2022 - A Democratic Governor? (Boise, Idaho Falls: credit, exemptions, garden)

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by mistyriver

Janice McGeachin: Barking Moonbat

Only when the moon is full.

The rest of the time, she's just a surly bartender in the Celt. Nothing so specially crazy as her barking moonbat phase.

[teddyearp]

Originally Posted by eqttrdr

Not a fan of the current Lt Gov?

Just a quick comment from afar. If I ever make another visit, I would love to explore more of the Challis-Stanley area. I have visited Elk City once though.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by teddyearp

Just a quick comment from afar. If I ever make another visit, I would love to explore more of the Challis-Stanley area. I have visited Elk City once though.

Make it a priority and bring a coat. Gear always helps. Take as much as you think you'll need. Anything can always be left in the car.

It's spectacular country and the Frank Church Wilderness is enormous; the biggest un-touched wilderness in the lower 48.
But expect every night to be cold enough to want a warm coat or sweater. You might never need it, but you'll never know when it will turn cold up there.

Don't expect you can drive into it all, either. The Frank was deliberately to remain untouched wilderness when it was set aside. There are lots of roads around it, but next to none that go in it. Special permits are needed to use them.

However, a person can fly in. There's a grandfathered ranch with a lodge and an airstrip inside the boundaries.
Visitors can take a private airplane there and from there, can go hiking, horseback riding (I think), fish, or boat.

You can learn details in Challis or Stanley, I'm sure. I've never been there, but know folks who have and really enjoyed themselves.

I once hiked a lot of that country before it became protected. Imagine a place that is as wild and rough as your imagination can stretch with no people in sight, and that's exactly what it is. And more than that.

I always took my biggest pack loaded with everything I thought I needed, and I never had enough of some stuff, and never needed other stuff.
But what was needed or not was never the same.
The single thing I never had enough of was camera film. The single thing I used every time was my binoculars.
The only thing I regretted leaving behind was my compass.

I never went alone.

[eqttrdr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt5wBgi0yv0

[Heron31]

Originally Posted by eqttrdr

Idaho turning Blue? Shocking voter data?

That was interesting, and I appreciate the youtube author presenting factual data, HOWEVER, the video title is sensationalistic, not "shocking," and of course Idaho is still overwhelmingly a red state. The video mainly compares voting percentages between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. And it points out that the five northernmost counties increased their already overwhelming percentage for Republican presidential candidates. Ada county, which includes Boise, trended the other way, as one might expect, but was still a majority Trump county. Apparently that greater population tilted the whole state's percentage to change from (roughly) 70% red, 30% blue in 2016 to 69% red, 31% blue in 2020. I wouldn't think that would instill much fear to the state's Republican majority!

[banjomike]

For most of my life, Idaho preferred to elect a Governor from one party and the Legislature from the other.

Believe it or not, the Democrats did have solid majorities in the State House and Senate when a Republican Governor was elected, especially on his second term in office.

But back then, timber and mining were still biggest money in NID, and Morrison-Knutson in Boise was still the nation's largest construction company. And Idaho was 1/3 the population it is now.

Parties don't count for much when everyone knows everyone else. And when everyone shares the basic fundamental views of life. Back then, a Republican could be proudly liberal without fear of being eaten alive by his fellow party members. And a Democrat could easily be more conservative than his Republican opponent.

The voters always voted the person over the party for decades here.
If a primary race become too crowded in one party, some candidates would switch parties to run for the job. One of the local sheriffs here in S.E.I. did that several times, running in different counties over the years.

Those days won't ever be coming back, I'm sure. Idaho has too many people now and it's much more diverse now.
Really a lot of that familiarity we all shared came from the slow pace of life here.

Driving our roads was much slower, and communication was slower. Work went at a slower pace.
Most of the businesses closed in the early evening, so everyone caught short on something simply had to wait until the next day to go get it.
The pace of life allowed us to talk to each other more and more often. Everyone was more patient habitually because nothing happened very quickly.

It wasn't all peaches and cream though.
Knowing each other never means everyone likes each other. When quarrels broke out they were either quickly settled or could become vicious. There was less middle ground.
The slowness could be damaging, too, when something drastic happened quickly. A rural house fire, for example, usually meant the house would be gone long before the fire truck came. Sometimes the whole farmstead would be alight.

And there were far more people living on farms back then than in the cities. There was the family, the grandparents, a stray uncle or aunt, an orphan, and a half-dozen farm hands on a typical farm. They were rural employment centers.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Originally Posted by teddyearp

Just a quick comment from afar. If I ever make another visit, I would love to explore more of the Challis-Stanley area. I have visited Elk City once though.

Hey Teddy, nice to see you!

[teddyearp]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Make it a priority and bring a coat. Gear always helps. Take as much as you think you'll need. Anything can always be left in the car.

It's spectacular country and the Frank Church Wilderness is enormous; the biggest un-touched wilderness in the lower 48.<snip>

Made a trip through in June of 2010 or so. You are absolutely correct. Spent a bout a week there scratching the very surface. Not so my much the Frank Church, but all around it. Ran into a fair amount of snow way far away from anything that wanted me to go much further, you know. If I was a younger man, I would want to do the Magruder.

[banjomike]

Thanks, teddy.
And thanks for emphasizing how much there is to see outside of the wilderness area. All of it is accessible by vehicles too.

The Frank is one of very few reserves where vehicles are forbidden, so I thought that needed to be mentioned.

[Syringaloid]

Originally Posted by mistyriver

Janice McGeachin: Barking Moonbat

Exactly lol. Her handful of friends in the statehouse are also crazy including Giddings who is an embarrassment and is an insult to the Air Force.

Boise is looking forward to them all leaving this weeks session (which is supposedly illegal) because they cast such a gloomy cloud over the Statehouse.

McGeachin and Giddings are nasty and so hateful. Little is staying out of the hateful politics and hopefully he does as the election nears. I doubt McGeachin will win, I just don't see the LDS vote going to her. Her groupies seem to be Pentecostal California transplants (most in North Idaho) with issues who in turn have no idea what Idaho is about or what the 'Idaho way' means.

Little will most likely win again unless the Dems can bring someone strong to the ballot.