Much of my family still lives in Idaho, and my dad is fond of hanging at the gun range. He says he hears guys talking casually about how easy it would be to shoot President Obama with a long-range rifle. And how they'd really like to do it. Jokes like that are becoming common there, too.

So it really didn't surprise me when one of the wingnuttiest wingnuts in Idaho (this is really saying something) joked about how he'd happily buy a hunting tag for shooting President Obama:

Rex Rammell, a long-shot gubernatorial candidate seeking the Republican nomination, criticized Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter on Wednesday for not making good on a promise to buy the first wolf tag. Tags for hunting the gray wolf went on sale Monday.

Rammell's remarks on Otter came in an interview Wednesday after the Times-News asked about comments Rammell made Tuesday night at a local Republican party event.

After an audience member shouted a question about "Obama tags" during a discussion on wolves, Rammell responded, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those."

Rammell, a veterinarian and former elk rancher from Idaho Falls, said his comment was a joke and he would never seriously talk about President Obama that way, although he doesn't support anything Obama's done as president.

"I was just being sarcastic. That was just a joke," Rammell said. "I would never support him being assassinated.

"She kind of caught me off guard, to be honest with you."

Sure, just a joke. Except that to find it funny, you'd actually have to harbor that wish.

Rammell, as we said, is something of a wingnut's wingnut. He got into politics when the state shut down his elk-ranching operation for his disastrous mismanagement of the facility. So he ran as an Independent in last year's Senate campaign in Idaho, won by James Risch (Rammell finished a distant third, with 5.4% of the vote).

Just a few months ago, Rammell announced he was running for a House seat as a Republican. Then he shifted gears and is now running for Idaho governor as a Republican.

He's also written a wingnut tome that, as Randy Stapilus explored recently, is a real piece of work. Just like its author.

[H/t Julie F.]

The Republican Party has a huge problem on their hands. They are quickly being taken over by the most extreme, paranoid, fringe elements in our society and this case is just another glaring example of the path they are on:

BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho Republican Party leader who helped oust the state GOP chairman in 2008 faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after an altercation escalated while he photographed a home with a delinquent mortgage.

Challis McAffee, 33, the GOP chairman from the Boise suburb of Garden City and one of 231 voting members of the Idaho Republican Central Committee, was in Ada County jail after being accused of pointing a gun at the homeowner.

McAffee, a backer of libertarian-leaning former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and an activist in this year's anti-big-government "Tea Party" protests, helped organize Paul backers who aligned at last June's Idaho State Republican Convention in Sandpoint with other foes of then-state GOP Chairman Kirk Sullivan. Sullivan was voted from office in favor of Norm Semanko.

According to police in the Boise suburb of Meridian, resident Robert Lutes called officers just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to report McAffee had pointed a .357 Magnum handgun at him during a verbal confrontation. McAffee acknowledged he pointed the gun at Lutes, according to the police account.

"I'm unarmed, I'm an old man," Lutes, 51, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I'm trying to find out why he's taking pictures of my house. I said, 'Knock on my door, let me know what you want.' Then, I think he's reaching for his business card and he pulls out a concealed weapon and I think he's going to blow my head off." Read on...

A group calling itself Idahoans for Liberty is trying to raise bond money for McAffee, but their version doesn't line up with the police account.

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CNN's John King went out to Idaho's Benewah County last week -- which is a fairly typical logging area which lies within Rep. Walt Minnick's district -- and produced an interesting report that ran last weekend. It was especially interesting if you know this country, which I do. (Sorry, John, St. Maries is in northern Idaho, not western Idaho.)

It largely was a sympathetic report exploring the kinds of pressures a Blue Dog Democrat like Minnick faces in trying to represent a largely conservative constituency -- particularly on an explosive issue like health-care reform.

But it also revealed, I think, the flaw in the kind of thinking employed by Blue Dogs like Minnick when confronted with tough issues like health care. Rather than represent the people who actually campaigned for them and put them into office, they kowtow to what are perceived to be the majority conservative sentiments in their district and vote the Republican line.

In other words, they're trying to solidify their positions by selling out the very people who elected them, while pursuing the votes of people who will never vote for them.

The main report featured some quips from a threesome of Idahoans who sat down with King at a cafe in St. Maries, including a belligerent NRA type named Don Griesel, who explained to King that even though Minnick was voting his way, there was no way he would ever vote for him:

Griesel: If he doesn't change his party, there's no way I can vote Democrat. Because like right now they have control of the House and all, and that's what's killing America.

King did a separate segment featuring just his interview with these three, and it was actually rather good, because he managed to obtain three people who probably well represented the three main socio-political factions in the district: the thoughtful, common-sense Democrat who ardently supports health-care reform; the middle-of-the-road, mostly suburban Republican; and the bellicose, Limbaugh/Beck-loving gun nut/government hater.

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Doug Martsch and Built to Spill, the darlings of Boise. Choosing a song was arduous because there are so many great ones; Big Dipper and Twin Falls come to mind first.

After disbanding the short-lived-yet-loved Treepeople in 1995, Martsch started Built to Spill along with Brett Netson and Ralf Youtz. Despite a number of lineup changes, the band ended up both the most popular and lasting of the 90s slacker-pop groups (though I don't think I'd be saying that if Pavement had stayed together.)

Pour some of your forty-ounce out for Andy Capps, the drummer heard here on 'Car', who passed away three years ago last week.

Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Illinois.

Last spring a southern Idaho right-wing talk-show host named Zeb Bell made some minor headlines by featuring a conversation on his daytime show in Twin Falls by referring to the "negroid black Barack Obama" and calling Obama's mother "trailer trash" with a fixation on black men. Bell, you may recall, ultimately refused to apologize, claiming the remarks all came from his guest, a far-right nativist well noted for his racial slurs named Frosty Woolridge.

More recently, Bell has been plunging even farther off the deep end, attacking gays and lesbians as the centerpiece of his defense of California's Prop 8, even going so far as to argue that "God's laws" trump the Constitution.

Most notably, he's being openly defiant about the bigoted nature of his broadcasts, going so far as to assemble his audience under the banner of "Bell's Bigots".

The fine folks at Mountain Goat Report and at The Political Game (with a hat tip to 43rd State Blues) have been tracking this disturbing trend for some months now, and as Bell has picked up his volume and gained traction in Idaho, they've assembled a Zeb Bell page with links to the wingnuttery that Bell is spreading apace.

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My ex-boss is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. I knew that when I fled his newsroom in 1985.

But now he's displaying it for all the world to see:

Steve Hartgen would like a law requiring people to use their real names when they post material online. As a retired newspaper editor and publisher from Twin Falls, Hartgen is doubly aware that the news media catches a lot of flak, much of it politicall motivated, and its origin can be questionable.

He recognized in an interview with the Lewiston Tribune that the Internet has provided an opportunity for users to sound off on just about any subject, often responding to news stories or editorials via e-mail. But unlike letters to the editor, those persons typically are not required to identify themselves before commenting online. As a result, anonymity spawns a ton of misinformation which often is spouted by those who like to blame "the media" for the country's various ills.

As we can see, this is all about protecting "the media" from those meanies who like to complain about them anonymously. Because, evidently, they really really need it.

Pay no attention, oh you peons on the other side of the curtain, to the frauds operating the media scam that the Web has exposed. After all, they have themselves spawned "tons of misinformation" over the years that has gone uncorrected, and all with their names out there on the front pages. A lack of anonymity certainly has not prevented that.

And might we expect a similar law for people who publish material pseudonymously in the non-Web publishing biz -- say, Joe Klein when he wrote Primary Colors? Or any of the many pseudonymous newspapers writers who've made careers over the years (such as Dear Abby)?

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