Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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For a man who doesn’t read a lot, President Donald Trump sure has been influenced by history. What’s amazing about the days of yesteryear is not just that we keep repeating their errors, but that these mistakes move so seamlessly through time, the past being prologue and all that Shakespeare stuff. So it is with the defining tradition of bias in the United States. There is no group we haven’t hated and abused: Ethnic groups, racial groups, gender groups and, of course, religious groups. Our intolerance casts a wide net. Does anyone remember tha...
President Donald Trump has broached the idea of purchasing the massive and largely frozen island of Greenland from Denmark. Cue the laughter. My Montreal-raised wife tells me that in the nearly uninhabitable frozen tundra country of her youth, she and her Canadian friends grew up exclaiming, "It's as cold as Greenland!" But POTUS, evidently, was serious. It's not a new idea. In 1946, the U.S. offered $100 million for Greenland, $1.3 billion in today's dollars, or 9 billion Danish Krone, give or take. A mere pittance, even if it's situated in...
When Joe Biden says he's running for president, he means it literally. He likes to be seen jogging around at his various campaign events. Obviously, that's his way of showing that at 76, he's not too old for the grueling physical and mental challenges of being POTUS. But it does raise a question: Is he aware that the bigger problem is his running off at the mouth? Now, this is not a new concern. Joe Biden, after all, taught us what a "gaffe" was -- he's been at it for a generation. He describes himself as "a gaffe machine," tripping over his co...
It has become routine: President Donald Trump spends a golfing break at one of his properties. Tragically, horrific gun massacres also have become part of the routine, two of them just the other weekend, one of them clearly the consequence of a white supremacist who had gone over the edge, armed with the most lethal handheld weapons of mass destruction. By the time the president finally emerged after sending platitudinous tweets of support for El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, he faced the assembled reporters to declare, "Hate has no place in...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing a sophisticated game. Since her Democrats took the House, she's the one who has steadfastly fought off a hasty plunge into the impeachment of President Donald Trump. In the process, she has appeared to resist the more volatile factions in her caucus, particularly the attention-grabbing newbies, along with impatient Democrats nationwide who have loudly demanded that she clear the way so they can drop the I-Bomb. She will not like this comparison, but Pelosi has been the tortoise racing with her rabbits, her...
What a sad debate between those who contend that Donald Trump fires off his increasingly hateful comments because he's cleverly trying to distract and those who insist it's because he simply has no impulse control. Is his racism uncontrolled or is it calculated, the worst form of demagoguery? In spite of his halfhearted claim -- "I don't have a racist bone in my body" -- he really makes no bones about the fact that he's an out-and-out bigot. And here's the scary part: It works. Look no further than his massive rallies, where thousands of his...
It's obvious to many people that our president, Donald Trump, is really Archie Bunker in the age of social media. The problem is, we have to deal with President Bunker. He is our duly elected chief executive, after all. So it's essential that Congress reach an occasional accommodation with him, otherwise do-or-die measures like raising the debt ceiling will be left undone, and the country will continue to wither. Amping up the limit is crucial, otherwise the "full faith and credit" of the United States will become meaningless. Our government...
Let's give the highest praise possible to President Donald Trump: He didn't mortify his country on Independence Day. Other than his Revolutionary War airport thingy, he stuck to the script and gave a vanilla salute to the nation, which tries to overlook that most of its founders were slaveholders. He also choreographed a display of military might, a few flyovers and some tanks scattered around for good measure. Thanks to his staff's frantic efforts, he even drew a good crowd. But it's time to engage in any pundit's favorite pastime, which is...
President Donald Trump's itinerary at the G-20 summit in Japan included a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government is accused of using dirty tricks to interfere in the U.S. election to sway things Trump's way. As Trump was leaving the White House, reporters asked if he would bring the subject up and warn Putin and his people not to meddle in the 2020 campaign. Then it happened: "What I say to him," Trump shot back, "is none of your business." With all due respect, Mr. President -- which I'll admit is very, very little --...
He actually said it! While talking to reporters on his way to Camp David, he used the phrase "Make Iran Great Again"! Does this mean that President Donald Trump has ordered that Iran will join America in the Greatness Club? "MIGA" as opposed to "MAGA"? Of course, Trump insists that since he's taken over, he's already accomplished that for America. Could it be he's branching out and that it's Iran's turn? Will there be new baseball caps with the slogan embroidered in Farsi? What will we do about the fact that Iranians call the United States...
Let's not get too excited over the plans of the protesters to bring over the hilarious "Baby Trump" balloon from London and put it aloft during the president's Independence Day speech at the Lincoln Memorial. First of all, shouldn't we remember the nation from whom we declared independence? Duh! July Fourth celebrates the self-evident truth that 243 years ago the founders declared they were cutting the cord with England. So why would we import anything from there for use on the Fourth? Besides, do you know the chances that our customs people wo...
Let's play "Jeopardy," where the answers are questions. If Alex Trebek were to ask contestants to specify "A glaring contrast between Queen Elizabeth II and President Donald Trump," the correct response would be "What are class and crass?" Of course, there are other differences between the two. The player says, "I'll take 'Liz and Don' for $400!" Alex would read, "The one who served in the military." The winning answer-question would be "Who is the Queen of England?" Certainly it's not the president of the United States. As we all know,...
As he exercises his Putin-given right as president to lay waste to the United States, it turns out that Donald Trump can really draw from only a very few weapons in his quiver as he causes all the traditional allies to quiver. When all else fails, he pulls out his favorite economy-piercing arrow: the tariff. Got a problem with immigration? Shoot an escalating tariff at all things Mexico. Never mind that Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner, after Canada and China, where he has also aimed the tariff arrows. In the case of...
I avoid making fun of someone's physical appearance. I really do. But I'm totally struggling here, folks. All I can say is that the White House image mavens who allowed Donald Trump to be seen with a 390-pound sumo wrestler in Tokyo really blew it. I can't imagine how it was that Donald Trump, who is all about branding, would agree to such a setup. Usually, it's Trump who's mud wrestling on Twitter, oozing out his insults and setting the tone for what passes as political debate in the not-really-United States. Among his latest targets is House...
They say that even a broken clock is right twice a day. Like that broken clock, when President Donald Trump complained recently about social media censorship, he was onto something. We should be very concerned when Facebook executives decide to kick somebody off their social media site just because the offender is anti-social. Actually, the term they use is "dangerous individuals," and arguably what these expelled guys regularly spew out is dangerously crazy. Alex Jones was given the boot, along with removal of links to his Infowars site,...
May 1, 2003: Then-President George W. Bush landed in a jet on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to announce that just a few weeks after his Iraq invasion, all major combat operations would end. It was a made-for-television event. Dominating the picture was a huge sign declaring "Mission Accomplished." Thousands of combat deaths later, the banner has been so scornfully ridiculed that even Bush admitted he wished it hadn't been used. May 7, 2019: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell takes to the Senate floor. He derided Democrats'...
Back when I was a TV local newspup, I met Muhammad Ali to do an interview. This was during his boxing days. While my video person set up, I discovered, to my utter surprise, during our chat that he was friendly but soft-spoken and cordial, the exact opposite of his loud, brash shtick. Then it was time for the camera to roll. Ali immediately accelerated into his high-volume, "I am the greatest!" manic patter. When we finished, it was back to normal conversation till we parted. Thousands, if not millions, of people experienced his gracious side,...
Is Donald Trump slipping? In his endless quest to give everyone a derogatory nickname, he's now calling Joe Biden "Sleepy Joe." It's not clear why he's calling him "Sleepy," but it might be a typo. Perhaps, he meant "Sloppy Joe." That would be spicier. Then again, maybe that's Trump's subtle way of mocking Biden's age. Or maybe not, since one thing we've learned about The Donald is that he's not subtle. The problem for him is he's nearly as old as Biden. Neither of them matches Bernie Sanders, who is so crotchety that he's in a geriatric class...
Impeach Donald Trump? What a bad idea for the Democrats, in spite of the pressure from the party's left flank, and in spite of various presidential candidates, like Elizabeth Warren, pandering to the ultra-progressives. After all, the ultimate goal of a House of Representatives impeachment is to set up the Senate to remove him from office. In a rough form, it's kind of like an indictment and trial. Actually, in the Senate it's called a "trial," nothing rough about it. One would think that with the Democratic majority in the House, impeachment,...
We should do better, but how can we? By "we" I mean media wretches -- the purveyors, so President Donald Trump charges, of "fake news." The reality is that we constantly deal in his fake spews of outrageous controversy, which he concocts to feed his insatiable need for attention, and our perpetual need to have something to feed our beasts. Astronomers made a big deal about actually photographing a black hole; we all know that it doesn't compare with the black hole that is Donald Trump's desperate inner child. But what can we do? As...
President Donald Trump obviously loves playing whack-a-mole. You know, like the amusement-park game where once a thingy is knocked back into a hole, another one pops up somewhere nearby. Trump is a political whack-a-mole wizard. Just as his carnival roadies tamp down one of his outrageous controversies, another one explodes. Did he go too far, though, with his guacamole whack-a-mole? To review the past few moves in his never-be-bored game: Just as Donald Trump was taking a totally premature victory lap after special counsel Robert Mueller, for...
Donald Trump's enemies are in agony after Bob Mueller's probe did not uncover sufficient evidence that candidate Trump and his people had colluded with the Russians. Meanwhile, he and his supporters are in a vengeful bliss. But not so fast: There is ample evidence of collusion, all right -- of President Trump colluding with the Democrats. That could be the explanation for what possessed the Trump Department of Justice to file a legal brief in support of doing away entirely with Obamacare. Actually, what Justice did was to abandon its position...
One lesson the Washington reporter learns very quickly is that he or she should never EVER have unbreakable plans for the weekend. It's a major strain on the relationships that newspersons have with significant others who can accept only so many disappointments resulting from the Friday night news dump. The unpredictable dump has become sadly predictable. For good reasons and bad, officials wait until most people have stopped paying attention because they're focusing on their Saturday and Sunday activities, errands and fun stuff, and not on...
The Democrats could use some sex education. Right now, their candidates are multiplying like crazy, all clamoring for that top berth on the party's presidential ticket. They're clearly in need of some berth control. Absent any family planning, however, they'll keep sprouting -- young sprouts and old ones, black and white, male, female and alternative. There's even an avatar named Beto. Beto O'Rourke is an empty baseball-cap-wearing concoction of millennial cliches, sharing every facet of his existence on social media. Thus far, Beto is coming a...
Donald Trump definitely is not introspective. If he thought about it, he'd probably decide that such self-reflection is navel-gazing and a total waste of time. But, of course, since he's not introspective, he's never thought about it. Whatever bubbles up from the Trump sump of his mind dumps out of his mouth, with no regard for what it fouls in the process. His millions of minions love it. They roared in gusty approval at the Conservative Political Action Conference as the Trumpster let fly with a two-hour toxic stream of consciousness. It...
