Ammon Bundy Harassing Cops At Home Now, For Freedom And Coronavirus

Don't make us feel sorry for cops please.

After she was arrested Tuesday for holding a "playdate protest" at a closed public park in Meridian, Idaho, Sarah Brady became the latest hero of the wingnuttosphere. The coverage generally depicted Brady as an ordinary mom arrested merely because she wanted to let her kids play outdoors, and it left out little details like the fact that Brady and her compatriots tore down police tape at the park (and later, after cops put it up again, tore it down once more ). The whole thing was a planned confrontation, intended to test whether cops would actually enforce Idaho's stay at home order. The group refused multiple requests to leave, and when Brady insisted on being arrested, the cops arrested her.

Never one to let a good ginned-up provocation go to waste, Ammon Bundy, who's o rganized several rightwing events aimed at violating the quarantine order, showed up with a few dozen protesters Tuesday night at the home of the Meridian police officerwho had arrested Brady. That way Bundy and his followers could yell at the four uniformed officers guarding the cop's home and deliver a copy of a "petition for redress of grievance" that Bundy and others delivered earlier in the dayto the home of Gov. Brad Little. They used the phrase right from the E Plebnista itself to make it extra holy.

Damn it Bundy, you had to go and make us feel sorry for a bunch of cops. Here's video, from the same Facebook supporter who livestreamed the Big Easter Bundy Viral Jamboree. 

Much of the Usual Crowd was there; the first fellow in the video, in the white shirt, is "author, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur" Diego Rodriguez, who conducted the Easter Freedomcuddle in Bundy's warehouse/batting cage April 12. In the early moments of the video, one of the cops asks if Rodriguez had also organized an earlier protest at Meridian City Hall, and Rodriquez replies, "That was probably Wayne," or Wayne Hoffman, the head of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, the rightwing libertarian outfit that's been central to much of the anti-lockdown agitation in Idaho. Hoffman spoke at the Easter thing, and his group was one of the three organizers of last week's protest at the Idaho Capitol, along with anti-vaxxers "Health Freedom Idaho" (for which Brady is a prominent activist) and the "Idaho Second Amendment Alliance." Just to emphasize the incestuous nature of Idaho's far Right, the Second Amendment Alliance reportedly organized that Tuesday night protest at City Hall — the one Wayne Hoffman was at.

Once Bundy shows up, the cops guarding their fellow officer's home get treated to some speechifying and Liberty stuff, and Bundy waves his pocket copy of the US Constitution around at 'em to prove he's right and they're doing the bidding of tyrants. Bundy explains to the police that they'd better not keep tyranting any more:

The people will not allow you guys to do this for very long! You will not go into the park and arrest people! You will not go into parks and arrest mothers, and you will not go anywhere and arrest us for exercising what our rights are!

Also too, Rodrizuez asks the cops how on earth Brady could be charged with "trespassing" in a public park that, as a taxpayer, she actually owns, a gotcha that seems unassailable until the cop points out the park was closed under the public health order. But how can it be closed to the public when she IS the public, huh? Also, one lady who apparently has only seen the word written demanded the cops define "unalienable rights" for her, but they may not have known what she meant since she kept yelling "Un-ə-LEEN-able" at them.

Bundy gave another little Freedom speech, stabbing at the air with his finger, which had scotch tape on it so he could prepare the document to be stuck to the door, just like Martin Luther would.

We will NOT set by idle, while you guys arrest people in parks, or in churches, or in their places of work. We will not allow that to happen. It just can not happen! We will NOT go back to where we came from in this country! We will not go back to that, and that is what's happening, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that is what is happening! [Applause and "amens" from the crowd]

We'll assume he meant he will never live under the heel of British Tyranny and the tea tax again, which the cops are trying to make Americans do by telling them they can't go out and spread viruses willy-nilly.

Finally, Bundy asked that he be allowed to go to the officer's door to deliver his petition, which the cops HAD to allow because they are public servants. He got pretty testy when a cop said he wouldn't let Bundy do that: "You don't make the rules here!" Bundy yelled, and waved his Constitution at the cop like a magic shield for all idiocy any American might spout, because that's what the Constitution is.

One of the cops eventually agreed to take the petition to the door, and it was a huge victory to the protesters, because it was stamped "SERVED" in big red letters and now the cops and the governor are officially on notice.

For shits and giggles, we took a look at the petition, which is just as full of dumbth as you'd expect; it builds an "argument" by citing sections of the US and Idaho constitutions, then quoting at length from Little's health emergency order, and then, with nothing in between, proclaiming "therefore" the order is unconstitutional. Hell no, it doesn't cite the Idaho laws or US Supreme Court decisions enabling the stay at home order. The only law is the Constitution, and what rando Americans believe it means. Our favorite part of the petition is the one that says the lockdown order is unconstitutional because Little and the state director of Health and Welfare have "held all Idaho citizens under house arrest, without due process and without possibility of bail." Sharp legal minds.

No telling where this idiot parade will go next, but the far Right is riled up and won't listen to commies who think there's any such thing as public health. And with Bundy involved, we can only assume there'll eventually be an armed standoff, because that's kind of his brand. You know, once the tyrants drive him to it.

[ HuffPost / Buzzfeed News / Idaho Statesman/ "Petition for Redress of Grievance" ]

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