Last week's coronavirus press conference was an embarrassment, but not for the reason some might guess. Idaho journalists took off their reporter caps and became full-blown advocates during the Q&A session with Gov. Brad Little. IFF President Wayne Hoffman and Dustin Hurst play the clips for you to show you how bad the press corps has grown. It's ugly, to say the least. 

It wasn’t so long ago that Idaho newspaper editorial pages and TV newscasters couldn’t shut up about Medicaid expansion. They’d opine almost daily on how wonderful it would be to extend the government entitlement program to thousands more participants in the Gem State. Media paraded would-be Medicaid clients in front of cameras as victims of conservative legislators’ inaction years after Obamacare expanded Medicaid in 2010.

In 2018, news organizations lined up behind a ballot initiative to expand Medicaid, writing stories that talked about all the lives, and all the money, that would be saved if only voters said yes to the program. And, importantly, reporters and editorial writers were either dismissive of or openly hostile to the idea that Medicaid expansion would blow past the government’s cost estimates.

Now, the numbers are in and media types are eerily quiet. Why? Wayne Hoffman explains in this episode of the podcast. 

In a little more than a month, Idaho’s public colleges and universities are supposed to report to state lawmakers what they’ve done to reduce administrative bloat and get back to their core missions.

It’s hard to point to a single thing the schools have done to unwind the leftist, social justice-oriented indoctrination that has infiltrated deep into the bowels of Boise State University, the University of Idaho, and, to a lesser degree, Idaho State University.

Maybe surprise reforms have happened or are underway that we don’t know about. That’s doubtful, as evidenced by the latest announcement from BSU.

If you're an Idaho taxpayer, you help fund a mouthpiece for left-wing propaganda: Boise State Public Radio. Thankfully, lawmakers can end this arrangement in the 2021 session and such a move wouldn't prove too difficult. But will lawmakers, who claim the mantle of limited government, actually work to limit government? Only time will tell. 

Did you know there's a way to dodge Boise Mayor Lauren McLean's mask mandate? Yup! Wayne discusses how to get around the mayor's new edicts in this podcast episode. He also turns to experts who reveal what's really going on in this pandemic. 

Fifteen years ago, I was part of a team of Idaho state government officials involved in planning for the next pandemic. Because of my media expertise (almost 20 years in journalism) I worked on the group tasked with developing a plan for communicating with the media and the public in times of crisis.

The number-one responsibility then for government communications experts operating in the midst of a big national or global health emergency was to provide the public with tangible activities as it was thought that failure to do so would lead to wide-spread fear, anxiety, depression and anger.

Read the rest here.

What if I told you that leftists in our country were busy trying to develop their own version of a utopian government in America? You wouldn’t be terribly surprised. In fact, that’s fairly obvious, right?

But what if I told you that the Left had already successfully developed and implemented their warped system of government? And they did it right here in Idaho? It’s happened. It happened 3 years ago, right under everyone’s noses, on the campus of Boise State University.

Idaho Freedom Foundation President Wayne Hoffman says Idaho's four-year college and universities have done nothing to deserve more money from students. Thus, Hoffman suggests, ed leaders should enact another year-long tuition freeze. If they don't, state lawmakers should do it for them. 

Boise State University officials would have the public believe they didn’t chase police-supporting Big City Coffee from campus. But university officials didn’t exactly encourage the small business to stay.

At a minimum, the controversy has helped expose an ongoing effort from within the school’s administration and student body to make allegiance to a social justice agenda a condition for doing business on campus. Read the full article here. 

IFF President Wayne Hoffman responds to Gov. Brad Little's decision to move Idaho back to Stage 3 in the state's reopening plan.