Month: November 2016

by William Skink

Mayor John Engen decided to write an open letter to the Missoula community to explain that his recent absence from office was due to receiving treatment for alcoholism. Here is a portion of that letter:

Not everyone believes addiction is a disease. Given what I know now, I do. And I don’t expect everyone to forgive me or understand me in the wake of telling my story. But the story is mine, it’s true, and it won’t change. What can change is that I can do everything I can every day to stay sober, to be my best self.

I want to be your mayor for another term and will run for re-election in 2017. Only a serious, sober me can do that. And you deserve the serious, sober me you’ve elected in the past.

If you have an addiction problem, there is hope. Please seek help. And know that you will find support.

I’m happy that the Mayor was able to receive treatment for his disease, but not everyone enjoys the same access to treatment that the Mayor has. If you don’t have good insurance, or tens of thousands of dollars to afford treatment, then there is a good chance you won’t find the support you need.

I was talking with someone from the recovery community recently about this very topic, and here is the harsh reality: Missoula’s in-patient treatment program only has 2 beds that will accept Medicaid, and according to this person, the wait list is between 4-6 months.

This community has been struggling for years to address the significant gaps that still exist when it comes to accessing treatment for addictions. It’s one of the main factors fueling the jail overcrowding crisis, not to mention a major stumbling bloc in providing the tools to address chronic homelessness.

Another Missoula Current piece profiles the Poverello’s new Director, reporting that one of the shelter’s main focus is going to be chronic homelessness. From the link:

While the Poverello’s Board of Directors explores the future, Allison Thompson comes to the job with her own goals. Foremost among them, she hopes to address chronic homelessness and the underlying factors that make it so difficult to resolve.

That includes so-call “wet housing,” a term that has fallen out of favor with the city, though the goal remains the same. While the Poverello serves a long list of clients, it cannot serve those who’ve been drinking. Yet with addiction standing as one of the leading factors in chronic homelessness, not addressing it it leaves a gap in the system — and in any cure.

“I think the city needs to start looking at how we serve people who aren’t allowed to stay at the Poverello Center.” Allison Thompson said. “That’s a real gap in our services, and it’s something I’m concerned about.”

The part of this quote that stands out to me is that the term “wet housing” has “fallen out of favor with the city”. Why the hell is that? It’s one of the main recommendations of Missoula’s 10 year plan to end homelessness, so if a wet housing program is no longer favored by the city, I sure would like to know why that’s the case. If the city doesn’t support wet housing, it should be Mayor Engen who explains why.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Engen’s letter as an honest announcement to inform his constituents of his struggle with alcohol abuse. I see a politician getting ahead of bad publicity to control the message so he can win another term as Mayor.

I think the Mayor needs a longer break than a month from the stress of gentrifying our Missoula metropolis. His administration has ignored gaps in services for years while schmoozing with developers to transform the skyline and fill the valley with out-of-state transplants who can actually afford the skyrocketing cost of housing amidst stagnating wages.

Someone with a different vision for Missoula needs to challenge the Mayor to give him the extended break I think he needs. Engen has had nearly a decade to lead this town. It’s time for different leadership.

by William Skink

For National Public Radio listeners, weekend edition’s coverage of the growing #pizzagate scandal is probably the first they heard of claims that an organized pedophile network exists and is connected to politically influential people like John Podesta. And because of how NPR framed this story, it will probably be the last they hear of this scandal, unless a formal investigation is launched or more substantial evidence emerges.

Here is the opening confinement of the narrative:

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Just a few days before the election, a popular Washington, D.C. pizza joint became the victim of a political fake news attack. The restaurant received death threats and accusations. Before long, there were hundreds of those threats and frightening messages on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter directed not only to the restaurant and its owner, but also to the wait staff and other workers at the restaurant. James Alefantis is the owner of Comet Ping Pong. And we very much appreciate you coming in to talk to us. I know that you’ve had a couple of bad weeks here.

JAMES ALEFANTIS: It’s been a hard 14 days or so.

Linda Wertheimer depicts the owner of Comet Ping Pong as a victim of a political fake news attack. As the alleged victim, only Alefantis is given NPR’s platform to disseminate his version of how he became the target of this harassment. And instead of doing any journalistic due diligence, like conducting their own research, it’s obvious that Wertheimer is more than happy to defer to Alefantis’ “investigation”:

WERTHEIMER: You did some reporting on what was going on, right? You investigated. You went on the web yourself to see if you could find out why this was happening. Tell us what you found.

ALEFANTIS: Well, it started when I was receiving many direct messages on Instagram and comments on my Instagram page. And I realized that something had come up. It turned out that there was a worldwide conspiracy theory in – based inside of Reddit and was being sent out through YouTube and Facebook and other places and that’s sort of an insanely complicated, made-up, fictional lie-based story. This was a coordinated political attack.

WERTHEIMER: The story was that Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, were running a child molestation ring out of the back of your restaurant. Is that correct, more or less?

ALEFANTIS: Essentially, yes. There was – it was sort of based in a couple of things. Satanic rituals and human trafficking led by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta was the sort of basis of this insane story.

WERTHEIMER: It seems remarkable to me that anybody took that seriously at all. They look and sound completely and not very skillfully made-up.

ALEFANTIS: Basically, the sort of reality-based community thought this was this insane sort of joke or a made-up fiction. But within many of these conspiratorial online communities, they were at least taking this seriously. What’s wild additionally is that it seems as if it’s almost like a game to them, like a video game. And the players are actually real, and the tools that are used are based in social media.

So essentially, they would go into our social media accounts and they would take photographs that were on my Instagram of my friends’ children or of my associates’ children and post them around thousands and thousands of fake news sites and on Reddit and on YouTube and use these images of happily playing, innocent children as proof of some kind of human trafficking scheme led by the Clintons.

No where in the above quote is the actual origin of this story accurately identified: John Podesta’s emails.

It’s true that the initial motivation of the reddit/4chan sleuths pouring over the trove of emails dumped by Wikileaks was political. More specifically, they were looking for anything that could damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

During this email search–again, not even mentioned at all in the NPR interview–some food-related emails stood out as being suspicious. For a good breakdown of the most important data points, including examples of the emails that started this whole thing, I suggest reading this post by The Last American Vagabond. Here is some of the language from Podesta’s email archive:

“Hi John, The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yours? They can send it if you want. I know you’re busy, so feel free not to respond if it’s not yours or you don’t want it.”

“I consider ice cream, its purchase, and its consumption a rather serious business. We can’t just willy-nilly toss it out and about in casual references, especially linked with the word ‘free’.”

“Lo and behold, instead of pasta and wonderful sauces, it was a lovely, tempting assortment of cheeses, Yummy. I am awaiting the return of my children and grandchildren from their holiday travels so that we can demolish them.”

Emails like these obviously don’t prove anything nefarious is going on, they are just sort of off, enough that people began taking a look at Comet Ping Pong, Besta Pizza, and previously public Instagram accounts. Then other factors came into play, like Tony Podesta’s disturbing art collection, bizarre art performances with occult undertones, and other stories started getting pulled into this, like the attempted theft of 33 kids in Haiti.

There are a lot more data points being compiled, but for the average NPR listener, the weekend edition coverage’s depiction of this as too crazy to even contemplate will more than likely have the desired effect, which is to keep its audience from taking a look themselves and determining if this is all just feverish delusions from paranoid partisans who think the Clinton’s are evil incarnate, or something the authorities should be taking a serious look at.

The conclusion of the interview added another layer of threat, specifically the potential for James Alefantis to sue people for defamation:

WERTHEIMER: Well, is there anything you can do? I mean, have you had any sort of satisfaction from talking to the milliones de (ph) Washington lawyers who must be among your customers?

ALEFANTIS: We have talked to a few lawyers. It seems that there are not many outlets for people who have suffered this kind of attack and abuse. You’re allowed to sue for defamation, but that suit takes many years and is very grueling. Additionally, these chat rooms where these people are based are protected by a law that claims that they’re hosting sites, and therefore people can hide behind a screen name. So it’s very difficult to identify who the bully or – and harasser is.

In the case of Comet Ping Pong, we’re a beloved neighborhood institution. And so we’re very strong in a way. We have great community support. If this kind of attack were leveled at an individual or a less strong small business, it would be – I think could be potentially devastating to some of these people.

WERTHEIMER: James Alefantis. He runs a restaurant here in Washington. Thank you very much for telling us your story. I hope things get better for you.

This story is far from over. It will be very interesting to see where it goes next. Stay tuned…

by William Skink

By now you’ve heard the claim that there is an epidemic of fake news promoted by the Kremlin being consumed by unwitting Americans. This scourge of fake news is apparently so perniciously effective it may have even contributed to the electoral drubbing of HRC earlier this month.

As I indicated in the title of this post, this latest descent into a McCarthyite assault on alternative news sites is part of an information war that the mainstream media is currently losing, hence the explicit naming of allegedly compromised sites compiled into a handy blacklist promoted by the Washington Post.

The success of alternative news sites would not be possible if the propaganda being peddled by corporate media wasn’t so pathetically packaged and cynically delivered to its consumers. The election was the final straw. A media that helped create Trump for the ratings, then turned on him when the joke of his candidacy actually secured the nomination, is a media that should no longer be taken seriously.

The blacklist “reported” on by the Washington Post comes from this website. The evil Russians have apparently been busy, compromising sites like Truthout and the Drudge Report. Zerohedge is on the list, as well as Moon of Alabama. I’ve been reading b’s posts at MoA for nearly a decade and consider myself better informed on matters of foreign policy because of it.

When the attack on Benghazi happened, b correctly described the attack as a well-coordinated assault. At the time, corporate media was still peddling the “fake news” of a spontaneous attack in response to a video. So b was right, and mainstream news was wrong. And that is what corporate media finds threatening.

In this post, b responds to being put on a list of useful idiots for the Kremlin. From the link:

I wholeheartedly recommend to use at least parts of the list that new anonymous censorship entity provides as your new or additional “Favorite Bookmarks” list. It includes illustrious financial anti-fraud sites like Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism, Wikileaks, well informed libertarian sites like Ron Paul and AntiWar.com and leftish old timers like Counterpunch. Of general (non-mainstream) news sites Consortiumnews, run by Robert Parry who revealed the Iran-contra crimes, is included as well as Truthdig and Truth-out.org. Some easy to remove nazi sites have been added to that list to smear the serious ones. A rather stupid “trick” of “guilt by association” for which only the very dumb fall.

I am honored to find this site listed next to the above.

Yep, even Counterpunch made the list. If sore loser Pete Talbot hadn’t given up blogging, I’m sure he would describe his delight that Counterpunch has been included in this McCarthyite attack on alternative news sites.

The Intercept took a look at this reckless reporting and easily shot a bunch of holes into The Post’s decision to frame the source of this list as experts:

In casting the group behind this website as “experts,” the Post described PropOrNot simply as “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Not one individual at the organization is named. The executive director is quoted, but only on the condition of anonymity, which the Post said it was providing the group “to avoid being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.”

In other words, the individuals behind this newly created group are publicly branding journalists and news outlets as tools of Russian propaganda – even calling on the FBI to investigate them for espionage – while cowardly hiding their own identities. The group promoted by the Post thus embodies the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy but without the courage to attach their names to their blacklist. Echoing the Wisconsin Senator, the group refers to its lengthy collection of sites spouting Russian propaganda as “The List.”

How far will this Neo-McCarthy effort to censor alternative news sites go? Maybe a better question to ask is, with America’s trust in mainstream news at an all-time low, who is left to listen to this desperate scapegoating from a corporate media that long ago sold out its journalistic standards for political access?

by William Skink

I was very disappointed to see Missoula Indy columnist, Dan Brooks, provide a broad dismissal of the ongoing crowd-sourced investigation into another pedophile network comprised of influential people, this one operating out of DC.

I say “another” pedophile network because networks of pedophiles in positions of power are not relegated to some seemingly outlandish claims by right-wing, 4chan conspiracy theorists. The most documented network of child abusers operated for years with impunity. I’m of course talking about the Catholic Church and the rampant abuse that was covered up for decades.

Pedophiles aren’t just creeps with thick glasses and old Chevy vans. They are billionaires like convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Actors like Corey Feldman and Elijah Wood claim pedophilia is one of Hollywood’s biggest problems.

It would be tempting to see individual cases of child abuse–like with Jerry Sandusky and Dennis Hastert–as isolated crimes resolved through our criminal justice system. And it would be tempting to ignore larger investigations, like the Franklin Credit Union scandal, which implicated lots of influential people, but ultimately lost steam when the main investigator, Gary Caradori, conveniently died in a plane crash.

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at how Dan Brooks casually dismisses the entirety of what’s emerging with this post put up a few days ago:

Thanks to fake news stories and social-media conspiracy theorists, thousands of people now believe that Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, DC, is the headquarters of a child sex-trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton. The owner and his staff have been getting death threats, and they’ve seen their children’s pictures used as photos of victims in fabricated stories like Pizzagate: How 4Chan Unconvered the Sick World of Washington’s Occult Elite. Don’t search #pizzagate on Twitter unless you want to lose faith in the American experiment.

Brooks uses the trifecta smear of fake-news/social-media/conspiracy theorist to cast as unthinkable any association of sex-trafficking and pedophilia with politicians, specifically Hillary Clinton.

Since the sources that are investigating this are used to discredit any information coming out, the following source I am going to reference is a source I know Dan trusts: the New York Times. From the link:

Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week without the government’s consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, had said they intended to rescue Haitian children left parentless in the quake and take them to what they described as an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. But they acknowledged failing to seek approval to remove the children from Haiti, and several of the children have at least one living parent.

Laura Silsby was the head of this effort to abduct children from Haiti, and her organization has been on Clinton’s radar–according to emails released by Wikileaks–as early as 2001.

Now, it’s not mainstream news sources making these connections by sifting through the vast trove of emails released by wikileaks. But unless those who are claiming there is nothing credible to any of this are also going to claim all the emails are fake and part of this “hoax”, then what has been uncovered so far at least merits a more formal investigation.

No one is claiming that child trafficking doesn’t exist. And why does it exist? Because there is enough demand to make the exploitation of children a very lucrative market. But don’t take it from this blogger–here is another article from the New York Times:

Every year, millions of women, children and men are victims of human trafficking, suffering grim treatment, from forced labor to prostitution. According to the International Labour Office, this illegal slave trade generates nearly $150 billion in profits annually.

What I find more disturbing than the speculation and connections being made by amateur sleuths is the continued refusal by otherwise intelligent people to acknowledge the growing body of evidence that powerful people are involved in organized child abuse.

I will let Dan Brooks conclude this post with his smug assessment that stupid people publishing their own stupid ideas is the real problem here. Take it away, Dan:

It’s possible that we have failed to teach millions of people the critical thinking skills necessary to function in civil society. Everyone had to be this dumb in the early 19th century, before the advent of public schools. But could they share their dumb ideas this effectively? Perhaps the analog here is not present citizens:past citizens but present publishers:past publishers. Everyone may have been dumber in the 1830s, but they were not the editors of their own newspapers. O brave new world.

by William Skink

Who amongst you is left from the carnage of Thanksgiving? I, as a fully appreciative white man celebrating my reign over all delicious fowl and caloric constraints, shall bask in the glorious ascendency long denied me.

I therefore assert it is only natural for one to seek supremacy regarding this bountiful blessing afforded us noble white men, who shall grant all others their agency to be others in strict adherence to their preferable ranking within out sacred status quo.

Who amongst you knows what the hell I am talking about? Surely few, for even I know not of what I speak and so must turn the cheek of my sad Turkey’s thankless white meat, left uneaten.

Perhaps it is by this measure we have been beaten.