Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1054 - 1078 of 3750
When historians look back to this era, they will wonder why we insisted on outsourcing our border control to a foreign country. President Donald Trump's threat to close down the southern border with Mexico isn't a sign of strength, but of frustration fading into desperation. He is reacting with understandable alarm at a spiraling migrant crisis on the border, and is looking to Mexico to address it because we are unwilling to do it on our own -- not unable, unwilling. There were more than 100,000 apprehensions at the border in March, an...
Before lawmakers wrap-up their work in Olympia, they should re-examine their hefty new state spending plan. The budget may not be sustainable even with a substantial increase in taxes. It may force legislators to return to the State Capitol to cut workers, programs and services; or, even hike taxes yet again. It has happened in the past. For example, in the early 1980s, Gov. John Spellman (R) and a Republican legislature were forced to meet in special session continuously to deal with rapidly...
At first I was not going to bother to reply to Timothy Thompson's glib use (letters April 22) of the word "treason." The present political turmoil is not because a particular candidate seemed to lose an election, it is because the moral fiber of America has been destroyed in two short years. The moral capital, if you will, that our country earned over 200 years is gone. How will we, can we, ever get it back? Loosely throwing that word around does not help. A dozen or two relevant events have been identified by American intelligence services,...
I have been county auditor for three and a half months now, and I’d like to take this opportunity to provide an update on what we are doing in the Auditor’s Office. We have not had to close either of our public use desks, Vehicle/Vessel Licensing and Recording, since the beginning of the year due to understaffing. My staff is very conscientious about keeping these desks open. We just passed our first state accountability audit. We have successfully completed our first election of the year. We are working hard to clean up the voting precinct bou...
So Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, proposes a budget that eliminates funding for Special Olympics ($17.6 million), another $7.5 million decrease for technical education for the blind, $13 million in cuts to Gallaudet University for the Deaf, another $5 million in cuts to printing books for the blind, not to mention a 26 percent cut to grants to states to support special education. That’s roughly $43.9 million of our tax money. So far, President Trump has spent approximately $93 million of our tax money on golf trips to his private golf r...
I just wanted to say a little something about opportunities. They are out there; try not to miss them. Second, they are all over the place; don’t overlook them. My biggest regrets in life can be categorized in one of two ways: lies and opportunities lost. Never tell yourself, “I’m not gonna get it anyway, so I shouldn’t even try.” Always try. Even if you know 100 people better and more qualified than you, try. Those 100 people might not be interested in taking that opportunity, you might hav...
Nadine Woodward, the newly-retired Spokane T.V. news anchor who is now running for mayor of Spokane, was on the other side of the cameras Tuesday to announce her campaign. Judged from the perspective of a weekly news person from the outer perimeter, she didn't do very well. She deflected reporters' questions and used the word "collaboration" a lot. Woodward deserves a lot of respect for lasting 30 years in the Spokane television news market. With its daily, maybe hourly, time restrictions and its wide area of intended coverage, it is a tough an...
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 release of Robert Mueller's finding that Donald Trump didn't collude with Russia should settle a question his critics -- and, quietly, some of his allies -- have asked repeatedly over the past two years: Why was he acting so guilty? It turns out that he was acting innocent, only in a typically combative, over-the-top Trump fashion. The left and the media were never willing to credit the idea that Trump sincerely believed that he was being treated unfairly – because he was. When Trump said in his infamous Lester Holt interview that the T...
Each year Americans throw away more than three billion batteries constituting 180,000 tons of hazardous material and the situation is likely to get much worse as the world shifts to electric vehicles. Everyday-green.com reports more than 86,000 tons of single-use alkaline batteries (AAA, AA, C and D) are thrown away. They power electronic toys and games, portable audio equipment and flashlights and make up 20 percent of the household hazardous materials in our garbage dumps. Unlike composted...
Due to a layout error, the following letter in last week’s paper was attributed to the wrong person. It was sent in by Timothy Thompson of Endicott, not Wiley Hollingsworth of Pullman. Hollingsworth was offered a chance to offer his own words in response to what were not his words last week....
After two and a half years and forty million dollars there are no indictments for any collusion of any kind, yet the Democratic Party persists in their attack on the president, who has stated all along that their was no collusion. The Special Counsel decides what information, if any, should be disclosed. It is written in the constitution. It is the law. The Senate Democrats do not dictate what information should be disclosed by the Attorney General. Democrats should read the Constitution once in awhile. It is an manual for procedure and how to...
I share a sentiment expressed in the letter, "Treason", 3-28-19 -- patriotism. However, I feel that he's shooting his musket in the wrong direction. Both the Republican and the Democratic parties play hardball, and hard headed hardball can abuse the Constitution. I think he's caught up in all that. But he's missing the bigger game that's being played. The world government crowd wants to erase our national borders. To the defense of the Constitution! But slowly. I don't remember that Ross Perot came right out and actually said that both the...
The investigation into the Trump campaign and presidency was concluded last week by special counsel Robert Mueller. A brief summary of this investigation has been released. The full report has not. The White House claims total vindication of the charges. The Democrats are seeing this as just the beginning and will be conducting their own investigations. All this is aside from the various cases working their way through the courts. Now despite all the accusations of a political witch hunt and counter claims of “collusion” and obstruction, the...
Pet Peeves The cost of vehicle registration for seniors and the handicapped. Give us a break....
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...
The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated itself an organization hostile to women and people of color. It fired its co-founder Morris Dees for unexplained reasons and removed his bio from its website at the same time it pledged to train its management in "racial equity, inclusion and results." Simultaneous with the cashiering of Dees after nearly 50 years at the SPLC, roughly two dozen employees wrote a letter warning "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this...
After two and a half years and forty million dollars there are no indictments for any collusion of any kind, yet the Democratic Party persists in their attack on the president, who has stated all along that their was no collusion. The Special Counsel decides what information, if any, should be disclosed. It is written in the constitution. It is the law. The Senate Democrats do not dictate what information should be disclosed by the Attorney General. Democrats should read the Constitution once in awhile. It is an manual for procedure and how to...
Before our country, in haste, dives totally into renewable energy, we must carefully evaluate its impacts. By just focusing on eliminating natural gas, liquid fuels (gasoline and diesel) and coal to combat climate change, we ignore the effects of other forms of pollution generated by processes in which renewable energy components are made. Under the Green New Deal, the United States would become 100 percent reliant on renewable energy in a decade and eliminate CO2 producing fuels. It would cost...
I was tired of shoveling snow the other day and needed some comic relief, so I decided to read the most recent newsletters sent out by my state representative. Finding out what is happening at our state capitol is challenging. I usually start with the newsletters, then Google for more details. If you don’t get these newsletters, you should. Your representative’s office will gladly add you to their email list. Then you, too, will have something to break up the monotony of late winter. As our Governor has been reborn as the climate change can...
There was a time when a total of 50 different license plates adorned cars in America. That was one for each of the 50 states. Many a family trip was saved by the kids in the back seat trying to find as many different ones as they could on long road trips. Generally, these state plates were distinctive. It was always cause for celebration when an Alaskan plate was seen. In one’s own state, the plates were ingrained in memory. In cases of emergency or trying to identify an irresponsible driver, all that was needed was an effort to remember the p...
Pet Peeves Be kind about where people park. Not all disabilities are visible. Okeydokes The nice man who washed my car for me at Jim’s Service Center on Friday....
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...
We interrupt the talk of the president "manufacturing" a crisis at the border with this hair-raising report about the crisis at the border. Alarming new numbers about border apprehensions from U.S. Customs and Border Protection should puncture the lazy conventional wisdom about the border being under control, except in the lurid imagination of President Donald Trump. More than 76,000 migrants were apprehended crossing the southern border last month, the highest February in more than 10 years and the highest month of the Trump administration. Th...
Measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, you name it – vaccines are safe, despite what social media would have you believe. But don’t believe me; believe some people who know. In an extraordinary, if not unprecedented event, the three presidents of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a joint statement on March 8 supporting vaccination. If you don’t know, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was created in 1863 during the Civil War. It established the National Research Council in 1916 at the request of President Wil...
