If you would like to support a citizen journalist who has been forced to become his own lawyer, I’ll be hanging out from 5pm-7pm this evening at a brewery called the Great Burn near the field where Ross Robertson spent the last moments of his life.
The purpose of my informal meet & greet is to raise the $355 dollars I need to purchase court transcripts for my appeal with Montana Supreme Court, which I successfully filed notice of last Thursday. I’ll also have show & tell material on-hand, including some of my controversial Lego signage, and hopefully a new zine of my most offensive poetry.
If I was an important politician, like the twats running the Public Service Commission, I’d have a lawyer like Matthew Monforton helping protect my Constitutional rights, but he’s too busy doing that for Brad Molnar, the idiot who used his email to daydream about turning “Taco Tuesday” into “Topless Tuesday” and to comment on the attractiveness of age-defying Chinese women.
On Tuesday, Molloy ordered the release of redacted versions of two full investigative reports into Molnar’s conduct – more than 100 pages of documents. Monforton had moved for the full reports to be made public, and Molloy ruled attorneys for the other PSC members hadn’t shown a compelling reason to keep the documents under seal as long as the names of people involved in the investigation were obscured.
While the names remained redacted in the investigation reports, the attorneys for Welborn, Fielder and Bukacek also filed additional documents – including a public declaration from Bukacek and from former PSC executive director Alana Lake, providing information about their allegations against Molnar.
…
Bukacek’s complaint claimed Molnar had repeatedly made what she called “sexualized and demeaning comments.” The examples she cited included saying the PSC should replace “Taco Tuesdays” with “Topless Tuesdays,” reminiscing about watching girls in bikinis as a teenager, and commenting about the beauty of women in areas of China who didn’t get “old and wrinkly.”
In her declaration, Bukacek also claimed Molnar had “maliciously disseminated false information” about her and “engaged in behavior that was dismissive, derisive and otherwise abusive.”
Since the PSC oversees Montana’s power grid and the monopoly that just got permission to once again raise our electric bills, the effort to oust Molnar is one of the most important political lawfare efforts happening in the state, and it’s being led by Missoula’s Natasha Jones (who also showed up in the Helena showdown with AG Knudsen). Hmmm.
Commissioner Brad Molnar has sued President Jeff Welborn, Vice President Jennifer Fielder and Commissioner Annie Bukacek – the three PSC members who voted in May to require him to work remotely, after an investigation into complaints about his workplace conduct. Molnar has claimed he is being unfairly punished for constitutionally protected speech, and he asked Senior U.S District Judge Donald Molloy to allow him to return to the PSC offices.
Matthew Monforton, Molnar’s attorney, told the judge that barring Molnar from the building was limiting his ability to do his job.
“He has not been officially kicked out of office, but his voice has clearly been diminished,” said Monforton.
But Natasha Jones, an attorney representing the other three commissioners, said the findings were about behavior, not just speech, and that the PSC’s action was a reasonable response.
Reasonable? Natasha Jones thinks it’s reasonable to be barring Molnar from the building as a BILLION DOLLAR MERGER between energy giants proceeds? Luckily Brad’s lawyer got him a restraining order to allow Molnar to attend the hearing about this Billion dollar merger.
It didn’t take long for defiant Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar to return to office.
The Laurel commissioner was ordered to work remotely by the Public Service Commission after findings of workplace harassment last Wednesday, but he filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday.
Molnar got a temporary restraining order in his favor the same day.
Tuesday morning he was back in his seat with the four other commissioners as they held a hearing on a proposed $3.6 billion merger between NorthWestern Energy and Black Hills Energy. The lawsuit described the PSC hearing as “what may be the most consequential proceeding in its history.”
I agree with the language of the lawsuit describing the proposed merger between NorthWestern Energy and Black Hills Energy as possibly “the most consequential proceeding” in the history of Public Service Commission. That makes the conspicuously-timed lawfare against Brad Molnar just that much more embarrassing. I’m sure the corporate leaders of these two energy behemoths are absolutely delighted our PSC is functionally retarded.
I saw Natasha Jones earlier this month as I was leaving the UM Law School where a name from the Epstein files is ALSO on the wall of donors. Isn’t that odd?
I put this “Gregory Munro” reference into context in this post, and for the bulk of my Epstein/Montana reporting you’ll find a list of links here. I also recommend checking out yesterday’s post about my take on the investigation into the Newsoms and the Siebel/Montana Meth Project connections that influence local narrative control.
If you can’t stop Great Burn later today, but you still want to support my citizen journalism, I set up a new GoFundMe page for online donations and it already has a $20 dollar donation. Thank you!
Next week I’ll be taking a look at the official panhandling process Missoula agencies do this time of year (like the City Attorney’s office) in preparation of the annual budget ritual that entails condescendingly explaining to the public why MORE money is always needed, while simultaneously making sure to blame anything other than their own shitty policies when criticism inevitably arises, so stay tuned. I’ll also be doing a follow-up to the incomplete Buckhouse bridge “urban camp” cleanup, so stay tuned.
And, as always, thanks for reading!