Remember the lady who got dragged out of the GOP town hall in Idaho by no-uniform “security” dudes a while back? Remember your online acquaintances who tried to normalize it?

Well, five of those brownshirt bros now face charges courtesy of the Coeur d’Alene Chief Deputy Prosecutor, Ryan Hunter. Turns out this “security” crew was from a company called Lear Asset Management. Lear’s CEO, Paul Trouette, leads the way to the mug shot room as he and his employees are charged with misdemeanor battery, false imprisonment, and possessing a firearm on school property, among other things.

I have questions:

Why was an Idaho sheriff enlisting a California outfit with decidedly criminal-facing services (as opposed to public-facing, event-type services) at a Republican town hall?

WTF is a “Republican town hall,” anyway? Either you’re having a partisan organization event not in a public space, or you’re having a town hall for the public and inviting a range of sentiment. This hybrid seemed like lazy “well, everyone here is a Republican anyway …” logistics where dissent was going to be frowned upon.

Now, I have to be honest here. I’m not a fan of going to the opposition’s meeting to heckle. Not productive, rarely good for the brand. It sounds like the victim, Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, was reacting loudly/unhappily more than outright interrupting the meeting, which helps.

However, the fact that the sheriff thought that her conduct justified siccing his tactical bozos on her is more evidence that the local GOP blurred the lines of this event in a way that set themselves up for trouble.

Did I mention that city code requires security workers to wear identifying markings? The sheriff’s out-of-staters were violating city code before the meeting even started.

No charges yet against the Kootenai County sheriff who deployed these Lear Asset Management losers, but Dr. Borrenpohl has filed a $5 million civil claim against the sheriff and Lear. See y’all in court, boys.

NAZI RECEPTION HE WAS HOPING FOR
It already wasn’t a great year for anyone working for Idaho tourism or commerce. In late February, the CEO of a substantial Idaho construction company made news when his address to his company’s private meeting in a large local ballroom included a couple of well-executed Nazi salutes.

Before his “state of the company” appearance, Meridian Construction then-CEO Tom Hill reportedly received specific advice from his company to avoid politics. He chose instead to preface his remarks/salutes with a pro-Trump video. The rest is FAFO history.

People walked out. His salutes went viral. Hill took the typical proud-coward path and made things worse. He played the “my recent attempt at humor and parody” angle paired with a non-apology apology, and then he sought refuge in the industrial right-wing victim complex.

Don’t judge a book by a cover, friends, but did I have a small chortle when I saw the photo of our fascist jokester? Yes, yes I did. As a certain someone might say, straight from central casting.

Hill eventually resigned. His company apologized and formed a “Corporate Responsibility Task Force.” If nothing else, someone should charge Hill with misdemeanor responsibility for adding another task force to the world, but so it goes.

BUCKING TRADITION
We don’t have room in this column to take you back a few months earlier, to the whole Last of Five Defendants with Ties to White Supremacy and Who Were Charged with Targeting Idaho Energy Facilities Enters Guilty Plea story of ex-military aspiring Nazis.

Or the advent of Idaho as a white supremacist / Christian Nationalist haven in the 1970s (relevant content now showing on Netflix). Or how white Southerners retreated there after the Civil War in pursuit of their own, well, you know.

But I do want to swing back around to the heroes of more recent events. Dr. Borrenpohl has run for Idaho’s legislature three times in the last six years, carrying the Democratic standard where many would not bother or dare.

Coeur d’Alene police didn’t turn a blind eye to what happened to Dr. Borrenpohl when they could have taken it easy on the sheriff’s outsourced goons.

And Coeur d’Alene Chief Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Hunter did his job and indicted based on police recommendations, despite plenty of residents who surely felt Borrenpohl had it coming, going by the reactions in the room caught on video.

Even Meridian Construction did the right thing as a private company and community business leader, even though it meant replacing leadership and a humbling round of PR.

Decency still operates in unfriendly terrain. Indecency still operates plenty of places, sometimes with impunity — but less often if good people refuse to normalize it. Let’s take a smidge of artistic license and hand the last word to Elvis Costello.

“She’ll fit you with an iron cross … but even a clown knows when to strike …”