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The courts in Missoula are figuratively burning and here’s what I think we should do about it:

NOTHING!

Matt Jennings, the joke-cracking County Attorney who protects the cops who kill mentally ill citizens, is alarmed about some Municipal judges, but why should we care about Jennings being alarmed? Doesn’t this “tight-knit” criminal justice system work best when citizens remain dumb and ignorant about how the criminal sausage is made?

If that’s true, then a public dumpster fire means something ain’t working right, and that’s why people in Missoula might want to start paying attention to the accusations being thrown around by alleged professionals who have the power to destroy lives with your tax dollars.

Let’s begin.

Are there legitimate concerns with how the Missoula court system is prosecuting mentally ill homeless people? Of course there are, and Matt Jennings knows this, which is why Missoula’s County Attorney wrote an op-ed that says “good-faith” stuff, like this:

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office civilly commits approximately 250 people a year to the Montana State Hospital. We also prosecute dozens of individuals with serious mental health issues who committed crimes each year. Thirteen percent of Missoula’s current jail population are people who have been legally committed to the Montana State Hospital due to their mental health conditions, often waiting a year or more for an available spot. They need mental health care. They sit in jail instead. While mental health is not the largest contributor to crime, it represents the greatest opportunity to make rapid improvements to make our communities safer and ensure better individual and community outcomes.

The Montana Legislature has made good-faith attempts to fund improvements to our mental health system. This includes a $300 million investment in 2023, and funding for a new forensic mental health hospital in 2025, which is in the early stages of development in Laurel. These good intentions have hit a bureaucratic wall though and have had negligible results on the ground.

Matt Jennings wrote this op-ed because the community of Laurel has resisted the building of a new mental health facility, leaving Montana one of the least capable states in the entire country to handle severely mentally ill people.

If you don’t believe that Montana and other states in the mountain west are hotbeds for untreated mental illness, here’s a graph that shows where under-served communities exist across the country:

With this context in mind, let’s return to our criminal justice dumpster fire for more insights into how the local dysfunction of our courts is now spilling out into publicly aired grievances, claims, and counter-claims.

Before we get to those supportive City Council members, like Bob Campbell, let me express MY concern that our Municipal Court judges appear to have selected three anecdotal cases on which to hang their argument, using, it would appear, at least one homeless “client” who utilizes services at the Poverello Center, the homeless shelter I worked at before leaving the non-profit world in DISGUST at how fucked up EVERYTHING is in this town.

If our Municipal Court judges have picked DRUG DEPENDENT mentally ill individuals to champion, then I’m not sure many people outside their liberal information bubbles will be rushing in to back these reformers against the growing TOUGH ON CRIME advocates that exists because so much of the homeless population appears to be on serious hard drugs and oblivious to consequences.

That said, I don’t trust Matt Jennings for a second OR his former cop supporter, Council member, Bob Campbell, who weirdly commented on some other case in the comments of his Facebook post:

My response to Bob and anyone else entering the fray on this topic is that EVERYONE “cherry picks” information out of necessity, since our criminal justice system is SO FUCKED that one would quickly become overwhelmed without filtering. Also, by the very nature of “Confidential Criminal Justice Information”, no one is going to be able to tell a complete story about a particular case without a lot of time and special access to court documents, which most people don’t have, even the media.

Who does have the most complete access to Confidential Criminal Justice Information? That’s right, the County Attorney’s Office, currently run by Matt Jennings.

With that said, let’s return to the article Bob Campbell is trying to add his addendums to for more on this emerging criminal justice system dumpster fire:

While the costs of jailing a specific individual are interesting, it’s the CHOICE made by prosecutors to “re-file” the case that I find disturbing, since this appears to be a form of “judge shopping”–a phenomenon usually associated with Federal Courts, which I assume aren’t as “tight-knit” as the small, insular world of Missoula’s criminal justice system.

For a sense of what negative impacts “judge shopping” could have, consider this:

Judge shopping undermines the rule of law by calling into question judicial impartiality in both perception and fact.

In addition to affording individual plaintiffs an unfair advantage, judge shopping has distorted federal jurisprudence more systemically. When plaintiffs are uncertain about which judge they will draw, they have an incentive to moderate their claims and legal theories to appeal to different potential audiences — that’s not necessary when they can hand-pick their judge. In fact, in some cases, judge shopping allows a plaintiff to choose a judge who has already ruled for other plaintiffs raising nearly identical claims, as happened in the medication abortion case.

If Matt Jennings doesn’t understand what he’s doing to the Municipal Court judges AND the mental health professional who declared the criminal defendant unfit to proceed, then Matt Jennings should no longer have his job. Unfortunately, Jennings is running UNOPPOSED this election cycle, just like Sheriff Jeremiah Petersen, who Jennings’ Office will have to deal with as one of MY witnesses in the criminal case they are prosecuting me on.

The power to prosecute, or NOT prosecute, is a form of institutional power I’ve been covering for years, starting with Kirsten Pabst choosing NOT to prosecute a drug dealer for stabbing one of his customer’s in a restaurant bathroom.

For relevant posts in this vein, here are some articles to check out:

“BREAKING: Missoula County Attorney’s Office Reviews Drug Dealer’s Right To Stab His Customer To Death” (June 30th, 2020)

“Pabst Hides Behind Reasonable Person Standard To Explain Not Prosecuting Budding Psychopath Josh Paniagua” (July 6th, 2020)

“What Is Joshua Paniagua Being Sentenced For? Because He Was Never Charged With Murder, Thanks To County Attorney Kirsten Pabst” (December 10th, 2021)

“Coming To Terms With The Power Of Things NOT Happening” (April 18th, 2022)

That second-to-last article, published on December 10th, features a quote by the County Attorney prosecuting me and subjecting the taxpayer to a monthly cost of $400 dollars for my ankle monitoring, since I’m too broke to pay it myself, and the optics of throwing me back in jail are TERRIBLE for the same Justice Court whining about their Municipal colleagues.

While Justice Court picks up the tab for the cost of surveilling and harassing me with incompetent pre-trial staff, I hope they recall what “justice” apparently looked like to Mac Bloom five years ago, after the killer they didn’t criminally charge for killing was finally setenced for subsequent criminal behavior, which wouldn’t have happened had Pabst’s stable of beta-cucks done their jobs the FIRST time.

Now that it’s less politically advantageous for COUNTY ATTORNEYS to find it in their prosecutorial hearts to go soft on drug-dealing killers in order to get them the help they need, I’ll update this old reference–which includes a reference to the failed prosecution of Brandon Bryant for felony intimidation–and remind readers that our tax-funded prosecutors have learned that even LOUD NOISES must be vigorously prosecuted when it comes to certain political targets.

I hope that makes Bob Campbell’s testicles feel warm and tingly, since I’m pretty sure Lady Justice doesn’t have any.

All these words and costs being thrown around don’t account for one significant factor–DRUGS!–and all the money that trafficking drugs produces for organized criminals, like cartels and rogue cliques of cops and Sheriff Deputies, so let’s put on our figurative testicles and see what happens when a citizen journalist travels down that path:

“My Unauthorized Window Into The Non-Charging Decisions Of Missoula County Authorities” (September 29th, 2022)

“Missoula County Sheriff, Jeremiah Petersen, Has Some Explaining To Do” (May 11th, 2023)

“If I Had The Resources To Do Actual, In Depth Investigations…” (July 17th, 2023)

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

Going back to Matt Jennings, let’s see how our County Attorney views his job, because this might be the most important part of the entire article I’m dismantling:

Let me repeat where Matt Jennings thinks his ethical duty lies, and that’s with NOT saying anything that “overtly erodes the credibility of the system“.

So how many bad actors have to be protected in order to protect the credibility of the system, Matt? I guess not having a political opponent saves your ass from answering those kinds of tough questions, doesn’t it.

While there’s more of the article I could examine, I should ask myself, do I have the stomach for it?

Let’s take one more chunk of an article most Missoulians won’t even read, since it’s behind a paywall:

Matt Jennings is just doing his job here and saying what needs to be said, regardless of justice, accuracy, or accountability, because that’s what the system needs him to do.

Meanwhile, here are several posts I want to highlight from the past two weeks before wrapping this up:

“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)

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

The middle post above–the one about the system becoming the abuser and the process becoming the punishment–puts the specific claim of “stalking” into context, since I’ve seen, in my own case, the functional use of “stalking” as a means of allowing NON-intimate community members the ability to exploit civil protection order hearings, where legal standards for what’s allowed are MUCH MORE lenient.

Having already recognized this part of the lawfare pattern, it was personally validating to see Matt Jennings admit the statistical result in a Missoula Current article about the “Domestic Violence” issue Gwen Jones subjected her colleagues to for six hours:

The number of stalking cases reported to the Missoula Police Department has increased in each of the last three years while felony cases of partner and family-member assault continue to fluctuate, reaching nearly 90 incidents in 2025.

A parade of experts in domestic violence continued their presentations to the Missoula City Council on Wednesday, covering everything from the psychology of trauma to the successes and shortcomings of the criminal justice system.

“We’ve made significant and important progress in how we respond to domestic violence, both as a society and within the criminal justice system,” said Missoula County Attorney Matt Jennings. “But we inherited an institution that was never really designed to deal with the complexities of interpersonal violence.”

When I hear self-congratulation followed so closely by historical scapegoating to avoid accountability, my response is the title of the post.

LET IT BURN!

Or vote, the “choice” is up to you.

Thanks for reading!

When Aldous Huxley wrote The Devils Of Loudun he couldn’t have known his non-fiction account of this historical possession narrative would become one of the most controversial movies of all time, with graphic scenes of sex and torture that included a nun masturbating with a charred femur bone and a two and a half minute segment of orgiastic action that became known as the “Rape of Christ” sequence.

Happy Halloween?

The most significant cuts were made by Warner Bros., prior to submission to the BBFC. Two notable scenes were removed in their entirety: One was a two-and-a-half-minute sequence featuring naked nuns sexually defiling a statue of Christ, which includes Father Mignon looking down on the scene and masturbating. Another scene towards the end showed Sister Jeanne masturbating with the charred femur of Grandier following his burning at the stake. Due to its content, the former scene has been popularly referred to as the “Rape of Christ” sequence.

In today’s post, brought to you by the Decoding Culture Foundation and PsyOp Cinema, I’m highlighting some FBI documents as I examine the movie project Huxley inspired, which was just re-released this month so that a whole new generation can be exposed to nuns masturbating and raping Jesus.

Considered one of the most controversial films of all time for its graphic, blasphemous, and sexually provocative imagery, Ken Russell‘s “The Devils” is now back in cinemas uncut and uncensored.

Re-released in 4K by Warner Bros. imprint Clockwork some 55 years after its controversial debut, the new director’s cut of the film — which premiered this year in Cannes and later the London Film Festival — has given an entirely new generation the chance to discover Russell, often considered the overlooked “wild man” of British cinema.

Before this movie was made, Aldous Huxley was commenting on the power of visual programming–especially the power of advertising–and government agencies, like the FBI, were definitely interested.

In the following document, found in Huxley’s FBI file, his views on “overpopulation”, drugs, and tv marketing are made clear:

Another document I found in the archives of the Decoding Culture Foundation features Aldous Huxley discussing his ideas as part of a panel discussion alongside Harold Urey, a scientist who spent time in Missoula before joining the Manhattan Project.

Hmmm.

When Aldous Huxley suggests he cares about the “moral imperative” of applying science to human need it’s important to understand that Huxley’s own need to have sex without consequence was a BIG motivator for making the “scientific” argument that the world was devoid of meaning.

Returning to the devil movie, director Ken Russell is described in this article as a “transgressive” artist who definitely had beef with the Catholic Church, but not with ALL religion.

British-born Russell (1927–2011) was a trailblazing director, with works ranging from the Academy Award-winning drama Women in Love (1969), to the fantastical rock opera Tommy (1975) starring The Who.

Above all, he was a transgressive artist who pushed the boundaries of filmmaking.

While The Devils is clearly an anti-Catholic film, it is by no means an anti-religious film. Russell had converted to Roman Catholicism in his late 20s. But his relationship with the Catholic Church proved to be short lived.

For him, the Loudon possessions perfectly highlighted the church’s hypocrisy. His disillusion with corruption in both the church and state was what led him to make The Devils.

Transgressive artists, by definition, enjoy making art that violates established rules, laws, social norms, and moral boundaries, so it shouldn’t surprise readers that Ken Russell was involved in bringing another transgressive piece of art to his audience, the once-banned play by Oscar Wilde, Salome.

To briefly summarize this story, John the Baptist is being imprisoned by Herod, which gives him bad-boy aura, which is an ancient aphrodisiac that modern women still find irresistible.

After becoming enthralled by this bad boy, Salome ultimately uses her social status and sexuality to get the object of her desire decapitated.

Ok, maybe I should let Wikipedia to the summarizing:

Jokanaan (John the Baptist, Iokanaan in the original French text) has been imprisoned by Herod Antipas in a cistern below the terrace of Herod’s palace, for his hostile comments about Herodias, Herod’s second wife. A young captain of the guard admires the beautiful princess Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter. A page warns the captain that something terrible may happen if he continues to stare at the princess. Salome is fascinated by Jokanaan’s voice. She persuades the captain to open the cistern so that the prophet can emerge, and she can see him and touch him. Jokanaan appears, denouncing Herodias and her husband. At first frightened by the sight of the holy man, Salome becomes fascinated by him, begging him to let her touch his hair, his skin and kiss his mouth. When she tells him she is Herodias’s daughter, he calls her a “daughter of Sodom” and bids her keep away from him. All Salome’s attempts to attract him fail, and he swears she will never kiss his mouth, cursing her as the daughter of an adulteress and advising her to seek the Lord. He returns to his underground confinement. The young captain of the guard, unable to bear Salome’s desire for another man, fatally stabs himself.

Herod appears from the palace, looking for the princess and commenting on the strange look of the moon. When he slips in the captain’s blood, he suddenly panics. Herodias dismisses his fears and asks him to go back inside with her, but Herod’s attention has turned libidinously towards Salome, who rejects his advances. From the cistern, Jokanaan resumes his denunciation of Herodias; she demands that Herod hand the prophet over to the Jews. Herod refuses, maintaining that Jokanaan is a holy man and has seen God. His words spark an argument among the Jews concerning the true nature of God, and two Nazarenes talk about the miracles of Jesus. As Jokanaan continues to accuse her, Herodias demands that he is silenced.

Herod asks Salome to dance for him. She refuses, but when he promises to give her anything she wants, she agrees. Ignoring her mother’s pleas – “Ne dansez pas, ma fille” – “Do not dance, my daughter” – Salome performs the dance of the seven veils. Delighted, Herod asks what reward she would like, and she asks for the head of Jokanaan on a silver platter. Horrified, Herod refuses, while Herodias rejoices at Salome’s choice. Herod offers other rewards, but Salome insists and reminds Herod of his promise. He finally yields. The executioner descends into the cistern, and Salome impatiently awaits her reward. When the prophet’s head is brought to her, she passionately addresses Jokanaan as if he were still alive and finally kisses his lips:

Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? … But perchance it is the taste of love. … They say that love hath a bitter taste. … But what of that? what of that? I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan.

Stories like this are great fodder for transgressive artists because they’re Biblically rooted. For those with religious beef to project, depicting the sinful nature of man (and woman) is a not-so-subtle opportunity to actually undermine the moral authority exerted by organized religion over the centuries, especially the long and violent history of the Catholic Church.

While Aldous Huxley goes to the 17th century for his story, and Ken Russell goes all the way back to Biblical times for one of his, its the modern age of atomic annihilation, and the legacy of scientists like Huxley and Missoula’s Harold Urey, that I’d like to conclude this week’s Decoding Culture post with.

Harold Urey comes off as being pretty reasonable throughout this 1960 UCLA panel discussion on “Human Values and the Scientific Revolution”, while Aldous Huxley admits to his elitist ONE WORLD fantasy (as popular then as now, it would appear) followed by “Lady Snow” (Pamela Hansford Johnson) doing that cultural thing a certain strand of colonial-minded white woman has been doing to “help” poor brown people for many, many years.

Fast forward from 1960 to 2014, when Silicon Valley first aired on HBO, and I’d say that Harold Urey was absolutely right to be discouraged about the fact “Scientists make the decisions and, in actuality, represent such a small percentage of the people“. It’s not just the embracing of an archetypal version of Satan that’s concerning, but the overt hostility toward Christianity, which culminates in the plot of an entire episode where a web-developer is outed as a Christian, horrifying the rest of the team at the potential loss of money-making that associating with a Christian means to their bottomline.

The tension between human morality and human technical innovation may no longer be as important as it’s been, historically, if NON-humans are increasingly involved in our technically interconnected lives.

So, on Halloween’s eve, consider what NEW devils are out there, and stay safe. This “new” world is far from being brave.

Thanks for reading!

Today I’m going to look at the history of the political Sheriff in order to help Missoula Democrats understand why their “Democrat” law man, Jeremiah Petersen, just stabbed them in the back like a Billings she-boy stabbing a math teacher.

Since these Missoula Democrats are pretty busy doing damage control for the growing scandal of corrupt leadership (and the appearance of bribery), I hope this research helps them figure out how to salvage credibility as their party struggles to redefine itself.

What kind of “strong, practical support” does Jeremiah Petersen think the Republican Congressional candidate, Aaron Flint, might be able to offer him? Is it the kind of support our Republican President, Donald Trump, has offered other Sheriffs, like the one he pardoned with the bribery problem?

If you’re not aware of how Sheriff Scott Jenkins got himself out of legal hot water last year, here’s a British rag for some context (BBC):

US President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted on fraud and bribery charges.

A jury found former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins guilty of accepting more than $75,000 (£55,000) in bribes last December, in exchange for making several businessmen into law enforcement officers without them being trained.

Jenkins, a long-time supporter of Trump, was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison. He was set to report to jail on Tuesday, but due to Trump’s pardon, he will not spend a single day behind bars.

“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.

Scott Jenkins is not the only corrupt Sheriff to get saved by a Trump pardon. The more infamous case is the one where Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an example of presidential pardon power that has its own Wikipedia page:

On August 25, 2017, President Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor. Arpaio had been convicted of the crime two months earlier for disobeying a federal judge’s order to stop racial profiling in detaining “individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally”. The pardon covered Arpaio’s conviction and “any other offenses under Chapter 21 of Title 18, United States Code that might arise, or be charged, in connection with Melendres v. Arpaio.”

With this presidential pardon history in mind, a curious observer of Sheriff Petersen’s political endorsement might be asking themselves what he could angling for. To try and answer that question, let’s consult Jesse Mullen’s op-ed in the Missoula Current to see what we can glean from the implosion of Montana Democrats and the resignation of party chair, Shannon O’Brien.

The newsworthy question absent from O’Brien’s resignation letter is why she presented it as a principled stand against partisan politics while failing to disclose that the party’s executive board was investigating a severance agreement she signed without its approval. Her $5,000-a-month stipend had also been revoked following a separate dispute over her handling of party finances.

That question is supported by a trail of documents, not hearsay or rumor.

According to an internal report circulated among the executive board, including Robyn Driscoll, who signed the recent column, O’Brien and former deputy director Justin Ailport negotiated and drafted a severance agreement after Ailport was passed over for a promotion. The report says neither the executive director nor the board was included in that decision.

Members of the board estimated the severance exceeded $30,000. They claim O’Brien approved it without authorization, notice to the appropriate officials, or discussion with the board, and it went to an employee who voluntarily resigned.

The reporting includes the agreement’s time-stamped audit history, internal discussions with the party’s attorney, an interview with a former party executive director, and confirmation from multiple board members.

While I can’t say conclusively that the “party’s attorney” referenced here is a lawyer by the name of Paul Leisher, I have reason to believe that Leisher is connected to this growing financial scandal, along with interim party chair, Jeremy Ailport, and his boyfriend, Andy Nelson.

While interim director Jeremy Ailport told those Republicans (who Democrat Sheriff Petersen is now directly supporting) that they can’t hide in Washington DC from accountability, I’m wondering what DEMOCRATS might be hiding from that has inspired Jeremiah Petersen to jump ship.

In a new column, Montana Democratic Party Interim Executive Director Justin Ailport slams President Trump and Elon Musk’s push to shut down the Department of Education and highlights the dire consequences that will be felt in Montana.

Ailport criticizes Montana’s congressional delegation’s blind support for Trump and Musk’s reckless slashes, cuts and firings and warns Republican leaders they cannot continue to hide in Washington, DC from frustrated constituents at home in Montana.

One risk of making this move for Sheriff Petersen is angering the gay bathroom judge, Shane Vannatta, who did a TREMENDOUS job helping Sheriff Ryan Funke continue being a retarded Brady cop until the bitter end of his reign in Mineral County when Vannatta judiciously declared Funke’s legal problem to be a total nothingburger.

And who was Ryan Funke’s personal lawyer on that case? That’s right, PAUL LEISHER!

After three years of litigation, a judge has ruled that 10-year-old allegations of inconsistent reports by current Mineral County Sheriff Ryan Funke don’t constitute Brady material and don’t need to be provided to defendants in criminal cases.

The Mineral County Attorney’s Office, representing the Mineral County commissioners, has argued that inconsistencies in Funke’s reports when he served as a deputy in Lake County constituted Brady material, meaning the office would have to provide this material to the defense in cases where Funke’s testimony or reports were used. Judge Shane Vannatta ruled from the bench on Wednesday in favor of Funke and his attorney Paul Leisher, who argued that these inconsistencies were standard minor mistakes.

“I think it’s a nothingburger,” Vannatta said, borrowing the verbiage of Mineral County Attorney-elect Roy Miller, who took the stand during Wednesday’s evidentiary hearing.

While a Proud Patriot might be inclined to demonstrate the strength of the Constitution, and the protections this founding document has enshrined, by typing out obscenities like NIGGER, CUNT, and FAGGOT, I’m neither proud, nor a patriot who assumes language won’t be criminalized, like filing FELONY charges against a young asshole who drunkenly suggested some some Jeets should return to their homeland.

While having a STRONG Constitution would be nice, what we have instead are retarded Sheriffs who started a retarded Sheriff movement by calling themselves “Constitutional Sheriffs”.

Here’s some context to make you sleep better at night, citizens of America:

Self-described constitutional sheriffs assert that they are the supreme legal authority with the power and duty to defy or disregard laws they regard as unconstitutional.

Sheriffs are not mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly states that the states and the federal government possess sovereignty and that local government is left to the states. As such, sheriffs and all other local government officials are creations of state law. However, rather than the United States Constitution, the ideological basis of the constitutional sheriffs’ movement rests on various incorrect historical and legal claims, relying on a pretense that the historic powers of the high sheriff of an English shire apply in the United States regardless of subsequent legal developments.

What kind of conduct can a Sheriff get away with? How about apparently lying to a state legislator about a citizen journalist’s address information?

So far, from my perspective, yes, it DOES appear that Sheriffs (and other officials) are allowed to lie and commit other crimes, like theft, without fear of consequence. Unless, of course, Keithi Worthington does her job and charges the likely culprit who stole my personal property on June 19th after reviewing the strong evidence of who that culprit is.

While I wait for the “protect and serve” law enforcement services that taxpayers fund with their taxes in modern cities like Missoula, I’m offering YOU, dear reader, even MORE historical context on the modern Sheriff with this link (PDF) to a 41 page paper about the history and political implications of this important office.

Here’s the title, author, and summary of this educational research paper:

And here’s a short excerpt from the conclusion of this paper about the POWER local jurisdictions have to CHANGE the office of the Sheriff if they so choose:

An important finding in this paper is that states and individual counties are able to decide whether or not they wish to continue electing their sheriffs. Despite the longevity and ubiquity of elected sheriffs, cases from New York to Miami to Seattle to Connecticut show that institutions are dynamic: the elected office of sheriff is not permanent or unchangeable. Future research should explore the persistence of the institution over time, as well as the reasons for why sheriffs were never elected in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the other territories.

If you appreciate the work I’m doing while being actively targeted by the people and institutions with the power to take away my freedom and my life (like they did to Sean Stevenson and Johnny Lee Perry) I’d say donate, but I’m too financially fucked at this point for digital donations to really help, since my accounts are frozen.

Anyway, I’ll just keep pretending I have the protection of the first amendment and report on what I can until my status of being in pre-trial supervision changes.

Thanks for reading!

Long before the rift opens to suck away your money, time, and sanity, the assumption is an “incident” has occurred to warrant a person’s appearance in court.

Not so.

Following an “incident” through the judicial system is what City Council will be spending three hours doing today after spending three hours last week discussing this “community issue”, which I covered in this post.

Instead of tracking the movement of an incident of “violence” through the court system, today’s post is going to explain how non-criminal civil protection orders can initiate the use of the system itself as the abuser when a “petitioner” is not the kind of “reasonable” person in need of enhanced protection they claim to be.

The video clip I’m going to highlight below explains how intimate partner violence doesn’t have to include any violence at all because it’s all about POWER and CONTROL, something the system itself is also known for. Since this idea of violence is so expansive, the following clip can be applied to an abusive SYSTEM as well, so listen closely to what’s being described:

If you listened closely to the woman defining the experiences of a victim, then you probably heard the word “stalking” used. This word is VERY important because it’s one of those dubious, non-violent actions that an UN-reasonable person can claim to be experiencing when trying to use the system to punish someone and, with stalking, it doesn’t even have to be an intimate partner making the claim. It can be a state legislator OR a former employer, as I have learned the hard way.

Looking at the system itself as an abuser, or women as abusers, shouldn’t be controversial, but, when Gwen Jones stated last week that same sex relationships experience rates of violence that are the same, or higher, than hetero-relationships–yet that fact didn’t show up in the Missoula Current’s reporting–I immediately sensed that this issue was being politicized.

To further back up this assertion, here’s a graphic from today’s Council presentation that emphasizes MALE PRIVILEGE as one of the slices in this pie-graph of POWER and CONTROL:

Is treating a woman like a servant physical violence, sexual violence, or neither? What about making “all the big decisions”, or acting like the “master of the castle”? What kind of violence is that?

Another aspect I find interesting about this pie-graph is the slice that defines “economic abuse” as things like “giving her an allowance”. If I wanted to define my father as being an economic abuser, this slice would come in handy, since he’s used money to control my mother for my entire life. Even now, when mom helps me out by buying me Good Food Store gift cards, she knows that every purchase she makes dings as a notification on my dad’s phone, which he immediately scrutinizes and will interrogate her over if he senses she’s spending too much, or helping me in ways he hasn’t sanctioned.

Returning to the propaganda material, let’s take a look at some of the other visual aids our City Council members will be subjected to during today’s three hour session. As you examine the following slides, remember, using money to control and abuse people is one of the system’s FAVORITE methods of coercion:

Once revenue streams created by acts of Uncle Sam established an economic foundation for this victim industry, the local version now has a great reason to ALWAYS ask for more money (because inflation), and the fact this industry creates more victims is actually seen as a positive sign of empowerment, thus providing a rationale to keep feeding this legal machine and further empower its ability to be PROACTIVE by using non-criminal civil processes to turn any toxic relationship–even non-intimate-partner ones–into opportunities for criminal intervention.

Doesn’t that sound about right, Brandi?

Having just recently become familiar with The Ries Law Group by reporting on the lawfare against Sam Redfern, I wasn’t surprised to see them benefit from this great business opportunity of being platformed by Gwen Jones to appear like noble protectors in furtherance of the law firm’s business model. Good job, ladies!

And good job to EVERYONE who has helped the professional victim who stalked me and harassed my family until I finally cut her out of my life.

And men, yes, this is when the protection order was filed against me.

When I filed a protection order to protect myself and my family from harassment, it was denied the same day. When I filed a police report that this person was secretly recording people’s conversations, even County Attorney’s who refused to charge OTHER MEN she was claiming abused her, nothing happened. When I objected in court to the SUBSTITUTE JUDGE who admitted he had gone to law school with her, it was denied. When I asked for more time to find a lawyer, since CIVIL proceedings don’t provide any legal representation for DEFENDANTS, my request was denied by the judge, the same judge who knew her.

After getting the CIVIL protection order, my petitioner was able to take EVERYTHING that I had previously been doing with my citizen journalism in this community and essentially depict it as STALKING HER. And, even better for her political allies (like Susan Hay Patrick and the legislator I cannot name), if she was in proximity to what I was doing, my presence could be criminalized and prosecuted.

Show up to City Council to make a public comment? Charged with a crime (later dropped by the city).

Show up to the State of the Community speech with an educational display from my urban camp cleanup? Charged with a crime (found guilty after a jury trial).

Show up to a park where Palestinian activists were having an event, then writing about it? Yep, charged with a crime, because that park was within 1,500 feet of the petitioner’s residence.

The latest crime I’m being prosecuted for is being on campus in June to cover the Alani Bankhead press release, a notable political event which I wrote about and, thus, provided the evidence that the County Attorney’s Office will be referencing to claim I have implicated myself in another terrible crime, one that my FIRST petitioner was hoping could be all about her, but, alas, she only gets an assist on this one, since the responding jurisdiction confirmed that her story of my immediate departure indicated I had abided by the constraints still upon me to leave if this person shows up, even if that means walking away from a meal in a restaurant.

Undeterred by this denial, it’s my understanding that Petitioner 1 reached out to Petitioner 2, the state legislator, and together it was determined that a technical violation could be claimed (since campus is covered by one of the 4 Travis Exclusion Zones), and that’s how this citizen journalist once again found himself being prosecuted for his local coverage and activism, which has included a very effective exposure of the Homeless Industrial Complex I was once a part of before becoming homeless myself.

Which brings me to a bullshit book I found some kernels of truth in:

Since the time that I spent homeless has been used against me in civil court proceedings, and since my TOTAL LACK of criminal history prior to my social status changing, and toxic relationship ensuing, means nothing to those depicting me as a dangerous criminal, I have had no choice, over the last THREE YEARS, but to fight back in the limited ways my poverty and pariah status have allowed, with only Daddy’s financial help keeping me from being homeless again.

Most men experiencing lawfare don’t want to talk about it, and many men end up committing suicide as the final solution to make years of harassment stop. The irony, of course, is that even if I wanted to move to another town to lessen my chances of being criminally charged for more violations, I’m once again legally required to be here, which means my chances of running into the person who calls 911 on me every time I am seen existing are high, which means my anxiety never fully abates as I attempt to make it through each day as unscathed as possible.

Before ending today’s post (and continuing to live another day of my “life”), here’s what I would like to see happen: STUDY THE DATA!

More specifically, here’s a series of questions I would be asking about the kind of data I’m thinking of were it me conducting a paid study to define lawfare for State Legislators who can craft a bill to empower DEFENDANTS and give them a better chance to FIGHT BACK against unvetted petitioners with covert political agendas and/or vindictive axes to grind:

How many “Temporary Orders of Protection” (TOPs) are being awarded to petitioner’s in Missoula County? Is that number going up? How many petitioner’s are NOT intimate partners? How many times has “stalking” been used as a justification for those TOPs? Are certain law firms over represented in the use of TOPs? Are non-profits, like the YWCA, compromised by political bias? Are Crime Victim Advocate “investigators” potentially hiding exculpatory evidence from the legal discovery process?

Ultimately I want today’s post to emphasize how educated I’m getting by attending these required classes for my degree at the University of Lawfare. Since I do believe there’s immense value in “lived experience”, anything our local “protectors” throw at me will just make me a smarter, more effective adversary against the use of this insidious tactic, and the casualties I know that exist from its growing power to destroy.

Thanks for reading!

Scott Twito, the former Yellowstone County Attorney, isn’t a man with balding hair who spins a “wheel of prosecution” in his office, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a poster of Dylan Mulvaney on his wall, but what Scott Twito DOES have is a well-timed resignation that removes him from the County Attorney Office that decided recently WHY prosecute a dangerous mentally ill teenager who stabbed a math teacher at school when you can choose NOT to prosecute that teenager.

I bet you didn’t think THAT was an option, did you?

Community members and teachers in Billings participated in rallies Monday calling for improved school safety after news broke that a former student who stabbed a teacher at Senior High School in January won’t face felony charges.

The decision to decline felony charges and refer the case to city prosecutors for possible misdemeanor charges was reported Friday by KTVQ. News of the decision sparked a community backlash, with some angry at what they saw as a lack of accountability. Superintendent Erwin Garcia sent a memo to media outlets Friday saying he was “frustrated” to learn there would be no felony case and that the situation “does not ease the pain or provide the clear resolution our community needs.”

Garcia wrote in response to emailed questions from Montana Free Press Monday that he hadn’t gotten an explanation from the county attorney’s office.

“No explanation means confusion for the community as a whole, including teachers, staff, and students,” he wrote.

While the rumors about what happened, and why, are running rampant, the fact is that a high school math teacher WAS STABBED in January, the investigation took NINE MONTHS to complete, and the decision to NOT prosecute was made by the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office at the same time Scott Twito thought HEY, WHAT A GREAT TIME TO LEAVE!

Longtime Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito is stepping down to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana.

Twito notified Yellowstone County commissioners in recent weeks that he could be tapped for the federal role, and he confirmed his resignation to Montana Free Press Friday. His resignation is effective Oct. 25, and he will start work as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Montana the next day. Twito made his last day a Sunday because the county attorney often fields calls over the weekend, he said.

“I love the job,” Twito told MTFP. “I love serving the community. I hope I’ve conveyed that over the years.”

Interim U.S. District Attorneys can serve for 120 days but must ultimately be nominated for permanent service by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Twito has been with the county attorney’s office for 29 years and has served as county attorney for 15. In his Thursday resignation letter, Twito called the appointment a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and said he’d prepared the county attorney’s office in case of his departure.

What political party does Scott Twito belong to? Like Republican Kurt Alme, who ALSO received criticism for his tenure as a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorneys Office, Scott Twito is a Republican, and Republicans have historically NOT appreciated prosecutors who seem to be playing political games with public safety.

That’s why, three years ago, articles like this one were being written. From the link:

Vowing to rein in so-called progressive prosecutors, Republican lawmakers in at least half a dozen states are pushing bills that would curb the discretion that local district attorneys have in deciding which crimes to prosecute — and, in some cases, make it easier to remove those elected officials from office.

GOP backers say the legislation is necessary to protect public safety in places where elected prosecutors have declined to charge people for certain categories of crime, such as drug possession. The prosecutors say that by using drug treatment, community service and other strategies to deal with low-level offenders, they can reduce mass incarceration and conserve resources for more serious crimes.

More serious crimes should include trying to murder someone with a knife, but I guess Republican Scott Twito had more important things to do than assess if a transitioning boy-to-girl teenager, who appears to have been obsessed with other lady killers, like Jodi Arias, deserves to face any consequences for “her” violent attack and the trauma across this community that “she” has caused.

For some of the context that conventional media won’t report on, here’s a screenshot from Reddit, where subpar citizen investigations occur when paid prosecutors refuse to do THEIR job:

While this case gets reviewed by the CITY attorney’s office in Billings, another case in another Montana County got my attention because the Sheriff is being criminally charged for his inability to run a competent investigation:

The Liberty County sheriff is in hot water over questions about how a juvenile assault investigation was handled.

A new affidavit says Sheriff Nickolas Erickson took months to run over records to state investigators, missing key documentation in the process.

The state is now asking a judge to find a probable cause for a falsification charge.

What the fuck is wrong with the criminal justice system in this state? Reading further, it appears that retarded Sheriffs who can’t competently do their job is one of the reasons our criminal justice system is so fucked:

The investigation began after a June 2025 incident involving two juveniles and allegations of assault and strangulation.

According to the affidavit, the victim’s father repeatedly contacted the sheriff’s office and county attorney, who said he could not move forward without the investigative file.

The affidavit says state investigators began asking for the file in October 2025.

In February 2026, Erickson asked the state Division of Criminal Investigation to take over the case and said he would provide the materials.

The affidavit says state investigators began asking for the file in October 2025.

In February 2026, Erickson asked the state Division of Criminal Investigation to take over the case and said he would provide the materials.

Investigators say several promised deadlines passed, Erickson delivered a folder on April 7.

When you do the math it took 10 months for the Sheriff to hand over the investigation file to the County Attorney in Liberty County, but it gets worse.

Here’s what that “investigation” left out, according to the documentation provided to the prosecutor:

The affidavit says the folder included medical records, handwritten notes and two flash drives, but no police reports.

One drive contained video of a juvenile interview with no sound, notes or transcript.

The other held body-camera footage from the night of the incident.

The affidavit also says the file lacked documentation of the victim’s forensic interview. it alleges Erickson later told investigators he received a link to those materials but did not download them.

Yep, this Republican Sheriff appears to be so worthless that HE is the one getting criminally charged.

Again, what the fuck is wrong with the criminal justice system in this state?

Liberty County Sheriff Nickolas Erickson has been charged with one criminal misdemeanor for allegedly making false statements to other law enforcement in connection with a 2025 assault case.

The sole charge of unsworn falsification to authorities was filed Oct. 14 in Liberty County Justice Court by Assistant Attorney General Jessica Best, who was acting as special deputy Liberty County attorney.

…

The father told state investigators he had taken his son in for a forensic examination on his own and reached out to the sheriff in August and September. During his second conversation, Erickson allegedly told him he had reached out to someone with the Montana Attorney General’s Office, but that person no longer worked there, according to charging documents.

I included that last part about Sheriff Erickson claiming he reached out to someone at the Attorney General’s Office to help make my point that Montana’s REPUBLICAN Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, is likely going to have himself a Sheriff problem when he runs for Governor, and we’re NOT just talking about the ones who have to hide their love of D, like Missoula’s Sheriff, Jeremiah Petersen, who is running UNOPPOSED as a Democrat candidate this cycle.

Petersen’s fellow law enforcer in Cascade County, Jesse Slaughter, left behind Democrats to become a Republican and has been making A LOT of media appearances recently, like this one where he smiles for the Montana Free Press in order to talk himself up for low-information voters who don’t know what kind of shit-heel this man is.

Oh, and he’s going to be demanding more money for the jail he’s running, since expanding jail/prison capacity is a big issue this election cycle across the state.

Another part of this interview that’s relevant for today’s post is Sheriff Slaughter expressing his confusion about the politics of protecting children, stating he believes law enforcement needs to be PROACTIVE to address the potential for violence in schools.

Proactive? Considering the information I’ve assembled here today, I bet citizens in Montana would settle for their law enforcers to simply exhibit a basic level of competence in doing basic elements of their job AFTER incidents of violence have occurred.

Is that too much to ask?

Sheriff Slaughter ultimately doesn’t think that other political offices are as appealing for him to pursue as he continues along his Sheriff career path sporting a nice “R” next to his name instead of that “D” he shed last election cycle.

Slaughter said in the video that he has repeatedly come under fire from elected Democratic officials for his belief that the Constitution is “concrete” and is not subject to a “progressive interpretation,” specifically citing the 2nd Amendment.

In response, the Cascade County Democratic Central Committee called for Slaughter to resign, and claimed that Slaughter’s switch to the GOP is “less a conviction and more a calculation.”

Yes, of course it was a calculation, and, based on the electoral victories Sheriff Slaughter has enjoyed since 2021, it was a smart calculation, one that was openly accepted by the party of “family values” when Slaughter made the switch:

Cyndi Baker, chair of the Cascade County Republican Central Committee, released the following statement in response to Slaughter’s political switch:

I would like to welcome Sheriff Jesse Slaughter to the party of common sense and American values. He has the support of every republican legislator in Cascade County. As the most recent election showed, our county is now solidly red and there is no reason to think that this switch will do anything but enhance his future election prospects. We laud Sheriff Slaughter’s desire to stand up for all the citizens in Cascade County and know he will continue to do an outstanding job no matter the party designation.

With one week before the midterm elections my brand of bipartisan disdain for how power is exerted by BOTH parties is more unwelcome than ever, but I don’t publish six posts a week to make friends, I keep doing what I’m doing to expose how narrative control functions, even if I have to martyr my own freedom to show how dead the First Amendment is.

Thanks for reading!