Idaho’s supplemental levy bill has hit an all-time record this year. Property taxpayers will shell out $188.8 million in voter-approved supplemental levies in 2016-17 — up from $186.6 million in 2015-16. The previous high-water mark was $188.1 million in 2013-14, as Idaho schools were digging out from the after effects of the Great Recession. But […]

Shows more confidence in Trump than in Hillary.  U.S. stocks rose to fresh highs Thursday, extending gains after their best day since the presidential election.  Investors have been buying stocks and selling bonds, betting that the Trump administration will usher in tax cuts, deregulation and fiscal stimulus, which they believe will support growth and inflation in the world’s

One of the oldest ideas conceived by conservative Eastern Washington legislators to tweak their more liberal counterparts is getting some extra attention this week. Spokane Valley Reps. Matt Shea and Bob McCaslin, along with fellow Republican Rep. David Taylor of Moxee, have proposed splitting Washington in two and renaming the eastern half Liberty. Liberty, U.S.A.

Idaho’s gross domestic product increased an estimated 2.8 percent in the second quarter of 2016, according to a Wednesday release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Analysts at the Idaho Department of Labor paid closer attention to the report than usual because the first quarter report showed the state

I have mixed feelings about this.  First, a generation back, everyone in a president’s cabinet was former military and often WW2 vets.  Second, these are retired military members.  Finally, we’ll have to wait and see if Trump is hawkish in foreign policy or not. He couldn’t be any more so than Hillary would have been.  Donald

I guess being elected President of the USA automatically makes you Time’s person of the year?  When Obama was elected, he was automatically given a Nobel Peace Prize.  Time magazine on Wednesday named Donald Trump its Person of the Year, bestowing what the president-elect called an “honor” even as he derided the idea that he’ll

US made bombs have been used by Saudi Arabia in 23 unlawful airstrikes in Yemen.  Dozens of civilian deaths underscore need for Saudi arms embargo The Saudi Arabia-led coalition killed several dozen civilians in three apparently unlawful airstrikes in September and October 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The coalition’s use of United States-supplied weapons in two

Wikileaks released emails showing links between Turkish President Erdogan’s son in law and ISIS. The emails reveal that Erdogan’s son in law has close ties with the Turkish oil company that bought ISIS oil.  WikiLeaks has released a cache of thousands of personal emails allegedly from the account of senior Turkish government minister Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of the

The NSA and UK intelligence agencies are able to intercept phone calls made aboard aircraft. IN THE TROVE of documents provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is a treasure. It begins with a riddle: “What do the President of Pakistan, a cigar smuggler, an arms dealer, a counterterrorism target, and a combatting proliferation target have in common?

The Ninth Circut Court of Appeals rules that the government does not need a warrant to search your emails if you are emailing someone overseas who is already the target of an investigation. Be careful what you say and to whom you say it, Americans. Big Brother is watching!  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on

Newly released documents from Edward Snowden shows the NSA determined who to bomb in Iraq in just minutes. A top NSA official disclosed in a January 2004 SIDtoday column that U.S. forces were “dropping bombs” based entirely on signals intelligence, the type of intelligence collected by the agency. He then implied that the American officers involved risked

In the lame-duck, Congress is trying to push through a bill that will ban online gambling. Follow the money. Who will want to outlaw online gambling? The live gambling casinos in the USA, of course. It’s not that Congress has developed a sudden morality against gambling.  With the media attention focused largely on the president-elect’s

Trump selects retired General John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is a retired Marine Corps general who clashed with reporters over what information could be released about suspected terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly

Moscow is 5th highest in the state.    Property taxpayers will shell out $188.8 million in voter-approved supplemental levies in 2016-17 — up from $186.6 million in 2015-16. The previous high-water mark was $188.1 million in 2013-14, as Idaho schools were digging out from the aftereffects of the Great Recession. But the rising supplemental levy

Saudi Arabia is supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban are seen as a way to contain Iran.  Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with

President Obama blocks the sale of a German semiconductor company to a Chinese company. Obama was able to stop the sale of all American-owned shares in the company on national security grounds. Can’t the president do just about anything on “national security” grounds?  HONG KONG — President Obama on Friday moved to block a Chinese deal to

The Washington Post responds to a petition to retract its “Fake News” article by standing by the article. After publishing a McCarthyistic “black list” that smears some 200 Web sites as “Russian propagandists,” The Washington Post refuses to apologize — and other mainstream media outlets pile on, writes Norman Solomon. Tell me again: which MSM

Bob Dole received $140,000 from Taiwan and set up the call between Trump and Taiwan’s president. More crony capitalism.  Former Senator Bob Dole, acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s staff, an outreach