Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The FBI took it upon itself to determine whether the president of the United States is a threat to national security. No one had ever before thought that this was an appropriate role for the FBI, a subordinate agency in the executive branch, but Donald Trump isn't the only one in Washington trampling norms. The New York Times reported the astonishing news: "Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security." U.S. presidents over the decades have made many foo...
Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. That’s particularly true in difficult times when “business as usual” no longer works. As our national deficit approaches $22 trillion ($180,000 per taxpayer) and state and local governments deal with skyrocketing costs for health care, pensions, education and public safety, we will have to do things differently, or, in some instances, not at all. One way is to develop private-public partnerships to share costs and coordinate programs. Take...
After long and careful consideration, I have decided not to run for President of the United States in 2020. I realize this may come as a disappointment to my supporters, and I will leave my future options open, but the timing is just not right. This should not be construed to mean that I am not qualified. Admittedly, I don’t know how to twitter, but I could learn. Joe Biden stated that he is the best-qualified American for the job, but the only thing he does better than the average citizen is find the White House bathroom. I have known s...
Washington state celebrated Temperance and Good Citizenship Day on January 16. It has been a long standing requirement for schools to observe. The day was initiated in 1923. Ostensively, it was to push prohibition and avoidance of alcohol. That purpose was dashed with the repeal of prohibition, although moderation in drink was still a goal. Now, this day has a different significance. Temperance is not just about alcohol. Defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, temperance is: 1-moderation in action, thought, or feeling 2a-habitual moderation...
Okeydokes 2019 looking forward to electing a new mayor!...
Wouldn't it be astounding if we read the morning news one day and the headline was "Everything President Trump Said Yesterday Was Entirely True"? Put that one in the "not likely" category. Donald Trump has made lying an art form (a crude art form, certainly), to the point where we can't be sure that his name actually is Donald Trump. He's that untrustworthy. According to The Washington Post's "Fact Checker," Trump (or whoever he is) averaged 15 falsehoods a DAY in 2018! There should be a competition among politicians, obviously sponsored by...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's so-called Green New Deal makes the obligatory nod to the original New Deal, but FDR's handiwork is much too modest an antecedent. The Green New Deal calls for a top-down revolution in the operation of American society so sweeping that it would be disturbing if it weren't so wholly ridiculous. It shows all the thoughtfulness of a college sophomore pulling an all-nighter to write a term paper for his Millennial Socialism 101 class. The Green New Deal, as explained in draft legislation to create a congressional...
Credit to the Gazette for choosing to include “Colfax students walk out in wake of gun violence, others stay inside” as one of 2018’s top stories published in the Whitman County Gazette. In joining many other students across the country who participated in the walkout on March 14th we had hoped to draw recognition to the rise and continuation of gun violence taking place in schools, as well as demand action from a stagnated Congress who was not taking steps to protect students. By including this piece as a top story of 2018, you have shown...
While many eyes are on trade talks between our country and China, America’s port leaders are positioning their seaports to compete for increasing volumes of container traffic. After container shipments surged in November---primarily from pre-tariff contracts—they plunged by year end--impact of U.S. and China trade war. Outbound container volume at the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach fell 11.8 percent in November from the same month in 2017. It was a decline after seven str...
It looks as if the current government shutdown will set a new record with no end in sight. President Trump has avowed that he will not end the standoff unless there is funding for his wall. Nancy Pelosi is just as adamant that there will be no funding for the wall. Neither side shows any sign of budging. So, who is to blame? Is it the President’s fault for sticking to his campaign promises, or is it the Democrats’ fault for standing on their ideology? Maybe a bit of both, and maybe this budget confrontation is a symptom of another much dee...
Christmas and New Years are over, and now neighbors are taking down their Christmas decorations. But in every neighborhood there is always someone who doesn’t participate. Maybe they were late getting their decorations up if they put them up at all. Maybe they don’t feel they have the time or energy to go through the work of taking down the decorations each year and so they leave them up all year. Maybe they don’t understand what all the hoopla is to get the decorations down in a hurry. Some...
President Donald J. Trump addressed the nation on Tuesday. All networks gave him free airtime for the prime time speech. Democrats immediately demanded equal air time for a response. Reportedly, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer said based on previous pronouncements by the President this address was bound to be “full of malice and misinformation.” Thus, they wanted to respond to it as soon as it was over. Democrats had already decided that they are against what the President was about to say hours before he said any...
Yes - there is indeed a national emergency. If unchecked, it could destroy our great democracy. It is called Donald J. Trump. --Dick Warwick, Oakesdale...
Pet Peeves Fire the commissioners ... they can’t even fill potholes on Steptoe Street, Steptoe, Wash....
Let's hand it to President Donald Trump. There he was, the commander in chief, closing out the old year by bravely showing up in a war zone in spite of the bone spurs in his feet. Yes, the haters are dubious about those spurs, but whether real or the figment of a paid-off podiatrist's imagination, they did keep him far from combat until he and his retinue stealthily traveled to Iraq over the holidays. Since Mar-a-Lago had been declared off limits because of the bad government shutdown optics, he, Melania and his court jesters had to go...
Donald Trump may watch the stock market more closely than any day trader. For a president who underlined the increasing importance of working-class whites to the GOP coalition and who trampled so much bipartisan economic orthodoxy during the campaign, to be so overtly obsessed with the stock market is a strange disconnect. In fact, no president in memory has so publicly staked himself to the market. Trump has, in contrast, paid relatively little public attention to wage growth, which is the measure that more closely tracks with his particular...
Last year, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) global study of aerospace manufacturing attractiveness found the United States is top rated and within our country, Washington is the best. The study reaffirmed that “Washington’s economy and industry size are heavily tied to Boeing’s commercial aircraft business.” Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. is based in Renton. PwC pointed out that our state also is home to 1,400 aerospace-related businesses and has the highest concentration of aerospace jobs in...
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per-hour since 2009. Even though 96% of gainfully employed Americans earn more than the minimum, there is a push to increase it to a “living wage.” Minimum wage is a bad idea for several reasons: It ignores the concept of entry level jobs, it forces mechanization and/or elimination of low skilled jobs, and it interferes with the free market. I got my first job off the farm before I was in the eighth grade. I bagged groceries at Bob’s Market for $.75 an-hour. A few months later, my application at the s...
The Chinese have landed on the dark side of the moon, something never before accomplished. It is not a lucky break; they have been taking the necessary steps and setting up the critical pieces to communicate with the far side to bring about this feat. The example is fitting for the start of a new year when everyone thinks about resolutions - even though many of us think how we are NOT making them. The key to successfully keeping to those goals we set at the turn of the calendar is to follow the...
The holiday week leading up to New Year's has special meaning. The day after holy Christmas, we celebrated the wholly mercenary observance of Exchange Day. It's not an official holiday in the United States, but it should be, like Boxing Day is in British Commonwealth countries. You remember the British Commonwealth, don't you? That was the worldwide collection of countries under the influence of England, before the demise of the U.K. -- a downward slide that is nearly identical to what the U.S. is undergoing now. That was long before Brexit, wh...
Pet Peeves Snoqualmie Pass being closed for snow more now than it was before millions of dollars spent on construction to alleviate that....
Never before has a former FBI director boasted about taking advantage of an administration's disorganization for his own ends. But never before has a former FBI director been as self-satisfied as James Brien Comey Jr. In an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Comey delighted his audience with his tale of how he exploited the Trump White House's disarray in its initial days to send two FBI agents to talk to then-national security adviser Michael Flynn without honoring the usual processes (e.g., working through the White House...
Kudos and thanks to Jana Mathia’s editorial last week! She did an excellent job of encapsulating a complex problem and making it understandable. We live in a system of systems, all interacting to maintain life on Earth. If one system gets out of balance, it affects many others. Global warming drives changing climates, which affect things, living or non-living, as the climate changes. In 1979, James Lovelock published “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth.” He postulated that “the only feasible explanation of the Earth’s highly improbabl...
I'm feeling smugly superior to Frank Watson, which is silly, except in a small way. His column of 10-25-18, "Demand comes before Supply," shows that when it comes to drug policy, he's lost in the woods, barking up the prohibition tree. "If we want to stop the flow of drugs, we need to eliminate the demand created by the users in our country." We can't eliminate the demand for drugs. We've been trying drug prohibition for 103 years. Listen to a retired prison official. "The point that I'd like y'all to understand is, there's not a prison on...
I had the opportunity to go to the swearing in ceremony for Judge Hart. The court room was packed. It's not often you can eat cake in the superior court. That on its own shows how down-to-Earth Judge Libey is, and if you thought his humor to be as dry as un-buttered toast you are wrong. Judge Libey showed everyone there that he is one of our ordinary citizens having the values of Whitman County; he is witty, sincere, fair and just. --Kelley Messinger, Rosalia...
