Category: Current Affairs

When discussing conservative politics, you’ll often hear Ronald Reagan’s quote that Republican is an 80/20 label. We most often agree on 80% of issues and disagree on the remaining 20%. The twenty percent is typically the exception you’ll find noted in the survey responses above. What then can a Republican voter expect from their elected representatives? Can they expect at least 80% alignment with party values and policy objectives?

We’ve been in Pocatello for 12 years now. Not much remains consistent. Unlike restaurant or retail operations, the politics here are consistent and consistently toxic. We’re on our 7th Pocatello election, and what remains unchanged is the mean girl politics.

The greatest tragedy in all of this is that the medical freedom our legislature hopes to achieve comes through independent doctors. The kind of doctors who don’t dance in the streets for Black Lives Matter while you’re locked in your home during a pandemic. The kind to support crisis pregnancy centers. The kind to reject experimental gender care, and the kind to correct the Republican Party platform when it criminalizes a menstrual cycle.

It has long been understood that if you need to make legislation disappear, Senator Jim Guthrie’s desk is the place to do it.  He’ll duct tape it, set its feet in concrete, and send it to Jimmy Hoffa’s graveyard for a very reasonable campaign contribution.

Idaho hasn’t yet felt the bleeding in its primary care infrastructure or budget. Primary care is currently working extra hours at their own cost and holding out hope that the legislature that broke Medicaid can fix it before we bleed out. Since reimbursement is delayed by months and the program only ended on January 01, the first impacts will be felt when the legislature adjourns in March or April, when doctors begin reducing after-hours services or eliminating Medicaid contracts altogether. In the meantime, legislative pushback stems from budget hesitancy over the cost of the tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens..” – Ecclesiastes 3:1 here is a famous 60s song by the Byrds called “Turn, Turn, Turn.” I don’t know if I remember this song from the oldies theme of my sister’s high school marching band, or by the late-night TIME…

Many pundits wishing to create generational envy and strife point to lifestyle creep as the reason for our housing divide. The boomers claim that Generation Z spends too much money on luxuries, while Generation Z counters that the boomers have inflated costs and left a world out of reach. In part, they are both correct.

The danger in the mainstream press affirming these messages lies not just in the socially isolated schoolroom shooter, but in your grandparents’ home.  Imagine living sixty-five years and gleaning your understanding of the world from trusted sources, and then, in 2012, the trusted sources begin to adopt inciting rhetoric, and you are left believing that this is an accurate worldview. 

‘m alive!  I want to express sincere gratitude to those who cared enough to read my rantings and then proclaim their concern for me, having not seen my posts and articles for some time.  From friends to state GOP events to my wife’s patient parents, many have expressed their concern about my absence from the…

Most economists acknowledge that government regulation is often designed to squeeze out competition to benefit those promoting it. It typically brings onerous requirements that must be implemented at a high cost to those who can least afford them. In this way, proponents of regulation intend to eliminate their competition outside of market forces. Unfortunately, healthcare is a prime sector for crony regulation.

Though some results remain outstanding, Donald Trump will become the first President in over a hundred years to win non-consecutive terms in the American Presidency. He will also become the first Republican President to win the Electoral College and the Popular vote since George H.W. Bush in 1988. All told Donald Trump will have won 312 electoral college votes, the most of any President since Barrack Obama’s historic victory in 2008. 

A common refrain when referring to a determined but immoral opposition is “by hook or by crook.”  We understand this to be synonymous with “by any means necessary.”  It leaves open the possibility that the subject will try to accomplish their goals by legitimate means before resorting to below-board or unsavory means.  I posit to you that Democrats aren’t versed in the way of the hook and only operate by the crook.

When one holds a grievance and levies a complaint, they are compelled to take action or risk being nothing more than a whiner. If you are familiar with my columns, you will know that a frequent complaint I’ve registered is the closed nature of the Bannock County Republican Party, but more so, the closed nature of the GOP as a whole. By closed, I am referring to a party that disempowers its most active adherents, the grassroots.

You may recognize the weekly grievances of the ousted political class, broadcast in the pages and airwaves of the local and corporate press. They sound something like this… “dictator this.. fascist that.. homophobe.. white supremacist.. yada yada.”  Believe it or not, I count this a victory.  When your opposition fails in its message, it sinks into impugning your character.  This suggests that our message is winning and resonates with others. Our like-minded tribe has doubled in size, and the conservatives of Bannock County are finding a voice opposing the previously unchallenged voices of the political class.

Of course, the opposite of kindness is hatefulness, and just as we have campaigns to promote kindness, we have campaigns against hate. They are two sides of the same coin and are designed to set the boundaries of acceptable thought.  Indeed, an entire category of crimes has been invented to criminalize hate. Why does this matter? If opposition to the solutions of your political opponent can rise to the level of the criminal, the force of the state is a powerful deterrent to those remaining dissenters who refuse to concede to kindness. It is already deemed unkind not to satiate the delusions of gender dysphoria. It is not inconceivable to imagine a world where the promotion of the traditional family and protection of children from adult sexuality is deemed hateful and rises to the level of a hate crime.

Last week, I received a publication in the mail called the Idaho Bulletin. It consists of a hodge podge of anti-grassroots conservatism claiming to be the true voice of conservatism. Emblazoned on the back is a menacing political cartoon of a sinister female elephant lording over a half dozen minuscule male elephants, and it is clearly designed to attack Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon. In typical Ye Olde Guard misogynist fashion, the woman is nefarious, and the lowly men are at the mercy of Queen Pacyderm.

A recent study by the Institute For Legislative Analysis, an offshoot of the American Conservative Union, suggests that though a Republican Super Majority technically holds Idaho’s legislature, it is actually controlled in the Senate by Democrat-leaning legislators and maintains a much smaller majority in the House than Party affiliation suggests. When paired with Idaho’s significant registration crossover, whereby unaffiliated and Democrat voters cross the political aisle to have an undue influence in Republican Party politics, the ability of the Idaho Republican Party to adequately represent shared conservative beliefs is significantly hampered

Because of the stark contrast in belief systems between conservatives and progressives, the Idaho Republican Party has made every effort to require some commonality in beliefs so that Republican voters can be assured that the Republican label will only be used to promote mutually agreed upon conservative policy. This is why, in 2011, the Idaho legislature enacted legislation that leaves the option of closed or open primaries to the voting party. The Idaho Democrat Party, desperate for votes, elected to open their primary. The Republican Party, wishing to narrow their numbers down to mutual belief, closed their primary.