My Private Idaho Security

     Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl thought she would attend a town hall meeting in Kootenai County, Idaho. Maybe she thought it would be like the Norman Rockwell painting, in which an average Joe stands up at a town hall to speak his piece while those around him listen attentively and respectfully.

     

     This is the way it should've gone.

 

     But this was Idaho, so this is how it went, instead.

     The Kootenai County Republican Party hosted a town hall in which the only lawmakers in attendance were, naturally, right wingers. Then at one point, Dr. Borrenpohl began asking questions about Medicare and reproductive health, two topics that Republicans hate to talk about and, when they do, let their feelings on the subject be known.

      Before she knew it, she was swarmed by two private security guards and the county sheriff, some right wing stooge named Bob Norris, who filmed the whole thing on his cell phone like a 13 year-old live-streaming throwing a brick through a window. They hauled her out of the town hall and arrested her on a charge of battery (she bit one of the anonymous goons). 

      They brutalized her to the extent that she had to go to the local hospital to be treated for her injuries. The battery charge was quickly dropped when the DA's office reviewed the video evidence (here's a video from CBS News showing the whole sordid incident). It came out a short time later that the two goons that Norris had sicced on her work for Lear Asset Management, Inc., a private security firm. The City of Coeur d’Alene has since revoked the firm’s license.

     A GofundMe for Dr. Borrenpohl has been set up and, at last count, she's gotten over $320,000, including five grand from Graham Nash (Yeah, that one).

     But that's not the only reason I'm writing this article. Yes, it's horrifying that speaking up out of turn at a town hall gets you treated like a Jew during Kristallnacht. Yes, it's horrifying that our First Amendment rights to free speech, freedom of assembly and our Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure can be so easily violated the minute the Powers That Be hear something they don't want to hear.

     Yes, this is the horrifying reality of Mr. Trump's America. But my main reason for writing this is Ed Bejarana, the emcee of the town hall. This is what Bejarana said while Borrenpohl was getting mauled by a couple of for hire goons.

     “The reality is, there’s a whole bunch of great things that are happening, the problem is we’ve got a bunch of rabble-rousers who just won’t allow it to be spoken. So the thing is, what I’m doing up here is, I’m simply overtalking you because your voice is meaningless right now.”

     Apparently, the "great things that (were) happening" was the assault and battery of ordinary citizens speaking their mind. At a town hall.

     You will note in the lead image that Eddie fancies himself a book narrator. But he doesn't just narrate anyone's books. They have to have a certain... well, let's call it what it is, a certain Nazi sensibility.

     His website tells us that when he was in the military, he served in Germany (no surprise there). And, lest you doubt where his political sensibilities lie, note that on his Facebook page, he has a picture of Trump's mugshot, as if it's a perfectly good idea to elect a guy who was arrested four times in one year and was convicted on 34 counts of fraud.

     Again, Ed is also, in case you haven't guessed, an audiobook narrator. Here's his Audible page, if you want an idea of the kind of tripe he chooses to narrate, such as that deathless opus, Climate Change: A Convenient Truth, the book that dares to ignore the concept of melting ice. And, speaking of deathless prose, here's a link to his own alternative to literacy. Go leave a review. It looks as if he could use something other than one star ratings.

     I'd strongly recommend you contact Audible directly and let them know one of their narrators is a cryptofascist. Or you can email them right here. If you have difficulty getting through to Audible, you can lodge a complaint against him via ACX.

     So why am I going after this miscreant? Well, let's just say that when I read and heard his sneering remarks, calling Dr. Borrenpohl a "little girl", something inside me just snapped. There's just something about the smug fascism of this right wing cocksucker that makes him the perfect synecdoche of the entire neonazi MAGA movement. And it just provoked a visceral reaction in me that I haven't felt in years, maybe decades.

     And why do I think I can do anything about him? Well, never underestimate the power of social media, as I proved recently when I put on my Facebook wall the lead image. To date, it's gotten over 200 reactions and close to 1800 shares, meaning people are taking me up on my initiatives and putting the word out about this asshole. And the activity is showing no signs of letting up. I want to destroy this motherfucker's career. I want to personally put him in a refrigerator crate in the Back Bay of Boston so he can suck cock for MBTA subway fare.

     And I want him to know who took him down. I want him to know it's me. And if he wants to come after me, well, as the saying goes, FAFO. I've taken down bigger and better assholes than him. Hal Turner can tell you all about that.