Red State Rebels

Weekend tidbits

Still catching up. I will be tossing random items in here over the weekend:

McJoan at Daily Kos has a thread up about Rand Lewis' likely bid for the ID-01 Democratic nomination, which has also gotten play this week from CQ Politics and Ridenbaugh Press.

Hat tip to MountainGoat, who spotted this laughable essay at Idaho Chooses Life about those scary liberals Phil Batt, Robert Ring, and Bruce Newcomb. I predict that it's only a matter of time before mainstream Idahoans wake up to the fact the Idaho Legislature now has the most dysfunctional GOP leadership our state has seen in decades. Too bad we need to wait until November 2008 for another chance at course correction. That is, unless a few moderate GOP legislators decide that their party has been hopelessly hijacked by extremists and hacks and they flip sides to join the Democrats for the 2008 session.

Bill Sali has an op-ed out this week in which he criticizes House Democrats for including domestic spending in the bill to reduce the U.S. presence in Iraq. "Too often legislation is a confusing cocktail of essential items laced with pure political pork. When there are 10 things in a bill that you support and five things you don't, pork politics compels your vote according to your stake in the political smorgasbord," he wrote. I rarely agree with Sali, but he is right that legislation ought to be tightly focused and not laden with side pork projects. It ought to be that way, but it isn't. Of course, Sali doesn't mention that Republicans have always done the same thing - so he, too, is playing politics with the issue. Welcome to Washington.

Saturday ... Just noticed that John Edwards is getting some very impressive endorsements from members of Congress, including Jim Oberstar of Minnesota and David Obey of Wisconsin, who are chairs, respectively, of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Appropriations Committee. If anything, Edwards' campaign seems to have gained some steam in the week since he and Elizabeth announced that her cancer has returned. ... meanwhile, about 100 people showed up for the  local Barack Obama campaign kickoff in Boise this afternoon, which was one of several thousand events taking place today in all 50 states. Channels 2, 6, and 7 sent reporters, as did Boise Weekly.

Opposed from the start

Sine die cheers and jeers

Howdy, all. I am back from spring break. I see the Idaho Legislature is still at it, though the final gavel may come today. So let's start a round of cheers and jeers for this session. I'll lead off; please add your comments and additions below:

CHEERS

To Dean Cameron for speaking the truth.

To Butch Otter for trying to direct grocery tax relief to the folks who need it most.

To Leon Smith for trying to help the Treasure Valley get its transit vote.

To Branden Durst for shaking things up.

To the legislature for overriding Butch Otter's bowling alley smoking ban.

To the minority party for its dogged service through the most trying of times.

JEERS

To Mike Moyle, Gary Collins, and Robert Schaefer for denying their neighbors local control on a transit vote.

To the legislature for failing to pass a grocery tax bill.

To Butch Otter for failing to Meet the Press.

To Steve Thayn and Tom Loertscher for living in the 1950s.

To Lenore Hardy Barrett for ... too many things to mention.

To the Boise mainstream media for its lameness.   

Next?

RSRewind: May 9, 2004

Here's a post from Mother's Day 2004, when we'd just learned that members of the Idaho National Guard would be mobilized for duty in Iraq:

At a time like this, when we see war siphoning off so many people from our neighborhoods, we ask: How do we honor these people's commitment to serve us while continuing to express our anger at the policies and decisions that put them in harm's way? We must do both - and we must continue to resist the right-wingers who say it's impossible to support the troops without supporting Bush's policy of preemptive, unnecessary war. So today, I pray for the moms of the soldiers and the moms who are soldiers. I pray for the moms of Iraq, who have lost so many of their own children these past 14 months. Finally, and most fervently, I pray for an end to an administration whose rash, ideological agenda is making a mockery of the sort of freedom Americans really stand for.

More here. I'll be back posting live within a day or two.

RSRewind: March 18, 2005

Another one, first posted two years ago, from the endless war department:

I read today that the U.S. will not begin pulling troops out of Iraq until 2006 or later. Meanwhile, the National Guard is bribing soldiers with $15,000 if they'll re-enlist for six years. (Guard re-enlistment is at all-time lows, and who can blame them, with nothing but open-ended, multiyear, repeat deployments to Iraq and elsewhere in the picture.)

More here.

RSRewind: December 21, 2005

I'm taking a break. Here's a golden oldie. You can double the figures cited in this, since we're now up to a half-trillion allocated to the folly in Iraq:

When we hear that the war in Iraq has cost more than $225 billion so far, it seems abstract. My calculator only has nine digits, you know? But two thousand bucks a second really brings it home - literally. For my family, that's two months of housing, or 20 weeks of groceries and the occasional meal out, or about three times what we'll spend on Christmas.

Still, it's the war's cost to our communities that ought to make us think hardest. The National Priorities Project has an excellent website that shows what our national budget decisions - including endless war and repeated tax cuts for the wealthy - really cost in terms of lost spending on health care, education, public safety, and affordable housing. For example, Idaho's $590.8 million share of the war  (so far) could've instead been spent on sending 77,260 kids to Head Start or putting an additional 14,836 police, fire, or EMT personnel on the job.

Read it all here.

Water cooler in absentia

I'm on spring break. Carry on without me.

This is your weekly open thread.May I suggest, as the legislature winds down, that we compile a list of the most egregiously bad behavior under the dome this session?

RSRewind: June 6, 2006

I'm starting a spring break from blogging. I'll be back in a week. Meanwhile, I've scheduled a few snips from past posts I hope you'll enjoy:

My husband and I both grew up in solid two-parent families where Dad worked and Mom stayed home with the kids. We've been married 14 years with one child and we are doing fine with a two-career marriage that's the norm today.

But is ours the only sort of family that counts? No way. My brother and his longtime partner are a family unto themselves. They're also part of an extended family of friends, and I don't begrudge Jeff the fact that - due to geographical proximity and shared interests - he's closer to them than he is to me. Family means having people nearby with whom you can break bread on holidays, toast milestone birthdays, and call on when you need a hand.

When our daughter was younger, she had three main babysitters. One was from a large Mormon family with both mom and dad at home. Another was a girl being raised by her mom; she later went to live with her dad. Another was a girl being raised by two dads - in Twin Falls, Idaho. Last I heard, they were all happy and close to their respective parents.

Read it all here.

Party identification 101

From the Idaho Statesman this morning:

A last-minute bill in the Legislature would limit who can vote in party primary elections.

The bill, engineered by the leader of a good-government group, would prohibit registered Democrats and Republicans from casting votes in each other's primaries. It would let independents vote in any party's primary, but they would have to declare which one at the polling place.

Not sure what you are? Each of the two major parties can be summed up in a mere four words:

Republicans - The Party of Me
Democrats - The Party of We

Easy, huh? Hat tip to Chris, who first put it this succinctly here last June.

Kustra criticizes fliers; vigil today

Bumped to the top due to breaking info below ... 

Boise State University President Bob Kustra on Wednesday spoke out against the fliers used by BSU's College Republicans to advertise tonight's speech by anti-immigration firebrand Robert Vasquez, calling the handbills "offensive and insulting." Read more at The Arbiter and New West.

It's worth noting that Kustra was a Republican state legislator and lieutenant governor in Illinois. Like so many Republicans who move to Idaho, however, he's probably learned by now that Idaho Republicans are a breed apart.

Meanwhile, don't forget the activities planned tonight (Thursday, March 22) to protest the College Republicans' insensitivity. A press conference is set for 5:30 p.m. on the Student Union Building Patio. After that, from roughly 6:15 to 7:30, students and others will surround the SUB for a silent vigil to demonstrate that most Idahoans are peaceful people who realize that we are a nation of immigrants. More than a dozen student and community organizations will take part, and individuals are welcome, too. Participants are asked to wear white. Signs are OK, but they should be respectful. At 7:30,  the film Wetback - a realistic look at the immigrant experience - will be shown in the Jordan Ballroom.

I may not make it to the vigil, so please plan to use this as an open thread to comment about your observations and experiences if you are able to be there.

Update 4:55 p.m. Thursday: The Democratic National Committee included BSU in a national press release issued today about collegiate Republicans' anti-immigrant activity. Apparently, students on campuses in New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania have pulled similar stunts. A snip:

This week, Boise State University College Republicans have joined the list of College Republicans who have held anti-immigrant "games" by creating a despicable ad to promote a conservative speaker on campus. The ad advertises a food stamp drawing and a free meal at a "Mexican restaurant" for students who "climb through the hole in the fence" and submit illegal identification.

This recent derogatory stunt comes on the heels of national news reports that confirm the rise in hate groups who are feeding off of anti-immigrant sentiments. Sadly, while these activities continue on America's campuses and while Republican presidential candidates use harsh words on immigration for political gain, the national Republican Party has remained quietly on the sidelines.

It has been three weeks since Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Hispanic Caucus Chair Ramona Martinez sent a letter to RNC General Chairman Mel Martinez regarding the despicable conduct of College Republicans. The Republican Chairman has yet to respond.

Meanwhile, I got an email tip this afternoon reporting that a longtime BSU staffer has lost his job over what my correspondent termed "Fliergate." The emailer wrote, "How is it that firing a long time staff member, who was known for strictly adhering to college policies, and who CLEARLY FOLLOWED UNIVERSITY PROCEDURES IN THIS CASE, is 'ensuring accountability in the approval process.'"

Normally, of course, fliers would be protected under the First Amendment. Many schools have policies that curb hurtful or offensive material in campus postings; I don't know (and I don't have time to check) whether BSU has such a policy, though I believe fliers must be approved before posting. In any case, however, it seems overkill that someone would lose his job over this. It's far more embarrassing to the College Republicans - and to the GOP in general - than it is to BSU.