Arrested Candidate was Vocal Against Clean Energy

Michigan’s Gubernatorial race is a bit of a zoo on the Republican side, with 5 candidates disqualified recently for submitting tens of thousands of fraudulent nominating signatures.
Now one of the remaining candidates, Ryan Kelley, has been arrested by the FBI for his role in the attack on the nation’s capitol, and the attempted coup of January 6, 2021.

WILX Lansing, MI:

ALLENDALE, Mich. (WILX) – A Michigan candidate for governor of was arrested and charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation representative confirmed with News 10 that Kelley was arrested and a search was executed at his home Thursday morning.

Kelley, 40, was among the Republican candidates looking to run in the 2022 August gubernatorial primary. He was seen at the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, though he has said he didn’t go inside the building.

I knew the name because, in addition to famously urging his followers to sabotage voting machines, Mr Kelley was a featured speaker at an anti-wind energy rally in Central Michigan earlier this year.

Checks and Balances Project:

With a band, local comedian, prepared signs and two candidates for governor as speakers, opponents of wind energy in Montcalm County, Mich. held a Feb. 5 rally against attempts to build a wind farm in their community. The rally was conducted at the Wildflower Schoolhouse in Trufant, Mich. and was sponsored by Montcalm County Citizens United.

During the rally, several local residents told Checks and Balances Project (C&BP) that wind power hurts property values, while others said they hurt the health of people living nearby.

David Stevens, who lives near the Meridian Wind Park in Midland County, said the last four years have been “terrible. It only gets worse from here.” That wind farm, which is owned by Michigan utility DTE, is set to go online this summer.

Several residents said wind companies use conflicting sets of data and stealth tactics to push the wind farm through the approvals process.

“They had registered with the state before you knew about it,” said LouAnn Mogg, a wind opponent from adjacent Isabella County, where a new wind project by Apex Clean Energy opened last year.

While organizers had posted signs saying shooting video or recording audio was prohibited, the rally was recorded by cameras as two Republican candidates for governor, Ryan Kelly and Ralph Rebandt, joined the speakers.

The rally came as a growing number of townships in the county, located north of Grand Rapids, have debated or approved zoning ordinances that would make it difficult to develop wind farms within their boundaries.

Anti-wind activist Kevon Martis spoke to rally goers, saying that wind developers are “not honest brokers.”

The above-mentioned Mr Martis is an operative of the Washington DC based E&E Legal Foundation, a lobbying firm funded by the fossil fuel industry. Mr Martis has suggested on his Facebook page that dirty energy activists intimidate their local officials, who, he says, will only respond to fear.

In another post, Mr Martis suggested that dirty energy activists might burn down Michigan’s capitol if they don’t get their way, prefacing his suggestion with “I don’t condone this at all”, of course.

Those that follow the siting of clean energy across the midwest have come to recognize the tactics of intimidation, misinformation, and fear that have become the template and trademark of nimby opponents.

So the Ryan Kelley, dirty energy connection is not a surprising one, and the larger truth that fossil fuel interests are behind much, if not most of the chaos, lies, sedition, and destruction of civil dialogue that characterizes American politics in 2022.

Below, some out-takes of the above mentioned rally, with remarks from the MC, a local amateur “comedian” apparently.

UPDATE:

Another Trumpian nut case candidate for Attorney General sent this out in response to Ryan Kelley’s arrest.

Yup, it’s that crazy here.