Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1751 - 1775 of 3750
Gazette Editor “Keep the McCleary Promise” was enclosed in a logo design which was included in an advertisement in Sunday’s editon of the Spokesman Review. In the center of the logo was “Education is a civil right.” The advertisement encouraged readers to join forces with local educators and voice support for public schools and support the state house budget by calling a legislative hotline. The bottom of the advertisement listed 26 educators in the eastern region school districts as sponsors. All were officers in Washington Education...
Every generation has at least one life-changing event that impacts the way they see the world. I remember every detail about the open house at Fairchild Air Force Base in 1980. My in-laws had been visiting for about a week, and I had talked them into staying an extra day to see the air show. It was a glorious Sunday afternoon. We had airplanes on display from bases all over the country. More than 10,000 visitors had just watched the Air Force Thunderbird’s show, when I noticed ominous clouds building in the west. The volcanic activity on M...
“America needs more welders and fewer philosophers,” proclaimed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the 2016 presidential campaign. He hit the nail on the head without disrespecting philosophers. Industry News reported in 1988 there were 570,000 welders compared to the 360,000 in 2012. Considering the manufacturing and construction sectors have boomed in recent years, the growing shortage of welders is troublesome. Even worse, the American Welding Society estimates a 290,000 job deficit by 2020. This shortage is primarily due to the large num...
If you've only followed coverage of the Republican health care bill loosely in the media, you might believe that House Republicans, after much effort, passed legislation to deny people with pre-existing conditions health insurance. The issue of pre-existing conditions has dominated the debate over the GOP health care bill out of all proportion to the relatively modest provision in the legislation, which is being distorted -- often willfully, sometimes ignorantly -- into a threat to all that is good and true in America. The perversity of it all...
Mark down the first week of May in your scorecard. To the frustrated "do something even if it's wrong" crowd, that is when the Trump White House and the House Republicans actually got something done. They passed legislation that keeps the federal government running, which is generally regarded as not wrong, except for by some anti-government hard-liners. And they actually passed another important bill: one that would gut health insurance for millions of Americans. But hey, it was getting something done for the GOP politicians, most importantly...
Card of thanks This goes to all who voted for Donald Trump. THANKS A LOT!!! (said with extreme sarcasm). May God save the United States of America. Richard Stanton, Colfax...
It's still there. A large piece of real estate on the north side of the Moscow-Pullman Highway on the Washington side of the state line. It's pretty close to the expansive Palouse Empire Mall which runs along the highway on the Idaho side. Eight years ago, the piece of real estate was the focus of a retail vision: it would be the site of yet another shopping mall, but it would be in Whitman County. Stores there could generate retail sales tax income which would provide a welcome boost for the area's economy and inject sales taxes into the...
How Broke Are We? Every young man should own a motorcycle at least once in his life, and every aviator should fly in Alaska while they are still indestructible. Thus, after I retired from the Air Force, I moved to Anchorage and flew for a small, family owned outfit. It was fun, but the pay was next to nothing. In order to feed my family, I took the requisite exams and was certified as a financial planner. I hung out my shingle and offered my services in estate planning, investment guidance and debt counseling. The normal procedure for those who...
There was nothing pretentious about Mike Lowry. What you saw is what you got! Lowry was one of Washington’s most colorful governors. He served one term from 1993 to 1997. He died on May 1 at age 78. There was nothing subtle about Mike Lowry. He was not afraid to mix it up publicly nor put his political future on the line when he believed in a cause. For example, in 1993 Lowry pushed legislation dramatically reforming our state’s health care laws. He and his Democrat colleagues jammed a bill through the legislature requiring all employers to...
Return of liquor stores? A minority of Washington’s voters went to the polls in 2012. A majority of that minority voted to close the state liquor stores, and move the hard form of that drug into child accessible stores. It’s not going well. Remember those tiny bottles of liquor that airlines used to sell to their passengers? Tiny – several can be hidden in one of your socks – just the right size for a child to take. Sunset Mart in Pullman has an open display rack, right down to the floor – just the right level for a child – and right by th...
Republicans have put on a clinic on overpromising during the past several years. Even if you were paying only very little attention, you would have gotten the distinct impression over the past four election cycles that the GOP was unalterably committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare. It didn't matter what year the Republicans were running (2010, 2012, 2014 or 2016) or what presidential candidate (earnest, establishment-friendly Mitt Romney or bombastic outsider Donald Trump), repeal of Obamacare remained the consistent theme. The party...
Among my many strong principles is this one: Disagree with whatever Ann Coulter says. Actually, Ann is not the only one; she's really just a fill-in-the-blank name on my page reserved for ridiculously cruel commentators who build their followings with their limitless shock stock of tacky offensiveness. They manage to be both uninhibited and calculating at the same time. Every poisonous word they utter, every inflammatory tweet they type, every dangerous stunt they concoct is aimed at getting publicity. That is their guiding unprincipled princip...
Gazette editor "From the Cascades to the Bitteroots" was one of the slogans on their shirts. The slogan derived from their ride which started at North Bend and went across Washington on the John Wayne Trail, into Idaho on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, and into Montana on the Trail of the Hiawatha. A color photo in the Gazette in June of 2006 shows the scouts and their leaders at the east end of Milwaukee tunnel 41 just south of Plummer. In 2008, they added "Montana or Bust" to their shirt logo and designated 450 miles as the length of their...
Last month, a Wall Street Journal editorial hit the nail on the head recommending Amtrak focus its limited funds on shorter more heavily traveled routes between Washington, D.C., and Boston. The money is needed to prevent more derailments. The situation will only worsen unless Amtrak plows additional funds into rebuilding its dilapidated northeast railroad infrastructure. It must quit subsidizing runs greater than 750 miles. One is the Empire Builder, the passenger train started in 1929 between Seattle and Chicago. It is bleeding red ink. At...
Mike Neves Gazette staffer SEWEDA is a familiar acronym to many folks in Whitman County. It stands for Southeast Washington Economic Development Association. The organization is a 501c3 non-profit, with funding provided at the state level. Its purpose is to help people with their businesses, whether they are existing, or only existing in the minds of would-be entrepreneurs. They focus on helping business startups or already established owners locate funding, grant opportunities and tax...
Donald Trump's saber rattling may or may not deter Kim Jong Un, but it's had an effect south of the border. In the first few months of this year, illegal border crossings have dropped precipitously. It is an early proof of concept that yes, it is possible to secure the border and a victory, even if a provisional and incomplete one, for President Trump's enforcement agenda. Once you stripped away the impossibilities from Trump's rhetoric on immigration during the campaign -- there wasn't going to be a wall along the entire border paid for by...
Those who worry that they are closed-minded because they can't conceive of agreeing with anything Donald Trump says or does can stop beating up on themselves. He's finally come up with something sensible, calling the intense focus on any president's first 100 days in office a "ridiculous standard." It is ridiculous, largely media hype, a contrived way to judge how a new administration is doing. For the record, Trump is doing a miserable job. He's a reverse King Midas. Everything he touches is tarnished, and it's not even gold to begin with,...
I read a magazine article the other day that claimed to describe how veterans see the world. I agreed with part of it but decided that the underlying objective of the article was to solicit for organizations that may or may not help veterans. The article assumed that veterans are a homogeneous group set apart from the rest of society. That assumption and the stereotype it generates are not only false but tend to support those who would con a sympathetic public. I was on a New York subway a few years ago when two guys in old field jackets...
Twenty-five years ago Los Angeles exploded in riots. Most of the violence was in the south-central part of the city, a predominantly black, low income area. Residents had long objected to the roughshod methods of the police. Tensions had been particularly high over the shooting of a black girl by a Korean storekeeper. The well publicized beating of Rodney King by police kept those tensions at boiling point. Then, the officers accused of beating King were found innocent. That was enough for the city to explode. For hours, at the height of the...
It may take United Airlines years to overcome the public relations nightmare of a doctor being dragged off an overbooked flight by Chicago police. That one incident not only sparked costly litigation, but could well impact the company’s bottom line and expansion plans. Unfortunately, for United, with today’s cellphones and social media, millions of people worldwide instantly saw the video. Some started a boycott. The video lit up social media in China where United is working hard to establish new routes. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ch...
Invitation only Recently, the Lewiston Morning Tribune announced that meetings with Cathy McMorris Rodgers would be held in Colfax on the 17th and 18th of April. The notice ended with, “The public is welcome,” so I walked in for the Monday meeting believing that it was open. Not true. I didn’t discover this until afterwards when talking with an aide outside. I admitted that I had just been to the meeting about farm issues. Imagine my surprise to be asked, “And they let you in?” After further conversation, I came to understand that there is...
With U.S. missiles flying in Syria, the "mother of all bombs" exploding in Afghanistan and an aircraft carrier strike group heading toward North Korea, has there been a revolution in President Donald Trump's foreign policy? His most fervent supporters shouldn't get overly exercised, and his interventionist critics shouldn't get too excited. What has been on offer so far is broadly consistent with the Jacksonian worldview that is the core of Trump's posture toward the world. Trump's views are obviously inchoate. He has an attitude rather than a...
Only a few people know what a "GBU-43/B" is. A bunch more will figure it out if we use the official designation: "Massive Ordnance Air Blast," or "MOAB." Now you get it: It's informally referred to as the "Mother of All Bombs," and that designation is nothing but great PR for the military. It's called that, as we all know by now, because it's the biggest conventional weapon in the U.S. armed forces arsenal. News anchors couldn't say "Mother of All Bombs" often enough as they breathlessly described how, for the first time ever in combat, a...
The season of community festivals kicks off this weekend. It starts in St. John, traditionally the first of the county’s town events. Billed as the St. John Fair and Stock Show, activities for entries have already begun. Public events kick off tonight (Thursday) with viewing at the home ec building. Full details were in last week’s Gazette. A story is on Page One in this issue. On Friday at the Colton-Uniontown school is the Colton-Uniontown Fair. This one-day event has stock showing, demonstrations, food and an FFA greenhouse sale. The com...
While state lawmakers work to bridge major differences in the budget, they agreed our distractive driving laws need stiffening. Companion bills sponsored by Sen. Ann Rivers (R-LaCenter) and Rep. Jessyn Farrell (D-Seattle) cleared the legislature. They update current statute which allows law enforcement officers to stop motorists when they see them driving while using hand-held devices. The new legislation bans using hand-held cellphone and electronic tablets even while waiting for a stoplight to change. The bill takes effect in 2019. The first...
