Huckleberries: Mack won’t be held up by vote this time

Sheriff Richard Mack, the tea party darling from Texas/Arizona, will return to North Idaho in July – and he didn’t need an invitation from the dysfunctional Kootenai County GOP Central Committee this time. Mack will be a headliner at the Northwest Patriots and Self Reliance Rally at Farragut State Park July 26-28.

As you recall, controversial Mack was invited to speak at the 2012 Lincoln Day banquet by the Kootenai County GOP. Then he was disinvited on a split vote of the Central Committee. Finally, he was re-invited when Mack fans in Central Committee leadership threatened legal and criminal action over questionable proxy votes. We’ll see if the second coming of Mack is less eventful than Proxygate.

We’ll drink to that

Uber-conservative Idaho has more watering holes per capita than Blue Country Washington. Using U.S. Census Bureau info, The Cap Times credits Idaho with one bar for every 4,726 residents. Washington has one bar per 7,647. Census information, of course, doesn’t mention how many Spokane County residents can be found on summer evenings bellied up to downtown Coeur d’Alene bars or urinating in the alleys behind them … At the somber postmortem of the Kootenai County Reagan Republicans on Thursday, spokesman Jeff Ward admitted he was upset by the loss of all four RR endorsees in Coeur d’Alene area elections Tuesday – so much so that he didn’t realize his wife, Glorie, had won a Post Falls School Board seat. From the Peanut Gallery, anti-tax activist Sharon Culbreth shouted to Ward that he should buy his wife flowers. Ward agreed. And a silver lining was had by all.

Huckleberries

Right-wing activist Mary Souza was reprimanded by the Coeur d’Alene School District for using its logo without permission for her newsletter supporting the three candidates later defeated in the trustee elections Tuesday. The title of her newsletter? “Dirty Tricks vs. Honest Integrity” … Huckleberries hears that Coeur d’Alene High School Vice Principal Troy Schueller wasn’t happyhappyhappy (as Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” would say) after he found his red extended-cab pickup propped up on blocks, sans wheels and tires, at school, as part of a senior prank Tuesday morning … Oopsy (from last Sunday’s Huckleberries): The grandson of Herb Huseland Sr., of Bayview, broke his arm sliding into second base recently, not his son. Herb Jr., of Manteca, Calif., was the one who asked, tongue in cheek, whether the boy was safe … On the Post Falls Police Department Facebook wall early Friday p.m., a warning was posted: “Post Falls Police currently en route to a 2 vehicle injury accident. Please take another route of travel until the roadway is clear.” Only the location of the crash wasn’t given. Remember, kids – who, what, when, where, why (even in social networking) … The police scanner at Huckleberries HQ said it and Facebook Friend Wallace Brewery confirmed it – a yellow airplane with a wing strapped to the top and larger than normal tires was, indeed, traveling 65 mph along Interstate 90 past the Huetter rest stop Friday afternoon. The prop wasn’t running. Just in case you thought you were seeing things.

Parting shot

Much has been made of candidates supported by the nonpartisan Balance North Idaho group stomping those backed by the archconservative Kootenai County Reagan Republicans. Coeur d’Alene residents were tired of the Republican partisanship injected into nonpartisan school, hospital and council elections by the Reagan Republicans. But how do you explain that the leading vote-getter of the evening – Dr. Neil Nemec, with 4,811 votes in the Kootenai Hospital District election – wasn’t endorsed by either PAC? Must be one heckuva sawbones.