Last December I received an invitation from Travis Mateer (aka Will Skink) to have a podcast conversation, which I readily accepted. We ended up talking for 90 minutes, and as a result I have a long list of things I have to look into. Travis and I don’t agree on everything (“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much” – Walter Lippman), and I have pledged to keep an open mind on the things that we do not see eye-to-eye on.
I started the Piece of Mind blog in 2006 when I lived in Bozeman, Montana. At that time, the Montana blogosphere was very active, even somewhat influential. The Montana Democratic Party had moved into blogging forcefully with two apparatchiks, Jay Stevens and Matt Singer, who formed a blog called Left in the West. Their task, their raison d’etre in my view, was Jon Tester, who would be narrowly elected US Senator in 2006. Tester sold himself as an environmentalist and progressive, and then as quickly ditched both groups after attaining office. This led to a dip in his support, so that when he ran for reelection in 2012, he eked in due to dark money injected into his campaign. It was a very professional scam on the Montana Libertarian Party, using an industry front group called Montana Hunters and Anglers to run $2 million plus in advertising urging voters to support Dan Cox, Libertarian. Cox ended up with 6.6% of the vote, mostly drawn off Tester’s Republican opponent, Dennis Rehberg. This allowed Tester a victory with 48.6% of the vote.
John Wayne Gacy’s profile
