AMMON BUNDY IN IDAHO: His Political Campaign Running for Governor has “completed 1,621 hours of public service,”...
Intro: It is by no means an easy task tracking this self-styled far-right rancher frequently sporting a Stetson hat from different public appearances in three or more western states - including here in Arizona (see insert farther down)
This week, an Idaho judge tossed out Bundy’s appeal of the trespassing conviction.
Ammon Bundy Tells Court His Bid For Governor Should Count As Community Service
The anti-government extremist was sentenced to 40 hours of community service on a trespassing charge after tying himself to a chair at the Idaho Legislature.
"Anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy told an Idaho court that his time on the campaign trail for Idaho governor should fulfill the court-ordered community service sentence he received in July as part of a trespassing conviction.
The self-styled rugged individualist, who famously led an armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016, announced his gubernatorial bid in June, and vowed to fight “federal tyranny” and “cronyism.”
Far-right activist Ammon Bundy announces run for Idaho governor
Sign of rightward trend of politics in the rural and Republican-dominated state. Ammon Bundy speaks to a crowd of about 50 followers in front of the Ada county courthouse, in downtown Boise, Idaho. Photograph: Darin Oswald/AP
"The far-right anti-government activist and militia figure Ammon Bundy has announced a bid to be governor of Idaho governor in a further sign of the rightward trend of politics in the rural and Republican-dominated state.
The Stetson-wearing activist said he wants to defend Idaho from “Joe Biden and those in the Deep State that control him” because they “are going to try to take away our gun rights, freedom of religion, parental rights, and more and further violate the constitution in unimaginable ways even more than they’ve already done.”
There is little evidence to back up Bundy’s sentiments which reflect paranoid ideas common on the US far right. Idaho, which has long had a tradition of anti-government and pro-militia sentiment, is seen as being one of the most rightwing Republican states in the US, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen rightwing groups fight health measures like wearing masks.
Bundy and his family gained fame in 2014, when they engaged in an armed standoff with Bureau of Land Management agents at their Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch amid a dispute over his father Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees.
Ammon, brother Ryan and Cliven Bundy were indicted and served jail time, but they later acquitted. He gained further recognition in 2016 over a protest at the the Malheur national wildlife refuge – part of a campaign to force the federal government to turn public land over to states.
Bundy was arrested twice last year at Idaho’s state capitol after leading a march to protest Idaho’s stay-at-home order and later charged with criminal trespass for disrupting a meeting of the state legislature. In April this year he was arrested again over a similar encounter. He has pleaded not guilty in one case and has not yet entered a plea in the second.
Bundy filed documents last month indicating plans to run. He will probably face competition. The current Idaho governor, Brad Little, Lt Governor Janice McGeachin and four other Republicans Jeff Cotton, Edward Humphreys, Lisa Marie and Cody Usabel have also filed papers.
But the Idaho Republican party chairman, Tom Luna, said this month that Bundy is not welcome among GOP ranks, KTVB reported, pointing to Bundy’s failure to register as a Republican before at the time he filed initial campaign paperwork. . ."
Nearly a year earlier, in August 2020, Bundy tied himself to a chair and refused to leave a special session of the Idaho Legislature. He was arrested and ultimately convicted of trespassing and resisting and obstructing officers, both misdemeanors.
[ Image:Ammon Bundy is rolled out of the Idaho Statehouse in Boise, Idaho, in a wheelchair on Aug. 26, 2020, following his arrest for trespassing. ]
His sentence included a $750 fine and 40 hours of community service.
> He was also banned from entering the Idaho state Capitol for one year.
> Rather than completing his court-mandated penalty, Bundy, 46, has been on the campaign trail spreading his extremist views, peddling a warped interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and fostering his network of militia members and other far-right radicals fighting COVID-19 safety measures.
" - ism" was one of Google's chosen words for 2015. The attention of your MesaZona blogger was recently re-directed from The New Urban DTMesa while receiving newsfeeds and news alerts and broadcast and streaming news for the last 14 days about a heavily-weaponized group taking over a property in Oregon. They've been called by mainstream media "right-wing domestic terrorists","armed terrorists hijacking public lands", and "deluded nuts" among another things.
However, rarely brought up in world and national news broadcasts is that Clive and Ammon Bundy are disciples in the Mormon religion. Is this another example of religions running wild with followers taking to the extreme fringes?
[Image to the right is Ammon Bundy giving a talk at a public charter school here in Mesa last year.] > Mormons behaving badly?
Perhaps to counter-act any possible negative publicity, the LDS church is engaging in a series of internal conversations starting with a radio interview broadcast three days ago. Listen . . . here's the link > KUER/bundy-style-Mormonism Well worth the time 52.39 > One commentator Zeke had this to say: The LDS Church has a huge problem with bitter, hateful anti-government mormons running amok. > Another commentator Tsuji wrote this: I am a Mormon and do not support the Bundy's one bit, but I disagree with your characterization. They are deluded nuts but they think they are making a political statement . . . The Feds are wisely trying to avoid escalation.
> And another johninnv wrote this:
"Just like in Bunkerville. The local elected Mormon leaders of the region did NOT ever say a word against what 'ol pappy Cliven and offspring were doing. Not once. Not a Bishop, nor a Stake President, nor the several Mormons in elected leadership positions. NOPE - and many of them indicated that they supported Bundy positions. The Mormon church needs to get over its long cultivated hatred of the United States Government." Bundy-style Mormonism
"Thursday we’re asking if the occupation of a federal office in Oregon is a Mormon enterprise, and if so, what kind of Mormonism? The Bundy brothers leading the group are LDS, and they use Mormon theology to talk about motives and dealing with “tyranny.” The Church has condemned the tactics, and while the Bundys’ views aren’t mainstream, historian Patrick Mason says they didn’t come out of thin air. He and others join us to talk about the groups’ politics and faith in relation to Mormon orthodoxy. . ."
In hindsight we all should have seen these attempted take-overs gathering momentum all the time - first in Wisconsin, then in Oregon, then in Idaho, and yesterday with mobs storming the U.S. Capitol when both Houses in Congress were disrupted with violence at the time Arizona was the first state to have results from the Electoral Congress certification for the election of the next President challenged. . .
Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs partnered with Texas Senator Ted Cruz to bring it to the floor. After 1 p.m. all hell broke loose in the Nation's Capitol
BLOGGER NOTE: To his credit, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon who was called "a traitor" en route on a flight back to Washington D.C., denounced the extremism while 6 other Senators stayed on the other side. However 46 Republicans in the House of Congress were counted against accepting the Electoral College results.
There remains 13 more days until the peaceful transition of power is complete with the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
Here In Arizona we saw this at the time ballots were being counted in Phoenix:
EUREKA! If there's one thing that helps to explain almost everything happening here in Maricopa County, Arizona and America, this is it > Gnostic America with this image of a Trump supporter-QAnon believer speaking to a crowd outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office when votes were being counted in the 2020 General Election
When it came time for Governor Doug Ducey and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to certify the appointed slate of electors votes, Trump attempted to interrupt the process with a timely phone call ringing "Hail to The Chief" - a call the governor sent to his voicemail.
All along we've had AZ GOP Chair Kelli Ward - and four fringe Republicans elected to the U.S. Congress - pound the drumbeats for more disruptions: using the same life-threatening strategies deployed by unrestrained hordes against the governor of Michigan directed at elected officials.
Speaker of the Arizona State House Rusty Bowers for forced to shut down state government, fearing a take-down
"Far-right activist Ammon Bundy believes his voluntary Idaho gubernatorial campaign stops satisfy his court-mandated community service connected to a trespassing conviction in July.
Aaron Welling, the Bundy campaign’s treasurer, wrote to Ada County’s 4th District Court that Bundy has “completed 1,621 hours of public service,” according to a letter submitted last month — on campaign stationery.
On July 1, a jury found Bundy and another man, Aaron Schmidt, guilty of misdemeanor charges of trespassing and resisting or obstructing officers, related to incidents at the Idaho Capitol. Bundy was sentenced to 40 hours of community service and $1,089 in fines.
Welling’s letter says Bundy paid the court fine on July 17, and the letter was also meant to notify the court of his “public service hours.” Welling further writes that Bundy has traveled the state while encouraging people to “become more active in holding public officials accountable to the People of Idaho.”
The letter says Bundy has held more than 90 public events where he has encouraged people to register to vote. Bundy filed paperwork to run in the Republican primary for Idaho governor last May, just weeks before his guilty verdicts. Bundy said after the trial that he would not appeal his conviction — and then filed an appeal in September.
Court filings show an order from a judge dismissing the appeal was filed on Tuesday.
The trespassing conviction stems from Bundy’s and Schmidt’s arrests at the Idaho Statehouse on Aug. 25, 2020, during a special session of the Legislature.
In April, Bundy was arrested twice in one day for violating an order that banned him from the Capitol for a year, leading to two misdemeanor trespassing charges. That case was still ongoing as of Thursday, with a jury trial tentatively scheduled for Jan. 13, 2022.
An email for comment to Seth Diviney, an attorney representing Bundy, was not returned Thursday."
BLOGGER INSERT > Here's one example of mis-appropriating statements to falsely justify adherence to what they are doing: "To Bundy, the escalating protests are the predictable result of escalating government interference. He cited President John F. Kennedy, who, in a 1962 speech to Latin-American diplomats, said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” While Bundy said that he does not necessarily condone trespassing on private property, he endorsed the spirit of the recent events in Boise. “I encourage them to protest at their homes. They are public officials, and by that nature they become accountable to the people,” he said. “It’s their right, protected by the First Amendment’s right to assemble. They have the energy and the right to stand on streets or sidewalks and protest government agents’ actions. Like it or not, that’s the way it is.”
It's a long story detailed at the start to provide background... if that "Anti-Masker Rebellion" sounds familiar, the same uprisings are going on here in Arizona, although the political party flip-flop has a different standing,
Read along to catch up to the issues there in Idaho and here in Arizona
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