Rising Moon

“We need a fighter,” proclaimed Brent Regan at the 2022 Idaho Republican Convention. He said it was no longer sufficient for a party chair to focus solely on fundraising, rather we needed someone to lead by example in fighting the war that the left has brought to our doorsteps.

When Regan nominated Dorothy Moon to fill that role, the auditorium in Twin Falls erupted into one of the loudest ovations I’ve ever heard in person:

After the votes were counted, Moon soundly defeated incumbent Tom Luna 434-287. Luna seemed to have grown content ignoring ideology in favor of power for its own sake. Despite publicly stating that Ammon Bundy was not welcome in the Republican primary, he turned around and sued the Bonneville County GOP because they endorsed candidates in the primary.

In my article after the Convention, I wrote about how Luna and the establishment had lost touch with the Republican grassroots:

Ideology matters. Every two years the Idaho Republican Party passes a platform that is supposed be the philosophical mission statement of the party. I get the sense that those in leadership do not take the platform seriously. In observing and interacting with several old guard Republican leaders such as Senator Chuck Winder and future Lt. Governor Scott Bedke, I got the impression that they see this whole affair as a sideshow to placate the rank and file. Do they read the platform and make an effort to hold to it? Or do they give it lip service and then go back to work with their wealthy donors and powerful lobbyists? Do the PCs who make up the various central committees of the Idaho Republican Party have a role to play in educating voters about the platform and holding our candidates and elected officials to it?

The 2022 Convention was a repudiation of Idaho’s Republican establishment and they’ve been kicking and screaming about it ever since. Former Ada County GOP Chairman Victor Miller attempted to snub Dorothy Moon a year ago when she came to speak at a county meeting because he disagreed with a new rule compelling county committees to support the state party. Tom Luna (who was in the back of the room during that meeting) has written editorials denouncing the direction that the party has gone under Moon. Former state party chairman Trent Clark has done the same, devoting a sizable percentage of his weekly columns to attacking Moon and the rest of the party.

They say that Dorothy Moon is purging the Idaho Republican Party. They say that she and her cabal have instituted loyalty oaths and purity tests. They say that she is going to destroy the Idaho GOP, which will allow the Democrats to take over. They describe their vendetta against Moon as a fight to save the Republican Party, rather than destroy it.

Of course, they know well enough that the chair doesn’t unilaterally make any decisions. A good chair carries out the will of his or her committee, and that’s exactly what Dorothy Moon has done. The state central committee passed rules intended to prevent Democrats from switching parties and voting in the Republican primary with the aim of disrupting its nominating process. It also passed rules giving county and legislative district committees the ability to rate and vet primary candidates as well as request explanations from lawmakers for voting contrary to the party platform.

None of this takes away the ability of Republican voters to make their own voices heard; rather it adds more information for them to consider. Yet to Idaho’s political establishment, which is used to having the strongest (or even the only) voice in the process, it’s intolerable.

The empire is striking back. Just this week, Cortney Liddiard of Ball Ventures LLC published an editorial in the Idaho Statesman saying that the Idaho Republican Party is in “disarray” and new leadership is needed to fix it.

Liddiard is the CEO of Ball Ventures LLC, which partners with developer and former gubernatorial candidate Tommy Ahlquist as Ball Ventures Ahlquist. In one form or another, Ball Ventures has given over $100,000 to various candidates over the last four years, mostly ranging from center-right to left wing figures. The firm donated $45,000 to the Idaho Liberty PAC in April 2022, which as you know has been attacking conservative senators.

Rather than being a dispassionate and objective look at the state of the party, this editorial represents the side that lost at the 2022 convention. They are laying the groundwork to take back the party in Coeur d’Alene this June.

Perhaps not coincidentally, a paper newsletter was delivered to Idaho residents on the same day that Liddiard’s editorial was published. The so-called Idaho Bulletin does not list any names, companies, or contacts. Every article is anonymous. The entire newsletter is dedicated to bashing Dorothy Moon and the Idaho GOP.

Printing and mailing a newsletter of this size is not cheap. When I ran for PC in 2022 it cost me $150 to print and mail 200 postcards to likely voters in my precinct. That was with regular stamps, not a bulk mail permit, but I’m that hearing people throughout the Treasure Valley received this, so the cost would surely be in the four or even five figures.

Someone invested a sizable chunk of change into distributing propaganda aimed at demonizing Dorothy Moon and the state party. Yet they also went out of their way to hide their identities.

Why is that?

According to ICANN, idahobulletin.com was initially registered on January 20, 2022, which is the same day that the Idaho Bulletin Facebook page was created.

According to the Facebook Ad Library, the Bulletin began running ads in February 2022, but many of them were removed for not following Facebook’s policy on elections or political issues. I sympathize, as getting a page authorized to run such ads is a Byzantine process. The Bulletin attempted to run twenty political ads leading up to the May 2022 primary, and each one was removed.

In September 2022, they ran an ad against Ammon Bundy before going quiet for more than a year. They have returned with a vengeance this month, promoting posts that argue against Dorothy Moon and the state party. Most of these ads have cost them less than $100 each, getting less than 1,000 impressions, so they’re not going very far.

The page lists Idaho Bulletin LLC as being responsible for the page.

According to the Secretary of State’s website, Idaho Bulletin Company LLC was created on February 8, 2022, just a few weeks after the website and Facebook page. However, its managers did not file the required annual report in February 2023 so the LLC was dissolved last May.

According to its initial filing, the governor of the Idaho Bulletin Company LLC was Idaho Bulletin LLC, which seems very ouroboros. The signatory on the filing is someone named Riley Park.

I’m not sure if Park is part of the group behind the Idaho Bulletin or just an employee of Registered Agents Inc., which handled the filing. Riley Park is the signatory for Golden Asia Inc., which manages a handful of Thai restaurants in eastern Idaho. They also used Registered Agents Inc. for their filing, which makes me suspect he or she is just one of the agents.

Golden Asia Inc. is actually registered next door in Wyoming, despite their locations being in Idaho. That’s interesting for another reason, because Idaho Bulletin LLC is also registered in Wyoming:

According to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website, Idaho Bulletin LLC is also dissolved there for failure to file an annual update:

The address listed on the filing comes up as a place called “Wyoming Corporate Office” which appears to be used as a generic location for LLC filings.

According to our old friends at Registered Agents Inc., LLCs can be filed in Wyoming so long as they have a physical address in the state:

The Sheridan Press reports that this address has been used by multiples LLCs that have been accused of defrauding customers through various means. That’s not necessarily to say that Idaho Bulletin LLC is engaged in any sort of fraud, rather it is using the same catch-all location that is used by shady people:

According to the Wyoming Secretary of State website, there are approximately 450 commercial registered agents in Wyoming, the largest of which has offices in Sheridan.

Registered Agents, Inc., located at 30 N. Gould St. in downtown Sheridan, represents an estimated 53,267 businesses, according to the Secretary of State Office.

Registered Agents, Inc., though, is just one commercial registered agent listed at that address. According to a roster on the Secretary of State website, a total of 21 commercial registered agents have offices at 30 N. Gould St.

Another article goes into more detail about some of the scams originating from 30 N Gould St. and explains how the LLC process works in Wyoming:

The building at 30 N. Gould St. is one of the most popular registered agent addresses in the state, according to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office. A public records request filed with the Wyoming Secretary of State revealed approximately 88,000 businesses listing a physical address, mailing address or both as 30 N. Gould St. in Sheridan.

All of this is to say that the people behind Idaho Bulletin LLC don’t want you to know who they are. When the post office opens again on Tuesday I intend to find out who owns the bulk mail permit number on the newsletter. I’ll let you know what I find, but I expect it to simply point back to the LLC.

I reported yesterday that a judge ruled against the Bingham County GOP in their lawsuit against the state party. The entire affair was absurd, as the BCRCC clearly violated their own bylaws and were upset that Dorothy Moon called them out on it. The committee could simply have held a new meeting as Moon requested and elected the same people, but decided instead to sue her and the state party, perhaps hoping to humiliate a hated political rival. The court’s judgment shows that it is the other side that should be embarrassed.

Why are so many people spending so much time, energy, and money attacking Dorothy Moon? Is it ideological? Many of the people who attack Moon for being extreme have no problem conversing with far left figures. Many of them endorsed the Democrat Tom Arkoosh against Republican Raúl Labrador in the race for attorney general in 2022.

I wonder if any of the people behind the Idaho Bulletin are also part of Nikki Haley’s Idaho campaign team, which was released last week. What Haley has in common with the likes of Tom Luna and his ilk is a fervent desire to go back to the old ways of running the Republican Party, of jettisoning social issues and focusing entirely on the economy and of letting big businesses call the shots in our government.

Like Donald Trump, Dorothy Moon came in and upset that nice little apple cart. Rather than cozying up to power, as Luna did, Moon fearlessly spoke on behalf of the grassroots, the forgotten men and women of our society.

I get that Moon is not everyone’s cup of tea. She doesn’t mince words. She can come across as abrasive. She tells it to you straight. Some people don’t like that, especially when they’re accustomed to political figures who have practiced the art of using many words that say nothing of substance. After spending years around the most milquetoast, inoffensive, poll-tested statements, hearing someone like Dorothy Moon or Donald Trump can be pretty jarring.

But like Brent Regan said in Twin Falls, that’s exactly what we need at this moment in time. We need a fighter, not a talker or someone who will compromise with power. In Dorothy Moon, the woman and the moment have met, and the battle is joined. To paraphrase Trump, they’re not coming after her, they’re coming after us, and she stands in the way.

These attacks should energize you, rather than demoralize you, because they prove we are winning the battle for hearts and minds. Keep knocking on doors, keep sharing the truth, keep reminding our lawmakers who they serve. The great battle of our time is not in Europe, Asia, or Washington DC, but in communities throughout our own state. Whether we lose our republic or save it depends on what you and your neighbors do over the next few weeks, months, and years.

Dorothy Moon is leading the way and setting the example. Let us all do likewise.