Do people love independent journalists? Right now, yes, people think they love independent journalists because some kid in a hoodie is exposing fraud in Minnesota. This has created a great opportunity for grifters like Jonathan Choe to get clicks for his think tank, the Discovery Institute.
Back in July I wrote about “journalists” like Jonathan Choe and Kevin Dahlgren and the guy who started the Discovery Institute, Bruce Chapman. Here’s a little more about Chapman’s history, including his connection to the Hudson Institute:
Chapman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the position of Director of the United States Census Bureau and served in that role from 1981 until 1983.[citation needed] Between 1983 and 1985 he was Deputy Assistant to President Reagan and Director of the White House Office of Planning and Evaluation. From 1985 to 1988 he served in the appointed position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations International Organizations in Vienna. His portfolio included nuclear proliferation, refugees, economic development, and the control of narcotics.
From 1988 to 1990, Chapman was a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Chapman left the Hudson Institute in 1990 and cofounded the Discovery Institute along with George Franklin Gilder in 1991. The institute is best known as the hub of the pseudoscientific Intelligent design movement, and also focuses on a broad range of issues, including: economics, transportation, technology, and citizen leadership. In 2011, Chapman became chairman of the Discovery Institute.
And here’s some context on the Hudson Institute for anyone curious about where their “independent journalism” derives from:
The Hudson Institute was founded in 1961 by Herman Kahn, Max Singer, and Oscar M. Ruebhausen. Kahn was a Cold War icon, often interviewed in magazines, who was purported to have the highest IQ on record and partly inspired the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove. In 1960, while employed at the RAND Corporation, Kahn had given a series of lectures at Princeton University on scenarios related to nuclear war. In 1960, Princeton University Press published On Thermonuclear War, a book-length expansion of Kahn’s lecture notes. Major controversies ensued, and Kahn and RAND parted ways.
If I want to be successful, a recent X-user told me, I need to “pick a side”. It would appear my position that both political parties are fucking worthless is not a very popular position to maintain.
Sorry, Jesse, after Republicans won nearly every big political race in Montana, I’ve seen what these dumb motherfuckers have done with all their clout, and it’s been VERY pathetic. How pathetic? THIS pathetic!
In a meeting last week, state lawmakers asked an elephant-in-the-room question: Will federal regulators recertify the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs in 2026 if the adult psychiatric facility still doesn’t have an electronic medical record system?
The fact that the 270-bed facility — a fixture of Montana’s mental health system for more than 100 years — still operates with a largely paper-based medical record system may be news to people who aren’t reporters, health care providers or state officials.
Yes, you are reading this correctly. A modern state like Montana, in the year 2025, has a state hospital that lacks an electronic medical record system. This is BEYOND embarrassing, it should be criminal negligence, and anyone in a budgetary political position should be absolutely lambasted for their pathetic failure, the kind of failure that will NOT help Missoula’s homeless crisis.
But, if I “picked a side”, I would have to studiously avoid holding Republicans accountable for their utter failure to actually fix anything in this state, including property taxes skyrocketing. Republicans in Montana are utterly pathetic, and I WILL NOT shy away from saying so.
My bipartisan disdain definitely doesn’t help me out, financially or socially. Sure, I recently identified a hilarious bridge scenario in which Missoula built a bridge they will be removing less than 10 years later for a combined total of $1.6 million dollars, and Western Montana News picked up my story to give it stronger conservative legs on which to run, but on Reddit, it’s sometimes easier to attack the messengers.
That last comment is lovely because it’s true that I am a broke loser living off my parents right now. I even got fired from my part-time dishwashing job on Saturday after enduring quite a hostile work environment that included my former friend being investigated for killing my co-worker, Leah. But a conservative? No, I’m a hyper-localist who shows how power flexes when someone like me tries to break the narrative control that keeps other, less-informed people silo’d.
I don’t play partisan information games and for that I’ve been targeted, so the haters should appreciate what Missoula’s leadership is capable of, whether it’s “conservative” cops, “liberal” judges, “non-partisan” non-profits, or other local influencers, I am pretty reviled by anyone with the power to do anything.
Oh well. The book I’m working on will help contextualize how narrative control functions, and it will show how far back you have to go to understand the infiltration that has occurred over time, rendering labels like “conservative” and “liberal” as effectively meaningless.
If you would like to support this unicorn who doesn’t have a think tank funding him, my gofundme page is still active and waiting for your donation. And next year, which is right around the corner, will mark a full decade of me running this humble little blog, so obviously I have some longevity when it comes to exposing local corruption, no matter what label it’s hiding behind.
Thanks for reading!