Month: November 2022

by Travis Mateer

When I saw the critical Facebook comment by a Missoula Current reporter about the show Yellowstone, I just HAD to take a screenshot to archive this hilarious perspective from someone getting paid to write about the environment for a pro-gentrification propaganda rag like the MC.

I wanted more perspective from Lundquist, so I sent her an email and, to my surprise, she responded. I’m always happy to have more perspective from a cog in the media environment about what they know, and how they come to know it. Here’s the brief exchange:

Isn’t this fun? I, of course, sent her a link to this post that documents Kidston’s past role mouth-piecing for Montana Dems. Now she can’t claim ignorance about the past role of her current employer.

Since the election last week I’ve been on a sort of public education tour, showing our elected officials that my dedication to local information sharing goes WAY BEYOND election issues, like mill levies. And why am I doing this? Because the bubbles that our officials exist in need to be seriously popped.

Efforts to get community feedback (which is often required for Federal funding, like HUD) are not being utilized by our citizenry. I got a sense of how participation is worsening after attending a public needs assessment presentation (results can be found here). How many people filled out the survey? Just over 600 people, down from 800 last year. With a valley of around 80,000, that puts the percentage of participation at .0075.

That number gets worse when you factor in WHO responds to these surveys. Is it city staff and other insiders who know about the surveys, and have some kind of special interest in filling them out and making comments? Is that what a comment like this is all about?

Yesterday morning, with the hope of making public comment on another Missoula absurdity, I attended the presentation of the LEARN report. What’s this report and its goals? From the link:

The foundational premise of our work is that systemic oppression, particularly white supremacy, and racism exists in Missoula, and that BIPOCs lived experiences must be centered in dismantling them—narrated and described through our own voices and from our perspectives. Narrating, describing, and reflecting those experiences through a research lens has power by connecting these experiences to systemic challenges in a quantifiable fashion. Our desired outcome is to transform systems and spaces with which BIPOC Missoulian’s interface; effectively decentering the currency of whiteness.

There are four goals for our research:

To actively engage BIPOCs who historically have been forced to the margins of the research process by using a transformative paradigm, which embodies a human rights, social justice and critical approach to research (Mertens, 2009).

To cultivate research partnerships with BIPOC community-based organizations, groups and residents. In forming research partnerships with BIPOCs, for whom the research matters on practical levels, this research becomes participatory and action-oriented. The primary aim is not simply to listen and engage but to serve as a call to justice through social action (Krai& Allen, 2016).

To center BIPOC voices on issues of structural inequity, marginalization and systemic oppression by bringing their lived experiences to the forefront through an ethically well-designed research process that will inform transformative social action strategies.

To scrutinize the nature of municipal departments existing and archival data in order gain a depth of understanding relating to their interactions with and treatment of BIPOC residents.

I sat through this fascinating report, hoping to ask if qualitative data could include DEATH experiences in addition to the LIVED experiences of BIPOCs, since I’m thinking a lot could be learned about Missoula if the deaths of Sean Stevenson and Johnny Lee Perry were better understood, but I didn’t get a chance.

While my education tour couldn’t penetrate this Committee of the Whole presentation, I did appreciate seeing the point at which City Councilperson, Gwen Jones, interrupted the black woman giving the report. It was right when the point was being made that BIPOCs see a deviation between ARTICULATING the values of a social justice lens and “ACTUALLY USING” a social justice lens.

Another qualitative piece of perspective I enjoyed hearing was the assertion that “woke white folks” have a belief they know what’s best, and call out other whites for doing it wrong. Yes, this was actually stated. Hilarious.

Getting back to the focus of this post, while I’m pretty supportive of the notion that Taylor Sheridan’s creation, Yellowstone, is helping ruin Montana, I’m not all that appreciative of hearing this complaint coming from someone who helps a pro-development online “news” rag sell the kind of projects that is creating the type of sentiment being expertly exploited by Yellowstone’s depiction of what it takes to remain “anti-progress” in the 21st century.

If you appreciate my perspective, please consider making a donation at my about page. Every little bit helps.

And, as always, thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

It’s a hard sell to tell a community there’s no threat when a homicide occurs and the person responsible hasn’t been apprehended.

In Idaho, where four college students were recently stabbed to death, the tweet our Missoulian reporter highlighted indicates local authorities are NO LONGER saying there isn’t a threat to the community.

Here is the rationale given for pulling back on the NO THREAT reflex usually handed out to media:

“We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” Fry said at news conference attended by more than 40 local and national media members Wednesday afternoon. “We still believe it is a targeted attack. But there is still a person out there who committed four very horrible, horrible crimes.”

Yes, I totally agree with this rationale, but guess which local law enforcement agency in Missoula doesn’t? If you guessed the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, you’re correct!

At the end of September, an 88 year old woman was found beaten to death east of Missoula, in Clinton. Has a suspect been apprehended? No, but don’t worry, there’s no risk to the public (emphasis mine):

An 88-year-old woman was found dead along Donovan Creek Road on Sunday.

The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office is not releasing any additional details and the woman’s family has declined to comment.

Deputies arriving at the scene of a reported assault found Delphine A. Farmer unresponsive.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Sheriff’s Office reports that “there is no public safety risk as a result of this incident.”

Unlike Missoula County’s outgoing Sheriff, T.J. McDermott, the Moscow Police Chief, James Fry, is capable of acknowledging his missteps. I find this admission refreshing (emphasis mine):

University of Idaho students and families of the victims expressed frustration Tuesday at the lack of information released to the public. Many students left Moscow early for Thanksgiving break. 

“The reality is I probably should have been standing here a day or so ago,” Fry said. “But I’m here now. We’re going to continue to be here.”

If it wasn’t for the publicity of national media, would James Fry be making this mea culpa? I don’t know, but I do know members of our own City Council are paying attention because they took time on Monday to make comments about it, and those comments were covered by the Missoula Current.

The coverage from MC is actually pretty disgusting because Martin “Gomer” Kidston makes it sound like all 7 deaths over the weekend were the result of gun violence. Here’s the manipulative reporting (emphasis mine):

With the murder of at least seven university students over the weekend, including four in Idaho, several members of the Missoula City Council on Monday expressed thoughts and concerns about campus safety.

Council member Jennifer Savage, who works at the University of Montana, said the shooting of five University of Virginia Students and four in Moscow, Idaho, have campus members talking about safety in an era where gun violence has become common.

Further down in the article, the gun control agenda is on full display:

“Having a child away at college and having one on her way, it’s a sad day for the universities,” said council member Amber Sherrill. “It makes me think a lot about mental health, mental health funding and gun control.”

A number of gun incidents have occurred at the University of Montana over the years. Most recently, a student brought a gun into Aber Hall and fired the weapon several times from his dorm window.

Yes, if we’re talking about gun incidents, then some student firing a gun from his dorm window is the most recent. But if we’re talking about the tragedy of young people going to college, struggling with mental health issues, then ending up dead, UM’s campus had a recent tragedy, but that sad situation was almost completely swept under the rug.

I hope our local institutions take note of James Fry admitting he should have been more open with the public from the get-go because the institutional reflex to say NO WORRIES is not a good one.

If you appreciate this content, please consider making a donation at my about page. Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Getting the poor to expedite their death is something Canada is currently trying out. No, I’m not being hyperbolic. From the link:

After pleading unsuccessfully for affordable housing to help ease her chronic health condition, a Canadian woman ended her life in February under the country’s assisted-suicide laws. Another woman, suffering from the same condition and also living on disability payments, has nearly reached final approval to end her life.

The two high-profile cases have prompted disbelief and outrage, and shone a light on Canada’s right-to-die laws, which critics argue are being misused to punish the poor and infirm. In late April, the Spectator ran a story with the provocative headline: Why is Canada euthanising the poor?

Yes, you are reading this correctly. Very different from the euthanizing that sometimes happens in Missoula, where you can be yanked from life support without your family being notified.

Another guy who thought dying sounded better than losing his housing seems to have received some go-fund-me support. Isn’t that nice?

What’s MAID? It stands for Medical Assistance in Death. And maybe it’s just Canada trying to help out people like the dude above so he doesn’t have to die outside churches, like a woman recently in Great Falls.

I heard about this unnecessary death via a tweet from the Montana Human Rights Network highlighting some outrage over the insensitive Sheriff, Jesse Slaughter, and a radio show appearance he made. I’m trying to figure out what the Sheriff said that was so terrible, but this might be the extent of it:

In the interview, Slaughter blamed Rev. Dawn Skerritt and the First United Methodist Church for Dianna’s death, saying, “People are paying for it with their lives.”  He was referring to the outreach at the church even though his own report made clear that Dianna’s death, while tragic, was the result of natural causes related to chronic alcoholism.  

Sheriff Slaughter spoke in a demeaning way about Rev. Dawn Skerritt several times, but more than that, he belittled her title, authority, and education.  Referring to Rev. Skerritt as “preacher or whatever,” Sheriff Slaughter with his words undermined seven years of post-secondary education, an arduous process to serve in the capacity of minister within the United Methodist Church, and the many years of service she has dedicated to the church.

This is an irresponsible, reprehensible use of the platform he has been given. Whether the words were spoken in outright malice, carelessness, or dangerous ignorance, Sheriff Slaughter’s comments are baseless and unbecoming of a public official.

Speaking of platforms, two Missoula city councilors continue using theirs in ways I both admire and support, despite ideological differences. This was on full display last night with the discussion on whether or not to OK GAMING at a new restaurant and bar on Mullan Street.

Don’t worry, even though this restaurant is near the illegal Reserve Street homeless camp that’s being illegally reestablished as I speak, that is NOT the clientele head architect, Jeff Crouch, envisions for this jazzy joint selling booze, food, and chances to lose money at gambling machines. Would a guy who tried to pitch a convention center to Missoula want dirty poor people anywhere near his nice buildings? I don’t think so.

Tell me, in the following quote, who you think has VISION and who is just a mindless slave to the only thing that ever really matters in this town city and ANY city: money. From the Gomer link:

Most members of the City Council agreed and welcomed the project, even if it included a casino.

“If an entrepreneurial business wants to be a full-beverage restaurant, they’re paying for a gaming license whether they want that or not,” said council member Mike Nugent. “At $1 million, the reality is they have to include some level of gaming to even pay the cost against that license.”

…

The main floor will include the restaurant and tavern, with the casino set aside in a separate area. It will also include a smaller bar on the second floor and a small shop on the main floor.

But it was the inclusion of the casino that prompted council members Kristen Jordan and Daniel Carlino to vote against the permit. Carlino suggested it wasn’t “ethical” to pay off a business loan with gaming revenue.

Jordan and Carlino also suggested that gambling led to addiction and poverty.

“Living in close proximity to casinos, the data shows you’re almost twice as likely to become a problem gambler,” said Carlino. “Using a casino to subsidize those high licensing costs isn’t very ethical.”

Do Carlino and Jordan have a point? Before answering, I suggest watching a Tik Tok video making the rounds featuring a long line of old people tapping buttons on gambling machines. The screenshot alone is disturbing enough.

For the poor who don’t choose death, or don’t have money left to feed gambling machines if they choose life, may I suggest a job? Because it’s brutal out there for employers trying to keep restaurants open when they can’t find anyone to work, like Red Robin in Missoula now closed indefinitely due to a lack of staffing.

How are we supposed to have a “vibrant”, tourist-fueled economy if the poors refuse to serve the transplants their craft beer and hamburgers?

I don’t have the answers. And guess what? Neither do our elected leaders! But that won’t stop them from spending your money trying to FIND those ever elusive answers. If you’d like to help keep the pressure on the bright bulbs spending your deflating paychecks, consider making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer?

I didn’t watch the season 5 premier of Yellowstone on Sunday to be entertained. Since I’m at the ground-level of this modern myth-making effort by Taylor Sheridan, I watched to see how his cognitive assault on the soft targets known as “the audience” is progressing. Spoilers ahead.

The idea of what “progress” means is taken up by then candidate for Governor, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), near the end of season 4, in an episode titled Keep the Wolves Close. Here’s the speech taken from the transcript (emphasis mine):

You don’t see it on your way to work, in the fields, or on the mountain, but there’s a war being waged against our way of life. They’ll tell you all the reasons – why our way of life … are bad for this country, bad for our future. How it’s immoral that you live here, work here, grow their food here. They will tell it so much you might even start to believe it yourself. Question what you do and who you are. They’ll tell you that the land’s only hope is for them to be its steward. The ugly truth is they want the land, and if they get it, it will never look like our land again. That is progress in today’s terms, so if it’s progress you seek, do not vote for me. I am the opposite of progress. I am the wall that it bashes against, and I will not be the one who breaks.

To understand the NON-fiction implications of what’s being said here, one must look PAST the emotions stirred by the content to understand that, yes, there IS a war being waged, and it’s a factional war between pockets of wealth with this show as an actual weapon being deployed. My evidence? Keep your eye on the wolves, both real and fictional, because that’s part of it.

Before we get to the wolves, we must recall the unsexy topic of media tax credits sought by the film industry in the 2021 legislative session. Specifically, recall that the 10 million dollar tax credit CAP was going to be jacked up to $250 million, but in the end, it was raised to just $12 million. The disappointment rippling in the media seemed palpable at the time. From the link:

The cap placed on tax credits offered to film productions in Montana was increased this legislative session, but not by much, and officials say it’s a surprise.

The state capped the credits at $10 million just before the 2021 legislative session.

House Bill 340 aimed to increase the cap to nearly $250 million, but in the end the legislature capped it at $12 million.

With only a $2 million increase, officials tell us they don’t believe it will have much benefit for the film industry to grow in Montana.

I remember seeing this reported at the time and thinking our Governor, who is from the east coast and NOT popular with the media because of sometimes mauling them, was being savvy by NOT financially empowering these already powerful storytellers and their abilities to use fictional narratives to their advantage (in more ways than a passive audience will ever realize).

Was I right? If the dead wolves mean what I think they mean, then yes, I was right.

On Sunday night one of the sub-plots of the premier involves John Dutton’s ranch-hands shooting wolves threatening the herd. The problem? They turn out to be collared wolves from “the park”, meaning Yellowstone National Park. Here’s the dialogue from the transcript:

Oh, f*ck.

Uh, these wolves are from the park.

f*ck!

What do we do?

If those radio collars are motionless for twelve hours they send out a distress signal, then there’s Game Wardens standing in this field in the morning and you and I are on the f*cking news tomorrow night.

So what do we do?

We gotta get these collars off and keep them moving until I figure this out.

So what you wanna do is jog them around in a f*cking circle?

These wolves have f*cking Facebook pages. People walk around in t-shirts with their pictures on them. People find out that we k*ll them, on the Governor’s ranch?

We have tags. It’s legal.

Son of a bitch.

This exchange takes on much more significance when you know, like many in Montana know, that our Governor was cited for shooting a wolf because he hadn’t taken some education course. And when did this happen? February of 2021, near the end of the legislative session. Wow. From the link (Washington Post):

In February, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) was visiting a sprawling ranch owned by Robert E. Smith, a donor who directs the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group, when he trapped and killed a wolf native to Yellowstone National Park.

Under Montana law, it was legal to kill the wolf because it had wandered about 10 miles outside its protected habitat in the national park.

But Gianforte had failed to complete the required training before setting the traps, state officials soon learned.

So, Gianforte kills a Yellowstone wolf in February–smack in the middle of legislative wrangling that includes negotiations over the size of a tax credit–and it becomes a story in the media, like Sinclair’s NBC Montana. Then, during this legislative time period, the tax credit is whacked down to a paltry $2 million increase. Very interesting.

The mesmerizing of the audience, which I reference in the title of this post, is tangentially connected to the obvious adoption of real-life incidents woven into “fictional” storylines. This blurring of realities, which I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, can be potent and disorienting when it comes to people aspiring to be something they’re not.

While it’s human nature to delude ourselves into thinking we are archetypal heroes starring in our own personal dramas, the social media factor has provided unhealthy tools for actually PROJECTING this self-delusion for the viewing pleasure of others.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into this Tik Tok image of “lolhockenwaller”

I have more than just a social media image to back up my speculation that narratives, both fictional and real, have major impacts on the psyches and institutions that comprise our criminal justice system.

For example, there are two local stories that members of law enforcement have used, over and over again, to benefit themselves in various ways. One of those stories is the miraculous discovery of a baby left in the woods by a man fucked up on meth and bath salts.

Here is a portion of that story, as reported by NBC Montana, starring Bill Burt, who failed in his recent bid to become Justice of the Peace:

Officers believe a hand of protection had to have been on the infant.

“It wasn’t just what Francis did to him — the strangulation. It wasn’t the ride through these trees and being buried. He also had extreme temperatures. There’s all kinds of birds of prey. We have fox, coyote, wolves. There are bears,” said Missoula County Sheriff’s Department Captain Bill Burt.

“It was probably 90 degrees on the side of this mountain when the baby was buried up here, underneath the sticks. At that time when we found him 12 to 13 hours later, it was probably in the low 40s. It was a huge change in temperature. He was just dressed in a baby’s onesie,” said Scholz.

While it’s fantastic this baby was found alive, the manner I’ve directly heard Bill Burt use this story–like a Zoom meeting I was participating in about homelessness and the Sheriff Office’s NON response around the Reserve Street bridge–felt manipulative. Or maybe it’s just his unresolved trauma? Is that why Burt is at the microphone to AGAIN tell this story?

Or maybe members of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office like to cling to the idea of finding people because they did such a PISS-POOR job of finding Rebekah Barsotti after she went missing on July 20th, 2021.

The other story that has benefited people like our recently reelected County Attorney (because no one ran against her) is the dismemberment case, a ghastly crime that Pabst was using to pitch vicarious trauma support for prosecutors (a real need) before the final sentencing took place.

Here’s a screenshot from an MTPR piece about Pabst’s work:

One of the people in this image is someone I know from my time working at the homeless shelter in Missoula, and now I have a better idea why she isn’t calling me back about my concerns with Pabst’s office.

Another interesting fictional echo I’ll make note of before wrapping this post up is the skirmish between Kayce Dutton and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While the fictional narrative focuses on horses and borders, the real life conflict between Cascade County Sheriff, Jesse Slaugher, and Canadian agents is something I just referenced in Sunday’s post about the Federal Bureau of Intimidation.

Isn’t this interesting? I think it’s interesting, and I’m happy to share these insights with you, dear readers, at NO cost. Currently I rely on generosity via the donation button, which you can find at my about page.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned, there is definitely more to come!

by Travis Mateer

In this land of stark contrasts, celebrities of popular shows–like Luke Grimes of Yellowstone–get to tell the rest of the world what Montana is really all about. Here is a quote from an article that popped up on every Lee Enterprise Montana newspaper outlet:

How close is “Yellowstone” to the real Montana?

“There’s a lot less murder and it’s a little less dramatic,” says Luke Grimes, the actor who plays Kayce Dutton, the laid-back son of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton.

“Kevin Costner doesn’t live there,” he adds. “But Taylor (Sheridan, the show’s creator) tries to be really authentic to the western way of life. He’s kind of making the world its own and raising the stakes. All the cowboy stuff and cattle ranching stuff they try to make as real as possible.”

I’ve been covering the local impacts of Yellowstone’s production in Missoula with posts like this one from last August (more links at the end of the post). Here’s a screenshot from that post about a local house owned by a guy who works at the Washington Corporation, the company owned by billionaire Denny Washington, and the compensation I heard he received for use of his home:

On the morning of Yellowstone’s season 5 premier I was scanning the local jail roster for familiar names and when one popped up that I was curious about, I searched online, but instead of finding anything about Kevin Washington, the guy in jail, I came across an article about a VERY EXPENSIVE home purchased by a different Kevin Washington, this one the son of our local billionaire, Denny.

Here’s some insight into how wealth hides what they’re up to with LLCs. You know, kind of like what happened with Spencer Properties LLC.

We know y’all are probably dying to hear about the buyer and seller and see interior pics, right? Unfortunately, Yolanda would love to see pics, too. The house is less than two years old, and the sale was totally off-market, so there ain’t nothin’ we can show y’all. And trust us, we’ve tried everything and everyone with no luck.

And both the seller and buyer’s names do not appear in public records — the seller’s identity is obscured behind a blind trust, the buyer’s is shielded behind a corporate entity — an LLC, if you will. However, Yolanda happens to know that the seller is Krista Levitan, the estranged soon-to-be ex-wife of Modern Family show creator Steven Levitan. Our Mr. & Mrs. Levitan bought the property together — in happier days, back in 2012.

…

We also happen to know that the spendthrift buyer is a still sorta-young but hardcore real estate baller named Kevin Washington. Our Mr. Washington is the younger son of Montana-based business tycoon Dennis Washington, the 83-year-old owner of the conglomerate known as Seaspan Marine Corporation. Papa Washington makes do with a current net worth of $6.1 billion, per the beancounters at Forbes. That’s good enough to make him the 239th richest person in the world. Chew on that!

Who cares why a rich guy bought an expensive house? Because, according to the article, the purchase-price of this home was such an insane outlier, local interest was piqued (emphasis mine):

We barely bat a primped eyelash when we see a $10 million pricetag hung on some silly shitbox that happens to sit on a semi-decent quarter-acre of land. Yet even so, there are still some truly insane outliers that can shock us. Example: this house.

You see, Yolanda was sittin’ on her behind, doing normal people things: yelling at the maid to pour us more coffee, phoning our attorney to get the restraining order extended on our nasty second ex-husband George, and poring over property records.

Then we spit our dentures right into our big bowl of Quaker Oats, right when we saw that a house in Santa Monica — a very nice house but a standard single-family house nonetheless — sold for an utterly illogical $41,082,000. For about five minutes, Yolanda was certain that figure was a mistake. But we confirmed with taxes that yes indeed — a very quiet $41 million sale did go down.

To put that figure into perspective, kiddies, $41 million is more than any house in Beverly Park has ever sold for. It’s more than any house in the Hollywood Hills or the Bird Streets has ever sold for. It’s even more than Dr. Dre paid for Tom Brady & Gisele’s insane Richard Landry mega-mansion. (But it’s less than the ludicrous $52.8 million mortgage (!!!) that Beyonce & Jay-Z are carrying on their new Bel Air compound. Oh, but we digress…)

Why are these ginormous numbers worth thinking about? The answer can be found in the dismay and alarm from our elected leaders that voters said NO to a $5 million dollar mill levy. Since it’s clear they suffer from a severe poverty of the imagination, I’m hoping pointing out where wealth exists in this community might give them some ideas instead of more complaining about how they are running out of money. From the link:

The levy sought to raise $5 million by increasing property taxes $27 a year per $100,000 of assessed home value.

29,215 people voted against the levy, and 24,908 votes were cast in favor of the measure Tuesday.

Funding remains for these programs through July 2023 — with the exception of the TSOS, which is funded into 2025 — but their long-term sustainability is in question now.

“I’m not quite sure what it will all look like in the long run but I know it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of hard choices,” said Jones.

Yes, lots of hard choices exist for lots of people, like whether or not to extend leases. My landlord made their decision on November 1st and I’m sure it must have been hard, kind of like when Barbara Koostra made the decision to end Daniel Carlino’s lease. Here’s a screenshot from that post:

Gee, it almost seems like this is a TACTIC being deployed to put trouble-makers in their place. I’d like to say more, but there are processes that need to play out first.

Returning to the show Yellowstone, that article I wrote back in August drew attention to the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, becoming a partial owner of 266,255 acres in Texas after the historic sale of the Four Sixes Ranch. This smacks of Ted Turner style land-grabbing, and should be of concern to any peasant not subsisting on passive income.

Also of concern, how the rich and wealthy use their influence to impact politics.

While it’s difficult to measure the impact of a celebrity wearing a t-shirt, a more measurable factor of political influence is emerging in the FTX implosion, like the money that went to Democrat candidates this last cycle.

Here’s some perspective on the crypto-scammer second only to George Soros in political funding:

And here is an article from March that is now VERY relevant to what’s happening with FTX and the war in Ukraine. From the link:

The Ukrainian government launched a new crypto donations website on Monday, streamlining its multimillion-dollar effort to turn bitcoin into bullets, bandages and other war materiel.

“Aid for Ukraine,” which has the backing of crypto exchange FTX, staking platform Everstake and Ukraine’s Kuna exchange, will route donated crypto to the National Bank of Ukraine, Everstake’s Head of Growth Vlad Likhuta told CoinDesk. Ukraine’s crypto-savvy Ministry of Digital Transformation is also involved.

The claim being made is that money sent to Ukraine for “military aid” got invested in the FTX crypto exchange instead, then returned to the states to pad the coffers of Democrats. And now FTX is collapsing.

Meanwhile, our President with the crack-smoking compromise operation known as Hunter Biden, literally said he thinks Elon Musk’s relationships with other countries is worth looking into. Wowzers.

While immense wealth plays games with world politics like WWIII is just some LARP for kicks, locals in Zoom Town are empathy-trolled with stories like this:

I know this individual quite well, especially the energy it’s taken over the years to mitigate the consequences of her hoarding tendencies, and knowing these things means I’m inoculated from the emotional manipulation of conventional media’s human-interest blurbs.

To wrap all this up, here’s a crazy idea: maybe we should stop venerating wealth and allowing our elected leaders and influencers to uncritically push the assumption that PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS are the inevitable future of how communities WILL BE and SHOULD BE shaped.

If you would like to help financially assist my efforts, the donation button can be found at my about page. Don’t underestimate the impact of a contribution, like the one that brightened my morning upon waking up Sunday. You never know the ripple effect a positive act can have. It might even help inspire songs like this one. Enjoy!

https://player.vimeo.com/video/769972935?h=ee9fb05046

Yellowstone coverage:

A Question Of Worth And Cost As It Relates To Selling Our Community Out To Costner’s Yellowstone (June 23rd, 2022)

Talking With Some Missoula Cops About Keeping The Yellowstone Production Safe (July 7th, 2022)

A Message To The Myth Makers: You Will Not Win This War (July 17th, 2022)

Here’s What Ross Douthat Thinks Of Montana In His New York Times Yellowstone Op-Ed (July 29th, 2022)

A Yellowstone Skirmish On West Main Street As The Larger Narrative War Continues (August 11, 2022)

A Morning Beer And An Extra Story About Yellowstone (August 11, 2022)

On-The-Ground Yellowstone Reporting…But Who Owns The Ground? (August 18th, 2022)