Bi-Weekly News Roundup
Top stories from Friday Feb 17 through Monday Feb 20
Perspective: A Tale of Two Cultures
Last September, President Biden gave a speech where he mentioned the battle for ‘the soul of this nation’. Recent events seem to portray that battle and are reflected in the above image. On the one hand you have the performance at the Grammys where Sam Smith dressed as a devilish character with women dancing suggestively around him (bottom). Compare that with the days long worship taking place at Asbury University in Kentucky (top).
Here in Idaho, we are seeing public debates and protests at school board meetings, library meetings, and at public events such as a drag queen story hour in Pocatello. The division we see in worldly events seems to echo drastically different cultural and spiritual perspectives. How can such disparity be reconciled? Where are attempts even being made to reconcile?
Education Chairs Share Thoughts on School Choice and Launch Bills
Rep Julie Yamamoto and Sen Dave Lent chair, respectively, the House and Senate Education Committees. This past week, they both had to tangle with controversial bills addressing education - H24 in the House (known as the Launch Bill) and S1038 in the Senate (the Education Savings Account Bill). H24 passed the full house 36-34 meaning just one legislator’s vote was the difference. Now it moves to Senate Committee. S1038 passed a friendly committee in the Senate but now it faces what will be a very telling floor vote.
The two chairs sat with Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News for a 30 minute podcast. Sen Lent spent time with Arizona legislators whose bills have been the model for S1038. He stressed their comments that school choice is a process, indicating that this may take time to get right. He also mentioned other school choice bills that are still to come. Lent also said that the Launch Bill has some ‘issues’ but did not provide details on what those were.
Rep Yamamoto has stressed that she wants to merge all of these bills into one so that they are not repeating the same discussions and arguments over multiple bills.
Democrats Weigh in on Legislation So Far
Half way through the legislative session, Democrat priorities are:
For H24 - known as the ‘Launch’ bill that provides $8500 to high school graduates
Against S1038 - the Education Savings Account bill as they believe it will divert funds from public schools that are already underfunded and into private schools with no accountability.
For S1039 - more transparent rental fees
Against H123 - eliminates Medicaid expansion repeal
Against ‘Voter Suppression’ - several bills that address tighter controls on voter registrations and absentee voting
Against H139 - library book bans
Against H71 - restrictions on gender-affirming care
Against SJR101 - change to ballot initiative process
Contempt Hearing Tuesday in Bundy/St Luke’s Saga
Two narratives will clash in the courtroom on Tuesday. The first is St Luke’s claiming that former candidate for Governor Ammon Bundy and his colleague Diego Rodriguez interfered with care for Rodriguez’s malnourished grand child (Baby Cyrus) and forced the hospital to go on lockdown. Bundy was subsequently arrested for trespassing and St Luke’s is suing for defamation based on remarks made by Bundy and Rodriguez.
The other narrative is that Bundy is being politically harassed for his attempt to run for Governor and statements he has made about corruption in Idaho politics. Bundy wrote a personal note detailing his perspective in January. Rodriguez wrote a note about two weeks ago offering a form of settlement.
O’Keefe Out At Project Veritas
The activist media company founded by James O’Keefe gained traction doing undercover videos of mostly left wing groups and companies. More recently, a video of a Pfizer scientist revealing a company effort to create viruses was, in O’Keefe’s words, ‘the biggest story they had ever done’. The video at the link above was apparently leaked and shows O’Keefe giving a sort of farewell address to staff and explaining his side of the fall out with the Board and subsequent termination. He alluded to the timing and circumstances being related to the Pfizer story but made no direct accusation that it was why he was let go.
Idaho Gets “B” Grade on Taxes
The study showed that low tax states are generally seeing population growth whereas high tax states are seeing an exodus. Surprising?
Trump Leads DeSantis Among Republicans
This recent Rasmussen poll shows Trump with a 13 point lead over DeSantis in these very early stages of the 2024 election campaign. Trump has declared his candidacy. DeSantis has not declared but has not ruled it out either.