Month: September 2024

The people who don’t want “urban camping” to be established at their little park near the South Hills are trying to get up to speed regarding the homeless conversation, which has been going on FOR YEARS. After my chat with Doc Moore and a few fellow supporters of NO CAMPING MISSOULA on Sunday, I’m bewildered how these citizens have remained SO IGNORANT about this issue for as long as they have.

Being ignorant about how their park became a potential location for urban camping is actually spelled out at their website (emphasis mine):

Some of us were made aware of the new ordinance and what it would allow when outhouses were delivered at our parks, and it was communicated by city leaders that refuse boxes for needles would soon be arriving for installation. We also were suddenly made aware (August 14, 2024) that camping was being allowed in affected parks as of July 25, 2024, and our neighborhoods were depicted on maps on the city’s website, along with unenforceable camping guidelines available for broad distribution, that targeted affected residential areas and properties. We believe the uncertainty this ordinance creates for our parks and neighborhoods regarding public safety and property value is overwhelming. While Mayor Davis, members of the City Council and other interested members of the public believe they undertook a lengthy, inclusive, and transparent process when developing and passing this ordinance, it is abundantly clear to us that a significant portion of the Missoula population that could be impacted by the ordinance has little awareness of how and why they might be affected. We continue to encounter new folks every day that have no idea this is going on right now in their community.

I can confirm that Doc Moore and the other three people listening to my spiel on Sunday morning were all VERY unaware of ALL KINDS of things, so I did my best to educate them about the organized criminal elements operating within the “urban camping” infrastructure being created by our Homeless Industrial Complex benefactors, like United Way of Missoula County, and the larger inability of our criminal justice system to deal with the chronic issues I dealt with during my tenure working at the Poverello Center (2008-2016).

I also explained how easily their group would be depicted as dumb NIMBY conservatives by local media. When Doc told me his group “wasn’t political” I had a good laugh before telling this former REPUBLICAN legislator that EVERY BREATH WE TAKE right now is political, so don’t pretend like this issue will be any different.

Since scrutiny will eventually come to this group I suggested they be VERY CAREFUL about allowing violent rhetoric on their Facebook page, like when “Gray Mat” suggested that members of this group go out and start shooting homeless people.

Gray Mat is obviously an agitator of some sort who is using violent rhetoric to get a reaction from people assumed to be dumb and conservative. As you can see from the comment, Gray Mat is eager to play the victim card for ALL the urban campers who, according to this commenter, are merely trying to survive. This is the type of ignorance I see from the OTHER SIDE of the political divide, where victim status is almost like a divine designation.

A few weeks ago I watched a desperate father from Eastern Washington address a different local Facebook group about his adult daughter who, because of drug abuse, has descended into a life of homelessness and sexual exploitation. According to this father, the gang she has been running with engages in widespread theft in Missoula, then fences the items in Pasco, which is a part of the Tri-Cities area.

Since I wrote about Pasco last September, I became VERY interested in what this father had to say, like how his daughter got picked up by the FBI at the beginning of the month, but only AFTER this father started making noice on social media. Before her arrest, Dad was being told that his daughter, who had left her three children in Washington without a mom, was doing just fine on the streets of Missoula, and if he tried to intervene then HE WOULD BE ARRESTED for felony kidnapping.

Monte Shaide, with the FBI, is the name listed as the arresting officer on Taylor Penny’s jail listing, so that seems to back up the claims Dad was making about the nature of the criminal activity his daughter had gotten involved in. This Dad also had NOTHING GOOD TO SAY about my former employer, the Poverello Center, and what they might be doing or NOT doing to help their clients.

As a reminder, even local media recently published claims about the Pov and their staff being involved in illicit drug activity (emphasis mine):

Trustee went on to tell MTN that over the years the center has stopped providing many resources, whether that be meals, clothing, water or cleaning the porta potties outside the center.

“They want us out of sight, out of mind.”

On top of the seeming lack of care for those in and outside the shelter, Trustee also claimed that staff at the Poverello Center are siphoning off donations — like a $120,000 check — and are abusing substances like meth themselves.

Trustee claimed that he witnessed staff unload a truck full of donated items and take some things home with them. He also claimed that he had witnessed staff members picking up meth paraphernalia only to be later seen being used by the same staff members.

Because of her ongoing legal issues, Dad decided NOT to talk to me about his daughter’s plight, which I understand. He is probably hoping against hope that his grandkids will get their mother back, because if they don’t, the trauma of having a mom succumb to the world of drug abuse and predation will have lasting effects.

To all the liberal women in positions of influence in Missoula, I have a question: is THIS the kind of life you want to enable for Taylor Penny? Because this is the kind of life YOU ARE enabling when you control narratives around homelessness and attack truth tellers like ME for raising the alarm FOR FUCKING YEARS about this bullshit and where it’s all leading.

If wasn’t banned from attending City Council meetings by a Municipal Court judge I have previously written about, I would attend the October meeting where the urban camping ordinance will be discussed. Here’s a message from City Council person, Bob Campbell, about this upcoming meeting:

Councilwoman Vasecka and I have agreed to reset consideration of an amendment to the City’s Urban Camping Ordinance. The amendment for consideration will exclude city parks as authorized camping sites.

The matter will be heard before the Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, October 23rd at a time TBD, although times usually run between 9am and 3pm. After this, the matter would then go to the full City Council the following Monday, October 28th at 6pm.

It was decided to push this back from the original September 11th date due mainly to the slow roll-out of the ordinance and in order to better determine the efficacy of enforcement or lack thereof. Although successful, consistent enforcement is always the expectation – it would be the ability to directly measure and illustrate a failure of enforcement that would necessitate this amendment, and increase the likelihood of successfully passing such an amendment.

Another update will be sent out as the October 23rd hearing approaches. Committee schedules are usually posted the preceding Friday.

Best regards,
Bob

If you appreciate my dedication to demolishing ignorance wherever I find it, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Are you looking at FREE SPEECH art or shitty propaganda? The Missoulian will tell you the art show these red, white and blue fortune cookies are a part of is all about FREE SPEECH, but is it?

When Leslie Van Stavern Millar was growing up, her family moved around with her father’s job as an oil company executive, including time living in Iran and Libya. After Moammar Gadhafi rose to power in the latter in 1969, they returned to the U.S. While leaving, Millar, then a college student, had packed some of her artworks. Security personnel at the airport smashed them.

“Unconsciously, that has always sort of been in the background with me — like you could lose this, this could happen,” she said.

While an extreme outlier, the memory lingers with her as an example of the importance of our rights under a democracy and freedom of expression, the subject of a group art exhibition she’s curated along with some accompanying talks.

Yes, meanies in other countries aren’t always supporters of the arts, but thankfully Leslie Van Stavern Millar is an AMERICAN where artists are free to create AMAZING WORKS OF ART like this:

This piece is impressive. Not only is it UGLY AS FUCK, I also feel stupider for having looked at it. Is it the artist’s intent to create a parody of political art so ugly and politically obvious as to inspire revulsion and disgust? If so then BRAVO!

Another piece shows a book burning that’s NOT about burning quality literature, but selectively burning the patriarchy. I’m so glad the artist used words to make this fine distinction (emphasis mine):

Millar included a two-part piece from her now decade-long “Burnt Offerings” series. A female figure is seen reading a book, near a pyre that has a stack of books. (She clarified that it’s burning a patriarchal past rather than literature.) She sculpted a small “bonfire” from sticks dipped in white that rests on a small shelf at the base.

Another one of these pieces of free speech art has the struggle against misogyny as its message. I’m glad we have such smart women to explain this art to the stupids who might start thinking there’s a political agenda afoot here (emphasis mine):

Among the pieces that are less direct is Stephanie Frostad’s graphite and oil painting, “Against the Current III.” A woman is waist-deep in water, carefully looking downward as she proceeds ahead, her steps as deliberate as Frostad’s, a classically trained painter. In her statement, she writes that “while the water’s force may represent a host of challenges, it also symbolizes the tide of misogyny washing through our culture and politics today. Around the world, women continue to struggle for bodily autonomy, access to health care, education and economic opportunities.”

I think it’s time to drop a little factoid that might be a controversial thing to say, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Here it is: every violent male serial killer throughout history HAD A MOTHER. Fact. Unless there’s evidence that any of our famous male serial killers were grown in a test-tube, I think it’s fascinating to think about this fact as a contrast to this article about FREE SPEECH art that sounds suspiciously like a celebration of politically motivated misandry.

The Missoulian paired this “art” article with an op-ed from Mary Sheeehy Moe lamenting how all the poor women out there are considered “just a rib” by those stupid Christians.

From the link:

Misogyny. Miss-AW-jenny. Just when you think the second-class status of women is a thing of the past, misogyny rears its ugly head.

Just when you think the second-class status of women is a thing of the past, misogyny rears its ugly head.

It’s always amazed me that it took women in this country half a century longer than Black men to get the vote. (It took Indigenous Americans even longer.) The Equal Rights Amendment, first advanced in 1923, finally died on the vine in 1982, three state ratifications short of the promised land. And 1971’s Roe v. Wade, recognizing a woman’s right to make decisions abut her own body, lasted a mere half-century before becoming the first Constitutional right to be rescinded.

And now, misogyny fills the air. A candidate for president unapologetically calls his female opponent “dumb as a rock.” (As last week’s debate demonstrated big time, rocks can be pretty dang smart.)

A candidate for vice president makes comment after comment demonstrating that, in his view, a woman’s value is measured by the children she bears and raises.

This is definitely an outdated mode of thinking. To modernize this sentiment, here’s what I think our culture is saying these days: a woman’s value is measured by the victimhood status she can leverage. Who cares if shitty art and shitty political candidates are the result? Certainly not professional victims who strongly believe society owes them something.

The idea that anything resembling “free speech” even exists these days is funny to me, because it doesn’t. The censorship of cancel culture is constantly looking for new offenders to silence, further insulating the cognitive prisoners of WOKE from the reality that, just maybe, their political Queen REALLY IS DUMB AS A ROCK.

If a politically unpopular woman who couldn’t win the nomination outright and spits out garbled word salads regularly after propping up a senile white man as President for 4 years ascends, the only response to criticism will be to yell MISOGYNY as loudly and repeatedly as necessary before tossing the critics in the WOKE gulag for their terrible thought crimes.

Ok, that’s all for this week. Next week I’ll continue screaming into the retarded void, so stay tuned, and drop me some dollars at Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) if you can afford it.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Have I gone TOTALLY BATSHIT? No, synchronicities can make you FEEL crazy, but that doesn’t mean you ARE crazy, so instead of just babbling incoherently about what I’m experiencing, I try my best to put what I’m experiencing into a framework of language for others to examine.

Before I read about our County Commissioner, Dave Strohmaier, and the work of his GOLDEN SHOVEL to commemorate the construction of a Forrest Service Museum, I was already writing about a Forrest Service scandal involving the cousin of Ronald Reagan, Roy Reagan, for my Mr. Batshit series (as of yet unpublished). Here’s a little context on the scandal:

In December 1987, the director of Fire and Aviation Management for the USFS instructed Fred Fuchs, Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation, to request that the Department of Defense cooperate with civilian contractors in a plan to obtain surplus military transport aircraft stored at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, which could be converted to airtankers. Besides replacing the grounded C-119s, this program was intended to modernize the tanker fleet to all-turbine aircraft.

At the time, Roy D. Reagan, cousin of President Ronald Reagan, was a private aircraft broker representing Hemet Valley Flying Service, one of the Forest Service’s contractors, and an operator of C-119s. At a meeting on December 23, 1987, attended by both Fuchs and Reagan, the Air Force was presented with the idea of transferring retired U.S. Air Force C-130As to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, which would then exchange the C-130As with Hemet Valley’s grounded C-119s, since the latter aircraft could be considered “historic” aircraft. However, at a subsequent meeting with representatives of the Air Force Museum, Air Force officials reacted negatively to the idea of such an exchange.

Fuchs and Reagan then met with representatives of the General Services Administration (GSA) who suggested that the exchanges be conducted without going through the Air Force Museum, and instead have the Forest Service become directly involved. In this version of the plan, the Air Force would declare that the aircraft were “excess property” and transfer them to GSA, who could then legally make the planes available to other government agencies, but with the provision that any agencies receiving them would be required to retain ownership. This plan was agreed upon, and Fuchs was given responsibility for coordinating the exchange program for the Forest Service. He did not, however, discuss the plan with the Forest Service’s Office of General Counsel. The letter authorizing the program on behalf of the Forest Service stated that it complied with various provisions of the federal regulations, when in actuality it did not. In addition, Fuchs provided bills of sale to the contractors, transferring actual ownership of the planes to the companies, in violation of the applicable regulations, as well as the provisions laid down by the GSA. Further, Fuchs told his USFS superiors that the transfer of ownership had been approved by the GSA when in fact it had not. In the ensuing criminal trial, three Air Force generals testified that they were not aware that the government would be losing title to the aircraft; if they had, they said, they would not have approved the program

Will any of this be in the museum Jon Tester and Steve Daines helped find the MILLIONS of dollars in funding for? I doubt it, just like the role of smokejumpers and the CIA will probably not get major billing in this information display.

In 1960, while Daniels was a smokejumper, the CIA recruited him as a loadmaster or “kicker” for air operations based in Thailand. Kickers were often smokejumpers as they had familiarity with parachutes and jumping and surviving in rough terrain. Airplanes were loaded with cargo, flown into areas accessible only by air, and cargo was then “kicked” out the door and dropped or parachuted to locations on the ground. The CIA’s assistance to the Hmong who lived in the mountains of Laos was largely delivered by air. The Hmong forces supported the Royal Lao government against the communist Pathet Lao rebels and the North Vietnamese Army which supplied its troops in South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In 1960, Daniels enrolled as a student at the University of Montana. He divided time between classes and working as a kicker for CIA affiliates in Laos and other countries until 1965 when he was assigned duties as a CIA Junior Paramilitary Operations Officer (PMOO) in Laos among the Hmong. He graduated from college in 1969, and then was promoted to a full PMOO in Laos and the Chief of Station.

For those who like to go to the market and get fresh produce, you may notice that Hmong folks are well represented. That’s because of Hog Daniels and the CIA.

Daniels accompanied Vang Pao to the Bitterroot Valley near Missoula, Montana (Daniel’s home town) where he was resettled on a ranch purchased for him by the CIA. Daniels returned to Thailand to assist Hmong refugees crossing the Mekong River from Laos in large numbers. The CIA also provided funds to create a refugee camp for Hmong at Ban Vinai. The U.S. government was initially resistant to the resettlement of any Hmong refugees in the United States, although 130,000 Vietnamese had been evacuated from South Vietnam and resettled. U.S. officials doubted that the Hmong would be able to adapt to U.S. society and their role in the Vietnam War was little known. To Daniels and a few others, the U.S. government had an obligation to the Hmong, allies of the United States throughout the Vietnam War. Resistance to Hmong resettlement was overcome by the advocacy by refugee workers such as Daniels, Lionel Rosenblatt, Shepard Lowman, MacAlan Thompson, John Tucker, Pop Buell and many others.

Before I get to my song about Kitty Fettuccine I’ll make note of someone else born on September 19th, an actress by the name of Rosemary Harris. Because I allow name-echoes to help direct my attention, Rosemary’s name caught my attention for a number of reasons, so I took a look at her body of work wondering what I would find. What I found was Harris’ role as the voice of VALIS in the movie adapted from Philip K. Dick’s book, Radio Free Albemuth. To understand the significance of this, you’ll have to wait to read about it in issue of 5 of Mr. Batshit.

Publishing my Mr. Batshit series is going to take money, so if you’d like to help, then please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Now, here’s a tune for you to enjoy on my b-day. If it triggers you, just remember it’s CONSTITUTION WEEK, so shut that virtue-signaling mouth of yours and try to appreciate what the first amendment means to a supposedly “free” society like ours.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

I learned SO MUCH by watching our Mayor conduct last Monday’s City Council meeting, like how this week is Constitution week, but instead of using my free speech to speculate whether or not our Mayor is stupid cunt, I’m going to speculate on how our Mayor found out about a SERIOUS TRAGEDY that occurred in our AMAZING community recently. Please prepare yourselves for what I’m about to disclose.

Because of the TERRIBLE rumor going around about Haitian immigrants dining on feline fettuccine, someone allegedly said SOMETHING MEAN to an immigrant here in Missoula. Even WORSE, this immigrant was accompanied by her child. OH THE INHUMANITY OF IT ALL!!!

Somehow our Mayor found out about this terrible injustice (perhaps through a special hotline) and then she found a way to squeeze in a lecture to our Missoula community about how AWFUL mean words can be. The real hilarity of this little lecture, though, is how it came right after Mayor Davis acknowledged that a second assassination attempt appears to have occurred over the weekend, and how this political violence is UNTOLERABLE.

I’ve known for awhile that WORDS are more important to this Missoula community than actual ACTIONS, which is why the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office has been able to successfully euthanize and shoot dead two black men in this community without any significant outrage expressed by the virtue signalers.

Isn’t this amazing? If I had more patience I would have waited for the whole video to load to ensure the FULL lecture got documented, but I’m saving all my patience for court.

Yesterday I was outside a coffee shop having a vigorous conversation with a fellow artist about what I’m dealing with when a bystander inserted themselves. Were they horrified at the political retaliation I was describing? No, it was my use of the word CUNT that caused the consternation. I told this person about that old document we’re celebrating this week, then I asked this person if they knew what happened to the dead niggers I’ve been investigating for the last 4 years. They didn’t, so I told them.

If Mayor Andrea Davis really cared about the immigrant experience in America she would acknowledge that bringing people to one of the LEAST AFFORDABLE PLACES is probably not a greatest idea (emphasis mine):

Before the pandemic, there were 20 states that were considered affordable as a whole under the group’s definition, including the presidential election swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. As of this year, there is none. Even the states with the closest match between income and home prices — Iowa, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan — didn’t make the cut.

Since the pandemic, two states, Montana and Idaho, have surpassed California as the most unaffordable states for local homebuyers, according to the analysis. Hawaii and Oregon round out the list of the five least affordable states.

Gee, how could anyone have anticipated this affordability crisis for poor immigrants? Maybe the citizen journalist who wrote this post in 2016: Missoula’s Refugee Charade Continues.

In conclusion, I really hope Missoula isn’t a retarded community run by stupid cunts, but I’m struggling to find evidence to the contrary. If you appreciate my persistence in asking these tough questions, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

On August 30th I broke the news that the director of Missoula’s Chamber of Commerce, Mark Losh, had left his position after only 9 months. David Erickson followed my reporting with a little article of his own, then claimed in another article that his newspaper broke the story. Nope! That’s bullshit, David Erickson, and you know it.

Sure, it must be embarrassing to have a citizen journalist with a blog breaking news stories, but taking credit for a story that I BROKE MYSELF is really pathetic, especially considering I had a little chat with the Missoulian’s editor, Steve Kiggins, before this credit-stealing article was published.

The company that owns Missoula’s shitty newspaper and all the shitty newspapers across this retarded state fired another cog from their failing business. Here’s the “news” about the dude who wears the pedo-glasses, Rob Chaney, and his departure from getting a paycheck for being a part of this shitty information business (emphasis mine):

In a blow to journalism in Montana, Lee Enterprises laid off longtime journalist and former managing editor Rob Chaney of the Missoulian.

The layoff is another reduction in corporate journalism in Montana. It also represents a loss of institutional knowledge and journalism mentoring and leadership for Lee Enterprises.

Did Rob Cheney mentor David Erickson? If so, how does stealing credit from a lowly citizen journalist comport with the ethical standards journalists are supposed to have?

Another former Missoulian reporter “weighed in” on this corporate move and I’m glad he did because now I get to put Michael Moore in the proper narrative control context this twat deserves.

Former Missoulian reporter and city editor Michael Moore weighed in on Chaney and Lee Enterprises.

“That’s outrageous, though not surprising,” Moore said. “You were a fabulous colleague and I’m sure you will be again! Lee Enterprises, of course, is NOT fabulous.”

I think Michael is being too hard on his former employer since the Missoulian helped him control the homeless narrative during his 4 worthless years at United Way. That’s right, Susan Hay Patrick hired Michael Moore to lead the 10 Year Plan To End Homelessness and she failed to provide effective oversight for that time period, which is why the city took over control when Moore left his job in 2016, the same year I left my position as the Homeless Outreach Coordinator.

This is also the same year the former director of the Poverello Center, Eran Pehan, got a new position created just for her. It was this reshuffling that allowed oversight of this plan to be removed from United Way’s control.

“With me leaving, things are little in flux right now,” he said. “I don’t think anyone is certain right now what the next iteration of Reaching Home will look like. It may stay at United Way forever. The mayor, when he announced the housing division, there was some reference to Reaching Home and that it may be coming under the housing division.”

Susan Hay Patrick, chief executive officer for United Way of Missoula County, said that while her organization would continue to house the Reaching Home position if needed, more resources could be placed toward the challenge if it were housed under the city.

“I really do feel that because government is the largest source of funding for housing and homeless services, it probably makes sense to house it in a government office,” she said. “We’ll continue to maintain our private-sector involvement. We will continue to raise money and resources and rally support for it, just as we have been.”

At City Council last night, where municipal retardation was on full display, the 10 year plan was mentioned and our Mayor lamented the fact that the NAME of the plan was dictated by the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It must be nice to ALWAYS have someone else to blame for failure. Do they teach this strategy at Harvard, Mayor Davis?

If you want REAL context to help you understand the charade of “helping” the homeless in Missoula, you need to read my shit, like this article from two years ago: What The Media Won’t Tell You About Missoula’s 10 Year Plan To Control The Narrative On Homelessness. I have more insight on this topic than almost anyone I know in this town, plus I have the cojones to NAME NAMES when it comes to the duplicitous narrative controllers and how they operate to HIDE what’s really happening in this town.

If you appreciate my work, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). I got some VERY GENEROUS donations recently, which is greatly appreciated, since my birthday later this week is on the same day I have to appear in court. Happy birthday to me!

Thanks for reading!