Op-Ed: Idaho is once again shamed by its Lieutenant Governor
Jim Jones
Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin has again put the national spotlight on Idaho. This time it was not for issuing fake executive orders on two occasions when Governor Little temporarily stepped out of state. McGeachin garnered nationwide headlines for participating in a conference of the America First Political Action Committee (AFPAC) on February 25. AFPAC is an extremist organization founded by Nick Fuentes, who has compared himself to Adolf Hitler and praised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
McGeachin defended herself, claiming that she did not personally attend the meeting, but merely sent a video with prepared remarks. Every responsible politician checks out the views of an organization before agreeing to speak. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know the nature of the group or the topics to speak about. McGeachin need only have Googled AFPAC to find that Fuentes is a white supremacist who has expressed “anti-semitic views and Holocaust denial and is opposed to women’s right to vote.”
If one Googles Mr. Fuentes it only gets worse. At the conference, he asked for and received “a round of applause for Russia.” The crowd responded with a chant of, “Putin, Putin.” Fuentes has called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “the coolest thing to happen since 1/6.” At the conference, he praised the Capitol attack as “awesome.”
McGeachin told those in attendance that she was pleased to have been invited to participate in the conference. Any decent person who had done even the briefest inquiry into the group’s racist, misogynist views, would have rejected the invitation. If she failed to do any homework and learned only later that Fuentes admired both Hitler and Putin, she should have immediately issued a full-throated denunciation of his views.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who also spoke at the conference, also claimed to have known nothing about the group’s ultra-extremist views. But she did have the presence of mind to strongly denounce Putin for trying to subjugate Ukraine. Nevertheless, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo roundly criticized Greene for “associating with anti-semitic neo-Nazis” and “playing footsie with Nick Fuentes.”
If nothing else, McGeachin should have denounced Fuentes’ statements on Ukraine and Putin. Governor Little and both of Idaho’s Senators have not hesitated to condemn Putin for his criminal attack against the Ukrainian people. Little called Putin's attack “an assault on democracy.” Risch denounced it as a “flagrant and premeditated act of war.” Crapo urged “crushing economic sanctions.”
Putin is a murderous, America-hating dictator who wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union, which was dedicated to the death and destruction of the United States. I can never forget that the USSR was responsible for the deaths of many of my fellow soldiers in Vietnam, thanks to the sophisticated Soviet missiles and other lethal hardware it furnished to Communist forces. Yes, McGeachin’s silence on Putin and Russia is deafening.
And, so it goes. Each day seems to bring more ugly publicity of this nature to the Gem State. McGeachin and her sidekick, Lt. Gov. wanna-be Priscilla Giddings, brought national disrepute on the State for their failed inquisition on student indoctrination. She exhibited her untrustworthiness and brought the national spotlight to Idaho by sneaking the two executive orders behind the Governor’s back. By election day, our dear State will be a national laughingstock of political dysfunction, thanks to McGeachin’s determined efforts.
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Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as a Justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He is currently a regular contributor to The Hill online news. He blogs at JJCommonTater.
LINKS:
Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin:
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article258825458.html
AFPAC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Political_Action_Conference
Mr. Fuentes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fuentes
Round of applause for Russia:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/27/war-against-democracy-finds-allies-america-first/
Fuentes’ statements:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxd7zn/us-extremists-putin-nicholas-fuentes
Governor Little and both of Idaho’s Senators:
Putin is: