — Snowbowl owners called him “disruptive” — and was also told that he should apologize. A season pass holder at Snowbowl for 31 years, Sylvester refused to make nice: “Do I have to apologize for complaining?” Accusing Snowbowl owner Brad Morris of discrimination, Sylvester now wants the Forest Service to rule that the ski resort, which is almost all on public land, violated the terms of its special use permit. Uncomfortably caught in the middle, the Forest Service allows that it is in “fact-gathering mode right now.”

More recently the safety issues at Snowbowl have been an idiot in 2023 who got drunk and accidentally killed his friend in the parking lot with his car, and a toddler who fell from a chairlift the following year. Regarding the latter, the Morris family reminded the public that they are inspected by the Forrest Service and insured:

The following is part of the statement released by Montana Snowbowl management and the Morris family Thursday:

“In addition to conveying our commitment to investigating this incident we want to reassure Snowbowl customers that the Snowpark chair, like all of our lifts, is regularly inspected by the Forest Service and our insurance provider, in addition to the regular maintenance conducted by Snowbowl. The installation of chairlifts, including the Snowpark chair, involve intensive engineering and oversight as well as inspection and approval by our partners at the Forest Service and our insurance provider. Prior to any public use, there are several tests conducted on the lifts to insure safe and adequate operations.

Snowbowl is committed to continue to provide a safe and affordable experience for our community.

If the Morris’ were serious about providing a “safe” experience for the Missoula community they wouldn’t be ignoring the extent of the problem the parking lot by Interstate-90 is posing, but that seems to be the current plan for the 4 acres Brad Morris owns.

On Facebook the group that provides FREE volunteer cleanup efforts for Brad Morris discussed this issue recently in the usual manner of mostly uninformed people saying uninformed stuff about how the world is supposed to work. For these people it’s as simple as posting a sign about the law, then expecting law enforcement to enforce the law.

I mean, it’s just that simple, right?

First off, Marc is wrong, and that’s because this “private property” uses a special use permit issued by the Forrest Service, giving the Forrest Service some degree of authority over this parcel of land. Maybe going to the Forrest Service is the next step for the members of the public tired of mitigating the risk Brad Morris refuses to address himself.

In a conversation with The Pulp after the falling toddler problem, Sarah Duncan was sent out by the Morris’ to take the heat. Here’s one question/answer worth considering:

Back in 2004 the expansion efforts for Snowbowl featured an acknowledgment that the risky Forrest Service road and parking lot limitations on the mountain were some of the biggest barriers.

For the past few years Morris has been on an expansion jag to address the resort’s biggest albatross: a death-beckoning, bile-boiling Forest Service access road married to notoriously limited parking up top. “Bull trout slowed us down on the road,” Morris admits, smiling beneath his mustache as though to acknowledge the truly unknowable exigencies of something so seemingly benign as running an honest little ski slope.

The threatened fish, which might be known to run in the stream far beneath Snowbowl road, were placed on the endangered species list right about the time he applied to upgrade the road, leading to several years of environmental-impact assessment before the necessary permits were issued last summer. Work has begun now, and Morris hopes to achieve a much friendlier drive to the slopes in a season or two.

The other barrier to expansion referenced above–the Bull trout and its inconvenient “threatened” status–means a community stakeholder like Missoula’s Clark Fork Coalition should also be interested in finding a solution. While I know they do some work in this geographical area of the valley, so far they have been pretty mum on this politically thorny “car camping” issue.

To better understand this issue I went directly to the expansion proposal (PDF) put together by Brad Morris, Beat von Allmen, and Robert Brandenberger to see how natural habitat, recreational land use, and infrastructure meshed together in making the proposal to grow. Here’s some excerpts relevant to today’s post, starting with the fishies:

And here’s some perspective for context on the parking lot’s function to Snowbowl’s broader ski business operation:

While this context is helpful, it might not move the dial on the kind of the uninformed people who can’t even process the distinction between PUBLIC land and PRIVATE property. For those people I’m not sure what can be done.

Brad Morris is lucky to have volunteers willing to risk exposure to drugs, like Fentanyl, and paraphernalia, like needles, to do nasty cleanup work for free. That’s pretty cool.

West of Missoula, in Seattle, where one of the most alarmingly unqualified Mayors to ever exist now controls a $9 billion dollar budget, just jumping into water is a high-risk action to take.

For those who watched Seattle Is Dying seven years ago and said JUST YOU WAIT, MISSOULA, we have long been proven correct. If the same “experts” who oversaw this slow-motion disaster are allowed to keep their positions of influence, the same insanity this LA women recently described WILL ECHO in this town.

Thanks for reading! And stay tuned for updates on SOLUTIONS!!!