In 2023 John Shaffner was recognized by the Bigfork Eagle as a Montanan who had made it big in Hollywood, thus earning an honorary doctorate from the University of Montana:
John Shaffner, who began his career with the Bigfork Summer Playhouse before becoming a legendary Hollywood production designer who created sets for many of television’s most beloved shows is one of two Montanans who will receive an honorary doctorate this spring from the University of Montana.
On March 16 the state Board of Regents approved UM’s request to present the doctorates during Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 13 to Shaffner and Mandy Smoker Broaddus, a former Montana poet laureate who helped implement the Indian Education Act for All Act across the state.
The two will serve as UM Commencement speakers, with Smoker Broadus speaking at the morning ceremony and Shaffner speaking in the afternoon.
How did John Shaffner get the kind of Hollywood success that allowed him to buy a VERY NICE house up Pattee Canyon? And why am I specifying this location as if it’s relevant? It’s not like we’re talking about the kind of wealthy people who are close to Epstein Network, right?
Shaffner and his life partner Joe Stewart also work together, including at the outset of their television careers when they designed the set for Star Search. He designed the talk show stages for Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O’Brien, Rachel Ray, and Dr. Phil. He has also built the backdrops for the last three Republican National Conventions.
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Shaffner has been nominated for 31 Emmy awards and won four, including three for his work on the CBS series The Magic of David Copperfield.
Shaffner was nominated 33 times by the Art Directors Guild, and won Art Directors Guild Awards for the designs of the 2006 Emmy Awards and The Big Bang Theory.
In 2019, Shaffner and Stewart were awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Art Degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.
In 2002, Shaffner won the award he sponsors from the University of Montana and now and serves on the college’s advisory council.
There are two BIG red flags in the biographical data from Wikipedia about Shaffner’s success, and that’s his work with David Copperfield and Ellen Degeneres. The first one, the magician, is all over the Epstein files, while the second one, the degenerate, had a set design said to look like it was aesthetically modeled after Epstein island.
Was that John Shaffner’s idea?!?
When Aaron Rodgers brought up this visual connection on Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster in the world wasn’t impressed. That’s because Rodgers and Rogan don’t know what I discovered yesterday by using Montana Cadastral.
Aaron Rodgers has never been one to shy away from tossing around conspiracy theories in a public forum … and that continued during his sit-down with Joe Rogan this week — when he hinted the set of Ellen DeGeneres’ old talk show looked a bit too much like Epstein Island for his liking.
Rodgers made the remark amid his lengthy appearance on Wednesday’s episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience” … which naturally turned to the subject of Jeffrey Epstein and a building on Little Saint James.
Once producer Jamie pulled up an image on screen, Rodgers quickly said it reminded him of the “set of a famous talk show that’s now not on anymore.”
Joe quickly clocked that he was talking about “Ellen” — which went off the air in May 2022. They then pulled up an image of her set on the screen, but Rogan wasn’t in agreement with the quarterback, quickly raining on his parade.
“That might be a building in L.A.,” he said. “It’s whatever. I’m not impressed with that, that could just be coincidental.”
Yes, Joe Rogan, it could just be coincidental, but when you add David Copperfield to the mix, things get a little darker.
Reading this document from the Epstein files, you get the distinct impression that David Copperfield’s sexual predation was intimately interwoven with the production of his show. Hmmm.
If it was just these connections, that would be bad enough, but what my idle curiosity produced yesterday, clicking around Montana Cadastral for property information, showed me some neighbors of John Shaffner who raised my eyebrow, like his NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR, Ewa Bindek.
Who is Ewa Bindek, what is DST Global, and why is DST Global connected to Ashton Kutcher, who was VERY EARLY in being VERY CONCERNED about human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children?
Oh, and Russians, can’t forget about the sketchy Russians:
DST Global is a venture capital and private equity firm that primarily invests in late-stage internet companies. DST Global’s founder is Yuri Milner and its co-founders are Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors, Rahul Mehta and Tom Stafford. The company was founded in 2009 as a spinoff from Russian company Digital Sky Technologies, which became Mail.ru Group (later the VK company). In the early 2010s, DST Global international investments were focused on emerging markets such as China.
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A Kremlin-owned firm, VTB Bank, put $191 million into DST Global, which used it to buy a large share of Twitter in 2011. A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Twitter similarly went public in 2013. The US government sanctioned VTB in 2014 because of the Russian military intervention in Crimea, but DST Global had sold its stake in Twitter by then. Four days after the Facebook IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion. In November 2017, DST Global issued the statement in response to this accusation: “Since 2009, DST Global has invested $7 billion in the consumer internet sector, with a majority being invested in non-U.S. companies — and with less than 5% coming from VTB Bank. VTB Bank was the only Russian government institution that invested in any DST Global funds… Moreover, there were dozens of DST Global investors making up the funds that invested in Facebook and Twitter — ….50 passive investors that invested in Facebook…, and VTB Bank was one of 40 passive investors… that invested in Twitter” Yuri Milner published his own open letter in ReCode magazine stated that “DST Global’s investments in Silicon Valley were motivated by pure business logic, based on a decade of experience in Internet technology… when we negotiated the Facebook and Twitter deals we asked for no board seats, and assigned all our votes to their founders, figuring they knew best how to run their companies. At the time, this structure was unusual, but it is core to DST Global’s philosophy.” DST Global funds have invested in over 80 companies, none of which are based in Russia.
In 2022, due to additional sanctions being placed on Russia resulting from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, DST Global became a subject of scrutiny due to its ties to Russia. A DST Global representative stated that the firm had not raised capital from Russian limited partners since 2011. Less than 3% of capital it had raised from inception was from VTB Bank and all such capital was returned by 2014. On DST Global’s website, the firm announced it condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine. In addition the firm donated $3 million to Stand With Ukraine, a GoFundMe initiative launched by Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher to help the refugee and humanitarian relief efforts.
For those who don’t remember Kutcher’s dabbling in the anti-trafficking LARP, he adopted his inspiration from his partner, Demi Moore, who was just HORRIFIED that what was happening to Cambodian sex slaves could ALSO be happening to sex slaves in America.
At least, that’s what the Wikipedia entry for the “DNA Foundation” says:
DNA Foundation was founded in 2009, by film and television actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. At that time, Moore was viewing an MSNBC documentary on human trafficking and sexual slavery of children in Cambodia. While later researching some of the issues that were presented in the film, she was inspired to act when she learned that child pornography and the sexual slavery of children were taking place not only in Cambodia, but in the United States as well.
The other notable Shaffner neighbor who got my attention as I clicked through publicly available information is Monica Tranel, sister-in-law to Ben Davis, the innocuous sounding “non-profit” guy who helps vulnerable children, and who just happened to have a previous job with Kharon, where one of his co-workers, Janice, once worked for the CIA, and another co-worker, Matthew, has a very conspicuous last name.
I know, this is getting fucking ridiculous.
The more famous Epstein, Jeffrey, was allegedly making in-roads into the world of private security near the end of his mortal usefulness to the predator class (if you believe he’s dead). This article, for example, documents Epstein’s introduction to Peter Thiel and the Founders Fund while he also courted Carbyne and talked to a wealthy Russian. Hmmm.
After his first arrest for sex crimes, Jeffrey Epstein tried to get into a new line of work: surveillance. In 2015, he partnered with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to invest in a security tech startup called Reporty Homeland Security, now known as Carbyne. Leaked emails show that Epstein was using Barak to seek out opportunities in the surveillance industry and build connections with powerful figures around the globe, including American businessman Peter Thiel, the former director of Israeli signals intelligence, and two people in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s circle.
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While Epstein was trying to deal with the American tech sector, he was portraying himself to Russian elites as an apolitical wheeler-dealer. In April 2015, Epstein introduced Barak to former Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Sergey Belyakov, who then invited Barak to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. That wasn’t the only business Epstein had in mind.
Returning to Ewa Bindek and her employer, I wonder…does DSL Global’s billionaire Russian, Yuri Milner, have any Jeffrey Epstein connections? Of course he does. This excerpt comes from Forbes:
Epstein had relationships with a number of other venture capitalists and tech investors as well, the files reveal, including Russia-born billionaire investor Yuri Milner, former tech exec and Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky, and Day One Ventures founder Masha Bucher, who regularly introduced him to startup founders. (Bucher did not respond to a previous comment request on her Epstein ties.)
Milner met with Epstein twice, once apparently at Epstein’s New York City apartment and once at his Paris apartment, both in 2011. According to Milner’s representative, the meetings were arranged by Ian Osborne, an investor and consultant who had a close relationship with Epstein, and the billionaire had no further contact with him. “I wholeheartedly regret that I ever met, or had any association whatsoever with, Epstein,” Osborne said.
The tension between privacy and surveillance is only going to get more tense as Americans realize what the predator class has planned, but as that tension escalates, I want Missoula citizens to understand how safely ensconced some of these Epstein-connected people appear to be in our own backyard.
Has anyone else made the connections I’ve made in this post? Nope, and really, these connections I’m highlighting today make me the most concerned I’ve ever been about the culture of this mountain town I’ve called home for 26 years.
If you would like to support the whistleblower-level work I’m doing to help mitigate the subsequent risk that comes with it, you can donate any modest amount at my new GoFundMe page.
Thanks for reading!