Posts on Idaho

When it was first revealed that Hallmark was going to start selling cards for same-sex weddings, the Right predictably threw a fit and quickly swung into action with an equally predicable boycott.

Now, a family that owns seven Hallmark stores in Idaho has announced that their stores will not carry the new cards and the Idaho Values Alliance is taking the credit:

Great news on the culture front! The owners of the seven local Hallmark stores, which all go by the name “Jordan’s Hallmark,” will not stock the corporation’s newly developed homosexual-marriage greeting cards.

The owners live here in the valley, and in a phone conversation this morning with me, they made it clear that they would not stock the card in any case because of their personal values, which are shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition.

They were blindsided by Hallmark on this rollout, and had no idea the cards were coming until they read about in the newspapers.

Realize that if gay activists get their way, and introduce "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" protections into Idaho law, these owners could be sued for discrimination for their conscience-driven decision not to sell pro-gay greeting cards.

The best thing IVA supporters can do at this point is to make sure we buy our next special occasion card at a Jordan's Hallmark. They've felt the pinch of the slowdown in the economy like everyone else, and are also up against some big box stores which also carry Hallmark cards.

Literally: " A Senate candidate has legally changed his name to Pro-Life and will appear on the ballot that way this year, state election officials say. As Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, the organic strawberry farmer from Letha, 30 miles northwest of Boise, was denied the use of his middle name when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 because the state's policy bars the use of slogans on the ballot. Now, though, officials in the Idaho secretary of state's office say they have no choice because Pro-Life is his full and only name. He says he will run for the highest state office on the ballot every two years for the rest of his life, advocating murder charges for doctors who perform abortions and for women who obtain the procedure."

Idaho Values Alliance dir. Bryan Fischer on why his Christian compassion says to oppose an effort to reduce greenhouse gases to pre-1990 levels: "They would be impossible to attain unless we went back to virtually a Stone Age culture."

Echoing the sentiments of religious-right activists who last month decried a Hindu guest chaplain giving the opening prayer in the Senate, Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho) warned that “the protective hand of God” could be lifted. Sali also cited the threat of his Muslim colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), but unlike comments last December by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) linking Ellison to immigration and 9/11, Sali warned that Ellison’s presence, like the Hindu prayer, would displease both America’s founders and God.

"We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes -- and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers," asserts Sali.

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture. He also says the only way the United States has been allowed to exist in a world that is so hostile to Christian principles is through "the protective hand of God."

"You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike," says the Idaho Republican.

According to Congressman Sali, the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. He states when a Hindu prayer is offered, "that's a different god" and that it "creates problems for the longevity of this country."

Sali, with the backing of the Club for Growth and a following of social conservatives, won a divisive Republican primary in his GOP district last year, despite warnings from fellow Republicans that Sali was “an absolute idiot.”

Group cited in “bitter GOP infighting,” putting at risk seats once considered safe in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, and Rhode Island.

The New York Times reports that moderate Republicans are concerned about the GOP’s rightward lurch and worried that it is not only polarizing the party but harming their chances of winning re-election.

Leading moderates say Republicans concentrated on social wedge issues like same-sex marriage while pressing national security almost to the exclusion of popular wage and health policies that could have helped endangered Republicans in the Northeast and the Midwest.

Of course, those pushing the GOP ever rightward are not particularly concerned

Conservatives say the overall party message was developed to draw the most loyal voters to the polls by emphasizing bedrock principles. The leader of one group that backed conservative candidates in Republican primaries, angering the moderate wing, said some moderates were in trouble simply because they strayed too far, alienating Republicans without attracting Democrats.

“We have people who are certainly well left of the center of the Republican conference on all issues, including economic and growth issues,” said the leader, Pat Toomey, a former congressman from Pennsylvania who heads the Club for Growth. “I’m not hoping they lose. But if they do, I think we will be able to recapture those seats with pro-growth candidates who distance themselves from Democrats.”

Toomey’s confidence that the Club for Growth will be able to rebuild the Republican Party in its own image is undermined a bit by this article in USA Today

When members of the conservative Club for Growth opened their checkbooks to back candidates in Republican primaries for open House seats in Colorado and Idaho, it seemed a pretty good bet that their choices would cruise into Congress if they won the preliminary rounds.

…

Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the Club for Growth's choices in Colorado and Idaho are looking less like surefire investments. The group's 36,000 members and political action committee have spent about $700,000 on the Idaho race and about $310,000 in the Colorado district.

In Colorado, Republican candidate Doug Lamborn, a 12-year veteran of the state Senate, has been hurt by lingering divisions from a bitter six-way primary in August. Hefley, who has represented the district 20 years, called Lamborn's campaign "sleazy and dishonest" and has refused to endorse him.

…

In Idaho, it's been five months since Republican Bill Sali won a divisive six-candidate primary, but time has not healed rifts within the party, some of them dating to Sali's 16-year tenure in the Legislature. The Idaho Statesman endorsed Democrat Larry Grant, saying Sali spent his legislative career "fixated on hot-button issues such as abortion, alienating fellow Republicans."

After Sali discussed a supposed link between abortions and breast cancer early this year, Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, a Republican, called him "an absolute idiot" who "doesn't have an ounce of empathy." Former GOP speaker Mike Simpson, now in the U.S. House, once threatened to throw Sali from a second-floor window.

This rightward push is clearly having an impact and turning off moderates – including many who are now turning away from the GOP even in places like Kansas. But CFG is pushing ahead, spending millions of dollars in support of its approved far-right candidates.

If Club for Growth gets its way, the moderate Republicans will soon find themselves all but extinct and replaced by a raft of “pro-growth candidates who distance themselves from Democrats” primarily by being “absolute idiots” who run “sleazy and dishonest” campaigns.   

So-called “family policy councils.” More here.

FRC cites “desperate need”; Idaho, Wisconsin and Colorado groups cite NJ decision; South Dakota group mobilizes churches.

“Takings Project” measures in California and elsewhere, largely funded by developer Howard Rich, could dramatically undermine zoning and environmental regulations, not just seizures.