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Will Defend Death penalty charges

Via the Idaho Statesman, the Miami Herald is reporting that Boise attorneys David Nevin and Scott McKay will defend death-penalty charges against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the terrorist who allegedly planned the attacks of September 11, 2001.

A well-known Navy lawyer, Capt. Scott Prince, will lead the defense team, which will also include another military attorney from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Prince is known for defining waterboarding as torture. Mohammed was waterboarded at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. [more]

Diary Of A Mad Voter: Nathaniel Hoffman

The use of Internet technology by candidates should be an old story by now.

But in Idaho it runs the gamut from former state Rep. Henry Kulczyk’s apparent afterthought to the full Web 2.0 treatment at saundramcdavid.com.

The majority of Idaho candidates do not even have Web sites, let alone MySpace or Facebook profiles. And they are not getting covered in the local papers. With primary elections just over a month away, it is a challenge to find out anything online about the majority of the contenders.

So this Mad Voter is looking under rocks. We call it PaleoMedia.org. [more]

Federal Court Suit Brought by Republican Party

The Idaho Republican party is sounding the alarm bell again with a lawsuit to close Idaho election primaries.

The suit was filed in federal court Friday against Republican Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. It asks for an injunction against Ysursa and the state, and to compel the implementation of a closed primary system.

The idealogical clash rings loud between Democrats and Republicans, but also between two wings of the Idaho Republican party. Democrats generally favor open primaries; the Republican caucus has been split. But with the lawsuit, the group ringing the bell for closed primaries has drowned out the other. [more]

Idaho Politics: U.S. Congress

Candidate for the Democratic nomination for Idaho's 1st Congressional District Larry Grant today dropped out of the race and threw his support to his opponent Walt Minnick.

Former Gov. Cecil Andrus kicked off the dowtown Boise press conference by calling Grant "a great American, a great Democrat, a friend of mine."

Saying "there isn't ten cents of difference" between his views and Minnick's, Grant pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Minnick to help beat Republican Congressman Bill Sali.

Walt Minnick said, “What Larry is doing is truly extraordinary. He’s put his desire to serve in federal office on hold temporarily to do something greater – to put the Democratic party and the people of Idaho first, to remove Bill Sali from office.”
[more]

Idaho politics

Newsrooms aren’t usually party palaces, but cake and champagne graced the desks today at the Idaho Statesman in Boise.

For the first time in its 141-year history, the Statesman was named a 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist. In the category of Breaking News Reporting, their coverage of the Larry Craig scandal that began with his arrest and guilty plea in an airport restroom last August landed them the honor.

Longtime Statesman reporter and columnist Dan Popkey was the lead investigator and writer for the breaking coverage, with assistance from Rocky Barker, Bill Roberts, Erika Bolstad and Greg Hahn. In follow-up stories, Katy Moeller, Heath Druzin, Cynthia Sewell and photographer Joe Jaszewski also reported. [more]

Analysis, Weekend Wrap up

In the Democratic Party's neck-and-neck nomination battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, no state is free from the candidates' courtship.

This weekend Clinton and Obama brought their political celebrity to Montana, a state with a measly 17 delegates at play in its June 3 primary, the country's last.

As Obama said Saturday night, "Every state counts." Whether or not that's actually true of Montana in this race to 2,024 delegates is moot: It was an historic two-day stop by the leaders of a resurgent Democratic Party, one of whom may be the next president of the United States, in a state and in a region in the midst of its own Democratic resurgence.

Both candidates took the opportunity Saturday night in Butte to get into some specific Western topics and throughout the weekend, a few were -- just as many in the region have hoped -- thrust into the national spotlight as defining issues for Westerners: Energy, specifically "clean"coal; Education, especially the No Child Left Behind Act; The environment, including global warming; Indian issues, including education and health; Civil liberties; and labor and the economy.

Beyond that, it was just plain fun to have the circus in town. [more]

Idaho Politics: Column

When one Idaho Democrat heard the news yesterday that former state representative Jim Hansen had accepted the job as Executive Director of the state party, “the clouds parted and the sunshine shone down,” said candidate for Congress Debbie Holmes.

“We could not have hired a better person” was the quote of the day among those gathered at party headquarters for a press conference.
[more]

Idaho Politics: Column

Idaho Democrats are celebrating today with the announcement that one of the best Idaho organizers in the state’s history will be taking over as Executive Director of their party. Jim Hansen, known as a powerhouse politico for several decades in Idaho politics, has signed onto the job.

Hansen, for the last more-than-a-decade the Exec. Of United Vision for Idaho, a progressive good-government group, will be introduced publicly this morning at a press conference. New West will bring you an update in a few hours.

Idaho Legislature Still Cooped Up: Column

Legislators are squawking for the 2008 Idaho Legislative session to be over, but going-home bills – the kind they can put in their re-election campaign brochures – are scarce as hen’s teeth.

Today, there is last-minute clucking over mental health funding – hat tip to the Republican Senate for seeing the light about preventive programs being cheaper and better than throwing people into steel coops - but the House didn’t even try to override the governor’s veto. There may be a report on negotiations later today, if too many feathers don’t fly. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Nathaniel Hoffman

The Idaho Legislature tries its hardest to co-opt the press, from dress codes to Pledge of Allegiance regulations.

I would say that standing in our monkey suits surrounded by the very body we cover and reciting a loyalty oath that has been gerrymandered into a Christian prayer is no way to start the day in a fair and balanced manner.

Editor's note: Nathaniel Hoffman'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 West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the '08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here. [more]

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