It wasn’t just the graph on Facebook that reminded me I hadn’t looked at A Better Big Sky’s 990 form yet, it was the comment from Alice Boyer, director of Forward Montana, that inspired me to dig in for a little perspective on what the Piggy Bank run by Stacie Anderson is up to.
Let’s begin.
This very simply graph, and a pretty tame comment asking a question about it, seemed to raise the hackles of Forward Montana’s Alice Boyer, who quickly referenced being a young queer as a sort of identity politics cloaking device intended to evade and shut down a curious member of the public from asking questions.
I hate to break the bad news to Alice Boyer, but winning is NOT what anyone on the left has been doing recently in Big Sky country, where A Better Big Sky is throwing money around to Forward Montana, Big Sky 55+, and MontPIRG, among other groups.
When you follow the money upstream, to the 1630 Fund, you get to billionaires, like Hansjörg Wyss, who are willing to fund RFK for President before opposing RFK for Health Secretary, which is exactly what the 1630 Fund did, showing off its “flexibility”, according to Wikipedia:
In the 2024 election cycle, the Sixteen Thirty Fund funded efforts to bolster the presidential bid of Robert Kennedy Jr., then, in 2025, spent money trying to prevent his confirmation as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Axios wrote that this strategy “shows how the dark money group takes a flexible approach to countering” Trump’s agenda.
Another function of the 1630 Fund I’ll mention before returning to local influencers was first reported on by WIRED last August, and that’s the effort to bring digital influencers into the Democratic fold with a secretive program called the “Chorus Creator Incubator Program”. And, like Fight Club, the CCIP even has a rule that you DO NOT TALK about the CCIP:
After the Democrats lost in November, they faced a reckoning. It was clear that the party had failed to successfully navigate the new media landscape. While Republicans spent decades building a powerful and robust independent media infrastructure, maximizing controversy to drive attention and maintaining tight relationships with creators despite their small disagreements with Trump, the Democrats have largely relied on outdated strategies and traditional media to get their message out.
Now, Democrats hope that the secretive Chorus Creator Incubator Program, funded by a powerful liberal dark money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund, might tip the scales. The program kicked off last month, and creators involved were told by Chorus that over 90 influencers were set to take part. Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.
Returning to Big Sky territory, a quick scan and subsequent online search of just Big Sky 55+ should give readers a good impression of what local political influencer look like.
Ken Toole is the influencer from this screenshot worth scrutinizing because he was a Public Service Commissioner on the PSC, which is the agency making critical decisions right now regarding energy companies and data centers, and he was the founding director of the Montana Human Rights Network, which I connected to the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal earlier this year.
The other person from Big Sky 55+ worth mentioning is Executive Director, Trent Bolger, an advocate for keeping the courts non-partisan and victim of a literal political crook, Abbey Lee Cook.
In an interview after the hearing, an official with one of the political groups defrauded by Cook said the accountability applied by the judge was necessary.
“I think this is just a very good example of why anybody needs accountability, whether you’re the president of the United States, you’re the governor of the state, you’re a U.S. senator who breaks people’s arms, everybody needs to be held accountable, including Abbey Cook,” Trent Bolger, the executive director of Big Sky 55+, told Montana Free Press. Big Sky 55+ says Cook took $18,000 from its political action fund.
“If you’re not held accountable, you get the impression that you can do whatever you want,” Bolger said.
Ah, Trent, what an adorable sentiment. Too bad you’re a well-groomed Democrat operator who does literal candidate endorsements on your Substack while getting a paycheck from a “non-profit” where engaging in overt political activity, like endorsing candidates, isn’t allowed.
Further down, Trent highlights who groomed him, and how proud he is of that grooming:
I have been working in the movement/Democratic/union politics since around 1997-98. Over all that time, the Baby Boomer generation was in charge of politics, and as the Silent/Greatest Generation grew older and passed away, they gained more and more power. About 16-17 years ago, the Boomers started telling me they were getting tired and wanted a new generation to take over while wanting to support new leaders. Everything seemed to be working towards a natural handover of leadership. However, the rise of the Tea Party, Birtherism, and the historic losses of the pendulum swinging back after Obama’s win in 2008 caused this transition to stop. Boomers on both sides dug in and tried to consolidate power.
I count myself lucky to have gotten into the game right before this happened and to have had marvelous mentors who wanted to teach me the lessons they learned through a lifetime of political toil. People like Art Noonan, Dave Hunter and Linda Carlson, Pat and Carol Williams, Mike Meloy, Eric Feaver, Nancy Keenan, Ray Peck, Mike Cooney, Jorge Quintana, Bill Lombardi, Patti Keebler, and multitudes more generously spent their time teaching me valuable political lessons and providing guidance. They knew that by doing so, they would be lessening the load on themselves at some point in the future. Pulling others up the ladder is the way you build a strong movement behind you.
I’m glad I ran across Bolger’s Substack because it helped me understand why my messages to the law office of Mike Meloy have gone unanswered. I should have known.
I guess this is what we get when money is speech, lobbyists circle-jerking each other while pulling in paychecks from non-profit organizations.
Finally, I wanted to include MontPIRG in the grift-grab from A Better Big Sky because Seth and Chelsea’s pal, Jim Messina, is a fan of MontPIRG, and I’m a fan of keeping tabs on walking penis-heads like Jim Messina.
Well, if what Messina says here is true, then fuck you very much, MontPIRG.
With the final weekend before the DROP DEAD deadline of August 10th facing Montana Democrats, an idiotic HAIL MARY is being floated, and that hail mary’s name is Steve Bullock.
Democratic voters and political observers are pressing for one of two candidates to exit Montana’s U.S. Senate race before Aug. 10, warning that a split could hand the seat to Republican Kurt Alme.
…
Neither candidate has expressed interest in leaving the race and speculation continues to swirl. According to the Washington Reporter, a conservative news outlet focused on national politics, Democrats are polling former Gov. Steve Bullock, who theoretically could replace Bankhead if she were to withdraw.
Pope notes that election rules permit such candidate swaps, though the circumstances here are unusual.
“The rules allow for these swaps, but now they’re doing them in a more strategic way as opposed to in case of emergency, break glass,” Pope said.
To wrap up this post, let’s remind ourselves that Bullock’s recent legacy doesn’t just include being a political loser, it also includes being a dark money hypocrite who was called out by Ochenski in back in 2021:
Speaking of political rhetoric, if politicians want to restore trust a good starting point would be to play it straight with the public. Unfortunately, as reported late last week, former Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock just went to work for a super PAC with a troubling “dark money” reputation. And poof, just like that, his “legacy” of fighting to get rid of “dark money” in politics vanishes in a cloud of money-fueled hypocrisy.
After becoming a hypocrite political whore (with a wife getting that sweet Siebel Montana Meth money), Bullock helped astroturf Montana with out-of-state propaganda for his pal, Jon Tester, another scheming political loser puppet-maxxing whatever waning influence he has behind the scenes of Montana’s Democratic self-immolation. This excerpt comes from the second link:
In online and print editions, the Montana Independent appears superficially similar to many other Montana news outlets. Its stories, authored by named writers and reporters, cover a range of statewide and local political issues, with stories containing quotes, context, and some original interviews.
But Montana Independent writers are almost all out-of-state journalists well-established in the progressive media sphere. (One apparent exception is Montana’s Richard Manning, a former Missoulian reporter and book author married to current U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning.) Some of the officers of the foundation that funds the American Independent are also connected to American Bridge 21st Century, a Democrat-aligned political action committee that receives substantial contributions from a dark money nonprofit of the same name founded by national Democratic operative and media figure David Brock. Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, is co-chair of the American Bridge 21st Century PAC.
For additional context on Richard Manning, Tracy Stone-Manning, and little Joshua, this post from May 2026–when Dick was getting the sads over Bodnar’s “independent” candidacy–is worth checking out.
If you appreciate a truly independent voice with ZERO dark money dollars in his bank account (or any money, really), please consider donating to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
Thanks for reading!