Rhonda Santis is downsizing his campaign staff by about a third. It turns out he’s been burning through his campaign cash on things like private jets. I don’t think he’s going to drop out anytime soon. He is in second place, still.  But it’s safe to say things are not going his way, and I don’t see them turning around. The only way he gets the nomination is if Trump suddenly tanks.

This is a little out of the loop of politics, but remember the Bundy family? The anti-government so-called “cattle ranchers” and occupiers of bird sanctuaries? Here’s the latest:

Anti-government agitator Ammon Bundy must pay an Idaho hospital more than $50 million for defaming it and targeting it with protests while it cared for an associate’s grandson—who was taken into protective custody after child welfare officials determined he was malnourished.

According to the Idaho State Journal, this ten-month-old baby was not gaining weight. In March of 2022 the baby was admitted to a hospital because he appeared to be malnourished.  In the hospital the baby got regular meals and did gain weight, and he seemed to be perking up, so he was returned to his parents after about four days. In a follow up appointment the baby had lost weight again. The parents cancelled the next appointment, and the doctors couldn’t find them to ask why. So the doctors called the police, and Child Protective Services took the baby. Daily Beast:

One pediatrician told the jury about the danger she believed Baby Cyrus was in: He allegedly couldn’t sit up, had a distended stomach and sunken eyes. “In my opinion, if he had been allowed to go home with his parents and continue on the trajectory he was on, he would have died,” Thomas testified, according to the Idaho Statesman.

After a few more days in the hospital the baby was returned to his parents again. I have no more information about the baby. I assume he is still alive.

Aamon Bundy organized a week-long protest to “save baby Cyrus.” It was nothing short of terrorism aimed at the hospital. Bundy’s people were harassing people in waiting rooms; they doxxed doctors, cops, and a social worker; it got so bad that emergency helicopters wouldn’t land there for fear the mob outside the hospital would shoot them down. They also spread slander about the hospital online. So, the hospital sued.

Bundy and his co-defendants did not respond to the suit, and the trial went on in their absence.

The conflict with St. Luke’s had become so antagonistic that Bundy was accused of threatening process servers and local deputies who delivered court papers, and one doctor expressed concern that witnesses would be too intimidated to participate in the case.

In his February video post, Bundy warned followers that St. Luke’s was trying to have him arrested. While a judge issued a warrant for Bundy in April over alleged witness intimidation, authorities never came for the 47-year-old provocateur. The Gem County sheriff, in a letter filed on the docket, said he didn’t want to risk deputies’ safety “over a civil issue.”

That last part is how Bundy has gotten away with terrorism all this time.

I have a lot of questions about the baby that the news stories didn’t answer. There are all kinds of reasons a baby might not gain weight, and not all of those reasons come from neglectful parents. We don’t know what the parents were advised to do. But it does sound as if they weren’t doing it, and that there was nothing physically wrong with the baby except that he wasn’t being fed properly.

I have a hard time believing that medical professionals would go to those lengths unless they were genuinely concerned that the baby was in danger. That the parents weren’t willing to work with the hospital to make sure their baby was healthy tells me there is something seriously wrong with them. Even if little Cyrus manages to survive, he’s already screwed with parents like that.

If he follows his usual pattern Aamon Bundy will ignore the court verdict. But eventually his assets will be garnished. That might get his attention.