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John F. Kennedy, Montana’s Mike Mansfield and what real political leadership looked like
Nov. 22 was the 60th anniversary of the assassination of the 35th American president, John F. Kennedy, a “cruel and shocking act of violence,” as the Warren Commission called it, “directed against a man, a family, a nation, and against all mankind.” Montana Sen. Mike Mansfield, a close friend of the murdered president – they […]
The Last Honest Man: Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s legacy and the American intelligence community
On the Sunday before Idaho’s four-term United States Sen. Frank Church lost re-election more than 40 years ago – the date was Nov. 2, 1980 – it was clear that Church, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, early opponent of the Vietnam War, champion of the Wilderness Act and investigator of the vast […]
After Patriot Front arrests in North Idaho, meet the new ‘Conflict Entrepreneurs’
“It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession and in the U-Haul with them, along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,” said Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White. It’s not every day you see a […]
“The more things change …” U.S. Senate’s debate on the filibuster and civil rights is nothing new
When in the late spring of 1964 the United States Senate defeated the longest filibuster in Senate history and passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, the Senate’s majority leader Mike Mansfield called the matter of insuring fundamental rights to all Americans – the right to fair treatment in accommodations and employment, for example – “the most divisive issue in […]
Same song, 2nd verse: In a way, Idaho’s political history is repeating, but this time it’s worse.
Forty-eight years ago this week, Republican President Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act, a landmark piece of legislation that, as Nixon said, gave our government tools to protect “the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.” This most unlikely environmental president, a guy who walked the beach in […]
Remembering a true Idaho broadcast news pioneer who ‘practiced journalism in all the best ways’
For a time in the 1970s and early 1980s, Idahoans who cared about government and politics, and who would lead the state after the next election, had a standing weekly date. They tuned in at 6:30 p.m. Fridays to KTVB to listen as Sal Celeski and a panel of reporters on his weekly “Viewpoint” program […]
Mike Mansfield, the Saturday Night Massacre and rubber chicken in Idaho
When the United States Senate recently failed to end a Republican filibuster and consider creation of an independent commission to investigate the details of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, it was just the latest example of how profound partisanship frequently paralyzes even the most reasonable – and broadly supported – […]
Idaho’s resistance to fund full-day kindergarten goes back decades
Before his retirement 10 years ago, Greg Culet served for more than 30 years as a magistrate and district court judge in Idaho’s 3rd Judicial District, a sprawling six-county swath of southwestern Idaho. From family law cases to felonies, Culet observed thousands of defendants from behind the bench. Over time he observed one immutable reality. […]