Month: July 2021

by Travis Mateer

I saw a sign and it opened up my mind…TO CANCEL SOMEONE!

Here’s what happened.

I was at one of my favorite places looking for historical relics (I’m building a time machine) when I ran across a sign. From the little card on the back, I ascertained this sign came from the Missoula County Fairgrounds.

Here’s the offending content:

Clearly the place to start was with the vendor who thought to profit off this sexism, so I called the number I found online.

Unfortunately, the person I spoke with was really nice, she really likes history, and she was not someone I had the heart to cancel.

Next I called the fairgrounds, where I got some idea from the person who answered the phone that the maintenance shed this sign came from had virtually NO INTEREST from community members when it was torn down, so I guess that’s why a salvage outfit ended up with it.

Who could I direct my ire over this notion that a tom cat’s penis is NOT a tool to joke around about?

It seemed there was no one satisfying enough for me to cancel over this dangerous mockery of the terrible, horrible, threatening phallic symbol of oppression by the patriarchy.

That’s when I had an epiphany! Who SPENT MONEY on this sign, thus helping create a viable market for the commercial exploitation of non-penis packing pussy cats?

Me, that’s who.

So clearly I am the one who needs to be cancelled.

Realizing my unforgivable transgression, I decided to walk around wearing headphones, waiting for the lethal madness of traffic to end my life.

But, alas, it appears a higher power has more plans for me, for here I remain, very much alive, and ready to combat those tool-packing tom cats wherever I find them.

Even if they’re staring at me from the other side of a mirror!

by Travis Mateer

Right before the pandemic, a lot of shit was going down in Missoula, like felony charges for Brandon Bryant for verbally threatening City Council members while a drug dealer, Josh Paniagua, faced ZERO consequences for stabbing Ben Mousso to death in “self defense” over a drug deal gone bad.

Because of the pandemic, Bryant’s trial was postponed until this month. I had no idea it was even going on until it was essentially over. The trial took three days, only three council members testified to being scared, and Bryant was then acquitted of the felony charge of intimidation. Here’s a look at who the scaredy cats are:

Missoula Mayor John Engen told a jury he wasn’t afraid of a man accused of threatening public officials.

Veteran Brandon Bryant landed in jail shortly after he brought a Japanese training sword to a council meeting and criticized a special property tax called TIF.

Prosecutors used that and an edited video of Bryant to charge him with a felony.

We’re told three council members, Bryan von Lossberg, Gwen Jones and Julie Merritt testified they all feared him. But defense attorneys picked at events in their lives that may have triggered their fear.

I wonder what “events” Bryant’s defense attorney found in the lives of our city officials that cast doubt on their fear factor claims?

If I had known about this trial, then I would have attended and reported on what transpired. Was public participation over this use of prosecutorial power denied the public because of the political sensitivities involved?

Luckily for those in power, Missoula citizens don’t seem overly concerned with how their local officials use and abuse their power. I can only assume the degradation of our local media landscape, combined with the ideological blinders that give liberal politicians massive political cover, has rendered our community incapable of seeing the stark contrast between charging a man with a felony for using words while a killer gets no trial for using a knife to kill another human being.

If you think our criminal injustice system is working just fine in Missoula, then, by all means, keep Mayor Engen around for a fifth term.

Or, if you want to send a message to our craven political establishment, please consider voting for ABE (anyone but Engen) in the upcoming September primary.

And remember to tune in to Zoom Town, a podcast I launched back in January to examine the rapid changes occurring in our gentrified valley. There will be A LOT to discuss in this week’s episode, which I’ll be recording with my co-host, Tim Adams, tomorrow.

So stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

CORRECTION: Ovando is to the EAST of Missoula (thanks Tim!)

Montana is a wild place.

If you are wanting to vacation here or move here permanently, you should know what you’re getting yourself into.

The wild places that are beautiful to see and experience can turn lethal, even for an experienced hiker like Tatum Morell. While the search for Tatum continues, her family believes she didn’t survive her solo trip into the rugged, mountainous terrain.

Another incident of lethal wildness happened just north of Missoula, in Ovando, earlier this week. A woman on a peddle-bike trip was pulled from her tent while she was sleeping and killed by a Grizzly bear. In response, authorities located the bear and executed it.

While these two examples of the lethal wild might grab headlines–and worry visitors and residents alike for a brief time as they imagine the different ways our wild state can kill you–it’s the human animal and all the chaos we seem to generate that worries me the most, not bears and desolate landscapes.

For example, put substances in the human animal, like alcohol and meth, and you will have sometimes dangerous people who can’t get their shit together to hoop-jump our capitalist labyrinth for a stable roof over their heads.

Or put the human animal in control of metal death machines known as “motor vehicles” and just watch the carnage ensue.

To emphasize the riskiest thing you’ll do this summer (spending time, on the roads, in metal death machines) here’s a brief anecdote from my family’s trip to the Olympic Peninsula this past week.

Here is how the fuckhead in the Toyota truck nearly killed us: the impatient motorist decided to pass an RV on a one-lane highway, but miscalculated the distance of the oncoming vehicle, so to avoid a head-on collision, the truck veered further left onto the shoulder.

If the driver of the oncoming vehicle had panicked and overcorrected, coming into our lane, then it would have been US involved in a violent, most likely lethal, automobile accident.

Thankfully that didn’t happen, only a minor heart-attack (not really) experienced by my wife.

While my family survived our road trip, the threat of the motorized human animal is VERY present. It seems I can’t leave the house without witnessing some incredibly stupid and dangerous driving from the full spectrum of the human experience; young, old, distracted, drunk, tired, full of rage, out of state, or turning around to yell at your middle kid for thinking it’s fun to chant the word “penis” ten thousand times a day.

So be careful out there, you animals. And try to remember that no amount of helpful technology will change the nature of the metal death machines you are operating.

by Travis Mateer

Once upon a time I voted for Democrats. It’s true.

When I was younger, I believed we had two distinct political parties in America, and I believed the Democrats were the ones who supported civil liberties and stood against immoral wars of choice imposed on the world by evil Republicans.

That was before I realized how easy it is to get Democrat voters to support things they once opposed. Hate war? Then just call it a HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION! Hate kids in cages? Then just call it a FACILITY!

When I think about Democrats now, I think about race-obsessed mobs of brainwashed youth who have been weaponized by sophisticated propagandists into enthusiastically embracing the hydra-headed beast known as cancel culture.

These unwitting victims, who outsource their critical thinking to sociopaths, now love the BIG corporations who dominate the tech and health sectors, they HATE free speech, and they don’t give two shits about war as long as it’s a Democrat dropping the bombs.

After two terms of Obama, I was done with Democrats. And after one term of Trump, Democrats were done with any pretense that their principles mean a goddamn thing. The gloves are off and the ugliness is on full display for those with eyes to see.

But what if their eyes have been blinded?

In my post yesterday about the Montana Human Rights Network, City Council candidate J. Kevin Hunt made a lengthy a comment that is informative and worth reading, but it’s not Hunt’s comment that bothers me. It’s the comment right above his from Sean Stevenson’s father, Dr. Kenneth Stevenson, that eats at me, because I KNOW there are plenty of caring people in Missoula who would be OUTRAGED about what happened to Sean if they knew about it.

Here’s the comment:

The answer to Dr. Stevenson’s question is no, there ARE people behind the scenes helping me understand what happened to his son at a homeless shelter in Missoula, Montana, but sometimes it does feel like I’m screaming into the roar of the ocean, which I was recently reminded is quite futile.

Part of my frustration stems from knowing how impactful this 90 minute interview is. The reason I’m so confident in making that claim is because I have given the elevator pitch dozens and dozens of times: a black man was assaulted and removed from life support two days later WITHOUT HIS FAMILY BEING NOTIFIED.

That’s all I have to say when I’m in person speaking with someone to get their attention, because HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN?

So, as Biden bombs brown people, and the Montana Human Rights Network springs into action over a broken window, I’m going to look for support, and will raise awareness, beyond the borders of Missoula.

The inclusive equity crowd in this town has had their chance, and they blew it. Instead they are collectively proving the old maxims that talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words.

Stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

The Montana Human Rights Network has a new incident to exploit up in Kalispell. Apparently a window in a bookstore was broken and because it was the window displaying a pride flag, then it MUST BE A HATE CRIME!

When I see the Montana Human Rights Network take up an issue like this on Twitter, I like to remind them that I’ve been trying to get them to listen to my interview with Sean Stevenson’s sisters for months now. When I commented on their tweet, I got this response:

So, the response I got is that no one at MHRN has gotten information about this “situation”. Since it’s entirely possible that I’m the one confused here, I checked to make sure that Travis McAdam is connected to MHRN, since he’s the one I most recently sent the interview link to, and sure enough, McAdam is the “Director of Combating White Nationalism and Defending Democracy at Montana Human Rights Network”.

Having confirmed that Travis McAdam is indeed a staff member at MHRN, I will now share a screenshot of a portion of my email exchange with him. This email exchange happened all the way back in early May:

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that non-profit organizations like the Montana Human Rights Network are actually political organizations LARPing as non-profits. If this organization actually cared about the life of a black man cut short in Missoula, then it wouldn’t be so damn difficult for me to get their staff to spend 90 fucking minutes to listen to an interview with Sean’s sisters describing what the previous year of searching for answers has been like for their family.

It only took a few days after a window was smashed (and a hunch from the proprietor that it was hate-related) for the Montana Human Rights Network to spring into action.

In contrast, it’s been OVER A YEAR AND A HALF since Sean Stevenson was assaulted at the Poverello Center, taken to St. Pats hospital, then removed from life support two days later WITHOUT HIS FAMILY EVER BEING NOTIFIED!

If Sean Stevenson had been killed in a conservative community, instead of a liberal one like Missoula, would the Montana Human Rights Network actually give a shit about his life?

I don’t want the answer to that question to be yes, but it sure looks like the MHRN is more interested in playing politics (to benefit one party over another) than they are in helping Sean’s family find the truth about what actually happened to their loved one.

Prove me wrong, MHRN, and LISTEN TO THE DAMN INTERVIEW!