Month: December 2018

by William Skink

It’s truly amazing to see US state media bestow sainthood on George H.W. Bush. If you watch or read US state media, you may be tempted to think this loving family man from the GREATEST generation is now plucking a divine harp in heaven. Aided by Trump derangement syndrome, any blemish on Bush Senior’s legacy will be dutifully expunged in order to mythologize this deceitful operator of US imperial ambition.

The supreme irony is Pappy Bush actually did what Trump has only so far threatened to do–use the power of the presidential pardon to obstruct justice and protect his own ass. Bush avoided being directly implicated in the Iran/Contra scandal by pardoning 6 people on the eve of the trial. from The Intercept:

The Iran-Contra affair, in which the United States traded missiles for Americans hostages in Iran, and used the proceeds of those arms sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, did much to undermine the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet his vice president’s involvement in that controversial affair has garnered far less attention. “The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete,” wrote Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh, a former deputy attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, in his final report on the Iran-Contra affair in August 1993.

Why? Because Bush, who was “fully aware of the Iran arms sale,” according to the special counsel, failed to hand over a diary “containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra” and refused to be interviewed in the later stages of the investigation. In the final days of his presidency, Bush even issued pardons to six defendants in the Iran-Contra affair, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger — on the eve of Weinberger’s trial for perjury and obstruction of justice. “The Weinberger pardon,” Walsh pointedly noted, “marked the first time a president ever pardoned someone in whose trial he might have been called as a witness, because the president was knowledgeable of factual events underlying the case.” An angry Walsh accused Bush of “misconduct” and helping to complete “the Iran-contra cover-up.”

For those who suffer from extreme cases of Trump derangement syndrome, there is no relevant history worth considering before the dire election results of 2016. But for those not stricken dumb by Trump hysteria, there is a lot that can be gleaned from previous presidential regimes.

by William Skink

I am so god damn excited that Missoula is going to have a discussion about homelessness.

Yep, that is what this Missoulian editorial is calling for, a discussion, and not just any discussion, but one that includes the “larger community” in Missoula.

After the preventable emergency that resulted from a chronic lack of prioritization by those who control the budget of our fair city is dealt with, band-aid style, here is how the Missoulian described the next step:

The next step is to get the entire community involved in an ongoing discussion about how to better identify, coordinate and meet the needs of our homeless and at-risk residents before they reach the point of crisis.

Missoula does have a plan, Reaching Home: Missoula’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, adopted in 2012, which aims to provide permanent housing solutions. It also has an Office of Housing and Community Development headed by a director with plenty of experience and expertise on the local homeless situation: Eran Pehan is a former executive director of the Poverello Center.

Going by the decreased number of homeless folks in Missoula despite the housing affordability, these efforts appear to be working. So how did this winter’s emergency arise? And what should Missoula do to better help our homeless in the future? That’s just one of many questions that need to be discussed in depth, not just by the experts and volunteers working to help Missoula’s homeless, but by the larger community.

I hope the larger Missoula community is as god damn excited as I am about this discussion, especially as the majority of this larger community voted to make housing more expensive with the Open Space Bond last month.

The first problem that needs to be addressed is the presumption that the amount of homeless people in Missoula is decreasing. I do not believe that is actually the case, and I further believe the Mayor’s office knows the numbers they are using from the point-in-time survey do not accurately reflect the reality of homelessness in Missoula.

How many active names are on the Coordinated Entry System’s by-name list? It’s important to say “active” because if you, as a homeless person, aren’t calling 211 every month to let them know you are still homeless, you become “inactive”. Either that number, or the number of unduplicated homeless individuals served by the Poverello Center for overnight shelter would give a more accurate picture of homelessness in Missoula.

Those numbers exist. If I was a reporter, I would be curious what those numbers are.

Another question I would ask, were I reporter, is what was actually accomplished during the first 4 years Michael Moore was the director of the 10 year plan to end homelessness? My opinion, which comes from direct experience, is that Michael was not qualified to move the plan forward, but no one else wanted the job, so he got it. Combine that with a lack of supervision from the leadership of United Way, and you get 4 years of nothing much getting accomplished.

If people in our larger Missoula community want to know how we got to the winter of 2018 without a better plan to keep people from dying of exposure, I am available and open to any and all educational opportunities. Hit me up at willskink at yahoo dot com.