We believe that Mitt Romney is the best choice for Idaho, the best choice for Republicans, and the best option in bringing conservatism back to the White House in the person of the 45th President of the United States. He has listed creating jobs and restoring American competitiveness as his highest priorities, and although implementing those priorities is way easier said than done, at least he has the priorities right. And despite his bungled statements about both the “very rich” and the “very poor,” his clarifying remark — “My energy is going to be devoted to helping middle-income people” — is exactly where the next president’s energy ought to be focused/Twin Falls Times-News Editorial Board. More here. (AP photo of Mitt Romney in Traverse City, Mich., Sunday)

Question: Do you agree with the choice of the Twin Falls Times-News for the GOP presidential nomination?

Lee Enterprises, the owner of the Times-News in Twin Falls and 47 other daily newspapers, across the country announced that it is seeking Chapter 11 bankrupcy protection in an effort to refinance some of its $904.5 million in debt. The company said in a news release that it expects to complete restructuring in two months or less and that the process won’t affect its workers. “All our digital and print products will be published as usual and no employees will be impacted,” Carl Schmidt, Lee’s vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, said in a company news release Dec. 2/Brad Iverson-Long, Idaho Business Review. More here.

Thoughts?

The 12-person Congressional “super committee” tasked with reducing our national debt has thrown in the towel. Out of the six Republicans and six Democrats, not one would break party lines to agree on a plan. Are we surprised? Not a bit. Disgusted? Absolutely. Predictably, our bull-headed representatives are already angrily pointing fingers across the aisle. Republicans call out Democrats who refuse to chop any entitlement programs; the Democrats say that Republicans refuse to quash any of the tax breaks benefiting the nation’s rich. We deserve better/Twin Falls Times-News. More here. (AP file photo of part of supercommittee)

Question: Does the failure to reach agreement by the supercommittee underscore the possibility that the U.S. Congress/American political system is broken?

• Original Editorial: $82 million is real money/Twin Falls Times-News

In yesterday’s editorial regarding the erroneous payment of unemployment benefits in Idaho, comparisons were made to the rate of errors in Alaska, Oregon and Washington. While Idaho’s percentage of errors was the lowest of the three states (9 percent), only former governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was cited as presiding over a state whose error rate was higher (11.8 percent). This was a shabby inclusion on our part. If a governor or governors had to be mentioned (they did not), we should have taken a shot at either current Democratic Oregon governor John Kitzhaber, former Democratic Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski (12.2 percent error rate) or Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire of Washington (14.1 percent error rate) because those state’s error percentages were much higher. We apologize/Twin Falls Times-News. (AP file photo: Sarah Palin shown in Iowa Sept. 3)

Question: Was an ap-hollow-gy necessary?

A writer who chronicled the Magic Valley’s triumphs, foibles and transformations for almost three decades will retire Aug. 31. Times-News Opinion Editor Steve Crump, 59, started at the newspaper as sports editor in 1983, later serving as city editor, features editor and features writer. He has penned most of the newspaper’s editorials and edited its Opinion pages since 2007. His “Don’t Ask Me” column has appeared in the Times-News since 1990, and its “You Don’t Say” counterpart since 2008. Why call it quits now? Crump was married six years ago to a woman whose joint-custody arrangement ties her to Boise, and the couple has commuted between Twin Falls and Boise since then. “We decided the time is right to actually move in together,” Crump said/Virginia Hutchins, Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

• DFO: I'm a huge fan of Steve Crump's columns. He is a fountain of info re: the history and historical people of the Magic Valley and Idaho. His retirement creates a huge hole in the institutional knowledge of Idaho newspapers.

Question: How many newspaper columnists have you followed for decades, if any?

Has there ever been a private institution that has done as much good for Idaho education as the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation? The foundation announced Wednesday that it’s donating $21 million to the Idaho Department of Education to help create “the 21st century classroom” in every Idaho school. With its grant, the trust will help equip teachers across the state with state-of-the-art tools to raise student achievement through data-driven decision making. The software is designed and distributed by SchoolNet Inc., a New York company. The SchoolNet tool will improve the way schools monitor student progress and teacher effectiveness/Twin Falls Times-News Editorial Board. More here.

Question: Do you agree with the Twin Falls Times-News that the Albertson Foundation has been very, very good for public education in Idaho?

When College of Southern Idaho Trustee LeRoy Craig was defeated for reelection last fall, Jerome County — one of two counties in the community college district — lost its only representative on the board. But legislation, co-sponsored by state Sen. Bert Brackett, R-Three Creek; Rep. Bert Stevensen, R-Rupert; Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, and two other House Republicans (including Frank Henderson), would change that. The bill, introduced on Thursday in the House State Affairs Committee, would require community college trustee elections to be held by subdistrict, rather than at-large as they are now. … It’s a good idea/Twin Falls Times-News Editorial Board. More here.

Question: Can this legislation be called the “Nilson-Ketchum Revenge Bill”?

There can’t be excellence without there also being abomination; it’s a rule of nature. May 1, July 4, Sept. 26? They’re usually pretty good days to be alive. But Jan. 2, the day after New Year’s Eve and the high season of hangovers? Not so much. Julius Caesar and later Pope Gregory XIII arranged the calendar so the shortest and darkest days would fall at the end of the year and at the beginning of the next one. And the mother of all ugly days is just now peeking over the southern horizon. The sun will rise at 8:08 this morning and set at 5:16 this afternoon. That’s nine hours and eight minutes of daylight. And what are you going to do with all that sunlight? Freeze, that’s what/Steve Crump, Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

DFO: 2 of the most beautiful days of the year occurred Dec. 31 & Jan. 1, as far as I'm concerned. Cold? Yes. But absolutely beautiful, with the snow shining off last Wednesday's snow. Mother Nature, of course, has a lot more to work with in North Idaho than she has in Twin Falls area.

Question: Are you tired of winter, yet? Or do you enjoy the first & coldest season of the year?

In Twin Falls, News-Times reporter Amy Huddleston discovered what life was like on the other side of the little silver bell that rings out from various stores during the holiday season. She rang a Salvation Army bell for three hours. Writes she: “I was given a bell, a red kettle, a very large red coat with the words ‘Salvation Army, Doing the Most Good’ printed on the front and a post outside the Magic Valley Mall food court.” Also, she was told “to smile, ring the bell nicely and tell people ‘God Bless’ because as (a Salvation Army official) said, ‘we are a church first of all’”/Amy Huddleston, Twin Falls Times-News. More here. (AP file photo)

Question: Do you drop a dollar or so into the collection plate every time you encounter a Salvation Army bell ringer? Or every other time? Or sometimes? Or never?

Brannon and his grandstanding lawyer, Starr Kelso, ought to be ashamed of themselves. Single-handedly, they’ve made the idea of running for City Council toxic. And if legislators don’t think the same thing could happen to them, they’re deluding themselves. The Legislature needs to fix this by exempting candidates from lawsuits against cities, counties or the state over election results. Every city council member we know of spends far more hours on the job than he or she is compensated for. The notion that they should also be compelled to pay for their right to hold office is repulsive/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Reaction?

Skinny people pay cash. You could look it up. A study by professors of marketing at Cornell University and the State University of New York, Binghamton, found that more than 60 percent of American adults are overweight, and only 14 percent of U.S. consumers use cash at the supermarket. “Since paying in cash feels more painful than paying by credit or debit cards, paying in cash can reduce the purchase of unhealthy food items,” write professors Manoj Thomas, Kalpesh Kaushik Desai and Satheehkimar Seenivasan in an article to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research. The three researchers peered into the shopping carts of 1,000 people over a six-month period. They found that folks who paid for their groceries with plastic bought more junk food than those who used cash/Steve Crump, Twin Falls Times News. More here.

Question: Do you pay for your groceries with cash or credit card?

It’s not just a couple of disgruntled Democrats anymore who want to know what the Idaho Tax Commission is up to. The 13,000-member Idaho Education Association and two other teachers’ groups last week joined state Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, and her attorney, Robert Huntley, in a lawsuit over secret tax deals at the commission. “We take the allegations very seriously,” John Rumel, general counsel for the Idaho Education Association, told the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. “The representative’s allegations indicate that because of some sweetheart deals and corrupt practices, a substantial amount of funds that should be going into the coffers of the state are not getting there.” Dubious compromise settlements are cutting into tax revenue for education, Rumel argues, in a year when state funding for schools is down 7.5 percent/Twin Falls Times-News Editorial Board. More here.

Question: Should the Idaho Tax Commission be investigated for possible sweetheart deals with industry that may be costing the state millions in tax revenue?

The men who wrote Idaho’s Constitution 121 years ago meant to make it difficult for government to go into debt. But they didn’t intend to hamstring economic development indefinitely. So the three constitutional amendments on the Nov. 2 ballot — largely drafted by state Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, and Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, and approved overwhelmingly by the Legislature last winter — are much-needed updates to our state’s charter/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Question: Do you agree-disagree with the Twin Falls Times News opinion that Idahoans should support all 3 constitutional amendments on the ballot next Tuesday?

When the University of Idaho decided to develop a livestock research center, it never considered building it on the campus in Moscow. That would be silly. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, there were fewer than 1,000 milk cows in the 10 counties of the Idaho Panhandle. In 2009, there were 286,700 dairy cattle in Gooding, Jerome and Twin Falls counties alone. So now that the university’s third-year law program in Boise is up and running — classes started this week — why not gradually transition the whole law school from Moscow to the state capital? Ada and Canyon counties are home of more than half of the practicing attorneys in Idaho — a large percentage of them graduates of the U of I law school. The demand for a southern Idaho law school is obvious/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Question: Do you think the University of Idaho Law School should be moved to Boise, where most of the state’s lawyers are, or remain in Moscow?

Electricity costs a manufacturer 4.48 cents per kilowatt hour in Idaho. The same company would pay 26.05 cents per kilowatt hour in Hawaii. In Connecticut, it’s 14.93 cents. In Alaska, it’s 14.17 cents. The average worker in Idaho earns $647 a week. Next door in Washington state it’s $906 a week. So why aren’t companies standing in line to move here? Three reasons: Our schools aren’t good enough, our business taxes are too high, and, except for Boise, our transportation infrastructure is lousy/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Question: Does the Twin Falls editorial assessment apply to North Idaho —  “our schools aren’t good enough, our business taxes are too high, and our transportation infrastructure is basically lousy?

(Nampa Charter Academy) has a long history of run-ins with the charter commission, and sued the state after the commission ruled it couldn’t use the Bible in its classes. The school has been buffeted by controversy, dissension and turnover since it opened. The other 35 Idaho charter schools have avoided NCA’s problems, but the issue is serious enough to do what Twin Falls Superintendent of Schools Wiley Dobbs has suggested: a top-to-bottom review of how Idaho charters are — or aren’t — working. That would be timely now because some school districts, including Twin Falls, are considering applying for permission to convert traditional schools to charters because the funding is better/Steve Crump, Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Question: Should the problems that led to the revocation of the charter for Nampa Charter Academy cause the state to order a top-to-bottom review re: how Idaho’s 35 other charter schools are working?

Above all else, avoid insulting 10 percent of your political constituency. That’s our advice to the Bonner County Republican Central Committee — now in full control of the reactionaries who dominated this summer’s Idaho Republican Convention inIdaho Falls — who don’t like the north Idaho county calling this summer’s county fair a “fiesta,” according to the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. Too Latino. Too Mexican, you see. So the resident wingnuts up Sandpoint way are planning to decorate their fair booth with Arizona license plates and use “celebrate” as its theme instead/Twin Falls Times-News Editorial Board. More here.

Any questions?

As harsh as the Great Recession has been for Idaho, it would have been worse except for the resilience of the state’s Latino economy. That’s the conclusion of a study by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia for the Idaho Department of Labor. “The buying power of all 1.5 million Idahoans rose fractionally from 2008 to 2009, but Hispanic buying power grew 10 times faster than the buying power of the state’s non-Hispanic majority,” the report said. “Last year was the sixth straight year Idaho Hispanics have fared better than Hispanics nationwide”/Twin Falls Times-News. More here.

Reaction?