Month: December 2019

by William Skink

The Democrat bizarro world is full of people pontificating about how crazy and illogical everyone else is. They are the party of facts and logic, and the reason they get trounced is because Americans are simple beasts driven by emotions. Republicans know this and better manipulate the emotions of of the deplorables.

Jim Elliot’s “Montana Viewpoint“–formed, in part, by leading the Democratic party in Montana for 4 years–is that Democrats need to stop trying so hard to make logical, fact-based appeals to voters. He has degrees and has studied rat brains, so knows what he’s talking about.

Elliot’s viewpoint assumes Republicans have no facts or logic to draw on to make their arguments, and the party faithful fall into line with that assumption. At the end of his piece he offers this lesson to Democrats:

The lesson for Democrats is this; you may want to deal with facts, but what you have to deal with are perceptions, and perceptions are not governed by facts alone. It’s a simple lesson that any intelligent person could grasp if they wanted to. Even Democrats.

Perceptions can be influenced by strong emotions, like outrage and moral indignation. Let me give you an example.

I experienced some serious feels when I read about the plea agreement Eric Lehman is getting for his felony drug possession charge.

Remember, Lehman is the husband of the Democratic candidate running for the Office of Public Instruction, Melissa Romano, a teacher of the year who wants to oversee all the schools in Montana and the teachers, like her husband, who work in them.

Here’s a quote from the Independent Record, try and spot the most absurd part:

A former Helena elementary school teacher was sentenced to a three-year deferred sentence after pleading guilty to criminal possession of a dangerous drugs, a felony.

During an Aug. 31 traffic stop, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper discovered Eric Lehman, husband of Democratic state superintendent of public instruction candidate Melissa Romano, was found to be in possession of psilocybin mushrooms, one LSD tab, approximately 2 grams of methamphetamine and approximately a gram of cocaine, according to the arresting officer’s affidavit.

As part of the plea agreement, Lehman pleaded guilty to possession of only psilocybin mushrooms. The deputy county attorney prosecuting the case, Dan Baris, said he gave Lehman the option of choosing which drug he would be prosecuted for possessing, an opportunity he said anyone in Lehman’s situation is afforded.

The astounding fact in that last part of the quote is that Eric Lehman was GIVEN THE CHOICE of what drug he was going to be legally held accountable for.

How is THAT for the overall “perception” of this sad tale? And what does it mean of Romano’s chance next November?

Time will tell. Emotions will help decide. And the facts will get picked up or discarded, as needed, by both sides.

by William Skink

When you bomb a country based on erroneous information that should be a big deal. When evidence emerges exposing how bad information led to an actual US military attack, wouldn’t you think that would be a big news story?

There have been several leaks from the OPCW investigation that have occurred, but most Americans are probably not aware of that fact. Why? Because our despicable corporate media is more military industrial complex cheerleaders who provide stenography services, not news organizations reporting on the actual realities of geopolitical moves by US imperialists.

Earlier this month Newsweek’s Tareq Haddad announced on Twitter that he was quitting after his editors killed a report on Syria. This is from Mint Press:

A top journalist has resigned from his post after management killed his report on the bombshell news that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) suppressed a mountain of evidence suggesting that the 2018 Douma Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria was staged.

Newsweek’s Tareq Haddad announced on Twitter that, rather than accepting top-down censorship on an important issue, he was publicly walking away from his job at the New York-based magazine.

If you want to read a first-hand account of how bad our media has become, Haddad is now telling his story in a post titled Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First Hand Account. Here is how Haddad begins his piece:

Until several days ago, I was a journalist at Newsweek. I decided to hand my resignation in because, in essence, I was given a simple choice. On one hand, I could continue to be employed by the company, stay in their chic London offices and earn a steady salary—only if I adhered to what could or could not be reported and suppressed vital facts. Alternatively, I could leave the company and tell the truth.

In the end, that decision was rather simple, all be it I understand the cost to me will be undesirable. I will be unemployed, struggle to finance myself and will likely not find another position in the industry I care about so passionately. If I am a little lucky, I will be smeared as a conspiracy theorist, maybe an Assad apologist or even a Russian asset—the latest farcical slur of the day.

The same corporate media that pushed the Russiagate conspiracy theory for 3 years is as allergic to the truth as our sitting president, yet too many Americans still invest their faith in the alleged fourth estate and believe they are getting accurate information about the world and America’s role in it.

They are not.

If you don’t want your pro-war propaganda spoon-fed to you by corporate gatekeepers with blood on their hands then you must seek out alternative sources of information. I highly recommend regularly checking out Moon of Alabama because MoA’s reporting has continually been proven to be more timely and accurate than any corporate platform.

by William Skink

Haven’t had the time or stomach for impeachment absurdity this week? Well, let me provide some suggestions if you want to ruin your weekend.

First, if you think the IG report was a big nothing burger regarding the lies, omissions and distortions the FBI used to sucker the FISA court into spyng on the Trump campaign, then this Greenwald piece is not for you.

Another good read is Jonathan Turley’s A Response To Chairman Schiff On The Need To Impeach By Christmas.

A last suggestion is Chris Hedges’ latest gem, which you can read here. I offer this meaty chunk of reality for establishment Democrats:

The liberal class and the Democratic Party leadership have failed, even after their defeat in the 2016 presidential election, to understand that they, along with the traditional Republican elites, have squandered their credibility. No one believes them. And no one should.

They squandered their credibility by promising that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would, as claimed by President Bill Clinton, create 200,000 new, well-paying jobs per year; instead, several million jobs were lost. They squandered it by allowing corporations to move production overseas and hire foreign workers at daily wages that did not equal what a U.S. unionized worker made in an hour, a situation that obliterated the bargaining power of the American working class. They squandered it by allowing corporations to use the threat of “offshoring” production to destroy unions, suppress wages, extract draconian concessions and push millions of workers into the temp and gig economies, where there are no benefits or job security and pay is 60% or less of what a full-time employee in the regular economy receives. They squandered it by forcing working men and women to take two or three jobs to support a family, jacking up household debt to $13.95 trillion. They squandered it by redirecting wealth upward, so that during the Clinton administration alone 45 percent of all income growth went to the wealthiest 1%. They squandered it by wiping out small farmers in Mexico, driving some 3 million of them off their lands and forcing many to migrate in desperation to the United States, a human tide that saw the U.S. right wing and President Trump direct mounting rage toward immigrants. They squandered it by turning our great cities into urban wastelands. They squandered it by slashing welfare and social service programs. They squandered it by supporting endless, futile wars that have an overall price tag of between $5 trillion and $7 trillion. They squandered it by setting up a surveillance system to spy on every American and then lying about it. They squandered it by catering to the big banks and gutting financial regulations, precipitating the 2008 economic meltdown. They squandered it by looting the U.S. Treasury to bail out banks and financial firms guilty of massive financial crimes, ordering the Federal Reserve to hand over an estimated $29 trillion to the global financiers responsible for the crash. They squandered it by not using this staggering sum instead to provide free college tuition to every student or universal health care, repair our crumbling infrastructure, transition to clean energy, forgive student debt, raise wages, bail out underwater homeowners, form public banks to foster investments in our communities at low interest rates, provide a guaranteed minimum income and organize a massive jobs program for the unemployed and underemployed, whose ranks are at least double official statistics. They squandered it by cutting child assistance programs—most drastically during the Clinton administration—resulting in 16 million children going to bed hungry every night. They squandered it by leaving over half a million Americans homeless and on the streets on any given day. They squandered it by passing laws that keep students burdened by massive college loan debt that has climbed to $1.4 trillion, debt they cannot free themselves from even if they declare bankruptcy. They squandered it by militarizing police and building the world’s largest system of mass incarceration, one with 25% of the world’s prison population. They squandered it by revoking due process and habeas corpus. They squandered it by passing massive tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, many of which—such as Amazon—pay no federal income tax, ballooning the federal deficit, now at $779 billion and climbing. They squandered it by privatizing everything from intelligence gathering to public education to swell corporate bank accounts at taxpayer expense. They squandered it by permitting corporate money—an estimated $9.9 billion will be spent this presidential election cycle on political advertising—to buy politicians in a form of legalized bribery that sees corporate lobbyists write legislation and create laws. They squandered it by doing nothing to halt the looming ecocide.

The problem is not messaging. The problem is the messenger. The mortal wounds inflicted on our democratic institutions are bipartisan. The traditional Republican elites are as hated as the Democratic elites. Trump is vile, imbecilic, corrupt and incompetent. But for a largely white working class cast aside by austerity and neoliberalism, he at least taunts the elites who destroyed their communities and their lives.

Have a great weekend!

by William Skink

Today is the first random edition of Missoula’s sporadic and definitely incomplete Gentrification Report.

Thanks to reporting from the Missoulian I can retell the tale of an old white guy by the name of Jeff. He has lived in one of those historic eye sores along 4th street for 20 years. Luckily people like Jeff will be cleared away so tech bros from California (or sourced locally) can have the opportunity to buy a condo or 3. From the link:

Jeff Gardner moved into his one-bedroom apartment 20 years ago. He can remember looking across the river from his front porch on South Fourth Street East, a view that then featured more of the Rattlesnake Mountains, and less of the glassy high rises now prominent on the downtown skyline.

“This was kind of a backwater spot,” Gardner, 61, recalled. “There were hobo camps down in the ditch by the river, the old railroad. It was kind of a scary place and people didn’t want to come down this way, but that made it affordable.”

Scary affordable locations to house the Jeffs and Bobs of Missoula are thankfully disappearing. But don’t worry! There will totally be an “element” of affordable housing with this new condo project:

While the project is privately funded, the city will also require the developer to include an element of affordable housing. That could either include housing vouchers or reserving at least 10% percent of the units as affordable housing.

Montana James with the city’s Office of Housing and Community Development said that would represent a gain in affordable housing, as the homes currently on the property lease for market rate.

“What we’d be gaining is either four affordable home ownership options in this neighborhood right now that don’t currently exist, or units that are available to voucher holders in a neighborhood that has just two vouchers placed in it,” said James.

Beautiful. Local developers are getting with the program. Use the fig leaf of a few housing units that “could” be affordable to push density into the U district so those stubborn NIMBYs can share in the pain of growth and progress like the rest of Missoula.

In other gentrification news, our benevolent Sultan of Sound, Lord Checota, talked about his Drift project while wearing a hip grey Primus hoodie and grey beanie. He talked about the venue, and the tower, and the condos because really what is Missoula but a roving investigation of where to build the next set of condos?

KECI’s Laurel Staples was pretty excited to be in the presence of the many-titled Lord Nick. You can view her gushing here.

That’s it for the Gentrification Report. Check back here for more news as it develops!

by William Skink

If Melissa Romano is going to be a viable candidate for Democrats next year, then a better strategy to deal with her political scandal needs to be developed, and pronto. Official silence and unofficial smear-the-messenger shots at bloggers like myself will not make her husband’s drug charges go away.

Politics is not a flowers and sunshine business where people are honest and your personal life is off limits. Lisa Triepke found that out the hard way when she challenged Herr Engen for the crown to his fiefdom in 2017.

In October of that year the Missoulian ran multiple hit pieces on Triepke, publishing details about her divorce settlement and information about her use of support services, like SNAP and LIEAP, and purchases of big ticket items, like a motorhome and a used Toyota.

After the first report in the Missoulian, someone in the Montana Motor Vehicle Division gave the newspaper records pertaining to Triepke. Here is how our corporate rag reported it at the time:

After that report was published, the Missoulian was given records from the Montana Motor Vehicle Division showing that Triepke, in the wake of the divorce settlement, also titled and registered a 2007 Yamaha T25 motorcycle in late March and a 2010 hybrid Toyota Highlander and 2006 Dutchmen motor home in April.

Triepke said the motorcycle was hers as part of the divorce settlement, but said in an interview Thursday with KGVO radio that she bought the car and motor home, both of which were used.

All three vehicles are still registered in her name, according to the records provided by an attorney who identified himself as a supporter of Triepke’s opponent, incumbent Mayor John Engen.

The attorney who provided these records to the Missoulian was never identified by name, but it is nice that the Missoulian at least acknowledged it received them from an avowed supporter of Herr Engen.

Triepke opened herself up to these attacks when she publically touted the budgeting lessons she learned after her divorce. A similar argument can be made that Melissa Romano also opens herself up to criticism when she uses her role as a parent in her political campaign.

Here is how Romano introduces herself on her campaign webpage:

My Fellow Montanans,

As a parent, a teacher and a leader dedicated to a strong public education system throughout Montana, I am running to serve all Montanans as your Superintendent of Montana’s Office of Public Instruction.

If Romano’s role as a parent is important enough to her candidacy that it is front and center in how she chooses to identify herself, then questions any parent would have about her husband’s life choices and how those choices could have negatively impacted the elementary school kids he was responsible for seem quite pertinent.

Romano’s campaign now has a gaping hole they must fill with a narrative that explains what happened in the Romano household between the date of Eric Lehman’s traffic stop on August 31st to the date of his resignation on November 1st. Was there any genuine concern for the kids Lehman was responsible for educating, or was the main concern doing damage control for if/when the story came out?

Making the claim that this is a private family matter is not going to work. The clock is ticking. What is the Democrat candidate for the Office of Public Instruction going to do?