It was an expression of attitude, sure. A clear expression, and one in keeping with many active parts of the base. It was intended to raise money, and it evidently has.

But it showed too the tone-deafness that offers one reason Oregon Republicans aren’t doing better. It’s an automatic Facebook post and direct mail people for anyone not part of the gun advocacy crowd, which in Oregon includes a whole lot of swing voters.

The Multnomah County Republican Party is holding an auction: “AR-15 Raffle! Get Your Tickets NOW! The MCRP is raffling off a DPMS AR-15 – $10 per ticket or 12 for $100. Maximum tickets sold is 500. This is the PERFECT gift to slip into a father’s day card!”

A KATU-TV news story about it quoted Jeff Reynolds, the county chair, as saying, “It’s been very popular. To be frank, we could not make as much money with a TV as we could with an AR-15.” Significant parts of the base, he suggested, are worried their guns may be taken away.

He’s probaby right about all that.

Some miles to the south in Salem, Republican legislators have been stepping rather more carefully, in general, sticking to their ideas (and, generally, their base) while making the case for their points to others, especially people in the middle. They get some backing from the middle on PERS (the very costly Oregon public employee system), some traction in places on taxes and fees. Their recognizing that control of both chambers, now in Democratic hands, is very nearly on the bubble, and a modest breeze could give them control in 2014. (The Democrats seem, uneasily, to understand that too.)

But while the legislators move with some caution, other local party people seem not to.

Word of the raffle of an AR-15 – the same kind of weapon unleashed to deadly effect by a suicidal gunman at Clackamas Mall last winter – will appall people in Portland and the rest of Multnommah County. Okay, that’s overwhelmingly Democratic to begin with. But it’s not likely to play well either in the swing counties, notably very swingy Clackamas, where Republicans can easily get tagged as the gun nut party.

This wasn’t a brilliant media maneuver by Oregon Democrats. This was a gift to them.

CHRIS CARLSON   Carlson Chronicles

The walking, talking embodiment of the mythical free market in Idaho today is Wayne Hoffman, executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. He called a few weeks ago and asked if we could get together and get acquainted while he was in the north country on other business.

No harm in getting acquainted I thought, though for Wayne, there was some “harm” encountered. It seems the speeding ticket he received was because he was running late for our get together at an Irish Pub on Lake Drive in Coeur d’Alene.

Though we are polar opposite on many things, there are some issues where we have commonality – government over-reaching and the public’s loss of trust in government “honesty” at all levels, for example.

It was a pleasant enough discussion but when he used the phrase “free market” as in “we have to return to a true free market” I took strong exception.

I will tell you what I told Wayne. That fight was fought and lost 80 years ago, and there’s no going back. Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932. Roosevelt was the architect of government intervention in the so-called free market.

In order to fight the Great Depression and assist truly desperate Americans he campaigned on the federal government as the only entity that could protect the public from the excesses and vagaries of the private sector.

Hoover, a businessman and engineer, was the apostle of the private sector and the free market and he was soundly trounced. Ever since then there has been an inexorable pull of more and more governmental intervention the result of which is a “controlled market” and an international economy that is dominated by multinational corporations.

The fact is today our economy is riddled with subsidies for just about any conceivable interest. The subsidies are so rife and so numerous there is no way a majority of the electorate would ever sign off putting itself at the mercy of the private sector and the winners vs. losers free market.

The biggest mistake Mitt Romney made in the presidential election was miscalculating and then denigrating the 47% of the public he said in effect were takers living off of the in theory 53% producers.

In a sense he had the numbers reversed: 53% of the electorate likes its subsidies, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or one’s deduction for their mortgage payments. A majority believes they are better off with their entitlements, and yes, dependency, than believe the GOP philosophy of so-called free market and self-reliance. Continue Reading »

BARRETT RAINEY   Second Thoughts

I was a kid during WWII but old enough to be aware of the national condition (1941-1945) at our house. It was wartime with rationing – air raid drills at home and school – primitive recycling – black shades on all the windows. And racism. And hate. You didn’t need to be an adult to recognize it. Now, more than seven decades later, it’s happening again.

In the early ‘40′s, it was “Nazis” and “Japs.” When kids played “war,” someone had to be one of “them.” Others got to play “good guys” – the Americans. It wasn’t racist to us then. We were children just acting out what we’d heard parents and other adults saying. We were giving life to what we saw in our comic books and movies. We had posters in our grade schools warning us about “strangers” – about people who looked “different.” About “them.” Little kids can learn very quickly.

But we also learned fear at times. Even today – all these years later – the fear I felt watching my Japanese-American friends being hauled out of Mrs’ Kirk’s first-grade class by large men with guns in 1942. It’s still with me. So are their screams as they disappeared forever down hallways of East Wenatchee Grade School. To internment camps. To prisons. To our everlasting national disgrace.

An adult now, I don’t believe in racism in any form. But, during two simultaneous wars affecting everything in our daily lives, we accepted depictions of it then because it drew a clear, easy-to-understand line between what was “right” and what was “wrong.” We, of course, were right. They, of course, were wrong and deserved national condemnation. But – even to a kid of six – those screams erased some of that national pride we were supposed to feel. Even then, it somehow didn’t fit with us being the “good guys.”

Now, we’re doing it again.

Since 9-11, we’ve experienced a growing anti-Muslim movement based largely on ignorance. We see it in anonymous hate-emails and hear it on hate talk shows. Muslims are the butt of nightclub “humor.” A dozen years later, many TV shows – top rated “NCIS,” the other night for one – and movies are about swarthy people “tied” to various Muslim terrorist organizations. Often, you don’t hear the word “:Muslim” but the villain has a Mideast-sounding name or appearance. Some made-up organization sounding terrorist-like is attached to a murder or a bombing or some other destructive act. So, of course, it’s them bad ol’ “Muslims.”

I got a hate-email the other day intimating our President was a (gasp/choke) “Muslim!” He was photographed “trying to hide” a book in his hand – “The Post American World” – written by a (gasp/choke) “Muslim.” Just two sentences there. But (1) the President is NOT a Muslim – (2) he had chosen to read the book on a flight and was not trying to hide it in any way and (3) the book was written by the highly regarded Fareed Zacharia, a Hindu. Not a Muslim. EDITOR’S NOTE: Damned good book.

The anonymous email originator set out to put Muslims in the worst possible light and tie the President to these “unsavory” people by lying about both him and Zacharia. Send it to 10 people – they send it to 100 – they send it to 1,000 – then 10,000 and, within hours, this piece of racist B.S. is around the world. Continue Reading »

GOP POSITIONING Last weekend the Idaho Republican central committee sent out some mixed messages – depending on who you are, you could find something hopeful and something troubling inits actions (the specifics will vary). The group rejected a proposal by former state Senator Rod Beck to require that candidates seeking to run in the Republican primary first get a seal of approval from party leaders. But it reaffirmed a policy (backed by Beck as well over the years) in favor of party registration for voting in the GOP primary. There was plenty else as well.

And there was division, plenty of it. Here is how Rocky Barker of the Idaho Statesman describes one view of it: “Former Idaho State Sen. Stan Hawkins of Ucon, who was at the meeting in McCall said the party was increasingly divided between people who supported traditional Republican values like the free market and those that were involved in “state-sponsored crony capitalism.” He said the press was a part of the problem because it minimized how former GOP state officials leave to get lucrative jobs in everything from utilities to failed ski resorts.”

Are we seeing here a line of argument in next year’s primaries?

RANDY STAPILUS   The Idaho Column

To most non-lawyers, the Idaho-originated Supreme Court case of Reed v. Reed is a little obscure now, not one of those few like Roe v. Wade many people could grasp immediately.

But Reed was a pivot in modern society, and it’s especially worth recalling now with the death last week of Allen Derr, the soft-spoken Boise lawyer who improbably pushed it to the highest court in the land and was a central part of changing the law as it applies to men and women in America.

(Disclosure here: Last year I worked for a time with Derr on a book about the case; he apparently was still at work assembling materials for that project at the time of his death.)

Up to 1971, the law often treated the genders differently. Illinois had a law barring women from practicing law; the Supreme Court upheld it. It also upheld an Oregon law limiting work hours for women but not for men, and a Michigan law keeping women from tending bar. There were many such laws around the country, and for decades the Supreme Court had a perfect record of sustaining them.

The Idaho law that got Sally Reed’s, and Allen Derr’s, dander up, seemed just one more of the kind.

Reed encountered it when in March 1967 Reed’s son, Skip, died and left behind a few personal effects and $495 in a savings account. (That was the treasure over which a nation’s laws would change.) She and her ex-husband Cecil, the boy’s father, each applied in probate court to be administrator of Skip’s estate. Cecil got the appointment, but not, as the judge acknowledged, because Sally Reed was in any way disqualified. It was because the Idaho Code on probate said this: “Of several persons claiming and equally entitled to administer, males must be preferred to females, and relatives of the whole to those of the half blood.” In other words, Cecil had an automatic preference because he was male. Continue Reading »

BARRETT RAINEY   Second Thoughts

How’s about we rewrite the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

The most interesting story on my plate right now is public reaction to the disclosures that our government is “spying” on us. On the far right and far left, folks are coming unglued – bending what facts are known into either some massive conspiracy – or some massive conspiracy. Just what kind of “conspiracy” depends which reasoning-challenged theorist you’re talking to.

Of more rational interest, is the reaction of the majority in the middle of the political scale. Polling indicates most of us think government has little choice but to technologically look over our collective shoulders to find the bad guys – the really bad guys – out to brutalize this nation. That “middle majority” isn’t actually endorsing prying eyes in our communications but seems to understand that terrorism has to be rooted out and the terrorists use the same communicating technology we all do. Not endorsing but not condemning. For now.

Is the officially sanctioned snooping violating one or more of our rights of citizenship? Probably. Should we be upset about that? Probably. Angry enough to demand it stop. Doubtful.

In my book, this new facet of our technologically-driven lives shares a commonality with gun control and a couple other modern issues tied to our founding documents. We’re 237 years from the signing of the Constitution – living in a world the signatories never dreamed of. But, despite the overwhelming differences, we’re still trying to push, pull and stretch the two-century old dictums to cover today’s problems. You can’t get five pounds of old lard into a new two pound bucket. But we keep trying.

Take the gun issue. In 1776, we had one army that moved by putting one foot in front of the other – walking to where it was needed. Took about four to six weeks to walk the length of the 13 colonies. Local militias were needed to handle local problems until the army – which may have been two or three weeks away – could get on the scene. Now, a fleet of Apache helicopters can go from Maine to South Carolina in a few hours. Do concepts about militias conceived then still make sense?

Rifles then were muzzle loaders. Took about two minutes to fire, load and shoot again. Now an AK-47 shoots 150 rounds a minute. Are the rights to private ownership and use of the private firearm still valid 237 years and a few hundred million citizens later? Continue Reading »

To get a sense of the psychodrama unnfolding in the Idaho Republican Party, you can trace a bunch of the elements through a single Facebook post by state Senator Dean Cameron.

He started it by connecting to a story by Betsy Russell of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, noting that at the state Republican convention this weekend (they never used to have conventions in Idaho in odd-numbered years, by the way), a group of activists including former state Senator Rod Beck will try to establish a new rule providing that only candidates who win support from party leaders (that’s an unspecific description) can be placed on the party’s primary election ballot. The idea is to set up a filtering system something like that used by the Utah Republicans.

Cameron: “This is a really bad approach. Some want to continue to disenfranchise voters. I hope those attending the convention will be able to stop this proposal.”

That drew a bunch of likes, and also a response from Beck: “Dean, what do you mean to “continue” to disenfranchise voters? Are you suggesting to give the Blue’s everything they want is to offer voters a franchise? Did also get a limo ride in Kootenai County at IACI’S expense? I notice you didn’t join Speaker Bedke in the taxpayer funded junket to NYC, however so congrats on that.”

Representative Stephen Hartgen (who doesn’t support Beck’s proposal) cautioned Beck, “it does not advance the proposal to attack those who question why you think we need it.”

Another commenter said she “may have to change parties just to have representation.”

Hartgen: “Don’t do that, Linda….this too shall pass….”

But another, addressing Cameron, said “but this is the final nail for me. I’ve voted Republican all my life, but now I’ll be sending in the official form to change. They didn’t listen to us about the Luna Laws, and now this control trip…. They would even fight YOU for daring to buck the approved “party line” – it’s starting to sound like the USSR here….”

Hartgen again, trying to soothe things: “Hang on, Ruth….the proposal isn’t going to go anywhere.”

Soon, Beck was back in the comments: “I’m not trying to prevent any evil. I’m just trying to provide a mechanism that would make local precinct leaders at least as important to policy makers as the corporate lobbyists for Blue Cross, Regence Blue Shield and others. That’s all. Nothing more or less.”"

Another commenter, Mark Balzer, said that “I finally got a copy of the proposed rule changes for the summer meeting. to be honest with you I can only support 6, and 11-14. the rest of them including yours are dangerous. You and other seem to want to tie the hands of the legislature with the party platform and resolutions.”

All that on one Facebook post.

This’ll be a lively convention.

If I were to guess, from a distance, based on the history of recent conventions, I wouldn’t bet against Beck. Either way the vote, and debate leading up to it, should be more than interest.

CHRIS CARLSON   Carlson Chronicles

Idaho’s political cognoscenti (a nice way of saying “junkies”) would probably agree with the statement that historically most of Idaho’s outstanding governors first cut their teeth with service in the Idaho Legislature.

Democrats like John Evans and Cecil Andrus, and Republicans like Phil Batt and C.A. “Doc” Robins come immediately to mind.

Conversely, governors who have struggled to govern well and often clashed with the Legislature’s leadership seldom have any legislative service or at best one term in the distant past. Current Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter and former Governor Dirk Kempthorne immediately come to mind.

Politics is all about relationships, and working with fellow citizens for the common good. It is not for the faint-hearted and as has been often pointed out it is a contact sport. Governors who emerge from the Legislature have built-in advantages regarding relationships with fellow legislators and often a solid knowledge of the state’s budget as well as how state agencies operate.

On June 5 a panel at Idaho State University co-sponsored by the Idaho State Journal. Purpose of the panel was to discuss the future direction of Idaho’s politics. Not surprisingly I predicted that Governor Otter would seek a third term largely because both he and First Lady like the limelight.

His paucity of accomplishments when one looks at his dismal record makes one wonder why he would even want a third term. In this writer’s opinion the litany of failures does not begin to warrant re-election, but he is the incumbent and incumbents tend to win.

I also predicted First District congressman Raul Labrador would not challenge Butch but instead would stay in the Congress, and that his reelection campaign would be run by John Foster, a former aide to one-term Democratic congressman Walt Minnick. Foster has since become a Republican and emphatically denies he will be running Labrador’s campaign.

I surprised the audience though when I said if Otter did not run there were only four Republicans I considered to be really qualified to be governor:

Lt. Governor Brad Little, House Speaker Scott Bedke, Sandpoint State Senator Shawn Keough, and Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis from Idaho Falls.

Besides Senator Davis, there was one other panel member that as we went along I realized had the potential to be a good governor – former Democratic Pocatello State Representative James Ruchti, who served in the House from 2006 through 2010. Continue Reading »

BARRETT RAINEY   Second Thoughts

Sorry to see Bachman go? No. I’m just sorry about 40 more of the same ignorant ilk aren’t going with her.

That feeling is likely shared by a lot of others who follow the machinations of our national political system. Others who remember “statesmen” like Dole, Baker, Humphries, Dirksen, Roberts, Byrd, Brooke, O’Neill, Nunn, Hatfield, Church, Jackson, Mansfield, Jackson, Kennedy (2), Fulbright, McClure and many more. Talented people who made the system work. Sudents of government as well as politics. Whatever party affiliations – whatever their places on the political spectrum left to right – they were good at what they did. They loved what they did. They were – above all – effective in what they did.

Take the words “good,” “loved” and “effective.” Do those adjectives work for Bachman? Gingrigh? Gohmert? King? Issa? Ryan? Brown (2)? Paul (2)? Rubio? Cruz? Flake? Imhoff? Several dozen more?

Those people – and far too many others – came to the national spotlight unwilling to serve their expected apprenticeship – to learn the fine art of the deal – to understand the “big picture” of government and their elected role in it. To grow beyond themselves.

Those named – and many more – suffer from the “Palin Syndrome.” They have all the symptoms – the most deadly of which is the “I-know-what-I-know-and-I-don’t-need-to-know-any-more” fever. Each achieved – as did the principle practitioner of that illness – a modicum of success by running for – and being elected to – public office. And there the learning process stopped. Those who are successful in affairs political will tell you “that’s where the learning begins.”

Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy, Bushes (2), Carter, Ford and many more who got to the Oval Office after lengthy successful political service agreed on one factual statement. Nothing – even years of national political experience – nothing can prepare you for the presidency. The same is true coming into your first months – years – in Congress. It ain’t the city council.

But Palin, Bachman et al got to the front door of their respective elected offices, sat down behind the desk and proceeded to talk and act as though all us other poor, frightened folk had just been waiting for their ascension to save us from the fires of bureaucratic Hell.

Bachman and her wingnut peers fit that description. In addition to the “I-know-all-I-need-to-know” fatal flaw, Bachman and a couple dozen fellow travelers have been serial liars. She’s been dishonest with her backers and many people around her who trusted her and looked up to her. She’s also the subject of two current government investigations into her campaign and business affairs. And ethics. If any. Continue Reading »

MARK TRAHANT   Austerity

The 21st century is a world where data – bits of information about what we do, what we say, and how we spend money – has become as important as the story narrative. It’s hard to make any kind of case with a story alone. You need facts to back up your account. You need details. You need numbers.

Right now, of course, big data is a hot story all by itself. The Guardian newspaper broke the story about how the National Security Agency has developed a powerful tool for collecting and analyzing billions of bits of information. The newspaper cited an NSA fact sheet saying this is a tool that “allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country.”

In this map, countries with scant data are green and countries where lots of electronic spying is occurring, such as Iran, are red.

The collection of private communication is a serious issue, one that in a democracy requires a vigorous debate. But the second I saw this map, I was reminded yet again that Indian Country has a different kind of data problem. There is too little reliable, timely information.

If Indian Country were to show up on the NSA’s data heat map we would be the brightest green zone on the planet.
In an era of austerity this lack of data has serious consequences. Quick: What’s the unemployment rate in Indian Country? Has it gone up or down since the sequester? What’s the actual number for furloughs? How about our spending patterns? I could go on and on.

The honest answer to every one of these questions has to be a “don’t know.” A year ago the Bureau of Indian Affairs reported that it would not release a 2010 Indian Population and Labor Force Report because “of methodology inconsistencies.” Donald E. Laverdure, acting Assistant Secretary — Indian Affairs, wrote July 2, 2012, that the “collected data from those 2010 methods did not adequately meet the standards of quality and reliability that are required of Federal agencies in reporting official statistics.”

In a rare data driven document, the Economic Policy Institute released its picture of American Indian and Alaska Native unemployment finding that the national unemployment rate did jump during the recession from 2007 to the first half of 2010, and increased 7.7 percentage points to 15.2%. That same year EPI reported the “unemployment rate for Alaska Natives jumped 6.3 percentage points to 21.3, the highest regional unemployment rate for American Indians.” Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   The Idaho Column

Katty-corner across 8th Street from the Idaho State Capitol and on the northern edge of Boise’s downtown sits a large parking lot, often used over the years by state employees, sometimes over the years by others, usually professionals or lobbyists who work the area.
A Boise redevelopment agency is looking at the partial block for use as a local transit center, like those in many other cities, where buses and other multi-passenger vehicles may arrive and depart as a hub location. Many cities have similar local transit systems.
The Idaho Statesman reported last week that on April 1 two state representatives, Brent Crane of Nampa (the House assistant majority leader who’s being touted in some circles as a congressional prospect) and John Vander Woude told Mayor David Bieter they opposed the transit center, or at least its location across the street from the Statehouse. What was their objection? Bieter quoted Crane as saying he didn’t want “those people” congregating so close to the Statehouse.
“Those people”?
Bieter said Crane’s reference was to bus riders. Vander Woude waas quoted as explaining, “What do you normally see when you go to a bus terminal?” Vander Woude said. “Does it become a collection point, a shelter, even a homeless place where people will park because there’s a lot of people coming through for panhandling or whatever?” Crane evidently hasn’t clarified his intent. But apparently the “those people” comment apparently is undisputed.
There’s been no firestorm since, and it’s a fair guess that a good many Idaho legislators, whether they’d admit it publicly or not, would agree that they’d as soon “those people”, whoever they are, keep their distance.
This has a certain timeliness.
The many changes in the rehabilitation of the Idaho Statehouse are still quite new, and that adjustment in the legislative environment have had an effect on the way lawmakers and the public interact, a subject that came up last week in a Pocatello panel on Idaho politics, sponsored by Idaho State University and the Idaho State Journal. (Disclosure: I was on the panel.) Some of those environmental changes are good, as Pocatello Representative Elaine Smith suggested, in that they allow more public access to meetings and events, in person, in much better and larger meeting rooms, or on line. Continue Reading »

CHRIS CARLSON   Carlson Chronicles

It is becoming increasingly clear in this day of instant communication and 24/7 news coverage almost everyone is going to have their 15 seconds of fame before television cameras. We all watch with amazement at times at the incredibly stupid things some people say to their embarrassment in front of cameras.

Conversely, one can always tell if a person has had media training because they stay on their message regardless of what the reporter may be asking.

In the interests of keeping any of my readers from embarrassing themselves allow me to offer a few tips on what to use when being interviewed by a reporter:

Rule #1: Never repeat the negative, which also almost always means never repeat the question back to the reporter. The media always asks questions in the negative: “Mr. Nixon, are you a crook?” It was answered by “I am not a crook!” Remember the headline?

In fact, anytime you find yourself defining something by a negative, stop and repeat as a positive. Think how many people define themselves by saying what they are not instead of what they are. At all costs avoid using negatives of any kind.

If a reporter says “Aren’t you misleading the viewers? John Jones says you are.” You don’t say “no, I’m not misleading the viewer.” That’s repeating the negative. Instead, you respond “John Jones is wrong. Here are the facts (or here is the truth).” You come back with a positive statement.

Use of the word “not” in any circumstance should be the big flag to you.

Not is negative, pure and simple.

Rule #2. Stay on your message. If you decide to do an interview, do so with a clear thought of what message you want to deliver regardless of what question the reporter asks. The reporter always has his or her pre-conceived idea of what they want you to say, but it’s your interview and you decide what you want to say.

One of the best examples of staying on message was a CNN interview early one morning with Rick Scott, the multi-millionaire businessman running for governor of Florida in 2012. His message was he was all about creating jobs and he had the know how to do so.

No matter what question the reporter asked he brought it back to his message that he was all about jobs. Every answer was “jobs.” He was relentless.

So what if the reporter got frustrated? Scott got his message across.

Incidentally, he won.

Rule #3: Master the technique of “blocking and bridging.” This is the device that enables you to stay on message. It simply means you quickly dispense with the question you’re being asked, that is you block the thrust of what the reporter is asking and you bridge to what you want to say. Continue Reading »

BARRETT RAINEY   Second Thoughts

Though you’ll find stout defenders of freedom of speech at our house, there’s a word appearing more often these days in our politics – nationally and locally – we’d actively work to abolish from any public political expressions in this country. It’s a despicable word. It’s a word with no place in thoughtful political dialogue. In nearly all cases, it’s a clear demonstration of the ignorance of those that use it. It has no place in any intelligent discussion of America’s politics.
The word is “Hitler.”

Used as a name, the word’s moat terrible meaning has been around our national culture since the 1920′s. Used as a political brickbat – a demeaning, disgusting weapon – the word was roundly resurrected in the early days of the tea party. It showed up in much of the literature – was repeatedly flung to crowds from microphones – and was on many, many placards, banners and signs announcing the arrival in the streets of the loony, far-right fringe of the Republican Party.

The other day, Sen. Grassley – an Iowan whose recent public rants have become more weird than usual – reached into the verbal dung pile to attach the word “Hitler” to American foreign policy. Grassley said this country “has no foreign policy” and the last time that happened was in “Sept. 1939, when Hitler started WWII in Poland.” There is so much wrong with that bogus claim Iowans of all political stripe should be embarrassed.

Here in our little burg-in-the-Oregon-woods, the word popped up recently
in a local column about an 84-year-old woman who sells guns out of the back room of her home. Lots of ‘em. She was referring to the latest nutty far right conspiracy tale that the Dept. Of Homeland Security is buying up all the ammunition as a means of gun control.

“We saw the same thing during Hitler’s regime and I’m old enough to remember it” was the quote. Pure crap. But she made it into the local almost-daily, almost-newspaper with it.

I’ve used this space before to dispel the oft-told lie about Hitler taking guns from Germans in the 1930′s. He made it tougher for Jews to have guns and required them to be registered, yes. But Hitler actually loosened gun laws and encouraged all “pure Germans” to arm themselves – a complete contravention of the Treaty of Versailles which required disarming of the German Republic following WWI.

But the lie persists. I ran across a Georgia gun dealer’s site on the old I-net the other day. Prominent picture of Adolph giving the salute behind and to the right of a picture of President Obama with a Hitler moustache and the warning “This one’s after your guns, too.” Continue Reading »

The Andrus Center, named for the former Governor Cecil Andrus and aimed at providing educational events on public affairs, has opened an intriguing new location – across the street from Boise’s Grove Hotel, on the southern side of downtown, and across another street from a large new supermarket. Its location on Capitol Boulevard will be high-visibility.

Around-Idaho travelers Chris Carlson and I, running around the state on our book tour (Chris’ book are Medimont Reflections and Andrus, mine with Marty Peterson the Idaho 100), had a chance to check out the new digs, just being transferred from a location on the Boise State University campus. There’s a real chance this could become a major venue for some high-profile events in months to come, and conversation seemed to be leaning in that direction.

We were there at a book signing and talking event, introduced by the center’s director, David Adler, and Andrus himself. As elsewhere, we attracted not mobs of people but a substantial number, enough to make for another nice event.

Next stop on the road, tonight, will be at Ketchum, at an event hosted by former state Representative Wendy Jaquet.

After a fine stop at Lewiston, Chris Carlson and I continued on Sunday headed south to Boise.

Sunday afternoon we had a fine flash-neighborhood gathering at White Bird, where Chris had some friends. At a house overlooking the Salmon River (and depending on the flow, sometimes right on top of it), people gathered and talked and … bought books.

Today we’re in Boise; our main book event today will be at the Andrus Center at 301 S Capitol. Tomorrow, on to Ketchum and beyond.