Month: April 2019

by William Skink

Will the lawless US Empire get the revenge it desires against Julian Assange? A big step toward achieving vengeance happened today when Ecuador’s president allowed British authorities to enter the embassy and arrest Assange. Here is what the previous president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, had to say in a scathing tweet:

The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange.
Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget.

Ouch.

What I find to be particularly disgusting is having to watch the same media that spent the last two years peddling bullshit leaks from anonymous sources in order to feed the xenophobic, anti-Russia hysteria now shift gears to report on Assange’s fate. Do any of those well paid faces and voices have any understanding of the potential impact silencing Assange will have for press freedom? I’d ask some real journalists, like Gary Webb and Michael Hastings, but they’re dead.

While it seems obvious to me I’ll still go through the motions by pointing out that the behemoth corporations that have steadily consolidated their control of the media haven’t done so in order to protect or promote press freedom, quite the opposite.

Even well-funded upstarts like the Intercept, who made their name thanks to Edward Snowden’s leaked disclosures about the privacy-destroying expansion of the surveillance state, is moving in the opposite direction of transparency by shutting down the Snowden archives after only publishing around 10% of the material Snowden leaked. Here is some speculation on why the Intercept is shutting down the archive, and it’s not the “budget constraint” reasoning offered by Greenwald:

A more compelling reason for why the Snowden archive failed to retain its value to the Intercept in the eyes of Greenwald, Scahill and Reed lies in the troubling government and corporate connections of their benefactor Pierre Omidyar, who — as the sole shareholder of First Look Media — pays their enormous salaries.

As journalist Tim Shorrock recently wrote at Washington Babylon, a likely motive behind the decision to shut down the Snowden archive was related to “the extensive relationships the Omidyar Group, the billionaire’s holding company, and the Omidyar Network, his investment vehicle, have forged over the past decade with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other elements of the national security state,” as well as “the massive funds Omidyar and his allies in the world of billionaire philanthropy control through their foundations and investment funds.” MintPress has recently published several reports on both aspects of Omidyar’s many connections to the national security state and the non-profit industrial complex.

Journalist Tim Shorrock goes further with his speculation in the following direct quote:

The Snowden collection had become problematic to Omidyar as he positioned himself as a key player in USAID’s ‘soft power’ strategy to wean the world from ‘extremism’ with massive doses of private and public monies. The classified NSA documents may not have been a problem under the Obama White House, where Omidyar enjoyed privileged status. But under Trump, whose Justice Department has gone beyond Obama’s attacks on whistleblowers by pursuing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, holding on to the Snowden cache may had become a liability.”

So what is corporate media going to do? Wikileaks was a significant card in the house of cards known as Russiagate, despite evidence the was mostly ignored by the MSM, like Craig Murray standing up and saying he knew for a fact Russia wasn’t behind the leaked Clinton/Podesta emails. This was first reported by the Daily Mail all the way back in 2016:

A Wikileaks envoy today claims he personally received Clinton campaign emails in Washington D.C. after they were leaked by ‘disgusted’ whisteblowers – and not hacked by Russia.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, told Dailymail.com that he flew to Washington, D.C. for a clandestine hand-off with one of the email sources in September.

‘Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,’ said Murray in an interview with Dailymail.com on Tuesday. ‘The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.’

Who are you going to believe? Murray and Wikileaks, or a third party–Crowdstrike–HIRED by the DNC to evaluate their servers? Remember, the FBI never analyzed the servers the emails were taken from.

I doubt there will be any significant domestic outcry over the fate of Assange. Democrats and the herd that follows them think Assange is a Russian asset who deprived their Queen from the throne, while Republicans and the herd that follows them don’t appreciate that America’s war machine was exposed as the lawless, corrupt, tax-sucking monster that it is, a monster that can’t even win a war against the Taliban after nearly two decades.

Whatever happens to Assange, after today, anyone in this country who thinks there is such a thing as a “free press” is seriously deluded.

by William Skink

Donald Trump, like Barack Obama, said a lot of shit to get elected, then transformed once in office. Plenty of Obama supporters couldn’t make the cognitive shift to acknowledge they had been played. Similarly, plenty of Trump supporters also refuse to acknowledge Trump suckered them with populist rhetoric.

Pointing this out won’t mean anything if it comes from a source with even a hint of liberal/left ideology. That’s why I’m glad Michael Krieger at Liberty Blitzkrieg wrote this post, where he says things like this:

Though not surprising, it’s nevertheless extraordinary to watch Donald Trump publicly and shamelessly morph into a George W. Bush era neocon when it comes to foreign policy, and a CNBC stock market cheerleader when it comes to the economy. Just like Barack Obama before him, Trump talked a good populist game on two issues of monumental importance (foreign policy and the rigged economy), but once elected immediately turned around and prioritized the core interests of oligarchy.

Trump doesn’t even give lip service to big picture populist topics anymore unless they’re somehow related to the culture war, which works out perfectly for the entrenched oligarchy since the culture war primarily serves as a useful distraction to keep the rabble squabbling while apex societal predators loot whatever’s left of this hollowed out neo-feudal economy.

The pivot toward status quo consensus when it comes to two of the most existential issues facing the nation should be deeply concerning to everyone, but particularly to those who thought Donald Trump would be different. When it comes to militarism and empire, Trump’s hypocrisy and bait and switch is one for the record books. Just as it became clear Obama was a fraud once he hired Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner (we later found out his cabinet was apparently chosen by Citibank), Trump placing neocons Mike Pompeo and John Bolton into key positions was a clear sign you could take “Make America Great Again” and flush it down the toilet. This administration is now laser focused on maintaining and even expanding imperial reach.

I know putting the names Trump and Obama in the same sentence and then suggesting there’s any kind of similarity short-circuit’s partisan brains, but there IS a dangerous continuity when it comes to the reckless imperial overreach of an empire in decline.

Take Libya. It amazes me, as I listen to “liberal” NPR, how casually the voices gloss over the fact Gaddafi was overthrown during Obama’s reign because fake news was used to claim an impending humanitarian crisis that was then immediately exploited with NATO peace bombs. Then, after Gaddafi was summarily executed, Libya was left to devolve into a nation where human slaves are sold in daytime markets.

Montana Public Radio is currently panhandling the public airwaves for money. If you appreciate how you’ve been lied to for 2 years about Russiagate, make sure to give them a nice handout so they can continue making Trump’s reelection prospects great again.

by William Skink

I commend Jesse Ramos for continuing to articulate valid criticism against the tax increment financed utopia MRA arrogantly assumes it’s creating with its Urban Renewal Districts. 

While the cost of housing continues to skyrocket, ballooning over 8% in just the past year, MRA thinks it’s prudent to spend the equivalent of some workers annual salary on an ugly dog statue. That is just one of the MRA expenditures Ramos referenced in his criticism. From the first link:

Several City Council members strongly defended the use of Tax Increment Financing in Missoula as the council’s lone Republican, Jesse Ramos, said Wednesday he felt the program had been misused in the past for projects that don’t benefit the majority of the community.

“I’m a Republican and I’m the only one on the council that’s opposed to giving $1.5 million to Stockman Bank, which is owned by one of the richest guys in Montana,” Ramos said, speaking by phone to the Missoulian after he said he didn’t get enough time to ask questions during a council committee meeting Wednesday.

Ramos also said he felt the Missoula Redevelopment Agency’s funding of $5 million for a pedestrian/bike bridge over Reserve Street, and $6.9 million for a new road, sidewalks, street trees and other infrastructure near Southgate Mall weren’t appropriate.

He said that money would have been better spent going to city police, schools, firefighters and road maintenance. Ramos also indicated he believes that the MRA purposefully extended the life of at least one Urban Renewal District from 15 years to 40 years so that they have control over tax revenue for a longer period of time.

Ramos is hitting some serious nerves with his criticism, especially asking the Queen of the Piggybank point blank if the pedestrian bridge was part of a justification scheme to extend the life of the Urban Renewal District from 25 years to 40 years in order to keep the money flowing to MRA and not the general fund.

Ramos’ criticism has been echoed here in more than a few blog posts, like this one from 2016. This is not to say there haven’t been good projects financed by TIF funds–aka the public’s money–over the years. There have, and could be more, but it’s also fair to question lining the pockets of bankers and the Lambros family, especially when the fruits of URDs and TIF money have already helped to transform Missoula into an unaffordable landing pad for coastal transplants who can afford the condos springing up.

As for the argument that without URD designation and TIF sweetener, downtown would not have risen like a phoenix from the mad max dystopian wasteland described by those who get paid to manage our public money, I don’t buy it. The trend of urban renewal was already reversing the previous trend of mall shopping in the suburbs before URDs came along, and a little mountain town with a river running through it was eventually going to be discovered by investors.

We need more critical voices questioning the intentions of MRA and the overall impacts of unaffordability that starving the general fund with URDs and TIF redirection is contributing to.

 

by William Skink

With weather finally warming in Missoula, the need for a warming center will disappear with the snow.

One reason chronic gaps in services got more attention this past winter is because groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and Food Not Bombs showed up at City Council meetings to make sure the political leadership of Missoula understood that paying lip service to a plan is not enough.

While I appreciate what their additional attention accomplished in the short-term with the band-aid solution that will probably have to repeated next winter, something I heard second hand recently has me concerned.

I had already noticed the semi-permanent structures being built on earthen mounds west of the bridge before hearing that some members of the DSA, FNB and/or the IWW were possibly involved. If true, I wonder what exactly they think they will accomplish building out the homeless camp, especially considering the likelihood of flooding hitting the valley again this spring.

There is already a tremendous amount of trash visible from just the bridge that will be swept down stream if there is no organized effort to do a clean-up. There are also several varieties of shopping carts strewn about. Those carts are technically stolen property, but with the jail perpetually over-crowded, and a Sheriff’s Department (who runs the jail) apparently uninterested in addressing these camps unless someone gets stabbed or shot (which will happen again eventually), it will be up to volunteers and non-profit staff to mitigate the impact of systemic failure.

I really hope there isn’t involvement of said political groups in building structures at the Reserve camps. Besides the trash, the encampments have a history of violence, which tends to happen when you combine things like untreated mental illness and substance abuse.

Exploiting these camps to further a political agenda is stupid. It’s so stupid I am actually starting to wonder if there isn’t something else afoot. I saw first hand how Occupy Missoula was infiltrated. I hope something similar isn’t happening to the DSA.