“My dad told me not to talk to,” said the youth.
Who was dad, and who was this youth telling me, the lowly dishwasher, that I was forbidden terrain?
I learned later that daddy was one of those lawyers I wrote about who turned his kid into a convenient “climate warrior” so that a propaganda group in Oregon could exert maximum influence on Montana legislation.
Thirteen young Montanans who successfully challenged the legality of the state’s climate policies are now asking the Montana Supreme Court to weigh in on several bills state lawmakers passed earlier this year in response to that victory, which blocked a law barring the state from considering climate in permitting decisions.
In a lawsuit filed today, Rikki Held and a dozen co-plaintiffs from that earlier lawsuit argue that three bills passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year don’t comply with the state Supreme Court’s December 2024 order. The bills the plaintiffs are challenging revise sections of the Montana Environmental Policy Act and the Montana Clean Air Act dealing with greenhouse gases and the state’s regulatory review process.
When you allow well-funded lawyers who are despicable enough to use children in order to stake a future veto claim on any Montana legislation, then more time in court is what you’ll get.
So, who is pushing the kids into the spotlight for their climate agenda?
Here are a few of the top dogs (though Mat might be a bottom) on a global mission to use children “from diverse backgrounds” across the world to bend the knee of governments for the earth. Just read their amazing mission statement:
Our Children’s Trust is a non-profit public interest law firm that provides strategic, campaign-based legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate. We work to protect the Earth’s climate system for present and future generations by representing young people in global legal efforts to secure their binding and enforceable legal rights to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate, based on the best available science.
We support our youth clients and amplify their voices before the third branch of government in a highly strategic legal campaign that includes targeted media, education, and public engagement work to support the youths’ legal actions. Our legal work – guided by constitutional, public trust, human rights laws and the laws of nature – aims to ensure systemic and science-based climate recovery planning and remedies at federal, state, and global levels.
With all this legal posturing, what kind of lesson might a climate warrior learn at his cute little job serving fancy food to weeding guests? That principles are important? Or, that “rights” only exist if you have money and a willing lawyer to enforce them?
For this part of our lesson, let’s review what might be legally actionable regarding “retaliation” in Montana:
Could looking into and writing about the death of my co-worker, Leah Hartley, earn me retaliation? When the guy who does the hiring at work carries out the hour-reduction for the man who signs the paychecks, it can feel like it. Especially when the hire-guy was an official person of interest in the brief murder investigation.
A month after I wrote my article about Leah, this image appeared on the work computer.
What kind of message does this send to the youth, especially the young climate warriors with lawyer parents making money doing an end-around the legislative process?
You would think a business owner would see this image, hear his employee express discomfort, and immediately remove it, perhaps even apologize–you know, to set a good example for the “family business” you claim to run.
Nope! Instead I had to put a note in the computer system to ensure my likeness photo-shopped on a victim of a political assassination wasn’t greeting everyone clocking in and out for work.
With no consequences for anyone else regarding the actions taken against me over the last few years, the message is pretty clear. You can do and say whatever the fuck you want about me because you won’t have to be accountable for your actions.
Thanks for reading. Like my dead co-worker said, death will come for us all.
