Free Republic

A Boise State University assistant professor used her publicly-funded email account and access to students’ contact information to raise funds for a group that seeks to end capitalism and defund police nationwide. The assistant professor, Les Hutchinson Campos, also offered students tips for protesting without getting caught or injured. She promised additional help to students if they asked. “I’m just an email away. And, if you want to talk on the phone or video chat about what’s going on, please email me. I have an open schedule to talk with you,” Hutchinson Campos wrote in a June 11 email. “You...

One of the largest churches in Boise, Idaho, apologized for participating in "white supremacy" and announced it is removing the likeness of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a stained-glass window. In a statement, the pastors and staff at the Cathedral of the Rockies began by "acknowledging our own sin with a stained glass window," which also features presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. "The recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor brought long-overdue urgency to our discernment process," the church board wrote in a statement to members. "We are reminded of our privilege. We have waited...

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean is looking to mold the city of Boise from a sleepy capital to a regional hub of art, entertainment, commerce, and, apparently, communism. The details are in a report, “A more equitable city for everyone.” The document, released by the mayor’s office in April, flew under the radar as Boiseans dealt with the Coronavirus-induced chaos. On Friday, the Boise Guardian wrote about the report and deemed the document as “worthy of discussion.” Unfortunately for taxpayers and small business owners and ultimately customers, who would bear the brunt, McLean paints the picture of a Boise that looks...

Thousands of protesters on foot and in vehicles converged Wednesday on Michigan’s capital to rally against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders in the state. “Operation Gridlock,” organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, created a huge bumper-to-bumper traffic jam around the Michigan Capitol Building in Lansing, Fox 2 Detroit reported. Meshawn Maddock, an organizer for the group, said the demonstrators include Republicans, Democrats, and independents. As social media lit up with comments and photographs of the event, one image supposedly showing a flag bearing a swastika flag and the words “Trump” and “Pence” started to go viral. This photograph was taken...

The British socialite accused of being the madam who procured underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein may be co-operating with the FBI, a victim's lawyer has suggested. Ghislaine Maxwell, 57, was the disgraced billionaire's right-hand woman and introduced him to Prince Andrew and arranged dinners with billionaire Google founder Sergey Brin and both President Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. But David Boies, who represents Virginia Roberts Giuffre - one of Epstein's most vocal accusers, has said that she may now have turned on the disgraced billionaire financier.

KUNA (Idaho Statesman) — Four Boise teenagers were arrested over Thursday and Friday on suspicion of felony rape of an 18-year-old woman earlier this month.

Editor’s note: Some readers may find the details in this news story disturbing.The Rev. W. Thomas Faucher, a longtime priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise who pleaded guilty to five felony crimes, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole and will be required to register as a sex offender. Faucher, 73, was accused of amassing thousands of child porn images and videos on his home computer — and pleaded guilty in September to sharing some of those images online. He apologized in the courtroom ahead of his sentencing at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise...

The Rev. W. Thomas Faucher, a longtime priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise who pleaded guilty to five felony crimes, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole and will be required to register as a sex offender. Faucher, 73, was accused of amassing thousands of child porn images and videos on his home computer — and pleaded guilty in September to sharing some of those images online. He apologized in the courtroom ahead of his sentencing at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise on Thursday. “This is the crime that has the potential for both...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Cities can't prosecute people for sleeping on the streets if they have nowhere else to go because it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS — Two Boise men were killed in a crash Wednesday near Las Vegas, media partner CBS 2 News reports. The Nevada Highway Patrol told station KSNV a semi-truck driver admitted he fell asleep before a five-vehicle crash on Highway 93. The crash happened just before 6 a.m., Wednesday at an active construction zone. According to highway patrol, the semi was filled with sand, so the driver could not stop in time, running over the car in front of him. The car was ripped in half, split down the middle. The two men inside were pronounced dead at the...

ended on a West Boise neighborhood on Friday morning. Residents of an Idaho suburb woke up Friday morning to a sight that really got their goat. An invading herd of more than 100 goats rampaged through the neighborhood of West Boise, devouring flowerbeds, grass and leaves as they moved from yard to yard on Friday morning, NBC affiliate KTVB reported. Representatives of the company that owns the animals, We Rent Goats, arrived at the scene and managed to herd the goats onto a truck around 9 a.m., less than two hours after the initial calls were fielded by Animal Control...

(snip) --- A horrific stabbing spree at a Boise, Idaho, apartment complex last night left nine people injured, including six children. Local media reports state that four of the victims have life-threatening injuries. The national media quickly seized on the fact that the apartment complex was known to house refugees and that some of the victims themselves were apparently refugees. Despite the fact that the 30-year-old male suspect was arrested last night at 8:50 p.m. and his arrest record and mugshot were posted on the Ada County Sheriff's website at 3:46 this morning, none of the articles identified the suspect....

Refugee families at a low-income apartment complex were attacked Saturday night by a man who stabbed nine people — more than any other attack in Boise's history, police said. Four of them suffered injuries that police called life-threatening. A 30-year-old man was quickly taken into custody at gunpoint, police said. All of the victims were taken to a hospital.

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/nation-now/9-injured-including-refugees-in-stabbing-at-idaho-apartment-complex/465-1c97bb37-65d4-4165-b185-09e4b9cbcfe9

Republican lawmakers in Idaho again are pushing legislation designed to prevent state courts or government agencies from making decisions based on Islamic religious law or other foreign legal codes. The bill was introduced Wednesday in a House committee a year after a similar proposal made it to the House floor but died. There are no known cases in which an Idaho judge has based a ruling on Shariah law. Fears over Islamic religious law and Muslim immigration have been growing in Idaho and reinforced inside the deeply conservative Statehouse with President Donald Trump’s order temporarily banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority...

Despite resistance by Idaho’s top political leaders, 118 Syrian refugees have moved to the Gem State since last Oct. 1, all of them settling in Boise, according to new data from the State Department. Compared with larger cities, Boise took in a disproportionate share, accepting more than twice as many refugees as New York, with 9, and Los Angeles, with 45, combined. ... Overall, the United States had admitted 11,469 Syrian refugees as of Sept. 9, ... no state took in more Syrian refugees than California, with 1,300. San Diego accepted more than half of them, or 690, while Sacramento...

Chobani, owned by a Turkish Muslim immigrant, has filled 30 percent of its 600 positions at the world’s largest Yogurt plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, ... This comes at a time when Twin Falls is embroiled in a firestorm of controversy involving a sexual assault of a 5-year-old special-needs girl by refugee boys from Sudan and Iraq. The city’s mayor, Shawn Barigar ... was instrumental in recruiting Chobani to Twin Falls back in 2011, and he now plays a dual role of elected official and president/CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce. ... Goldman Sachs, United Parcel Service, HP ,...

The U.S. accepted more than 2,300 Syrian refugees in June alone, sending the fiscal year total soaring past the 5,000 mark and putting the government on track to surpass resident Obama’s goal of 10,000 by the end of September, but raising questions about screening out potential terrorists. ... more than 99 percent are Sunni Muslims. Just eight identified themselves as Christian, eight identified as a non-Sunni form of Islam, and one reported having no religious affiliation. Those numbers have drawn criticism because the percentage of Sunni Muslims is far greater than that of the Syrian population as a whole, which...

[The Apprentice].... in 2004.... Boise’s Troy McClain was the darling of the country. That didn’t stop when Trump uttered the famous “You’re fired” words. Trump said, ... it was one of the most difficult firings of his career. But, being fired by the man who became his mentor and philanthropic inspiration wouldn’t stop the meteoric rise for McClain. "Trump would talk about being a job creator,” ... “He would say ‘Troy you need to be a job creator.' And I'd say; 'Naw, I'm a speaker, ... And he'd say ‘You are a solo-preneur... a job creator!' " McClain formed Troy...

Long before Jim Messina became a trusted aide to President Barack Obama and one of the most powerful men in Washington, he was just a simple boy from Boise. Now, after working in politics for just over a decade, he lives in a lavish D.C. estate. How this happened is a classic Washington Cinderella story. Raised in Idaho by a single mother, Messina moved to Washington in 1995, in his mid-20s, to take a job as a legislative aide for Max Baucus, the conservative Democratic senator from Montana (now ambassador to China). Baucus supported George W. Bush-era personal and corporate...