In Idaho's handling of public education at all levels, the state has been racing to the bottom for years. Financial support is continuing to decline, the legislature, dominated by nutjob Republicans, is convinced education at all levels exists to indoctrinate students in left-wing and woke ideology.

Last week, in a speech to his beleaguered countrymen, Putin issued his most serious threats yet to employ nuclear weapons, in the field against Ukrainian forces and against the West should he decide aid to Ukraine threatens Russian regional security or threatens Russian territory.

My personal values derive almost entirely from family. If you think about it, that is probably true in your lives as well. When you strip away the noise, family always matters most.

Thousands will crowd into the Stateline Speedway event center in Post Falls this weekend for the Re-Awaken America tour, a far-right political event that cloaks in ridiculous evangelical fervor an agenda aimed at restoring Donald Trump to power and sending to the sidelines all heathens who reject their pseudo-Christian lunacy.

And as I watch a TV show like “A League of Their Own,” I can congratulate myself on my own progressive attitudes, on my “wokeness.” So many of my friends are gay. I know and understand them, I tell myself. I am sympathetic to the challenges they have faced, still face. Yes, I like to think of myself as woke on issues of sexuality and gender identity…until I am called out for representing male, heterosexual privilege by a friend whose criticism is as well-intentioned as it is accurate.

But the loan forgiveness that will change my daughter’s life comes at a cost. And when I look at the president’s program through a lens other than that of father, I must acknowledge that cost.