Month: October 2021

by Travis Mateer

Over the weekend a young woman was allegedly raped by a teen visiting from Afghanistan. The KGVO headline indicates this alleged assailant is NOT one of the permanent residents arriving in Missoula from Afghanistan. No, this 19-year-old young man, Zabihullah Mohmand, apparently has enough money to travel around America, renting hotel rooms and partying in downtown bars, like the Badlander.

More information about this alleged rape is in the Missoulian, including some interesting cultural framing from the public defender:

The public defender, Ted Fellman, said Mohmand is an immigrant who has been staying in Missoula. He said cultural and language barriers may have played a role in the alleged assault, which he asked the court to consider. He asked for a $5,000 or $10,000 bond.

While the public defender tries to play up the “cultural barrier” angle, I’m still trying to figure out how a 19 year old immigrant has enough money to be traveling around the country with friends. Here’s a portion of what Mohmand told police about why he was in Missoula:

Mohmand reported to police he was visiting Missoula on a “worldwide trip.” He confirmed he had met the woman and her friends downtown. The two had sex, but it was consensual, he said.

Mohmand claimed the woman hadn’t left any belongings in his hotel room, but when it was searched some of her clothing items were recovered. His friend, who was sharing the hotel room with Mohmand, confirmed the woman had come back to their room and had gone into the bedroom with Mohmand.

I wonder if Zabihullah Mohmand has any clue how his alleged rape is going to impact the incoming Afghan refugees that our PROUD HELPERS are eagerly trying to relocate to Missoula.

Hopefully we’ll learn more about who this guy is and why he’s on a “worldwide trip” that brought him to party and fuck in Zoom Town.

Stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

This week’s episode continues an emerging dynamic of my co-host, Tim Adams, struggling to give a fuck and me, right-brain poet, using rhymes as an alternative to less effective means of resistance.

If that sounds dire and dour, don’t worry, we do what we can to have some fun while looking at Covid numbers and talking about things like death, Missoula County humanitarian obligations, costumes and the FOREVER PURGE.

And a poem, which I have printed below. Thanks for listening!

help me like the homeless
you helped into the ground
help me like the college kids
you financed out of town

for bigger zoos in Portland
and big needles by the sea
help me help the helpless ones
to turn their need to green

yes, you psycho alchemists,
let us all transmute
like Johnny with machete
so the deputies can shoot

you don't need to name them
or dash-cam for the fam
doing that would take a town
that actually gave a damn

help me understand this
how long did it take?
to ruse, abuse and confuse
the spirit of this place?

know what?  never mind 
I think I've had enough
of your bullshit helping hands
in blood-resistant gloves

your handshake maneuvering
like blankets for the Reds
has the same effect:
your helping leaves them dead

instead of sucking hope
like craft beer from the taps
I decided NOW's the time 
to wake up and fight back

not with rainbow colors
from Jacob's stolen coat
perhaps a cool-a dude
will shake their quaking boat

me, I'm not waiting
for someone else's chops
no, I'm growing garlic cloves
in very fertile plots

by Travis Mateer

Yesterday I got a chance to see how our criminal justice system “helps” friends and family members understand why cops use lethal force. Sure, it took over two years, and no one in local media seems all that interested in reporting on this, but that won’t stop County Attorney Matt Jennings from doing his job.

If you are a fellow Missoulian like me who was unaware of this lethal incident, here are some details from two years ago:

Authorities say Steven Gill, 35, of Missoula died after he suffered gunshot wounds during an altercation with police in the area of Second Street North and A Street.

Law enforcement received a suspicious activity call in the area at 4:40 p.m. on Monday and when officers arrived on scene they attempted to talk with Steven Gill which caused an altercation that lead to shots being fired.

Gill was struck and while it’s still unclear how many times, he was transported to Saint Patrick Hospital where he died due to his wounds.

Missoula Police Chief Mike Brady requested the Department of Justice help investigate the matter to provide a different perspective on the incident while MPD also continues to investigate.

Yep, this happened so long ago that Mike Brady was still our police chief. If you don’t remember Mike Brady, he’s the guy who helped our Mayor keep the extent of his on-the-job alcohol abuse a secret from the general public.

Something that’s NOT helpful is asking questions of our helpers because questions indicate a lack of confidence and lacking confidence is hurtful, not helpful.

To bolster confidence in helping Afghan nationals, our Missoula County helpers communicated recently with the State Department about how PROUD they would be to help out. Here’s some more on the help that will be provided to the Afghan helpers who helped our military exploit Afghanistan for two decades:

The International Rescue Committee, which reopened its office in Missoula five years ago, has resettled hundreds of refugees in Missoula from a growing list of nations, including Iraq, the Congo and Syria, among others.

The agency also is working to ensure any Afghan nationals settled in Missoula find housing and employment in an effort to “get them as self-sufficient as quickly as possible.”

“Several of these individuals have already resettled and enriched our community, and we look forward to the opportunity to welcome more,” the county wrote in its letter. “Missoula County takes our humanitarian obligations seriously. We would be proud to help in this endeavor and support the continued resettlement through the IRC and Soft Landing”

I added the emphasis on HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATIONS because I’m unclear what policy is being referred to here, and what else this supposed “obligation” might apply to.

Is there a HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATION to provide timely information about what the fuck happened to Johnny Lee Perry out in the woods when Sheriff Deputies shot and killed him?

Is there a HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATION to provide the same access to addiction treatment that our alcoholic Mayor received?

Is there a HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATION to avoid the establishment of a medical apartheid system in which a subgroup of people are dehumanized and depicted as unclean bio-medical threats?

No, including the above topics as “obligations” is not something you will hear from our elected officials. That’s because they don’t live in reality–they live in a delusional bubble where things like vacancy rates in Missoula’s rental markets aren’t even acknowledged. That’s why Farmer Josh can say shit like this:

Commissioners describe Missoula as an ideal city for resettlement, and notes past efforts in doing so. Hundreds of Hmong refugees resettled in Missoula in the late 1970s and 1980s, later joined by Ukrainians and Belarusians.

More recently, hundreds of refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Iraq and Eritrea also have arrived. Afghan nationals began arriving shortly after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in August.

“It would be an honor to host these folks who have worked with our military in tough spots throughout the world,” said Commissioner Josh Slotnick. “Hopefully we’ll be able to help them out.”

Since Missoula DID NOT have an affordable housing crisis in the 70’s and 80’s, Farmer Josh’s assertion that Missoula is “an ideal city for resettlement” is a bunch of crap.

Missoula can’t even house its homeless families, which is why I write posts with titles like The Unstated Competition Between YWCA Families And Refugees In Missoula.

I wish the helpers of Missoula were capable of leaving their delusional bubbles for just a few moments in order to experience the reality of what is happening in this town.

Instead, they seek to impose their delusions on the rest of us, and those who are left to deal with the harsh reality they are creating have two options: move away or die.

And if you need assistance with the latter, Missoula is here to help.

by Travis Mateer

In a recent Missoulian article about Jacob Elder’s “journey” from Democrat to Independent, a little quote from Grace Decker caught my eye. Grace Decker is both a non-profit employee of United Way AND a MCPS school board member, so in both capacities she should be AVOIDING overt political activism. It even says so in this policy (PDF):

Avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest, and refrain from using my Board position for personal or partisan gain;

Despite this clear directive, here’s Decker in a recent Missoulian article shamelessly discussing her Facebook activism:

Elder has made it a point to block many people on his social media accounts, which led to the creation of a Facebook page called “Blocked by Jacob Elder,” leaving some to wonder why he will not answer their questions.

“Blocked by Jacob Elder” started in June.

Grace Decker, who started the group, was somewhat taken aback by being blocked and having commenting abilities limited for asking straightforward, non-offensive questions, she said.

Decker started the group with the intention of finding out how widespread this response from Elder was, she said. It grew to include 189 members.

I added the emphasis to show where I believe a violation of the MCPS ethics policy occurred. It’s the part where Grace Decker inappropriately inserts herself in a local political race in order to impact a candidate vying to be the BIG PAPA of the purse strings.

There’s also her work at United Way to consider because of limitations to political activism required of organizations that file for tax exempt status under 501(c)(3). From the link:

Organizations that are exempt from taxation under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are also absolutely prohibited from engaging in political activity that directly or indirectly supports a political party, political action committee or a candidate for office. That prohibition includes supporting a particular candidate or party in an election, urging others to support such candidate or party and hosting an event at which only some candidates for a particular office are offered an opportunity to speak.

In Virginia, a school board member by the name of Beth Barts resigned under pressure from pissed off parents for VERY SIMILAR activities. From the link:

The group Fight For Schools and other organizations alleged that Barts was involved in a private Facebook group that violated the School Board’s Code of Conduct and local laws after the page’s members allegedly tried to attempt to reveal private information about—or doxx—parents as well as opponents of critical race theory and similar ideologies.

I would VERY MUCH like to see Grace Decker get Barts’d over her brazen disregard for MCPS ethical considerations. To help with this effort to bring accountability to MCPS please consider donating to this Go Fund me page. It’s been a month since the last donation.

Thanks for reading.

by Travis Mateer

Since House Bill 702 was passed and was signed into law by Governor Gianforte, banning discrimination based on vaccine status, the NEW AUTHORITARIANS have been freaking out about what this means for their endgame goal of creating a two-tiered apartheid society where the unvaxxed are punished for their medical decisions.

The argument being made by the authoritarians is that Gianforte and his dangerously stupid, anti-science Republicans enablers are keeping important tools from health officials to fight this pandemic. What kind of tools? If you can call DENYING MASK EXEMPTIONS a tool, then that’s one of ’em:

The rule, referred to by Murphy, came down Aug. 31 from the state health department, saying school districts should allow for kids to get exemptions from face-mask mandates in schools this fall.

Two weeks later, 18 state epidemiologists and state health experts delivered a letter to Gianforte’s public-health director, Adam Meier, blasting the rationale of the rule. They said statements used to support the rule, on the supposed drawbacks or ineffectiveness of masks, were misleading and false.

Yeah, FUCK exemptions! No kid should be able to weasel out of being muzzled by pieces of fabric and neck-gators, like that tween I saw who bravely spoke to the Covid task force about masks giving her migraine headaches and how socially isolating remote learning was for her.

Yeah, fuck that girl.

What other important tools are being denied our deeply caring health officials? I know, what if they wanted to quarantine the dirty unvaxxed for a LONGER period of time than the good Americans who did what the government told them to do? Can they do that under this terribly restrictive law?

Because the law forbids discrimination based on vaccination status, it also prohibits most incentives offered to anyone to get vaccinated, and prohibits schools or anyone else from requiring the non-vaccinated to be quarantined longer than vaccinated people, he says.

“So you can’t even quarantine the folks who were exposed unless you quarantine everyone, which isn’t practical, because you shouldn’t be quarantining folks that are fully vaccinated,” Murphy says.

Jim Murphy, the retired state epistemologist lamenting over this missed opportunity to impose a medical apartheid system in Montana, sounds really disappointed the “tool” of quarantining the unvaxxed for LONGER than good vaccinated Americans is being denied his jackbooted peers.

Another “tool” being denied these foot soldiers for BIG PHARMA is their ability to promote coerce kids at school to get jabbed.

Murphy also says state health officials were told not to promote COVID-19 vaccines for school-age children, in school settings this fall.

“Typically, for the start of the school year, there’s a pretty heavy effort to vaccinate kids for the routine childhood disease,” he told MTN News. “And a lot of that occurs within school settings, with school-based clinics. Yet we were discouraged from promoting anything that had to do with a school-based clinic on COVID.”

I have two thoughts here. My first thought is BOO-FUCKING-HOO Jim Murphy, and my second thought is THANK YOU Greg Gianforte.

I’ll leave it there for today. Tomorrow’s post will be another “jab” at a school board member/non-profit employee who has no qualms about starting political Facebook groups, despite clear ethical limitations on engaging in such behavior.

Thanks for reading!