Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The latest action in the tea party-controlled House of Representatives makes it abundantly clear that the conservatives care only about the mega-wealthy corporations that produce food and not a whit about the 47 million people who need help to afford enough to eat. How else to explain their insistence on pulling the food-stamp program out of the $195 billion farm bill subsidies for massive agriculture conglomerates? It was necessary, they argued, because the harsh right that controls House majority Republicans is intent on gutting what’s now c...
Military installations and defense contractors are taking the brunt of the automatic budgets cuts mandated by sequestration. Why should we care? Washington has major bases and military suppliers such as Boeing. They contribute more than $13 billion to our economy, about 4 percent of total GDP. A July 2012 study by George Mason University projected that sequestration could cost our state 41,000 military-related jobs. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan will also have an impact. According to Defense News, sequestration will cut $15.8...
Safety tip We all think we are pretty good and safe drivers and most of us are. However, we all can use a little touch up and reminder. We are going to review the use of your automobile turn indicators. They have been standard in cars for many years. Turn indicators are to tell cars in front of you as well as behind of your intentions of turning either left or right. You need to give people ahead of you and behind adequate time to react to your turns ... and we hope that you grant them the same courtesy. It is very dangerous when people turn...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. My father thinks he’s a great cook because he was a surgeon. “Chop the onions this size,” he barks, demonstrating with a deft slice of his knife. “Add two teaspoons of salt! No, you idiot, that’s not how you do it! Code blue! Code blue!” In other words, my father thinks he’s a great cook because he has the skill to order other people to make a great meal. I, on the other hand, know I am a great cook because I’m a writer. One time I even wrote a proposal for a cookbook, think...
I’ve always loved the expression “Putting lipstick on a pig.” It’s the perfect way to describe an effort to gloss over something ugly. It’s certainly appropriate in the case of the decision by POTUS and his peeps to delay for a year the fundamental employer-mandate piece of Obamacare. It’s the provision that would require businesses with 50 or more workers to provide affordable health insurance or pay a big fine for each individual. The administration’s “lipstick” was the claim that the decision to hold off until 2015 showed its “flexibility....
Washington is riven by conflict and deep-seated division. It is rare indeed when both sides can agree on anything consequential. Therefore it is incredibly heartening that there is now bipartisan agreement that the implementation of Obamacare is a mess. Republicans have long maintained this, but now the Obama administration has lent its implicit assent with its astonishing decision to delay by a year the law’s employer mandate. This is what the administration calls, via a blog post by the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for tax pol...
George Zimmerman was found innocent in the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. The jury of six women deliberated for 14 hours. According to one of them, they anguished over their decision, trying scrupulously to apply the law. Anger over the verdict was immediate. As soon as the verdict was announced, riots broke out around the country. “Justice for Trayvon,” became the chant. Both the President of the United States and the Attorney General called for calm as did many mayors. Riot police were called out in some cit...
You’ve got to hand it to the Supreme Court: It’s hard to pin down an agenda. The justices closed with a flourish, standing up for equality with their rulings on gay marriage. Actually, one of them was a nonruling, but in the process of, in effect, rejecting a case for procedural reasons, they let stand lower-court rulings that overturned a ban on same-sex marriage in California. More importantly, in the other big case, they overturned the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal matrimonial benefits to all but male-female cou...
Some people are hoping to form a new, planned community in Benewah County, Idaho. According to the St. Maries Gazette Record, the new community will be walled and all residents, up to 7,000, will have to sign an agreement or pledge. This is to insure that all are like minded and think appropriately. The enclave is to be called the Citadel. The group has already purchased small acreage in the county, which they are calling the “beachhead,” to showcase its plans. According to the paper, everyone from socialists to establishment Republicans wil...
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has contempt for a swath of his fellow citizens. If you disagree with him about gay marriage, indeed, if you merely think the federal government should continue to define marriage the traditional way while the states define it however they want, then you are a bigot. Your views deserve no political representation. They should be ground underfoot by the five mightiest and most broad-minded people in the land, presiding from their temple of rationality and tolerance at the United States Supreme Court. Kennedy...
All a buzz The City of Colfax seems to be all a buzz about the Hullabaloo now that the Chamber of Commerce voted to let it go for this year. We have tried for the last six months to generate interest and find people willing to volunteer their time, ideas and talents to bring it together. Our last attempt was a meeting on June 11, calling for anyone and everyone to bring their ideas for the Hullabaloo. Three people showed up! Now, suddenly everyone has an opinion and none of them are very complimentary. I am also hearing people say that the...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. My favorite email thus far this year was from a reader who wrote, “Dear Bruce, I was reading your column over breakfast today, and I laughed so hard beer came out my nose.” I had to wonder if this beer-spurting problem occurred only during breakfast, or if she were, in fact, afflicted with (blessed with?) the tendency to spray beer whenever she laughed excessively. Either way, I imagined she was fairly popular in college. I also received a fair amount of mail asking, essen... Full story
Impeach Big Brother The balance between security and individual liberty has been defined: it is called the Bill of Rights. If this balance needs to be altered, only the people have the right to alter it. Edward Snowden knows this. Snowden knows that the trampling of our Fourth Amendment rights by the government is unconstitutional and illegitimate. It is illegitimate because the people have not sanctioned the surrender of their Fourth Amendment rights. It is up to the people, not the regime, to alter the balance between security and individual... Full story
It’s hard to believe there are starving people in the world when Americans shop in well-stocked supermarkets and dine out at any of our 618,000 restaurants. But the U.N. estimates that nearly 870 million poor people in developing nations suffer from chronic malnutrition. Its children’s agency, UNICEF, reports that one of every 15 children in those countries will die before the age of five. And the problem will only get worse: The world population is expected to increase by almost a billion people by 2030. At the same time, our agriculture lan...
THERE’S NOTHING so aggravating to the average taxpayer as learning that someone in high places slipped something over on you that benefited that person or his constituency at the expense of everybody else. Well, here we go again. The someone this time is Secretary of State John Kerry, although he was only a senator from Massachusetts when he did it. What he did was slip something into the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, that is resulting in millions of dollars for hospitals in his state, millions that will be deducted from what hospitals in... Full story
The following is a portion of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence signed in 1776 by 56 representatives of the British colonies in America. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government bec...
The newspaper Politico reports that dozens of members of Congress and their staffers are so worried about rising premium costs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that they may quit or retire before the law fully goes into effect Jan. 1. Currently, members of Congress and their staff are covered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which provides generous benefits, including a 75 percent taxpayer subsidy of health care premiums. But an amendment to the ACA or ”Obamacare,” sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, requires that, beg... Full story
If only all congressional committees were so inspired. The committee charged with putting to paper the reasons the Continental Congress had resolved to declare independence from Britain turned to Thomas Jefferson to do its drafting. If the reasons for that choice weren’t particularly profound — Jefferson’s talents as a writer were widely recognized, and no one thought the declaration as important as other pressing revolutionary business — its consequences assuredly were. Jefferson’s work of a few days was for the ages. John Adams had handed the...
The entire nation has been in a strangle hold while the two political parties fight over government spending. Deals have been made and broken because of the intransigence of both sides. One will not accept more spending. The other will not accept more cuts. Then, along comes the debate over immigration reform. A compromise bill is in the works and will likely pass a vote in the Senate. Few can predict what will happen in the House. The bill would authorize spending billions over the next ten years to build up the country’s border security. T... Full story
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. When I was in 9th grade, I decided it was my destiny to be a professional football player because I looked so fierce in my helmet. I spent a lot of time standing in front of the mirror in full equipment, growling through my mouth guard, squinting and sneering in such a threatening manner I intimidated even myself. I went outside and stood ominously in front of a group of second-grade girls who were playing Tea Party, shocking them into subdued silence. This is back when my mo...
Before Barack Obama became president, he reveled in the irresponsibility of his powerlessness. He could denounce Bush administration counterterrorism initiatives from a glorious position of civil-libertarian purity and posit the need to strike a perfect balance “between privacy and security.” Then he got elected president, and the mere posturing had to end. He had to grow up. Invested with responsibility for keeping the country safe and, no doubt, informed of potential threats in hair-raising terms on a daily basis, he jettisoned his innocent c... Full story
SEN. BEN JOHNSON, R-Wis., said the other day he was not nearly as worried about the Big Brother collection of all our telephone numbers and Internet usage as he was the danger posed by the actions of the Internal Revenue Service. More should be done on that score by the public, he said. It wasn’t right for IRS to demand all your financial information and you couldn’t refuse to give it. Well, Senator. I certainly agree more should be done on that score, but it’s you guys in Washington who have to do it, not us. A lot of us have tried in vain.... Full story
The United States Supreme Court has struck down Arizona’s voter registration law. Citing Federal precedence, the court declared the requirement that people registering to vote must show proof of citizenship is unconstitutional. The court’s majority determination, backed by both liberal and conservative judges in a 7-2 decision, said the Arizona law goes too far in restricting voter access. It has long been a national goal that all citizens have access to voting. Many roadblocks over the years have been placed in the way of some voters. Vot... Full story
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. I’m aging very well — so well, in fact, that I can do it in my sleep. I can wake up in the morning and see a face in the mirror that is decades older than the one that I remember putting to bed. Like most people, I fight back against getting older, using medicine’s most potent anti-aging agent: denial. So when my birthday came around recently, I told everyone that I wanted the passage of another year to be marked with absolutely no acknowledgement at all except present... Full story
As the budget battles continue in Olympia, state lawmakers are rightly focusing on the need to retain and expand good-paying aerospace and high-tech manufacturing jobs. At the same time, we shouldn’t overlook — or take for granted — the considerable economic contributions of Washington’s traditional industries. For example, forestry was the first economic powerhouse in our state, dating back to 1849. The Washington Forest Protection Association reports that today more than 50,000 people are employed in forest products, including pulp and pap...
