The minutes of the September 4, 2012, Coeur d’Alene City Council meeting reflect that Councilman Mike Kennedy excoriated Councilman Dan Gookin for asking how the City’s staff arrived at some information included in the City’s proposed annual appropriation.

The minutes state, “Councilman Kennedy believes it is the role of a Councilmember to act as a board member of a Corporation and trust staff and provide them with the appropriate tools to do their jobs and allow them flexibility to manage their departments.”

Regrettably but unsurprisingly, Kennedy did not say a Councilman’s roles also include properly and diligently ensuring that City’s department heads are doing their jobs and protecting the public treasury. (more…)

From a December 11, 2012, Idaho Statesman (Associated Press) article headlined Records show Blackfoot school board tried to hide payout, we learn that the Blackfoot, Idaho, school board tried to hide two payments of about $105,428 each to buy out the contract of one of its teachers.  Not only did school board members conspire to violate Idaho’s public records law by burying the nondisclosure agreement in the teacher’s personnel jacket so it would be exempt from disclosure as a “personnel matter,” but the board met twice in illegal executive sessions to discuss how to complete their deception.

Fortunately, the 6th District Court has a judge, David Nye, who follows Idaho law.   He correctly ruled that it was public money being spent for the buyout, so the public was entitled to know about it.

No, none of the Blackfoot school board members will be criminally prosecuted.  Thanks to Idaho’s “Hold no public officials accountable” Legislature and Attorney General’s Office, all the school board has to do is find a way to “cure” the illegal actions they took.

They just have to remember to be more clever next time they want to violate the law.  It’s the Idaho way.

I was reading in today’s local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press, that several of our “honorable” district court judges had sentenced some drug users to determinate penitentiary time for possession of controlled substances.   Two years in the pen seems to be the favored sentences for the local judges who want to appear to be tough on crime.

In contrast, our crackerjack US Department of Justice just couldn’t seem to find one HSBC bank official or collection of bank officials who had any criminal intent in making HSBC the bank of choice for international drug cartels and money launderers. Imagine that!

Our local prosecuting attorney goes after the low-hanging fruit and our local judges  agreeably go along and jail users for years while our US Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer (see Breuer’s press conference comments), and US Attorney Loretta Lynch just couldn’t find any criminal intent in any HSBC official’s actions.

For once, I agree with the New York Times.

As a former Treasury Department money laundering investigator Jimmy Gurule said about the HSBC scheme, “We’re not talking about mere negligence. We’re talking about a criminal scheme that was adopted as a policy of HSBC that involved looking the other way in regard to suspicious transactions involving money laundering.”

Drug users in Idaho go to prison.  Crooked bankers who financially enable and empower the drug cartels and terrorist-sponsoring countries pay fines and dine with elected officials in Washington.

Sounds about right.

“Affordable housing.”

It sounds noble and charitable, and sometimes it can be.

But as the cities of Los Angeles and Glendale have learned, other times it can be a racket, a criminal enterprise run by people willing to pay off politicians and deliver substandard products in order to personally enrich themselves and their cronies.  (more…)

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Congratulations to Representative Kathy Sims.

For the upcoming Idaho Legislature term, she has been selected to be the Vice-Chair of the House Local Government Committee and to be on the House Judiciary, Rules & Administration Committee.  She will remain a committee member on the House State Affairs Committee.

Tuesday morning’s Washington Times online has an article headlined Ex-presidents may get Secret Service for life.

The article reports that Congress is considering amending or repealing the 1994 law which limited protection to ten years after leaving office.

What do you think?  Should former presidents and their spouses get lifetime Secret Service protection?  If so, why, and if not, why not?

According to the Coeur d’Alene Press skewspaper article this morning, about 25 students from Coeur d’Alene High School were standing on a street corner, waving signs, and protesting because, “… their AP Government class was requiring them to participate in eight hours of a government-related activity.”

One of the students was quoted saying, ” This is more fun than going to a school board meeting.”

What does standing on a street corner waving signs teach students about government?