Dear Friends: We at the Gem State Patriot are a not-for-profit service for the people of Idaho. We have been serving Idahoans for nine years and we seldom, if ever, ask for donations. Unfortunately, like so many other conservative organizations, we suffer from time to time from a lack of recognition of the services we […]
Let me start with the fact that the federal government controls 61.9% of Idaho’s land or about 32.8 of its 52.9 million acres. Unfortunately, as the players in Washington change so do the objectives for our land. We can all remember Lava Ridge where the BLM gave final approval in Dec. 2024 to a 104,000 […]
Healthcare has been a constant government obsession for decades, and over the years has continued to take gradual control over it. What is befuddling is the motive behind doing so. It is unclear just exactly what the fascination is that motivates the government to stick its nose into a person’s private health matters. Not being […]
Recently, the Department of the Interior announced Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funding for 2025, with Idaho receiving $43 million. Although modest in its funding level, PILT is a critically important program that rural communities across the Gem State depend on. It was designed to be an ‘offset’ revenue mechanism to replace the absence […]
BOISE, ID — Four years ago, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that the U.S. Constitution says nothing about abortion and returned the thorny issue of how to regulate abortion back to the states, where it had rested until the Roe decision transferred that authority to the Courts. Following Dobbs, Idaho chose to protect the […]
Dear Friends, The grizzly bear is one of the most emblematic animals of the Mountain West, and it is a perfect example of the federal government continuously overreaching into state affairs and management. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a frequent vehicle bringing federal bureaucracy into states, particularly in the West. Spotted owls, wolves, […]
In just a few short months, Idaho voters will be asked if they want to legalize abortion in the Gem State. In spite of all the rhetoric you’ve heard about Proposition 1—how it’s about reproductive freedom, about choice, about saving women’s lives—in the end, it comes down to abortion: the willing destruction of an unborn […]
I have often written about how our education system in Idaho is doing and how it is affecting our children. Recently there has been a lot of conversations about the new interest in DSA and socialism on the news and in what direction our country may be moving. While civics is a course taught in […]
This episode opens with Idaho’s flock camera fight, tracing the pushback to a grassroots watchdog group going city council by city council across the state. The core objection is framed as a Fourth Amendment problem — license-plate data sitting in a searchable government database without a warrant — and the episode notes Caldwell’s roughly half-million-dollar […]
Following the nightmare of Common Core, legislative efforts were made to ensure Idaho students learned about the history of their country and how the government was formed. Beginning in the 2016-2017 school year, high school students were required to take, and pass, a civics test in order to graduate. Idaho Code § 33-1602 defined exactly […]
You’ve surely seen them by now—thousands of signs popping up throughout the state proclaiming a simple yet profound truth: Idaho values life. It seems so obvious, but this November Idahoans will be asked once and for all if we truly value all human life, including the unborn. I’ve been traveling the state these past few […]
For Immediate ReleaseAugust 13, 2026Media Contact: Damon Sidur BOISE, ID — Attorney General Raúl Labrador joined a coalition of 21 other states, led by West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, in urging the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize new rules that stop activist groups from using a decades-old environmental law to block roads, water systems, and […]
Dear Friends, Someone here in Idaho received a call from a person claiming to be a Wells Fargo investigator, warning him that his bank account had been compromised. The caller convinced him to withdraw $14,000 in cash and mail it overnight to an address in Florida for “safekeeping.” He did it, and only realized afterward […]