Ammon Bundy is on the run—and still blustering at his followers

Ammon Bundy is one of the lackluster sons of infamous “welfare queen in a cowboy hat” Cliven Bundy. For a while now, he’s entertained delusions of political relevance. Alas and alack for him, evangelicals as a whole just haven’t resonated with his particular brand of shrill, screechy conspiracy theories.

Now on the run from the law, Bundy still hasn’t noticed that he needs to change gears. He’s still the blustery, grifting, alt-right evangelical conspiracy-theory peddler he’s always been. Unfortunately, he just can’t seem to inspire much loyalty from his audiences. Let’s cover what led up to his disappearance, his current social media posts, and how he might be finding his present circumstances a little less comfortable than he’d like.

(Note: Ammon Bundy is an extremist Mormon. However, there’s so much overlap between extremist Mormons and other extremist Christians that anyone could easily be forgiven for not knowing exactly what flavor of extremist Christianity he embraces. He’s on record as saying (archive) that he thinks Mormonism, one of the most conservative and politicized flavors around, has been somehow “infiltrated by socialists.”)

Quick rundown: The lead-up to Ammon Bundy’s current attention-seeking stunt

Where to begin?

For years, Ammon Bundy has emulated his racist daddy in seeking conservative Americans’ attention through high-profile stunts. And for years, it’s similarly felt like the American government has been too afraid to slap down his grabby little hands. I strongly suspect that the government is afraid not because of these idiotic Bundy attention-seekers on their own, but because of a potential strong reaction from conservative Americans themselves.

When it comes to a power-obsessed authoritarian hellbent on seeking fame and fortune, that’s the worst response imaginable. Such people need to be denied very firmly the first time they act out. If they aren’t, then they get emboldened and belligerent.

If you’re thinking right now of a major world leader who tried to appease someone like that almost a century ago, well, you’re not wrong. That decidedly unappeaseable person was an extreme example of power-focused authoritarianism.)

Ammon Bundy? He’s just the extremist-Christian Wish version of that guy.

Last year, though, things began to come to a head for him.

A media spectacle for two years and running now

He had decided to stage media stunts for attention in Idaho. Oh, sure, he’d staged similar stunts for years already. In 2016, he and a bunch of other wingnuts staged a standoff stunt in an Oregon wildlife refuge. Then, his anti-lockdown protests in 2020 garnered him a bit of an audience within that exact flavor of hyper-political right-wing Christianity that craves and cherishes the feeling of persecution over actual persecution.

(Related: The various dishonest stunts of Ammon Bundy.)

And finally, in 2021 he’d tried to run for governor in Idaho. That entire affair reflected a certain ridiculous, even studied and purposeful incompetence. He clearly neither knew nor cared to know how Idaho’s election processes work. I doubt he even knows what Idaho’s governor even does all day long. He just wanted to LARP as the rootin’ tootin’ Sheriff a’ Idaho County.

Eventually, everyone learned that he’d either lied to Boise officials (or allowed his spokespeople to lie to them) about his planned political rallies. This news only added to the hilarity of his entire public-facing, willfully ignorant, self-important, petulant-spoiled-brat persona.

If you’re wondering, he eventually came in third in that election.

This time, though, Ammon Bundy wanted lots more attention. He’d had to drop out of the Republican primary race in February 2022, and it’d clearly stung him to run as an independent.

The Hospital Lawsuit Saga of 2022: Situation Report

In March 2022, Bundy and his followers staged a big demonstration outside of a Boise hospital. Officially and in his out-loud voice, he claimed that the hospital had “medically kidnapped” (archive) the baby grandson of one of his biggest supporters.

The truth, of course, looked nothing like that claim.

In reality, the baby drastically needed urgent medical care that his parents clearly didn’t want to get for him.

Because his parents skipped medical appointments and avoided official investigators, law enforcement confiscated the baby and took him to the hospital. Several hospital folks testified under oath that the baby was near death at his admission.

Once the infant received appropriate medical care, he rapidly improved. And once his parents agreed to get him care in the future as needed, they got their baby back.

The hospital never even accused the parents of abuse. They thought the parents had just been too inexperienced to understand how bad things were.

Easy peasy, right?

Not to Ammon Bundy!

Yes, Ammon Bundy weaponized a baby’s grave illness to get attention

No, Ammon Bundy was not satisfied! Not while he had a chance to get attention with another big stupid stunt!

So he told his followers that the authorities’ response to the hospital demonstration represented actual real-live persecution. Their evil enemies had of late showered hatred upon TRUE CHRISTIANS™ like themselves, and here was a real live example of that. The hospitals were in cahoots somehow with law enforcement and Idaho’s government to abuse and malign them!

His followers bought the lie. Idahoans were very lucky indeed that Ammon Bundy didn’t lie his way to a violent standoff right there in the hospital’s parking lot. Instead, the guy got arrested.

Ammon Bundy in the official scientific FAFO process

For a decade now, Ammon Bundy and his entire extended family have counted on the federal government’s unwillingness to spark another Ruby Ridge or Waco cult scene.

This time, though, the feds weren’t involved. Instead, the hospital he defamed sued him.

Ammon Bundy tried all his usual stunts to avoid accountability, of course. Hardline Christians like him love the concept of accountability for others. They do not love anyone applying real accountability to them!

(See also: Yes, accountabilibuddies are actually a thing in evangelicalism.)

So he tried his best to stymie the legal process through sheer, pig-headed refusal to comply or cooperate even a little. He’d done that before (archive). And it’d kinda-sorta worked out for him. In fact, every single stunt he’d ever pulled had kinda-sorta worked out for him. Like most raging narcissists do, he likely thought he’d always get away with being a bumbling, stumbling drain on society.

Alas for him, though, even the most raging of narcissists eventually fall afoul of the FAFO process. Sooner or later, their deeds catch up with them. Indeed, Ammon Bundy been in all kinds of legal trouble before, but not like this. And so this lawsuit marks the very beginning of his downfall—and the beginning of the FO phase of the FAFO cycle.

The hospital strikes back

A few days after this newest arrest, Ammon Bundy staged another big protest at the same hospital. He and his followers menaced healthcare workers (archive), demonstrated at the hospital, called the hospital with death threats, doxed various people they thought were responsible for the supposed “medical kidnapping,” published photos and personal information of healthcare workers and lawyers on Ammon Bundy-affiliated websites, and more. Amid all of these right-wing antics, the hospital even had to shut down for a short while.

So in May 2022, the hospital sued him along with various groups he operated. Ammon Bundy kicked and screamed bloody murder the entire way through it, too, just like he always had with all other attempts to hold him accountable for his behavior. According to one news site:

St. Luke’s responded with a defamation suit against Bundy, the PRN, and several associates. But rather than fight the defamation claims in court, Bundy has ignored the lawsuit, refusing to appear in court or acknowledge legal documents.

“I just throw it all away,” he said in a December video, while holding a stack of court papers. “I literally just take it from the mail and throw it in the garbage.”

“Witnesses Are Too ‘Intimidated’ to Testify Against Ammon Bundy, Lawyer Says,” Daily Beast. Published May 2nd, 2023. (archive)

That site also alleges that Ammon Bundy threatened process servers and various deputies from serving him various court papers. Worse, brave Sir Ammon had asked his followers to surround his home to protect him from arrest. (Remember that part, please. It’ll be important soon.)

In December, a court granted the hospital and its employees a protection order (archive) from Ammon Bundy and his followers. Around this same time, possibly fearing he’d lose the lawsuit, Ammon Bundy sold his $1M home. The hospital’s lawyers accused him later of conducting a “sham transaction” (archive) to protect the property from their collection efforts. Among other reasons for this suspicion, Ammon Bundy and his family still lived there afterward. He’d also sold it for a paltry $250k.

How this new media stunt went

In January 2023, Ammon Bundy released a self-pitying, woe-is-me, hard-done-by letter to the hospital’s legal team. A website associated with his governor run, People’sRights.org, published it with a thumbnail of a strong-looking white guy in a tunic praying.

This letter is a masterwork of false accusations, self-aggrandizement, and mischaracterization. In it, he begins by accusing that legal team of “harassing” him. Then, he completely relitigates the 2020 lockdown orders. He portrays himself here as a TRUE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT™. Adding in his failed governor’s run, he insinuates that there’s some sort of huge government conspiracy against him for being so incredibly Christian and patriotic.

He also repeats almost all of the false claims that had already recently earned him a judge’s ire:

I was informed by two very creditable, independent sources (one a high-ranking Ada County Official and the other an attorney who works with St. Luke’s hospital) that St. Luke’s CEO gave Holland & Hart a blank check to financially destroy Diego and I for speaking out against them in the role they played in taking baby Cyrus. So, rather than taking action to ensure that the situation with baby Cyrus does not happen again, instead, St Luke’s CEO, Chris Roth, has authorized hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations given to St. Luke’s Hospital to pay a law firm to financially destroy baby Cyrus’ family and those who stood with them.

“Come No More Upon Me, A Warning Letter From Ammon Bundy,” Peoplesrights.org, January 2023 (archive)

He never supports a single claim made here.

The letter fooled his followers, though. That is all he really wanted. He needed them to believe that he was being for-realsies persecuted fer jus’ bein’ KRISchin.

Most tellingly, he titled his letter “A warning letter from Ammon Bundy.” It indeed represents his “warning” to his so-called persecutors. He wants his enemies to fear not just him, but his followers. If these persecutors don’t back off, he’s saying in effect, he and his followers will force them to do so.

Sidebar: Extremist Mormons stick together, I suppose

By the way, that “come no more upon me” wording comes from the Mormon holy book Doctrine and Covenants, section 98, starting around verse 21. As an extremist Mormon, he thinks that this verse gives him divine permission to take violent action against those he sees as “smiting” him and his family.

Other extremist Mormon sites (like Defending Utah; archive) quickly noticed his belligerence. These sites used particularly alarmist language in describing events related to the lawsuit. In one case, his own followers’ main site accused Idaho of using “judicial terrorism” against him (archive).

In another, they issued a “call to action” (archive). One of their recommendations involves calling the judge’s own phone number to offer “your personal testimony to Ammon’s character.” Yes, I’m very sure that these phone calls were always meant to be just earnest, wide-eyed testimonials and not terrifying threats of violence.

Given the smears Ammon Bundy constantly offered up, how could it be any different? He painted his enemies as downright satanic and thoroughly evil.

To demonstrate just how out-of-hand Ammon Bundy got in smearing his enemies, he apparently accused Idaho hospital staff of working with government officials to steal babies from TRUE CHRISTIAN™ couples to give to gay people to sexually abuse. I’m not being hyperbolic. Ammon Bundy got very creative here.

His daddy Cliven never, ever reached this level of histrionics.

And this is what Ammon Bundy himself found out

Ammon Bundy and his followers have a long-established reputation for responding to accountability measures with threats of violence and sullen refusal to participate. And they’ve always gotten away with it.

Except this time. The hospital won its lawsuit because he literally refused to participate in any part of it. He didn’t even care about getting slapped with contempt of court charges in April 2023. In July 2023, the jury in that trial ruled in favor of the hospital, awarding them $26M in compensatory damages and another $26M in punitive damages. Of this sum, Ammon Bundy was personally responsible for about $12M, while his governor campaign group was responsible for about $3M.

Ammon Bundy now owed the hospital $52M for his attention-seeking stunt in 2022. And the hospital had no intention of forgetting about it.

But his FAFO cycle chugged along. He began his FO arc. Those April contempt charges and an arrest warrant soon became a major thorn in his side. At first, his county’s law enforcement officials seemed scared of arresting him (archive).

So patiently, they bided their time. All the while, Ammon Bundy’s TRUE CHRISTIAN™ followers continued to harass and terrorize his enemies.

The FO arc continues

In August 2023, after Ammon Bundy posted about all the fun jet-setting stuff he was doing lately, those authorities arrested him at last (archive). They found him at a spaghetti fundraiser dinner held for his son’s football team in Emmett, Idaho. Emmett is a very small, insular town that’s rapidly and unwillingly becoming a farflung Boise suburb. (Alternately, as one Redditor put it, Emmett is “a psycho meth conservative horror show.”)

Someone captured the arrest and posted a video to Ammon Bundy’s official Twitter/X account (video archive).

Bundy sat in jail for the weekend (archive) to get attention, even though his bond was set at only $10k. Very quickly afterward, he asked to reschedule his September 2023 trial (archive). He said he needed to be on his farm to harvest his fruit trees. The judge agreed to set it further out.

That was the last leeway he really got.

Meanwhile, his followers were licking their chops over his belligerent front toward the whole matter. It really did seem, briefly at least, like the Bundy family might get its next explosive viral media stunt. Ammon Bundy had been explicitly, overtly threatening violence for what, almost a year now? Surely there’d be some action involved here somewhere.

Mistake #1: Ammon Bundy reckoned without his hosts

Listen to that video of his August arrest again. It’s quite short, but you can barely make out a woman screaming for help in it. If the audio’s doing its job, she’s somewhere close behind Ammon Bundy himself. Early on, you hear her screaming “Nooooo!” Then, at around 12 seconds, you can hear that same high-pitched voice screaming “Someone, please!” and “Noooo!” again.

I strongly believe that his wife issued these cries. And she really wanted these townsfolk to stop her husband’s arrest. She wanted the rebellion to begin right there. Indeed, The Atlantic has a fuller account of her words:

The officers marched into the hall just as people were finishing dinner. Bundy did not resist. He just put on his cowboy hat and placed his hands behind his back. Some people shouted and booed as the officers led him outside. Some sat quietly and looked away. “Nobody knows what they’re going to do to him!” his wife yelled. “They will abuse him!” Her voice broke. “This is our son! We’re here to support our boy! Come on! Come on, you guys, rally together! Help us!” She was sobbing now. Nobody moved.

“AMMON BUNDY HAS DISAPPEARED,” The Atlantic, November 2023. (archive)

However, nothing untoward happened.

For all their collective bluster, Ammon Bundy’s followers failed to “surround him” as he’d asked months earlier. They failed to protect him from the consequences of his actions. They were nowhere in sight. Instead, the arrest occurred at a time when nobody wanted to deal with Ammon Bundy’s constant drama and theatrics. Nobody wanted trouble. They were just there to eat spaghetti and support the hometown foobaw team. And so they did not move.

Poor Ammon Bundy! His followers just have no follow-through

That Atlantic piece frequently hints at Ammon Bundy’s frustration with his followers’ lack of follow-through on his threats of violence:

“Maybe I shouldn’t say, but I think in his mind he was really hoping that People’s Rights [his official followers’ group] would back him,” Cliven would later tell me. “But when it gets right down to it, I don’t know. He claims he has, like, 70,000 or more followers, but does he have one that would actually stand and fight with him?” Many of the People’s Rights members I put that question to were noncommittal. They’d have to see how the situation played out.

“AMMON BUNDY HAS DISAPPEARED,” The Atlantic, November 2023. (archive)

Later, we’re told in that same piece that Ammon Bundy tried to rouse some rabble to start fighting his war. But none of his followers stepped up.

I’m not surprised at all.

Quite a few of these Y’all Qaeda types are very brave indeed. But only when they’re sure they’ll win the fight. That Atlantic piece contains a number of Ammon Bundy’s bombastic predictions of violence. They all involve visions of his friends taking up arms beside him—and then avenging him once he’s killed by the evil gubmint:

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.

“AMMON BUNDY HAS DISAPPEARED,” The Atlantic, November 2023. (archive)

I don’t know how many of these Emmett spaghetti eaters were his followers and comrades-in-arms. Even if they were both, this fundraiser dinner would not be the first skirmish of his dreamed-of open rebellion.

Ammon Bundy committed the right-wing extremist equivalent of a guest showing up at a formal wedding wearing a long white lacy bridal gown. There are times and places for these things. Dude distinctly stole the thunder of a cause these folks loved way more than they sympathized with him.

Mistake #2: Small-town miscreants’ thinking

Ammon Bundy is the epitome of a small-town miscreant. I don’t think big-city people understand that type of person very well.

I once knew one of them. In his small Kansas town, “Jimmy” stole countless things from businesses and people. He’d never faced penalties for any of it. As a result, he figured he was a criminal mastermind.

Not long before we met, Jimmy had left his tiny Kansas village to live in a big city in another state. One of a nationwide chain of electronics stores quickly hired him. After a few weeks, though, he felt homesick. He also likely realized he wasn’t the big fish in a tiny pond anymore. Whatever his reason, he wanted to go home.

So he stole a carload of electronics from the store, then high-tailed it back to Kansas.

A year later, Jimmy told me of his theft with a great deal of pride. Dude seriously thought he’d Ocean Elevened and Great Train Robberied his way to jussssst enough computer hardware to qualify as “grand theft” in that other state.

Jimmy begged me not to tell anyone about the theft. “I won’t,” I said. But I marveled at his ignorance.

The wheels of justice ground slowly but very finely in his case. A couple of years after I moved away, he was arrested and convicted for the theft. He ended up doing a couple of years of hard time for it.

When he got out, Jimmy contacted me for one reason and one reason alone: to ask if I’d ratted him out. In response, I laughed in his face and truthfully replied that I hadn’t. I’m not sure he believed me, though. For two years, he’d been certain that his theft was so perfectly orchestrated, his tracks so well-concealed, that I absolutely had to be the weak link.

That’s how Ammon Bundy clearly thinks about things. Like the miscreant I knew years ago, he got away with increasingly large offenses for years. But eventually, the accountability train stops at his station. At that point, he short-circuits.

So now Ammon Bundy is on the run

BRAVE BRAVE BRAVE AMMON BUNDY!

When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled!
Yes, Ammon Bundy turned about, and gallantly he chickened out!
Swiftly taking to his feet, he beat a very brave retreat!
Bravest of the brave, Ammon Bundy!

Adapted from “Brave Sir Robin,” Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In November, Ammon Bundy failed to show up yet again for a mandatory hearing about the contempt of court charges. So the judge added another contempt charge to his slate and issued another warrant for his arrest. Once he’s caught, he’ll face $250k bail.

But also in November, his wife posted on her social media (archive) about the family maybe moving soon.

In early December, Ammon himself posted a rambling video to his social media. In it, he complains about losing his home. He clearly wants his audience to think that this loss was inflicted on him completely unfairly.

And around that same time, he vanished.

He apparently told nobody where he went. Even his close friends profess ignorance of his whereabouts.

I check the news every day for news of Ammon Bundy’ capture. But so far, no joy. For a month, he’s been on the run.

Some folks speculate that he left Idaho (archive). That makes sense. He’s been all over the Pacific Northwest for his stunts in the past. Utah remains a clear possible location for him, since his dad lives there.

Our frightened li’l bunbun poked his head out of his hidey-hole recently

A few days ago, though, Ammon Bundy broke his silence.

Just before Christmas, he posted an 11-minute video to his Xitter account (video archive). In it, a red-faced Ammon Bundy sits in an empty, white-painted room. He specifically names his various enemies, then asserts that they “took all the money from my wife’s account.” He speculates that his “wicked” enemies just wanted to “buy their kids Christmas [presents].”

Though his tone is light, this man is absolutely scarlet with rage. Dude obviously thought he was super-clever in hiding money away from his enemies. And he got pecker-slapped with reality yet again.

Remember when I said he had no desire whatsoever to learn about the laws governing his run for political office? The same applies to the money he owes to the hospital. He wants his followers to think the seizing of funds was illegal. If not that, at least it was very gratuitously vindictive and “wicked” and mean-spirited and totally not Christmassy, y’all.

Worse, Ammon Bundy’s “wicked” enemies also apparently seized money from his son’s bank account. He claims his son deposited the money there to fund his Mormon missionary stint. I suppose that’s possible, since Bundy is just so incandescent with rage over the son’s money. He barely even mentions the money taken from his wife’s account, but he cannot ignore this second offense!

Regardless, I just laughed at first. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near an extremist Christian who looked that enraged, but Ammon Bundy’s apoplectic, impotent rage feels very satisfying to witness in video form.

Confidential to Big Dumb Loser Idiot Who Might Be in Utah: If you keep saying big-boy words like “theft” and “stealing,” you will only face more big-boy consequences.

And as usual, Ammon Bundy wakes up and chooses violence

Ammon Bundy is an extremist Mormon and domestic terrorist. Because of that, violence is always an option for him. He’s tried lying and ignoring the problem. To his utter shock, those options didn’t work this time. So now, he moves on to the option he knows and loves best.

Here’s what he says about halfway through the video:

Now, what am I supposed to do? I mean, I want to just go to fighting. And you can’t fight in the corrupt courts! That’s not where you can fight. I want to just go to their house, and I want to demand that they give it [the money] back to my son, that they had no right to take it.

Starting around 4:40 of Xitter video (archive)

So he can’t “fight” through legal means, because he tried that and failed. He can’t fight banks, either. He already knows he can’t start a ruckus there without risking serious harm! So he alludes to showing up at his enemies’ houses to “fight” them personally.

I’m sure his “demand” would be super-nicely-said. Yep. At least until he got told “no and GTFO my property.”

Ammon Bundy’s compelling explanation for his legal troubles

After defaming the credit union his son uses, Ammon Bundy complains for a while about banks/credit unions. See, they’re full of “thieves” and “criminals.” Then, he accuses the hospital he hates of offering gender-affirming care to minors.

Therefore, his enemies are all “wicked” and evil:

They’re just doing it because they’re wicked and they want to hurt me. And they know I’m doing everything I can not to just retaliate against these people. I have been so peaceful! And they keep pushing me, and pushing me, and pushing me. You know, wanting me to do something so that they can arrest me, and put me in prison, or kill me. That’s what they’re trying to do.

Starting around 7:00 of Xitter video (archive)

He desperately aches to be perceived as a Christian patriot who got pushed to his utter limits, and whose cause is completely just. Unfortunately, neither perception is based on reality.

Nobody’s “pushing” him anywhere. Nobody wants to “kill” him. He faced charges and lost a lawsuit because of his own behavior. Now he doesn’t want to pay the piper for that behavior. The wheels of the law grind slowly but very finely for him, just as they did for my old acquaintance “Jimmy” back in Kansas.

Those wheels happened to have ground out confiscation and garnishment around Christmastime, yes. But that’s a product of timing more than anything else. It’s not because someone hates him and wants to steal his—er, I mean, totally his wife’s and son’s—money to buy Christmas presents. It’s just where the process of garnishment/confiscation landed. If that process had begun right when the first warrant for his arrest was issued in April, if he hadn’t kicked and screamed and refused to cooperate for as long as he humanly could, chances are good he’d have been complaining about his “wicked” enemies ruining his Labor Day barbecue.

Ammon Bundy issues more defamation

To end his December 24th video, Bundy informs us that it’s his followers who are totally violent. He himself, you see, has always counseled them to maintain gentle patience. He’s tried, totally and for realsies tried, y’all, to keep them in check so they don’t murder anyone on his behalf. For this next quote, imagine him still utterly scarlet with rage, but also grinning ear to ear:

I’m almost about ready to say: All those people I’ve said, don’t do anything to these people. Don’t do anything to [this hospital CEO]. Don’t do anything to [this specific healthcare worker]. It’s not right to retaliate!

I’m almost ready to say: You know what, the hell with it. These people are so wicked, they’ll never stop trying to destroy us. [<– I’m not sure who he means. His family? TRUE CHRISTIANS™? Extremist Mormons? Proud patriots?] They’re never gonna stop trying to destroy me and they’re never gonna stop trying to destroy liberty. Because they have an entire different mindset about who should be in control.

They believe that they should control and dominate all the rest of the people. And whatever they do, even taking a baby, is okay.

Starting around 8:00 of Xitter video (archive)

It is truly disturbing to see how wide this man’s grin gets as he lies his way through the slimiest of defamation he can muster. The Atlantic piece mentions this weird dissonance between his obvious mood and his tone of voice. Like their reporter, I find it unnerving. It sets off all kinds of alarms in me. Something ain’t right about that guy!

By the time he reaches that “is okay” line, he’s all but giddy-sounding. If he weren’t also scarlet with rage, he’d be describing the best party he’d ever attended.

He’s found a moral high horse that cannot be trumped, at least in his own mind. If he just pounds as hard as he can on it, his followers will eventually respond as he wants. Right?

…Right?

Then, he names his enemies at the hospital and their legal team again and signs off.

The newest update from Ammon Bundy

The last update on his Twitter account comes four days later, on December 28, 2023. It’s only about seven minutes long. Ammon Bundy is nowhere near as red-faced or enraged as he was on Christmas Eve. His tone is also far more measured, though he constantly leaks Duper’s Delight-like grins (archive).

In this video, Ammon Bundy again specifically names the people he views as being responsible for the bank situations he discussed earlier. He constantly refers to the situations as theft and his enemies as thieves.

After some rambling, he informs us that the hospital’s legal team has returned his son’s money. He stresses that they didn’t return the funds taken from his wife’s account, only his son’s.

And now, you see, Ammon Bundy has performed an “analysis” of the situation. He’s analyzed it most carefully, and we may be assured that he is a top-rate analyst. He begins to grin ear to ear as he goes over the only options he can possibly identify for the return of the funds. His tone becomes downright triumphant as he soars along to his analysis’ conclusion:

They either did it [returned the son’s money] out of the kindness of their hearts, which makes me wonder why they would have taken it in the first place, or they did it because it made them look really bad, ORRRRRRrrrr because they legally did not have a right to take it!

Xitter video on Ammon Bundy’s official account, Dec 28, 2023 (video archive)

He’s very sore that these collection people have collected “millions” from him so far. Good. That means he’s only on the hook for a lot of millions left. He ends the video by trying to scare his followers into thinking that at any moment, this particular hospital and Idaho’s state government could “steal” millions from them as well.

I love that he keeps using those big-boy accusation words that will only land him in more legal trouble. He keeps defaming everyone in sight who stands in the way of him ignoring this problem till it goes away. I hope that Idaho judge knows about what he’s saying and doing lately from his cowardly hidey-hole.

Ammon Bundy’s compelling explanations, Part Deux

Ammon Bundy really wants his followers to feel like the collection team made a drastic mistake in both family members’ situations.

He asserts, firstly, that perhaps the collection team didn’t want to look bad. Perhaps, he guesses disingenuously, that’s why they returned his son’s funds. Now, I’m not surprised that an extremist Mormon might weigh appearances very heavily. But it makes zero sense. Collection teams do not care in the least about appearances. They do not care about Christmas or whatever other sentimental stuff Ammon Bundy imagines should hold back debt collectors’ hands.

And if Ammon Bundy cared anything about maintaining good appearances, he wouldn’t have defamed anyone in the first place. If he’d cared that much a year ago, he wouldn’t be cowering right now in a nearly-empty McMansion somewhere in probably Utah close to his Daddy.

Second, Bundy asserts that the collection team knew they’d acted illegally. We’ll get to this in a moment. For now, I’ll just say that he’s twisting reality again.

Third, Bundy is really frosted that people he views as very wealthy “stole” his money. He names names again, including those of the healthcare workers who provided lifesaving care to his supporter’s extremely sick grandson. He acts like super-wealthy corporations and organizations should not have the right to seize private citizens’ money. His reasoning? Because they have plenty of their own.

Well, he should have thought of that before defaming people. They’re not “stealing” anything. They’re collecting the money he now owes them. If I defamed Bill Gates to the same extent Ammon Bundy did that hospital, I’d fully expect him to sue me. And then, not to ignore the penalties I’d incurred.

And what probably actually happened here

Ammon Bundy’s second assertion contains a little truth mixed in with his usual distortions and defamations.

Yes, the collection team realized they’d done something wrong.

They likely detected a huge chunk of change in the son’s account. Naturally, they figured Ammon Bundy had tried hiding funds there as well as in his wife’s account.

But they were wrong this time. That, or else Ammon Bundy did a much better job of hiding money in his son’s account. Either way, once the son showed them some pay stubs or whatever, the collectors put the money back.

So this wasn’t an illegal move at all. Rather, the collectors acted on the preponderance of evidence. Considering the sleazy, dishonest weasel they’re trying to collect from, it was a completely logical and expected move. When better evidence became available, they acted in turn.

Bundy has notably not demonstrated that the funds in his wife’s account should have been off-limits. He’s never claimed that, either. If he had been able to do these things, his wife would already have that money back!

I’ll bet you a virtual doughnut that this is why Ammon Bundy doesn’t seem anywhere near as furious over his wife’s bank funds getting seized.

What will Ammon Bundy do if his money sources are cut off?

This must all shock Ammon Bundy. Until recently, he’s always successfully ignored the consequences of his actions! But now, suddenly, the Accountability Train has stopped at his door!

Right around now, authorities likely wonder where he is and what he’s doing next.

And that answer depends mightily on their prey’s ability to fund his run from the law.

Like most of the Bundy clan, Ammon Bundy seems like he’s always been able to put his hands on loads of cash when he needs it. In 2016, when he got arrested for his stunt at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (archive), he had over $8k on him.

So it must have hurt to lose the money from his wife’s account. He never reveals how much was there, of course. But the amount clearly stung him to lose.

It must have hurt even more for his sham house sale to get voided (archive). Ammon Bundy bumbled and bungled his way through that process at the end of October (archive). By December, collectors had seized it. That’s another $250k gone.

Further, in September 2023 the court granted the hospital and its legal team an injunction against Ammon Bundy and his wife. It severely limits their ability to get money and move it around (archive). It leaves the couple a generous $5700/month. And yes, Ammon Bundy has already said he’d ignore this ruling to the best of his ability.

The man who would be martyred

Ammon Bundy leaves nothing whatsoever to chance. At every step, he does everything in his power to make his situation as terrible as it can possibly be. He leaves not one single stone unturned. Really, it’s impressive. I couldn’t this thorough a job of life ruination with Fear and Loathing amounts of drugs, power tools, and a whiteboard full of diagrams.

And he’s doing it all for a reason.

Ammon Bundy craves attention and power from lots of people. In his bizarre worldview, martyrdom accomplishes that goal. Not real, to-the-death martyrdom, of course. He still wants to be alive and powerful afterward.

What he wants instead is a huge intense level of persecution fer jus’ bein’ KRISchin. He wants a whole lot of people to perceive his enemies as “wicked” persecutors. And he wants people to think that the evil gubmint is doing horrific things to him solely because he’s such an incredible TRUE CHRISTIAN™ patriot.

And then, he hopes to incite them to action to rescue him. Then, he imagines, they shall raise him up as their new rootin’ tootin’ Sheriff a’ Idaho County.

Extremist rabble-rousers plan, and the gods laugh

Unfortunately, he’s just a small-town spoiled brat, the ultimate “mediocre white man” (archive) with delusions of grandeur. He possesses none of the qualities of a great leader. From all that I’ve seen, he’s dishonest, manipulative, disruptive, cowardly, impulsive, greedy, disrespectful, arrogant, and prone to rages.

When penalties arise as a result of his many weaknesses, he simply ignores them. When that becomes impossible, he screeches at his followers about the “wickedness” of those holding him to accountability.

It’s encouraging, at least, to know that many of his followers are at least partially aware of his many shortcomings. They keep disappointing him with their refusal to take up arms at his command. We may never know how many times he’s issued that command. So far, though, his followers have refused.

Out of every mistake a power-obsessed dysfunctional authoritarian leader could possibly make, possibly the worst one is to let followers know that disobedience is an option. So hopefully, Ammon Bundy will only continue to fail in his never-ending quest for power.