Red State Rebels

BS: Running for Senate?

No, not that BS, at least not yet.

But alert reader Sisyphus found something very curious on Idablue, in the comments for this post. The fifth comment - signed bs - appears to be an announcement from someone who'd like to enter the GOP fray for next year's Senate race, someone who didn't so so well in a first attempt for public office.

The post on which the comment is found is frankly sort of rude. It seems like an unlikely spot for a politico to seek support. But, well, just check it out and let me know what you think.

P.S. In semi-related news, Democratic candidate Larry LaRocco made his debut this afternoon at the Huffington Post.

ID lawmakers urge end to war

Starting this morning, several members of the Idaho Legislature will join the Idaho Peace Coalition’s effort to get Sens. Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig to withdraw their support for next year’s Iraq war funding. Here's more from the Peace Coalition:

Representatives Les Bock (Dist. 16), Nicole LeFavour (Dist. 19), Anne Pasley Stuart (Dist. 19), Phylis King (Dist. 18), Sue Chew (Dist. 17) and Sen. David Langhorst will present letters to Senator Crapo at his Boise office – 251 E Front St – at 9:30 am, Thursday, August 30.

In his letter to Sen. Crapo, Rep. Les Bock said, “I am asking you to oppose President Bush’s request for an additional $145 billion for the Iraq War and work on bipartisan legislation to reduce to only what is required for the protection and safe redeployment of all U.S. troops outside of Iraq.”

Each day this week, Idahoans representing themselves and various organizations have been “occupying” the offices of Idaho’s U.S. Senators. The action is part of the nationwide Occupation Project aimed at getting Congress to withhold next year’s funding for the U.S. occupation of Iraq in favor of troop withdrawal. Project participants represent military families, veterans, faith groups and now, Idaho legislators.

The senate offices vigil is one of hundreds of actions taking place across the nation in August and September as Congress debates the funding request.  The Idaho Peace Coalition is a volunteer organization dedicated to peace and justice. Visit us at http://peacecoalition.us/idaho/

Katrina: What Idaho Repubs said

On this second anniversary of Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast, let's pause to remember what our esteemed Idaho lawmakers said and did in the months following the disaster.

First off, then-Congressman Butch Otter was one of only 11 lawmakers to vote against the initial aid package to Katrina's victims in September 2005. Shame, shame - though there's little doubt current Rep. Bill Sali would have done the same thing.

A month later, Larry Craig weighed in. WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, October 15, 2005; hat tip Western Democrat:

Sen. Larry Craig told his home state constituents that fraud is as much a part of the fabric of Louisiana as it is in Iraq and that flooded sections of New Orleans should be abandoned.

"Fraud is in the culture of Iraqis. I believe that is true in the state of Louisiana as well," Craig was quoted as saying in the Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune on Thursday.

He was also quoted in the McCall (Idaho) Star News, saying "Louisiana and New Orleans are the most corrupt governments in our country, and they always have been... . A rookie cop in New Orleans, they pay him or her $17,000 starting pay and then wink and say you better make the rest of it on the street."

And who can forget how temporary Gov. Jim Risch bleated to The Guardian last June:

"Hurricane Katrina - they heaped that on George Bush! ... Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn’t whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That’s the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water.”

Ah, yes, the Republican mindset in a nutshell: Why give thirsty people water when you can sell it to them?!

The Gulf Coast region still needs our help. Go here to sign a petition urging the Senate to pass S.1668, a bill to streamline efforts to build affordable housing for the victims of the 2005 hurricanes.

Bieter is better

If you agree with me that Dave Bieter deserves another term as Boise mayor, here's your chance to help. The Bieter for Boise team plans a campaign fundraiser from 6 to 8:30 tonight (Wednesday, August 29) at the Rose Room, 718 W. Idaho St. Twenty-five bucks gets you in the door to hear the mayor tell about his vision for the next four years. There'll be food, live entertainment, and a silent auction, too. Kids 16 and under get in free, so bring your family and give Dave a hand.

LaRocco blogs live at Daily Kos today

In an event planned several weeks ago, U.S. Senate candidate Larry LaRocco will write his fourth diary at Daily Kos today.

Update: He's online now, at noon Mountain.Click here.

From a campaign news release:

Fresh from a front-page mention last weekend on the nation’s busiest political blog, U.S. Senate candidate Larry LaRocco plans his fourth live blogging session this Wednesday, August 29, at www.dailykos.com.

LaRocco will be online live in the Daily Kos diaries (accessed via the right-hand site of the website’s home page) for an hour starting at noon Mountain Time/11 a.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday. Daily Kos account holders can post a question for LaRocco. Others can follow along.

Last Saturday evening, LaRocco’s campaign was highlighted in a front-page post at Daily Kos, which attracts more than a half-million visits every day. The post featured a video clip in which LaRocco describes his Working for Senate campaign. Since June, LaRocco has taken nine jobs across Idaho to work with and learn from everyday Idahoans.

LaRocco has been posting interactive diaries at Daily Kos since June. On August 4, he was featured at the blog’s annual YearlyKos convention in Chicago, on a panel discussion that aired a week later on C-SPAN 2. He is becoming a favorite among the national “netroots” – Democratic activists who use the Internet to support progressive candidates and causes.

“The Internet is changing politics for the better,” LaRocco said. “Politicians can no longer hide behind expensive attack ads, robocalls and consultants. Now everyone with a computer connection can have a say in who will lead our country.”

LaRocco served Idaho’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995. For more information on his Senate campaign, see www.LaRoccoforSenate.com.

Please join us at Daily Kos midday today.

Book TV Bus is here

C-SPAN 2's Book TV Bus is in the Boise area today, with visits planned to the Garden City Library from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and at the fabulous Rediscovered Bookshop in the Overland Park Shopping Center (just east of Cole Road) starting at 3 p.m.

The bus will be in our state the rest of this week, with stops planned tomorrow through Friday in Twin Falls and Pocatello. See the schedule here.

Larry Craig

Via Roll Call, CNN, the Idaho Statesman and across the blogosphere comes the news that U.S. Sen. Larry Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month after being arrested in June by a plainclothes police officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's public restroom in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

Given my role on the LaRocco campaign, I won't have any comment on the story.

Out-of-Iraq action reminders

Just some quick reminders about the many out-of-Iraq actions planned this week:

This afternoon, at 4 p.m. Mountain/3 p.m. Pacific, a Virtual Town Hall coinciding with George W. Bush's Seattle-area visit is set at www.darcyburner.com. Burner, a Congressional candidate hoping to represent Washington's 8th District, has emerged as a top critic of the war.

All week, dozens of Idahoans are staging a nonviolent sit-in at the Boise offices of Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo. Two at a time, supported by others on the sidewalks outside, they are keeping vigil within the senators' offices to express hope that our leaders will follow other Republicans in questioning the wisdom of an endless occupation of Iraq.

Tomorrow night, a Take a Stand town hall meeting set for 7 p.m. at the Boise Senior Activities Center, 690 Robbins Road (off Fort Street, by the Fort Boise Community Center), will give others an opportunity to express and record their views on the war. This is one of 600 vigils planned tomorrow all across the nation and beyond. Interested people can be videotaped for one to three minutes speaking, singing, praying, or otherwise expressing their support for the troops and their wishes for an end to the war in Iraq. "We will send the video to the four men who represent us in Congress and will ask them to take a stand," says organizer Jim Hansen.

If you can't make any of these, at least call Sen. Crapo (208-334-1776) and Sen Craig (208-342-7985) and say enough is enough ... it's time to find a way to end this war.

Monday morning water cooler 8.27.07

Wow - two great Monday mornings in August where we've been greeted with the news that a top Bush-Cheney administration official is gone, daddy, gone. Alberto Gonzales has resigned as attorney general, effective September 17. With the departures of Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, and now Gonzales, we have seen the exodus of three of the most damaging figures in recent American history. This is great news indeed, even though the resignations appear to be bald-faced attempts to thwart Congressional checks and balances on the administration's ethical and legal breaches - and even though the biggest crook of all is still in office.

John Nichols writes on TheNation.com that Democractic-led investigations into Gonzales, Rove, and others have "hit the administration hard -- so hard that the president is now jettisoning his oldest and closest aides in order to prevent the inquiry from evolving into a serious examination of his own lawlessness. ... The important thing now is to make sure that the administration does not succeed in using high-profile departures to shut down -- or, at the very least, to diminish the seriousness and the extent of -- those inquiries." (Full article here.)

Update 2:20 p.m.: Jill has a ssssmokin essay at New West on reports that Bush may appoint Michael Chertoff to succeed Gonzales. And in the comments below, Tara notes that Gonzo will step down on the most fitting day possible: Constitution Day.

Blogging the Castle Rock fire

Here's a prediction: A few years from now, many public officials will be regularly and fearlessly using blogs to communicate with constituents. They won't all be Democrats, either; did you know HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt now has his own blog? (On TypePad, no less?!)

Sun Valley Councilman Nils Ribi is another official on the leading edge of this trend. Check out his personal blog, where he's been basically live blogging the Sun Valley area's Castle Rock fire since it blazed out of control last weekend.  His posts are packed not only with fire updates, but with useful fire-related information of all kinds for residents and visitors to the resort towns, plus links to media stories and some very powerful photos. Kudos to Nils for keeping his neighbors - and the rest of us - in the know during this nerve-wracking time for Central Idaho.