by Travis Mateer
Since my AI illustrator won’t give me the image I would REALLY like to use for showing where I think Montana’s former Governors, Steve Bullock and Marc Racicot, can stick his concern for DEMOCRACY, I decided a wood chipper was the next best thing. Let me explain why.
When Steve Bullock was Montana’s Attorney General, a big scandal began to emerge surrounding a group of law men who belonged to something called the “Coyote Club”. Here’s an article from 2013 showing how Bullock acted to keep the lid on this scandal (emphasis mine):
In June, the Montana Attorney General’s Office cleared Doyle and others in his department of three subsequent charges made by members of the same group. Doyle, elected in 2010, asked Attorney General Steve Bullock to look into allegations that included obstruction of justice and perjury.
While the AG’s office found evidence a former undersheriff had given false or misleading information concerning his law enforcement experience in an affidavit for a search warrant, it found no basis for filing criminal charges in any of the matters.
Duryee’s name has come up repeatedly in the long, ongoing controversy surrounding the department, primarily involving lies he allegedly told about serving as a Marine in Desert Storm. His accusers charged that the lies led to Duryee being named a commander of the Special Response Team by an earlier sheriff when he was not qualified for such a position.
While the allegations said Duryee had repeatedly lied over several years about serving as a Marine, Duryee admitted in September 2010 to doing so once, and said he regretted the incident.
Other charges that have surfaced concerning Duryee were that he allegedly was a member of an alleged illegal poaching club within the sheriff’s department called “the Coyote Club,” and that he allegedly gave skull fragments from a suicide victim to another deputy to help her train her cadaver dog.
To have a functioning DEMOCRACY you need a functioning criminal justice system capable of enforcing laws without bias. Do we have that in Montana? And, if we don’t, who is responsible?
For some hilarious political posturing, here are the impotent laments of Steve Bullock and Marc Racicot, another former Governor/AG in Montana, who shared a state recently in order to display their pathetic political finger pointing. We’ll start with Marc:
During his main talk to Sunday evening’s crowd, Racicot did not mention Trump by name. But he did reference the attack on the nation’s Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, by people loyal to Trump as one event testing his belief in the invincibility of the U.S. Constitution and democracy.
Racicot said there are “ominous and unmistakable warning signs all around us” that the nation’s constitutional government is “confronting moments of uncertainty and peril.”
He lamented the effects of social media on contemporary discourse and referenced the pre-Internet days when people were more likely to have face-to-face conversations and to bond over such activities as building a Little League ballpark or participating in a civic club.
“Now contrast that with the thoughtless, cruel and frequently false communications of today,” he said.
It’s RICH to see how a politician turned lobbyist thinks we still even have Constitutional protections anymore, because we don’t. For context on some of the clients Marc gets paid to represent, here’s a little info from Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
Marc Racicot is an American attorney, lobbyist, and former Republican politician who served as the 21st Governor of Montana from 1993 until 2001. After leaving office, Racicot worked as a lobbyist for the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani. His notable clients included Enron, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and the Recording Industry Association of America.
He was chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2002 until 2003, when he was appointed as the chairman of the Bush re-election campaign. In 2000 as well as 2004 he was rumored to be Bush’s choice for United States Attorney General. During the 2000 election, some saw him as a possible running mate for Bush. The Washington Post described him as “one of Bush’s closest friends and advisers”. Racicot has been harshly critical of Donald Trump, and endorsed Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election. This led to the Montana Republican Party censuring him in 2023, and declaring that they no longer considered him a Republican.
Moving on to Stevie, who REALLY wanted to be President of ALL the states, here’s his assessment of why people see government as the enemy (emphasis mine):
Bullock said divisions deepen when people feel they are powerless to impact government. Government becomes the enemy, he said.
Each side becomes “more interested in placing blame than trying to say, ‘What can we actually do to improve people’s lives?’” Bullock said.
His tenure as governor included efforts to curtail the impact of “dark money” on political campaigns in Montana. He described those quests Monday night and lamented the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in January 2010 in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.
Yes, that’s right, Bullock said this with a straight face as his fellow lamenter, Marc, sat beside him with fat lobbyist pockets. Does anyone expect the public to take a charade like this seriously?
To conclude the maddening virtue signaling about DEMOCRACY and how to save it, Bullock got the last quote, which goes like this (emphasis mine):
“Accountability doesn’t just rest with our elected officials,” Bullock said. “It rests with each of us.”
He quoted journalist Bill Moyers: “…discouragement comes easily. But if the generations before us had given up, slaves would still be waiting on these tables, women would still be turned away from the voting booths on election days, and workers would still be committing a crime if they organize.”
Yep, accountability rests with EACH of us, but that’s not what was going through my mind as I was transported to jail on Monday for allegedly driving under the influence of Cannabis.
Instead, what I was doing in the back of the cop car was trying to count how many times the rapper on the radio said the word NIGGER before shouting FUCK THE POLICE right as we came to a stop in the parking area of the Missoula County Detention facility.
Did I acknowledge the hilarious irony of listening to a rapper shout FUCK THE POLICE on the cop’s chosen radio station? Or did I miraculously manage to keep my mouth shut? You’ll have to read my zine series for the answer to that and SO MUCH MORE!
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Thanks for reading!