Huckleberries: Kootenai County Republican leaders picked on the wrong woman

Christa Hazel is living rent-free in the alleged minds of Kootenai County Republican Central Committee leaders.

Remember?

In exiting stage center-right, the former precinct committeewoman called out GOP Chairman Brent Regan and his precinct minions. She contends that Regan & Co. stifle debate, embrace far right ideology and waste time on meaningless resolutions.

In response, Regan took a slap at Hazel in an online comment while urging others to treat her respectfully. Then, Precinct Committeeman Don Bradway, an American Redoubter (think: new-wave prepper) featured in a Washington Post article last year, opposed Hazel in a letter to the Coeur d’Alene Press. But neither Regan nor Bradway came close to vitriol from Alex Barron, the local GOP secretary who has dubbed himself the “Bard of the American Redoubt.”

Barron lost it in a venomous post against Hazel on his Charles Carroll Society blog, calling her a “little liar” in italicized bold face 10 times as well as an “undocumented Democrat.” He stepped up his attacks in a subsequent podcast in which he called Hazel a “little round liar” and attacked her heroic former FBI father, Wayne Manis, for participating in “slaughtering American citizens who happened to be racists.” Manis participated in the December 1984 shootout that claimed the life of neo-Nazi terrorist Robert Mathews on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Amusingly, Barron includes this statement in his blog indictment: “Christa Hazel campaigned against a solid conservative for School Board and won.” For some reason, he failed to mention that the “solid conservative” that Hazel drubbed was GOP Chairman Regan. Hazel steamrolled Regan, then an appointed trustee, in their 2013 school board race – 63 percent to 37 percent.

And that might be what this wailing and gnashing of teeth by Regan and his Redoubt lieutenants is all about.

Meanwhile, in Kellogg

Sgt. Paul Twidt’s Roll Call reports for the Kellogg Police Department always deliver. In his latest report, Sgt. Twidt spotlighted the kid who handcuffed himself and then called the fire department when he couldn’t remove the cuffs. Neither could the fire department. Deadpans Sgt. Twidt: The fire department has issues using any tool smaller than an ax.” The boy was freed by a KPD Blue … Then, there was the “rafter of wild turkeys” (gobblers, not the booze kind) hanging out at Radio Brewery. Sgt. Twidt again: “They had to be turned away due to not having any ID on them.” … Finally, there was a resident who reported a piece of firewood had been knocked over on his porch. The guy wanted a report written. Sgt. Twidt said he would pass along the information to another officer. Then, he added on Roll Call: “A new report was not going to be generated.”

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: My thanks to you who pause sometimes/to look upon these little rhymes,/for words just lie there cold and dead/until they are by others read,/and so it is that you’re my pard:/without you here, there’d be no Bard – Tom Wobker, The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Giving Thanks for Readers”) … Publisher Keri Alexander of the Shoshone News-Press has clicked on the bat signal for snake wrangling mother, Sherry Krulitz. The garden snakes have returned to Alexander’s patio. So she needs “MOMMY!” … Kathryn Taylor, wife of Deputy City Administrator Sam Taylor of Coeur d’Alene, has given notice: Five weeks from now, she’s going to evict her baby. The unborn darling should be fully baked by then … At the Cenex pumps at 15th Street and Best Avenue in Coeur d’Alene last week, this message was scrolling across the screen: “Help Wanted: We pay Washington minimum wage.” Now, that’s the way to fill a low-end job slot in Idaho, where the minimum wage is $7.25. Washington’s $11 per hour sounds light-years better … Fans of Lake Pend Oreille should join me in a shoutout to Josh Heisey, of Coeur d’Alene, for spotting zebra mussels on a boat headed for their waterway. The student from Corban College of Salem, Oregon, spotted the invasive nuisance while working as a summer inspector for the Ag department on Highway 53 … So how did Nic Casey’s day begin recently? Like this: “Getting a good start to the morning by digging through my pockets looking through the set of keys that were already in my other hand.” Believe it or not, it was Thursday. Not Monday.

Parting Shot

Usually, Huckleberries sees this first in the spring. But it happened on the way to work Friday – a Washington driver turned southbound on one-way Fourth Street in Coeur d’Alene that goes northbound. P’haps this time it’s signaling that the tourism season is winding down rather than winding up.