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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

One of the slogans that resonated most strongly throughout the 2006 campaign season in Idaho was Jerry Brady's "Idaho is Not for Sale." Two years after his defeat, someone observing recent political news from the state has to wonder if a chunk or two of it hasn't been sold.

First there's the news, broken by New West's Jill Kuraitis, that Idaho was the intended recipient of 6,700 tons of highly contaminated--and potentially highly dangerous--Kuwaiti sand. First, let's just consider the insanity of actually shipping 6,700 tons of contaminated anything the thousands of miles from it's current home in Kuwait to Owyhee County, Idaho. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

We've gone beyond the silly season that occurs every four years in American politics and fallen headlong into out and out surreality, with the traditional media, once again, missing the boat entirely. While they're obsessing about ministers and flag pins, all hell is about to break loose, again, in that inconvenience of a war we seem to be hopelessly mired in.

Let's just start out with a bit of a reality check. Four more Americans died near Baghdad's Green Zone yesterday. We've lost at least 44 American troops this month, the deadliest since last September. There has been a step-up in attacks again on the Green Zone, suggesting that Americans are the target again in Iraq's civil war. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Nothing says Earth Day like a newspaper packed with extra circulars exhorting you to honor the day by going out and buying stuff. Here's the ultimate Earth Day sale. The BLM is pushing forward with its oil shale and tar sands development plan for more than two million acres of wild public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, even though there is no commercially viable development technology and that technology could be decades away.

Oh, and then there's the small issue of the land, the air, and the water. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

The latest news from Idaho is at least intriguing:

"Last week, Caldwell High School held its mock presidential nominating conventions, organized by government teacher Jeanette Jackson every four years since 1996. Students pick their party affiliations and, until this year, they reflected Canyon County's GOP loyalty. The last time the presidential race was wide open - Bush-Gore, in 2000 - Republicans outnumbered Democrats about 400 to 200."

It was hard to ignore 14,000 people at a rally for a Democratic Presidential candidate, and even harder to dismiss a record-breaking Democratic caucus. Can Idaho's high school students be the catalyst for a wave of new Democrats crashing across the state? [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

It's not that the Idaho Statesman didn't do a public service by investigating the private life of Sen. Larry Craig, sending the paper's key political columnist on a wild goose chase for several months last year, through Washington D.C.'s gay bars, armed with a mug shot of the Senator.

And it had to have been a bitter blow to that columnist, Dan Popkey, to have his months of solid work spiked by his editors and then to be scooped by a D.C. insider paper when the Senator, of all things, decided to secretly plead guilty after getting caught in a sex sting in a men's room in a Minneapolis airport. So, while I do respect Dan Popkey for the yeoman's work he did in that investigation, and I'm glad that his work did finally see the light of day, I'm just a little bit relieved for all of us that the Statesman was just a runner up this year for that vaunted prize. If for nothing else than for the 144 year-old Statesman itself. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

In 1759, Ben Franklin may or may not have written "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." There's some dispute over whether he penned those lines or borrowed them for a publication. But there's no disputing that this concept of individual liberty balanced with collective security was at the very foundation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

It's a balancing act that's been more than put to the test in post-9/11 America, and the balance has most definitely shifted away from personal liberty. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

There's a deadline looming for us, one that seems tedious and bureaucratic--something for our legislatures and governors to be dealing with and not bothering us. But a few governors, and a few legislatures, want us to start thinking about it. They're right.

On March 31, all states are supposed to tell the government whether they are going to comply with Real ID, an unfunded mandate program that requires states to replace drivers licenses with what are essentially a national identification card. That card would have a chip including, at a minimum, name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, address, and a "common machine-readable technology" that Homeland Security will decide on. That's at a minimum. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

A few weeks ago I wrote on the always hot-button issue of water politics in the West, and a framework developed by Western Progress for divvying up the precious resource. They need to go back to the drawing board and figure in a new problem in the whole configuration -- how to make that water safe.

Editor's note: Joan McCarter's weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics' "Diary of a Mad Voter" feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post's Politics WestFor more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Following on the heels of Boise's record breaking Democratic caucus, Saturday's Frank Church Banquet was a sold-out success, and so sold-out that an overflow room had to be set up to meet the demand. Chatting with a young couple after the event, it was encouraging to hear that the excitement of the massive Obama rally (well, massive by Idaho standards) on February 3rd, then the crush of the caucus on February 5th, nudged them to actually declare themselves Democrats and pony up $75 for the ticket. These twenty-somethings might also have been curious to see what blogger Markos Moulitsas could have to say about Idaho.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Water in the West has become like the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody does much about it. The political hot potato has become no less cool, though definitely less violent, since farmers and ranchers squared off over a century ago.

Into the breach step the folks at Western Progress with a new agenda for water in the Mountain West. They’ve issued a report [pdf] authored by water law experts Denise Fort and Lawrence MacDonnell and informed by a bevy of water and policy experts. [more]