Stoddard letter: Laws

I see where our governor and AG are out to blow some more taxpayer dollars to “fight-what-you-can’t-win-then-give-in-to-it” windmills. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden is challenging the ag-gag court ruling, as if we haven’t already thrown enough down that bottomless well. Give it up already — it was a lousy, special interest, anti-free speech “law” to begin with, and the courts threw it out, as anticipated. And now Gov. Butch Otter has decided that it’s really not too bad to protect prisoners from being sexually assaulted per the federal law — but only after we’ve lost $82,000 in federal funds by denying to enact it. His “task force” that looked at it wrote their recommendations, and yep, they almost perfectly matched the federal rules. Talk about beating dead horses — just take some money and go blow it in Jackpot, guys, we taxpayers will get the same result. In other news, there is universal acclaim and respect for retiring YMCA head Jim Everett. I’ve known and worked with Jim many times over the years, and he’s the real deal. He says he’s not sure what he’ll do next — well, I have a suggestion: Please, Jim, run for governor of Idaho. We need you.

This story was originally published January 1, 2016 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Stoddard letter: Laws."