Month: February 2025

by Travis Mateer

Surprising no one who tracks Montana politics, the Republican party is once again showing how they manage to lose despite MASSIVE winning at the polls just a few short months ago. The gridlock that descended on our time-limited legislature SHOULD raise alarm among normal citizens, while raising questions like ARE THEY IDIOTS? Instead, a different question seems to be wafting from local media about this latest drama, like this: is it ENTERTAINING? 

If you’re a struggling Montanan still reeling from the spike in property taxes, no, the dysfunction in Helena is NOT entertaining, but if you’re a state senator from the losing party by the name of Ellie Boldman, it’s apparently PASS THE POPCORN time (emphasis mine):

The standoff in the chambers was often punctuated by jokes, jabs and colorful disruptions, as many lawmakers bemoaned the strange turns of the evening.

Early in the night, as Regier reviewed a stack of motions proposed by Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, another Republican audibly whistled “Entry of the Gladiators,” a circus theme song, into the chamber’s tense silence.

At another point in the meltdown, Ellsworth ducked into a Senate hallway to vape. He returned to the threat of an ethic complaint by Sen. Barry Usher, R-Laurel, for violating decorum.

Another lawmaker, Sen. Ellie Boldman, D-Missoula, broke out a large bucket of popcorn during another brief pause. The delay was requested by a Republican lawmaker who asked that printed copies of each bill be handed out to members’ desks.

I’m glad Missoula’s BOLDMAN had a moment of levity that made it into print because her political party is in desperate need of it. In just a single month Donald Trump has unloaded an avalanche of real consequences unlike anything political watchers have ever seen, and those who voted for him are LOVING it.

Is Trump FLOODING THE ZONE? 

If you put aside any feelings that might cloud your judgement about this unprecedented flurry of political action occurring, and you watch Steve Bannon in the following interview, I guarantee you will have a new appreciation for what’s happening. Here it is:

Bannon has A LOT to say in this interview, including where the focus of geopolitics is shifting (the arctic), but it’s his desire for RADICAL TRANSPARENCY that interests me for the purposes of THIS post for reasons that will soon become clear.

In her bid for reelection, Missoula’s Mayor, Andrea Davis, is pitching her intention to make local government MORE RESPONSIVE. Could this have anything to do with the quick political reversal imposed by local citizens FLOODING THE ZONE with their collective NO to “urban campers” being allowed to take over local parks?

The obvious answer is yes because, as I said in yesterday’s post, the issue of homelessness is kryptonite for our local cabal, who like to nest and incubate their power brokers within the HIC (Homeless Industrial Complex). That’s why the manner in which I’m about to bring RADICAL TRANSPARENCY to one of our adorable little socialists on Council is going to be, I hope, illuminating for readers regarding the tactics being directed at me, a citizen journalist whistleblower.

What I’m about to share is incredibly risky, but so is allowing claims I’ve physically and sexually abused a local woman to circulate without publicly refuting this claim, a claim made by a sitting member of City Council to a supporter of mine last September, and which I believe is part of an insidious campaign to destroy my ability to do what I’ve been doing for 15 years with my local writing. Here is a select portion of the comment:

For now I’m keeping the identity of the Council member sorta anonymous, though my quick transition to the topic of a NEW “Authorized Camping Site” might give away which of the two socialists thinks they can act like Nancy Mace and make due-process-defying accusations under the legal shield provided to members of Congress when speaking from the floor.

The case made in an op-ed last summer for the city to repeat the Authorized Camping Site debacle, which I called an unmitigated disaster in 2022, begins with a claim of simplicity that I find to be totally disconnected from reality (emphasis mine):

Last August, I submitted a referral for rotating authorized campsites to address multiple issues related to survival camping in Missoula. The idea was to provide a simple solution to a complicated issue by identifying two properties in each ward, supplying basic services such as trash bins, sharps bins, and porta-potties, in an effort to ensure our unhoused neighbors have a safe, predictable, and clean place to rest.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION? Really?

Speaking as someone who led the newly created Homeless Outreach Program (at the time), this paragraph is incredibly troubling. When you add the fact I’ve communicated directly with a source inside the private security company that ran this site as a citizen journalist whistleblowing about the HIC, it gets even worse.

When I talk LOUDLY and publicly about my BIG concerns with the “anti-human trafficking” organization known as the LifeGuard Group, run by the chaplain of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, Lowell Hochhalter, and heavily supported, financially, by Governor Gianforte, it’s because I hear things from my sources, like how a victim of human trafficking was kept at the Authorized Camping Site after someone in a position of authority asked the private security staff to keep this victim “off the books”, so to speak.

Another facet of the unmitigated disaster I documented with the Authorized Camping Site was the drug dealing happening inside this city-run space, drug dealing that continued having impacts with the poor homeless people our distributor of propaganda, the Missoulian, told us sob stories about.

This kind of community-damaging behavior, enabled by city officials who should have known better happened under the noses of Sheriffs and State Attorneys getting Federals dollars to fight drug trafficking, specifically meth. When I wrote about how politically ambitious Sheriffs, like T.J. McDermott, were going to have a problem using Project Safe Neighborhood meth busts to run for political office on, I didn’t expect the utter collapse of Democratic influence nationally, rippling down to our State Attorney, Jesse Laslovich, who got gloriously booted from his position recently.

Here’s an excerpt from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle promoting Laslovich’s supposed Project Safe Neighborhood achievements in the story about his abrupt dismissal (emphasis mine):

During Laslovich’s tenure, his office focused on prosecuting drug trafficking and violent and sexual abuse crimes occurring on Montana’s six Indian reservations that are within federal jurisdiction for major crimes; building strong partnerships with other federal, tribal, state and local law enforcement agencies; addressing violent and firearms crimes in communities across the state through initiatives like Project Safe Neighborhoods and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces; and protecting civil rights for all Montanans. The office continued its work to protect children from sexual predators, abusers and traffickers, and to catch fraudsters, the news release stated.

Was Jesse Laslovich a Democratic political cog who put party before community safety? I don’t know, maybe local media should ask his cousin, the chief-of-staff for Jon Tester, a Democrat Senator who ALSO said adios recently after Montana Democrats got slaughtered at the polls, ending the reign of Mr. Pearl Jam selling his Big Sky flattop haircut style to DC insiders.

I hope those who are doing their best to shut me down understand what’s at stake and what I have already sacrificed to bring my perspective to readers who might be able to do something more substantial about it. For me the cost has included a marriage, two art studios, a job, my reputation, portions of my sanity, and my ability to leave the state, but despite this cost, my dedication to finding out the truth about one case in particular remains unwavering.

While I wait for Matt Jennings’ County Attorney’s office to decide whether or not more criminal charges against me are warranted, you, dear reader, are free to give me money, which I am in fairly constant need of, and you can do so by donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF)

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Missoula’s longest-serving Mayor, John Engen, died in office after securing his historic fifth term, but thanks to John’s arrogant attempt at directing $16 million dollars in Tax Increment Financing to a Wisconsin transplant flush with Daddy’s money, John died in office knowing his self-deprecating fat jokes no longer provided the political cover he enjoyed for so many years.

Instead of leaving in a body bag, I had hoped a decent political candidate would come along to provide an actual challenge to Mayor Engen, but decent is NOT how I would describe Jacob Elder. In fact, looking back, I’ve come to an interesting conclusion about Elder’s candidacy and, if I’m right, I think something similar may be developing to help our current Mayor, Andrea Davis, keep her job as the smiling figurehead for the REAL power that runs this town (I’m looking at YOU, Ellen).

Local liberals came at Jacob Elder HARD, so I figured he was a serious candidate. I caught a political intern using her position at the Montana Human Rights Network to make public claims about Elder’s supporters, I listened to the vigorous whisper campaign about Elder’s behavior towards women, and I gave Jacob an opportunity to play his HOMELESS REFUGEE card when I interviewed him for my podcast. When Elder crashed and burned, a nagging suspicion started growing. Was Jacob Elder an unwitting dupe who got played by more sophisticated political handlers to create the ILLUSION of a political opponent?

Elder’s use of the homeless card was an obvious play, considering those of us in the know back then understood that the issue of homelessness in Missoula was becoming political kryptonite. The Executive Director of United Way, Susan Hay Patrick, for example, was instrumental in positioning Ellie Boldman into the director position at the homeless shelter, the Poverello Center, where I started working in 2008. 

Ellie infamously used the shelter to launch her political career after doing favors for the important people, like employing Ellen Buchanan’s daughter, Keenan Whitt, as the Poverello Center’s Development Director. After that position, Keenan got a job at Blue Line Development, an “affordable housing” developer acting as a private tentacle for our local octopus.

Another important figure who understands how much kryptonite I possess is Eran Pehan, the director of everything who helps provide the kind of continuity I appreciate Elon destroying at the National level. Eran was the one who let me know (because she has an FBI pal) that the killer who evaded Missoula police in 2014—the killer who potentially knew I helped identify him before he fled Missoula—was ticketed by Colorado authorities just a few dozen miles from where I had gone with my family to vacation. Since the Colorado cops were as effective at understanding what they were dealing with as our Missoula cops were, Kevin Lino made it all the way to Louisiana before finally being caught, charged, and convicted of his violent crime.

I like reminding our local “leaders” about my role kicking ass for this community by dealing with ACTUAL threats because now it’s ME who is being depicted as a deranged threat requiring immediate legal intervention. Is that why legal considerations of due process are being conveniently ignored by certain politicians? 

Soon after Mayor Davis’ announcement of her reelection intention, Mike Nugent, her previous opponent, figuratively castrated himself and made his gelded offering on Gomer’s platform, the Missoula Current:

“I’ve seen firsthand her dedication, leadership, and deep commitment to our city,” said Nugent. “In her short time as Mayor, Andrea has shown a willingness to tackle our city’s most pressing challenges head-on, form advancing critical code reform to tackling housing affordability.”

If can-kicking in the form of work-shopping-away time in order to empower a few homeless tokens is Mike’s idea of tackling challenges head-on, then I hope he’s keeping track of the success stories. Am I talking about the conveniently-timed story of 12 Veterans housed in the homeless sprint competition? No, I’m talking about Brad, the urban camper who recently added an assault on a cop to his record of indignant persistence at doing what this community has LOUDLY declared they don’t want him doing anymore in public parks. 

While Brad’s political use now appears truncated by circumstance, I have more confidence in the alleged arsonist’s political future because of his curious write-in candidacy for Sheriff of Whatcom County. That is, unless my attention on this Potential Political Ploy (PPP) is somehow counterproductive to it, because it kinda seemed that way when I got all excited over the candidacy of Missoula’s former Sheriff, T.J. McDermott.

I’d like to say more, but I’m going to leave it there, for now. If you appreciate my detailed knowledge of local politics, please donate to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Why did Trump and his progeny repeatedly visit Montana? Why are secretive data centers springing up in Montana? And why do Montana Republicans ignore the CIA/Oracle connections of their political leaders, Gianforte and Daines? I have more questions, but those are some good ones to start off this piece where the bold assertion of the title says it all: the CIA owns Montana.

You don’t buy a state like Montana all at once, like it’s for sale on Amazon or something. You slowly build your ownership profile of it over time, like constructing an abstract portfolio of investments. If you’re a spider, the analogy would be akin to fixing strands of your web at key locations so that the delicate lattice-work maximizes its function, which is to control a specific location in order to catch prey and lay eggs.

When you consider ideas of political affiliation as mere strands in a web, the web becomes more visible. Without this consideration people get stuck by the limitation of their focus, thus wasting time paying attention to the wrong things as the spider moves into position for the attack.

Montana is a wild and remote state, and this remoteness was a strategic consideration when dealing with dangerous pathogens at the BSL-4 Lab in Hamilton, where Dr. Fauci’s mentor, Maurice Hilleman, worked. Remoteness also played into the decision to house the Minuteman Program in Montana, America’s Cold War era nuclear warhead equipped missile response that helped form the position of Mutually Assured Destruction.

A geographically remote location is an obvious asset when it comes to stopping the spread of a virus, but what else spreads like a virus? Information, that’s what, and once upon a time the main vector for this viral spread was a product known as a “newspaper”. That’s why I took note years ago that the company producing much of Montana’s access to news, Lee Enterprises, employed a “retired” CIA man by the name of John Talbot, and this former CIA agent didn’t just work in the upper echelons of Lee Enterprises, he actually married INTO it. Isn’t that convenient?

What other types traffic in info and stay on the cutting edge of platforms that disseminate info in order to obtain power for themselves? If you said POLITICIAN then DING DING DING, you are correct! That is why it’s important to note that the longest-serving Mayor that Missoula ever had, John Engen, first ascended to political power on January 3^rd, 2006, with the help of John Talbot—and Engen achieved his first of many political victories after working as a reporter for a Lee Enterprises newspaper, the Missoulian. Isn’t that convenient?

Shifting to a different form of cultural expression, Missoula is well known to have hippies, and hippies love drugs. But did you know about the deep and abiding respect the CIA has for drugs? It’s true, not only are the illicit sales of drugs great for black-ops budgets, the effect on actual users has LOTS of interesting applications for mass-population mind control goals. If the British found success weaponizing opium against the Chinese, for example, then it only makes sense that the Chinese would be weaponizing Fentanyl against America.

For a quick tangent on THAT front, check out the giant Fentanyl lab recently busted up north, in Canada. From the link:

Canada’s last-minute decision to cooperate with President Trump on border security and efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking was a key factor behind the president’s 25% tariff threat. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to strengthen border security, a former US official who led an anti-fentanyl task force under President Trump’s first term has argued that laws in Canada hinder a proper crackdown on the flow of drugs in the US.

“Well, several months ago, you had the biggest lab in the history of the world taken over by (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in Vancouver… It made Breaking Bad look like minor league,” former State Department official David Asher told Canada’s state-funded CBC News’ chief political correspondent, Rosemary Barton, in an interview last weekend.

Asher claimed that the fentanyl super lab was “definitely” connected to Chinese organized crime and also pointed to possible connections with Iran and even rogue biker gangs.

Ok, now let’s rewind the geopolitical clock to ask a very specific question: after Vietnam, how many pilots with Phoenix pedigrees became Missoula-based smokejumpers?

I don’t know, but by the 80’s, thanks to the philanthropic Talbots, I DO know that Missoula became an INTERNATIONAL destination for kids who like to sing. I’m sure there’s no connection at all between the Talbots funding the Montana International Choral Festival and things that might be getting trafficked by former CIA flyboys.

You can’t have an influx of drugs without an awakening of consciousness, so how would one go about STEERING this blossoming of consciousness? Well, it would be pretty stupid to just WAIT for a guru or spiritual leader to emerge organically, so one idea is to get ahead of the curve and seed the spiritual fields with poisoned seeds from the get-go. 

Playing with cults is one way an Intelligence Agency might develop this approach, like getting behind a figure with a disturbingly deep interest in this subject, a figure like Jolly West. And what better time to experiment with cults than the pliable timeframe after a nation’s psyche has been collectively traumatized, say with the assassination of a popular president like JFK. When the cults emerge, like the Church Universal of the Triumphant did, then the data gleaned from studying them can be applied at a later date.

When the millennium arrived in Montana, the blacksheep of the Pritzker clan took her share of the billion dollar hotel/gangster fortune, created in Chicago, and started placing Buddahs in Arlee, just north of Missoula. The 1,000 Buddah garden had its 1,000th Buddah placed at the site, arranged to form the wheel of Dharma, in 2015. Ten years later, near Hot Springs, a retreat is being built on thousands of acres owned by the Pritzker blacksheep. What will be going on in this remote part of Montana where my sources tell me drugs are trafficked and you can’t soak at Symes without hearing Russian being spoken?

When spiritual seekers go missing in the woods, who looks for them? Would you believe Batman? No, seriously, when you read the New York Post you find out things about eccentric billionaires who operate companies like Two Bear Air, like how they employ mercenaries, party with politicians in boom boom rooms, and keeps spreadsheets of how many pussies they’ve penetrated. 

Batman and his billions are connected to biomedical just like our Governor and his millions are connected through his tech sellout, and it’s all coming up ORACLE, which one can easily connect to the CIA, with the whole enchilada moving at Warp Speed (Trump 1.0) through the Stargate (Trump 2.0). If Montana Republicans could just take a moment to free themselves from focusing on genitals in bathrooms, they might realize that the Transhumanist future they think they’re fighting against is heavily nesting in their own backyard.

Before explicitly detailing to the clear CIA connections of Oracle, here’s a little context about “secretive” data centers from a Missoulian article:

Vast quantities of coal will be dug up and burned at the Colstrip power plant in southeast Montana to supply equally enormous amounts of electricity to two data center developers in Butte starting in 2026.

One of those developers is secretive and its work is probably related to a U.S. government contract.

Combined, the two data center companies have announced plans to utilize as much as 400 megawatts by the year 2030, which is enough electricity to power nearly 320,000 households for a year in the northwestern United States.

Now let’s hop over to the origins of Oracle and the convenient CIA contract it got after Mr. Stargate established this company:

Larry Ellison and his partners won a two-year contract to build a relational database management system (RDBMS) for the CIA. The project’s code name: Oracle. They finished the project a year ahead of schedule and used the extra time to develop their system for commercial applications. They named their commercial RDBMS Oracle as well. In 1980, Ellison’s company had only eight employees, and revenues were less than $1 million, but the following year, IBM itself adopted Oracle for its mainframe systems, and Oracle’s sales doubled every year for the next seven years. The million-dollar company was becoming a billion-dollar company. Ellison renamed the company Oracle Corporation, for its bestselling product.

Our next step now is to show how Montana’s Governor, Greg Gianforte, and Montana’s Senator, Steve Daines, BOTH Oracle tentacles slithering from their bank accounts (source is Salon, sorry):

Montana Republicans Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte share a tight financial and legislative history with each other and with the tech giant Oracle that goes back years. That relationship has netted each of them several million dollars and made Gianforte one of the wealthiest members of Congress.

Both have also used their offices to support legislation and other initiatives for which Oracle spent significant time and money lobbying, and from which the company stood to gain financially — including through defense contracts.

…

Gianforte made his fortune from RightNow Technologies, a Bozeman-based tech company he co-founded with his wife in 1997, where Daines served as an executive for 12 years. In 2011, Gianforte sold the company to Oracle for $1.5 billion, at the time holding between 20% and 25% of the company’s stock, which was valued at between $300 million and $400 million, according to statements he made to the Billings Gazette.

…

Daines introduced an amendment to a 2017 spending bill (SB 2943) that included spending to “ensure higher quality cybersecurity” for Department of Energy and Pentagon nuclear command and communication systems. Oracle had previously been awarded DOE contracts to do software work for the National Nuclear Security Administration, as well as DOD contracts for electronics and communications equipment.

Isn’t this fun context for “the company” now getting half a trillion dollars to give Americans a mRNA solution to cancer? Problem/reaction/solution is one hell of a dance, a much sexier dance for psychopaths than Tango is for ex-wives, that’s for sure.

Going back to Batman (Mike Goguen), it wasn’t until a national legal organization sued the city of Kalispell to keep a homeless warming center open that I thought to take another look at Batman’s financial investments. The result of my hunch payed off when I found Inimmune, the Missoula biomedical company developing a Fentanyl vaccine.

In 2019, Goguen founded Two Bear Capital, a venture capital firm based in Whitefish, Montana. Two Bear Capital invested $22 million to Inimmune, a biotech company, in July 2020; this investment was part of the largest Series A investment in Montana history.

Knowing that homeless culture is fueled by drug culture from my years working at a homeless shelter, I saw this legal move as a way to protect a potential sample population of drug addicts for future experimentation. A few months later, Inimmune announced phase 1 drug trails. When you know where the tentacles lead, it’s easy to predict the future.

David Lynch, born in Missoula, died four days before his birthday. Born on January 20^th, 1946, this famous director entered the world just as an ambitious Navy boy, who grew up in Montana, participated in some weird ritual. This Navy boy went on to form an upstart religion called Scientology, while his pal established the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in order to help NASA do whatever the fuck they do.

It’s almost like intelligence assets and agencies know something about Montana that Montanans don’t. Is there something about mountains carved by glaciers and geysers blasting off from a massive caldera of volcanic activity we should know about?

It’s probably nothing, so don’t worry about the West Point Rhodes scholar University president with the 5^th generation Montana wife who just happened to be into telemedicine before the pandemic, and don’t worry about their pal, Jim, who helped get Barack Obama reelected. Don’t worry that when I call Two Bear Air the Lake County Sheriff’s Office answers the phone, and don’t worry about that pretty missing Indian who has more value as a billboard than as a solved case. Right, Detective Baker? 

Montana is an enchanted land of opportunity with features no average Joe need know about, so bring in Kevin Costner and Rip wearing his black hat. Did you know, in real life, Rip’s great great granddaddy was the 7^th Governor of Montana Territory from 1885-1887? And don’t get me started on the OTO Dude Ranch. 

Let’s say it’s 1978, the year I was born, and you are a cowboy in the Bitterroot Valley, maybe near the town of Darby where Taylor Sheridan’s horsey porn show, Yellowstone, was filmed. Maybe it’s been a long day, and you’re enjoying some strong shots of whiskey before heading back to a comfy double-wide when a Hmong General walks into the bar with a New York Times reporter. What would you think? Especially if you caught the article that explains how “Mr. Vang” came to be ranching in the Bitterroot Valley? (emphasis mine):

This is the third spring in which Mr. Vang has turned over the dry, sandy soil of the Bitterroot and sown his crop of barley. Like tens of thousands of others, he fled Indochina after the Communist takeover and started a new life in the United States. But he is not an ordinary refugee.

Mr. Vang was a major general in the Royal Laotian Army and commander in one of five military regions. An influential leader among a mountain people known as the Meos, he helped organize them into a special fighting force with heavy backing from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Before America lost Vietnam, it escalated Vietnam, and it did so with the help of Jim Morrison’s Admiral Daddy. I found a weird little book in a bookstore by a guy from Great Falls, Montana, who claimed, in this “fictional” account, that Jim Morrison didn’t die in Paris. No, he lived out the rest of his life working at a little bar in Ulm.

What’s so special about the Big Sky in Montana, boys? Even China curiously floated a balloon to take a peek. Is it the missiles in the ground? Or is it something deeper, like a final destination for an orphan train?

For a final chuckle, I know of a well-meaning County Commissioner who REALLY loves trains. His love of trains is so strong, in fact, that he platformed via Zoom a villainous looking Ukrainian at the height of our proxy war with Russia in order to PROMOTE TRAINS at train conference in Billings. Thanks to the tireless effort of this obnoxious commissioner who HATES the math that proves this will never pencil out, passenger rail is returning, we are told, to Montana.

Ok, Dave, but I’m pretty sure the CIA prefers planes.

Which brings me to my final point: the CIA isn’t the only game in town—so, whether by air (OTO Dude ranch connection to the US Air Force, but that’s another story), or sea (L. Ron Hubbard connection to Naval Intelligence), whatever makes Montana special, it’s safe to assume others would probably want to have control of it as well, whatever it is.

If you would like to help fund me, the self-proclaimed Dave McGowan of Montana, then Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to do it. Or, if you’re a funder of documentaries in town for that little festival, you could also write me a giant check for the documentary I want to make. I think $100,000 would be a good start.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Well, it’s official, I’ve had my first REAL fight with my illustrator, ChatGPT.

Today is such a SPECIAL day for a divorced man like me with an ex-wife born on this hilarious day, and with the added synchronicity of her also having grown up on a sprawling estate located on Valentine Road. Since my personal Trickster (who acts like a CrossFit trainer for the mind) likes to have fun with me, the second season of White Lotus, which I started watching last night, features a hospitality professional by the name of VALENTINA who so far seems to be very busy keeping the cute hookers out of the hotel.

Do you sense the love in the air, dear reader?

I tried SO MANY prompts this morning with Chatty, but my first snag was the potential sensitivities of men and the stereotypes surrounding their gifting of roses. Here’s a screenshot:

Since I can be VERY persistent when I’m trying to create things and/or calling out badges for murdering black men, I kept at it.

Would “tweaking” my prompts work? No, it would not.

Did I keep trying? Yes, I kept trying.

I was getting VERY annoyed at this entity that’s supposedly rearranging our Federal government right now, so I took a different angle instead.

Well, ok then, looks like SOMETHING isn’t gettting its $20 dollar subscription renewed!

We are at SUCH an interesting crossroads as humans doing REALLY stupid shit right now because, quite possibly, a non-corporeal intelligence that’s been fucking with humans for centuries is getting its moment of glory on the great terrestrial stage.

If there’s one thing I’ve been working on it’s my ability to break up with people and things, so for the rest of this funny day I’ll be keeping my head down, washing dishes, and maybe selling a little zine to a little local store with stories and poems about my sad little broken heart.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Missoula’s relatively new Mayor is backing a supposedly new plan to address homelessness, and this plan is going to be shaped by an organization based in San Francisco called HOMEBASE. Is anyone surprised by this?

If you think bringing in “expertise” from the epicenter of out-of-control homelessness is smart, then I think you are stupid. How many people in our local government are this stupid? A majority?

Reading about this organization’s history left me scratching my head. How can they offer any solutions when their own backyard is literally covered in shit?

Homebase was founded in 1985 in response to community requests for assistance in addressing the newly emerging problem of homelessness. San Francisco Bay Area communities were at a loss as to how to best respond to this new crisis, neither understanding what was causing the influx of people living on the streets and in parks, nor knowing what to do about it. Homebase was launched as a technical assistance resources center for Bay Area communities in their efforts to address homelessness.

From these roots, developing an infrastructure to meet emerging human needs, Homebase has grown into a nationally recognized expert on system redesign, homelessness, and as a skilled capacity builder working with communities across the country.

The Missoulian article crediting this San Francisco organization with giving us a new homeless plan features a problem only someone like me, a Homeless Industrial Complex insider, can identify. Here it is (emphasis mine):

Missoula city officials provided an update on a new strategy they’re working on to address homelessness at a city council meeting on Wednesday.

Called “On Our Way Home: Missoula Community Houselessness Strategy 2025-2028,” the plan lists three main priorities: identify the number of shelter beds necessary for Missoula’s homeless population and pinpoint corresponding housing retention programs for permanent housing, secure funding for programs addressing homelessness, and increase capacity for service providers like the Poverello Center or Hope Rescue Mission.

The plan is being developed by a coalition of local government officials, current and former homeless people and service providers like the Poverello Center. Work on the strategy started in January 2024 after the city allocated $70,000 to a national nonprofit that partners with local governments and providers to end homelessness, called Homebase, to lead the process. Over the last six months a group of project leaders held larger neighborhood meetings and focus groups with formerly homeless people to gather input.

The problem in that first point of emphasis is how one defines the MISSOULA homeless population. Who, exactly, are we including in this definition?

When other people ask this question it’s usually depicted as a product of fear and ignorance. When I ask this question it’s from the perspective of a former Poverello Center staff member of 7 years who knows, from experience, there is a homeless circuit that people travel. Thanks to Armand and the “Denver Voice” I was even able to recently substantiate this notion of homeless travelers telling each other what spots are worth flocking to.

I actually traveled to Denver in August of 2023 to research the life of Sean Stevenson before he came to Montana, but I didn’t say a lot about my visit in that post I linked to, which includes a picture of a nice United Way building.

Why a United Way building? Well, before finding himself homeless again in Montana, Sean had been living on the steps of a church in Denver, and near this church is where United Way was renovating a building. Since United Way, as a “non-profit”, has to justify their status by appearing to do charitable shit, Sean became one of those marketable stories that United Way took and promoted in exchange for helping Sean get into a subsidized apartment.

To highlight this time in his life, one of Sean’s sister sent me this photo of him sitting behind the Colorado Governor’s desk last month on the fifth anniversary of Sean’s death at the hands of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

While my Missoula community has done its best to ignore the implications of Sean’s life and how it was ended inside a private hospital room by the Sheriff’s Office, I have essentially dismantled my own life attempting to understand this new world Sean’s death opened up to me, and in doing so incurred the wrath of the narrative controllers who are doing EVERYTHING in their power right now to shut me up.

After enduring an amazing depiction of me in court this week trying to reduce my 15 years of civic engagement through writing down to the rantings of a dangerously obsessed and unhinged threat who provides NOTHING OF VALUE to society, I realized something. Perhaps my work as the Trash Alchemist of Missoula trying to thrive (well, just survive, actually) during my Lego Meth Lab Summer inside a box truck wasn’t fully understood by everyone, so let me reiterate where I think my strength resides: pile your garbage on top of me and I’ll just wear it like Marjory did, with style.

I have removed tons of garbage, I have studied garbage, and, during those semi-manic episodes I think of as synchronicity storms, I have even talked to garbage, so calling me garbage is really just par for the course. Also, I smell the distinct odor of projection, since a lot of people in this country are suddenly being forced into the realization that SO MUCH of their media is manipulated garbage.

While I continue to pay the price for persisting, in my Gonzo style, with this citizen journalist thing, I’ll wrap up today’s post with some Reddit commentary on the lack of journalism regarding University of Montana campus issues, then I’ll quote from that “so-called” journalist, Matt Taibbi, who took a recent I TOLD YOU SO TOUR like I did last year.

And Taibbi:

If you agree with the “so-called” journalist, Matt, that this is an ALAMO moment for the first amendment (and I do), then my final question is one I’ve asked before: what are YOU going to do about it?

I don’t want to be a martyr, but I will be if that’s what’s required to get this town to realize how NOT fucking brilliant and enlightened they are, no matter HOW much Harvard our current Mayor claims to have benefited from.

Mayor Davis, backed by the duplicitous schemer of Missoula’s United Way, want votes again from Missoula citizens, and if you think the “award-winning” PULP will be anywhere near critical of our current Mayor like my NEEDLE TRAP coverage has been, well, you’re an idiot.

But that’s ok, I have sympathy for idiots, since I was one, and, still too often, can act like one, especially when it comes to that biological flaw of hetero-human attraction our species DOES still require to propagate ourselves forward into the future.

Mayor Davis’ future?

Despite only serving two years so far, Davis believes her biggest accomplishments include the development of 89 affordable homes, the adoption of the Our Missoula 2045 Land Use Plan, and what she considers the strengthening of public safety.

Davis says that if re-elected, she’s looking forward to establishing a more responsive local government.

Or (please, God) someone else’s?

Don’t worry, no money donated to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) will be applied to threatening our narrative controllers with a political run. The new charges I’m being threatened with will more than likely, by design, keep me too busy for anything TRULY idiotic like becoming a professional liar (politician) for a paycheck.

Thanks for reading!