Free Republic

the U.S. is still far from a full reopening. Many states have put a temporary pause on moving to the next stage of reopening, or have even reversed course and closed certain businesses again due to surges in the disease. In order to determine the states with the fewest coronavirus restrictions, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 17 key metrics. Our data set ranges from whether restaurants are opened to whether the state has required face masks in public and workplace temperature screenings. Read on for the state ranking, additional insight from a panel of...

Do not ever get between parents and their kids’ sports. This is an important lesson anyone who has ever witnessed someone go all momma bear at a local soccer match when a referee makes a bad call. Police often attend games to make sure overzealous parents don’t go crazy over minor offenses. With college futures on the line, some parents will not be ok with anyone disrupting their plans. This is a lesson Ammon Bundy failed to learn when he caused the cancelation of a Caldwell vs. Emmett high school football game​1​ so he could protest being asked to wear...

A bull moose made an appearance at Woodland Middle School [Coeur d'Alene, Idaho] on Tuesday. Coeur d'Alene School District spokesman Scott Maben said the students were able to all safely leave when school let out, but release took about a half-hour longer than usual because the moose had hunkered down by the bike rack near the west entrance of the school. Coeur d'Alene Police and Fish and Game officials were on scene to ensure the animal was out of high-traffic areas. Students whose bikes were on the racks near the moose were assisted by officers. The students gave the officers...

Bill Clinton’s land management rules and other liberal policies paved the way for future debilitating wildfires ... Zybach warned of potential disastrous wildfires shortly after Clinton signed a slate of rules in the mid-1990s that drastically reduced logging and road creation on federal lands. ... Shortly before leaving office in 2001, Clinton limited the ability of the United States Forest Service to thin out a dense thicket of foliage and downed trees on federal land... created a ticking time bomb ... “If you don’t start managing these forests, then they are going to start burning up. Thirty years later, they...

Supporters of President Donald Trump will try to set a world record for the largest boat and floating boardwalk flag-waving event this Labor Day weekend. A patriot boat parade will begin at noon Monday September 7, 2020 at Arrow Point. It will travel across Lake Coeur d'Alene to The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course Floating Green, Sanders Beach, around Tubbs Hill to City Beach and along the Spokane River to the North Idaho College beach. Parade participants will gather near The Coeur d'Alene Resort boardwalk, with a horn blast at 2 p.m. at the center of the boardwalk.

We just wanted to take the time to provide your community with some feedback, as tourists and visitors who have loved coming to visit Coeur d'Alene (CDA) in the past. This visit we have had a very different experience. We hope you will take our observations as constructive, with the intent of helping you to understand what visitors like us may be observing and feeling. My husband and I are from Arizona and have been driving up the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, doing our best to socially distance while enjoying the beauty of nature. Our experience has been...

A Rathdrum couple said their American and Gadsden flags were cut from a 25-foot flagpole in front of their home in a senior community. Dale and Paula Atwood have proudly flown the flags on their property for 13 years. They were shocked to find the rope cleanly cut in two places Friday morning. The Gadsden flag, famous for its "Don't Tread on Me!" quote and rattlesnake symbol, is rooted in the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. According to Atwood, the Gadsden flag has long been a symbol of civil liberties, American patriotism, and disagreement with the government. "I think people...

Idaho Legislature Advances Resolution to End Governors' Emergency Covid Orders On August 25, lawmakers in Idaho’s House voted to advance a resolution that ends Idaho Governor Brad Little’s Coronavirus Emergency Declaration. Idaho is now the first state where it’s constituents have voted to remove the insane coronavirus regulations put on by their governor in overwhelming fashion. https://bit.ly/3hBjLKN

Idahoans receiving unemployment benefits due to COVID-19 will receive an additional $300 a week, Gov. Brad Little’s office announced Monday....

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean was so sure that dark money operatives would buy televisions ads for her election bid last year that she didn’t buy any herself. Her campaign spent a few grand on Facebook and Google ads, but most of her $355,000 budget went to the practical expenses of running her 2019 campaign: staff, printing, mail, food, and related items. On paper, she had around $100,000 less than her opponent, fellow Democrat and —at 16 years in office — Boise’s longest-serving mayor, Dave Bieter. But operating mostly off the books, a shadow campaign sent $310,000 in-state to blanket Boise...

Black, Latino and American Indian and Alaskan Native people were disproportionately hospitalized for Covid-19, according to a new analysis of 12 states' populations published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. ... In a nearly two-month period from late April to late June, there were 48,788 cumulative Covid-19 hospitalizations in the states that reported race and hospitalization data -- Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Washington. "The share of the hospitalizations of White patients was substantially smaller vs. their share of the population in all 12 states," the authors found. The authors...

Thursday morning the city of Boise Idaho had a new billboard in circulation on an electronic sign by a major highway exit into town. The billboard message says “BLACK & BROWN FOLKS BUILT THIS COUNTRY (AND WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN) JOIN US OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!”. The billboard has a depiction of what is supposed to be Boise, ID held up by black and brown hands with a cop car burning in front of the capitol building. Activist Nisha Jae Newton takes credit for the billboard idea with credit given to the activist artist Morgan Baxter, a junior...

Last week, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean announced the formation of a Climate Action Division, because, as the first-term mayor explained, “the risk to all Boiseans of climate inaction is substantial.” The mayor’s goals are lofty: She wants Boise’s city government buildings to rely solely on power generated by solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams. That shift, the mayor believes, will reduce drought frequency and the poor air quality resulting from large forest fires. Never mind thinning and logging or our national forests, the mayor mistakenly believes, we just need a shopping list of Boise’s own Green New Deal programs....

Given the fact that just about anyone with a government title is trying to mandate mask-wearing, I predict the next big fight will be about mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations. If that seems far-fetched, especially in our state, remember this: Not so long ago, it also seemed far-fetched that Idaho officials would order people to stay home and close businesses indefinitely, fine people for hosting yard sales, or arrest them for being at a playground. Long before Covid-19 was a blip on the radar, special interest groups and state agencies were methodically working to expand protocols for vaccinations and recordkeeping in the...

The shaking started March 31. That’s when the Sawtooth mountain range in central Idaho trembled with a 6.5-magnitude earthquake — the second strongest ever recorded in Idaho. From that very moment, geologists rushed to the epicenter area — 45 miles west of Challis — to start collecting valuable information that could help them understand what happened. Three months later, the rumbling still hasn’t subsided as aftershocks continue to jar the area. But now scientists have a better idea of what may have led to the major earthquake — and it’s helping them uncover some other secrets buried under Idaho’s soil....

<p>Yesterday, a group of protestors converged on Boise City Hall to advocate for the defunding of the Boise Police Department. You can see the rally flyer below. Among other things, rally organizers asked people to wear a mask, gloves and eye protection.</p>

@Brady611: What an awesome fricken night in Boise Idaho!!! BLM protest downtown city hall! We out numbered them 5 to 1!!!! About 3,200 people showed up. I saw three different biker clubs, women with sidearms, everybody was Back the Blue. Just overwhelmed them. Awesome night! @Oh Scott: I was happy to welcome the group of patriots with my blue bullhorn. As I told the proud Americans "We aren't about to put up with any looting or violence in our great state". Also see #BoiseProtests for the radical communist side. They claim a 2:1 advantage over the "counter protestors."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Angus King (I-ME), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Mike Lee (R-UT) reintroduced the bipartisan Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, S. 4074, to protect property owners’ rights, defend innocent Americans, and restore the Fifth Amendment’s role in civil forfeiture proceedings. “The federal government has made it far too easy for government agencies to take and profit from the property of those who have not been convicted of a crime. The FAIR Act will uphold the Fifth Amendment and ensure government agencies no longer profit from taking American citizens’ property without due process....

BOISE — A former Idaho Department of Correction correctional officer has a court date set after prosecutors say she had illegal sexual contact with an inmate at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. Miranda Ackerman, 29, of Nampa turned herself in to the Ada County Jail on Friday night, after a judge issued a warrant for her arrest, according to Patrick Orr, spokesman for the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. She’s charged with having sexual contact with an adult inmate, a felony, and unlawfully introducing contraband into a correctional institution, a misdemeanor. Police and prosecutors believe she had sexual contact with the...

Public money should never be used to support a political agenda. Yet, that’s exactly what’s happening at the University of Idaho, which decided to explicitly provide backing for the most radical elements of the controversial Black Lives Matter program. A university vice provost emailed students this week to announce the school’s “series of Black Lives Matter events” “where discussions surrounding systems of oppression will occur.” That’s what tipped me off to the fact that the school also created a website containing “ways to get involved and support the Black Lives Matter movement.” The university’s “resources” page contains more than 100...