Disappearance Of Armed Apocalyptic Militia Kook Ammon Bundy Probably Nothing To Worry About, We Hope

Where's Ammon? Is another armed standoff on the way? Who could know!

Nov 30, 2023

Wonkette photoshoop; background screenshot of March 2022 protest outside St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, KTVB-TV on YouTube

Ammon Bundy has sort of disappeared, according to a report in The Atlantic (gift link) by Jacob Stern. Bundy is best known as the anti-government loon who led the Dildo Militia that took over a federal wildlife preserve in Oregon in 2016, and as the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who in 2014 briefly became a darling of the far right because he refused to pay grazing fees but then turned out to be racist as fuck. (Who could have guessed?) Then when the 2020 pandemic came along he became a leader of anti-mask and anti-vaccine craziness, and in 2022 he led a mob of QAnon dipshits protesting outside a Boise hospital that was treating the malnourished grandson of one of Bundy’s top supporters, Diego Rodriguez, leading to a lockdown of the hospital due to concerns that the crazies would attack staff and try to “liberate” the baby, who was taken into temporary state custody until the poor thing put on some weight.

St. Luke’s later sued Bundy and Rodriguez for defamation because they’d accused the hospital and its doctors of participating in “child trafficking,” resulting in harassment and death threats, like this nice message from an anonymous caller:

“The parents of a child have all the rights,” one caller said. “I need you to remind everybody who works there before we come and lop off your fucking head, bitch. We will fucking kill you.” Rodriguez, Marissa’s father, began holding regular rallies at the hospital and at one of them called on God to “crush the necks of those that are evil.”

Bundy and Rodriguez didn’t bother showing up for the trial, because it was illegitimate under God’s Law or something, and in August of this year a jury ordered them to pay $52 million in damages, which neither of them is ever going to be worth, but at least their assets can be seized and sold.

Yes, America is so fucking crazy in 2023 that we needed over 325 words just to give you the background leading up to the news in Stern’s story today. He covers the hospital protests, and the resulting threat campaign in further detail, having interviewed two of the doctors who were smeared by Bundy; one of them, ER doctor Rachel Thomas, was so traumatized by the doxxing and abuse that she has moved to New Zealand — and her little kid is still worried that “that Bundy guy” might find them.

Shortly after the judgment against him, Bundy uploaded misleadingly edited police bodycam video that, shorn of context, made it appear that Thomas had said the baby was in fine shape in March 2022, when in reality she simply told police that the baby was stable enough to transport, and wouldn’t need an IV during the trip from St Luke’s in Meridian to St. Luke’s in Boise.

Dr. Natasha Erickson, the other pediatrician who saw the baby and determined he was undernourished, was the focus of threats and abuse that haven’t let up since the March 2022 incident.

Diego Rodriguez posted her photo and hospital bio on his website under the heading “Child Trafficker Profile.” “It is obvious she has a ‘god complex,’” he wrote, “and loves to threaten families using CPS as a weapon.” Bundy posted a video of his own calling Erickson “a wicked person for instigating this.” […]
Erickson was less worried that large numbers of people would end up believing these claims than that a delusional person would take it upon himself to exact justice. She attached an emergency whistle to her purse, and her husband started carrying his handgun around whenever they were in public. She forbade her kids from playing in the front yard or answering the door, no matter who they thought was on the other side. The locks stayed bolted at all times.

Stern also managed, after some difficulty, to meet with Ammon Bundy at his home in Emmett, Idaho, back in August, and stayed in touch with him afterward by phone. It’s not cheerful stuff:

“I feel like I’m not supposed to yield,” he told me at one point. If he were killed, he said, his friends and followers would avenge him: “They’ll go take the life of the judge and the sheriff and St. Luke’s CEO and the head attorney and all the most culpable people.” He delivered these words with an unnerving lack of menace—less like a threat than like a weather forecast.

Bundy believes his enemies are out to control everything and everyone, and he’s only the fall guy, because just like every other anti-government militia freak, he’s the only person brave enough to stand up against tyranny. He mentioned to Stern in September that he had recently been ready to pack it all in and just go into hiding, let the hospital’s lawyers seize his home, but then the “voice of God” told him to stay and fight.

God apparently put a fairly short time limit on the staying part, though, because “a few weeks ago” local Bundy ally Scott Malone dropped by the Bundy home and found it completely empty. Nobody Stern talked to said they know where he’s gone.

[Ammon’s brother Ryan Bundy] told me that his brother had tried to muster a group to fight with him, “but when it come down to it, only about half of ’em are willing to stand.” And so now, Ryan said, Ammon was a “refugee.”
Malone says he has no idea where Bundy is. Lawyers for St. Luke’s have heard that the family is in southern Utah, hardly an hour’s drive from where Cliven lives, and from where the family staged its first standoff nearly a decade ago. But Bundy seems to have kept his plan a secret, even from his father. “I don’t know why he quit,” Cliven told me a few days later. “My way of thinking is you can’t give up on something like this. You got a battle going, and it’s a terrible one, and you know”—he trailed off, seemingly at a loss—“I don’t know.”

It’s sad when your children disappoint you, huh?

There are still contempt of court charges against Bundy, and earlier this month a judge in Ada County issued a new arrest warrant for him, with a $250,000 bond, but Bundy emailed the court to explain he wouldn’t be coming to court Monday “or any other day.”

“I have much more important matters to attend to, such as providing for my family’s needs,” Bundy wrote. “My entire life has been consumed by political prosecutions and I must now do what is necessary to sustain my family.”

So far, there don’t even seem to be any extremists out there who want to show up for another armed standoff with law enforcement. So hold off on your plans to send Ammon any more dildos, because this time he appears to be all alone with his pocket Constitution, his ammo, and his delusions.

OPEN THREAD, EVERYBODY!