Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Other issues I appreciate Randy Suess' analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated recently by our President and currently awaiting ratification. Here are some items I believe are worthy of consideration before we agree to the TPP. Our ability to sell our soft white wheat is primarily because 1. We produce something the world needs, 2. We enjoy a consistent production ability, 3. Our product is of outstanding quality, 4. We have developed the infrastructure (roads, rails, waterways, storage and handling facilities and marketing...
President Barack Obama has seen the enemy, and it is the refusal to accept more Syrian refugees. From the tone of his post-Paris remarks, you'd think that a sophisticated terrorist assault on a major Western city is a setback; sentiment in the U.S. against taking more Syrian refugees is an atrocity. Obama warned against "that dark impulse inside of us," as if we were debating whether Syrian refugees should be drawn and quartered. He said that "slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values." He was joined by liberal...
What's most pathetic about the presidential campaign is how it's becoming little more than a battle between cheap-shot artists. Each day brings a new limbo contest, as they all compete to see how low they can go. Take, for instance, the ridiculous heckling by various Republicans because President Barack Obama and other Democrats don't want to describe the brutal ISIS terrorists as manifestations of "radical Islam." The administration avoids the term because it casts the United States as an enemy of Muslims, which we make believe we are not....
The presidential election is just less than a year off. Already the campaigns are reaching new levels of vitriol and ridiculousness. Donald Trump, for one, has outraged nearly every minority in the country. Now, he has, some think, mocked a disabled person. Few have escaped his scathing remarks. Trump is causing real consternation among establishment Republicans. They fear is that his remarks and beliefs will be taken as representative of the Republican party as a whole. Trump, of course, is not the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, to...
When China’s President Xi Jinping flew into Seattle last September, his presidential airliner looked like any other Air China 747-400 passenger jet. That is because it was. The Chinese have a different approach to flying their leaders. Its Air Force owns a small fleet of 737s to shuttle dignitaries on short hauls, but they contract with independently owned Air China for extended overseas missions. In the United States, our government leaders exclusively fly military aircraft—-many of which are made by Boeing in Washington State—-but those... Full story
Trans Pacific Partnership From an agricultural standpoint, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is of great benefit to farmers and our state. Countries within the TPP account for 42 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports. Soft white wheat grown here accounts for a large share of that business. TPP puts farmers on a level playing field by removing barriers to trade, like tariffs and import duties. Currently, TPP countries Vietnam and Malaysia have a growing middle class where diets are improving. The first thing they add is meat, which...
The instant online symbol of global support for Paris after last week’s attacks was a roughly rendered peace symbol with an Eiffel Tower in the middle of it. The French designer Jean Jullien sketched it as soon as he heard the news of the atrocity. He called it “Peace for Paris,” and it immediately became a sensation on social media. Its success is a sign of the times. We have become experts at treacly online mourning. We take grotesque atrocities and launder them into trite symbols and slogans that are usually self-congratulatory and, of co... Full story
Here is one of the most disturbing questions of all: How do you severely punish groups of fanatics for whom martyrdom is the highest aspiration? When French President Francois Hollande promises his nation “will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group” and “will act by all means anywhere,” what reason is there to believe that Islamic State maniacs will be moved in any way, except to laugh and expand their murderous assaults on humanity? Even with massive airstrikes, ISIS is threatening new massacres. So the answer is that th... Full story
Big store Black Friday strikes again. It follows the tradition of early openings with the biggest price cuts for the first to arrive uninjured. Some retailers tried to get the jump on other retailers by being open on Thanksgiving Day. These openings may never catch on because the traditional stampedes are missing. A lot of shoppers view out of town Black Friday as a special outing and adventure. Some people just like contact shopping. Small communities and small, independent stores have trouble competing with the rush and crowds of Black Friday... Full story
Alcoa’s announcement that it is shutting down our state’s last two aluminum smelters may be a long awaited requiem for some, but there are other factors we should consider before burying it. First, the Seattle Times reports the decision will cost 1,500 family-wage jobs with good benefits. And even though the trend has not been good for our aluminum industry, we need to look for opportunities to resurrect it. In 2000, Seattle economist Dick Conway found the five largest smelters in Washington employed more than 7,500 people and generated $2....
NAFTA I do not know what our presidents think when it comes to international trade agreements. President Clinton signed NAFTA (North American Foreign Trade Agreement) and now President Obama is getting ready to sign the TPTA (TransPacific Trade Agreement). I cannot imagine what Obama might be thinking. NAFTA resulted in several million U.S. jobs moved overseas. TPTA will probably also result in a similar departure of jobs. I cannot believe that an American Citizen could negotiate such an agreement as a benefit to our citizenry. It will remove...
We live in an age of miracles. Throughout all of human history, material progress essentially didn't exist until around 1800. The economic trajectory was flat until the human lot began to improve in ways that would have been unimaginable in prior millennia. This change gave us the world as we know it. In her brilliant book on the transformation, "Bourgeois Dignity," Deirdre McCloskey writes how the average person in the world subsisted on roughly $3 a day during humanity's long economic stasis. Then, with the breakout, countries that experience...
As even-handed as I try to be, it is time to be fair and balanced about Thanksgiving, meaning we should give equal time to the unthankful side, with the traditional discussion of my pet peeves. This is not a comprehensive list, because I have so many pet peeves you could fill up a peeve petting zoo with them. For starters, there's that annoying presidential turkey pardon. Each year, since the Bush I administration, POTUS holds a White House ceremony to spare a couple of the birds, so they end up in some nearby park instead of on a platter,... Full story
The world is faced with a real quandary. What to do with ISIS? The ISIS attacks in Paris which left 132 dead and hundreds injured have brought the threat of Islamic terrorists to the forefront. ISIS is no longer seen as a gaggle of terrorist, but as a group able to execute complex plans far from its base. It is certainly not the junior varsity. It is now clearly a global threat of the first order. Nations must now decide how to confront it. Refugees from the Middle East are swamping Europe. Among them are some terrorists using the refugees as...
Today, many elected officials are fixated on tearing down coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind farms. But that isn’t practical, because when there is no wind or sunlight those plants produce no electricity. There is an alternative. Nuclear power plants supply 10 percent of world’s electricity. But opponents say they are too dangerous and too expensive. They point to the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union, considered to be the world’s worst nuclear disaster. But 30 years later, comme...
Veteran’s return Sitting at home, remembering friends lost, and so many more from Vietnam. I was fortunate, not only to survive a year “in country” but to have grown up in Colfax, which like all Whitman County communities, really knows what patriotism is. As a child I watched vets march up Main Street with awe and admiration. These WWII and Korean vets instilled pride in those of us watching. Ten years later I “became” one of those vets and came home in time to march in the 1966 Memorial Day parade. I was very lucky to be welcomed home, as...
For the press, the debate about Obamacare is over. There may be a few proverbial Japanese soldiers wandering on isolated islands yammering on about the failure of Obamacare, but word will eventually filter down to them, too. This assumption is so deeply embedded that it is impervious to new evidence that Obamacare is an unwieldy contraption that is sputtering badly. Yes, Obamacare has covered more people and has especially benefited those with pre-existing conditions (to be credible, Republican replacement plans have to do these things, as...
This will not endear me to the television industry's muckety-mucks, because their news divisions make huge, almighty buckety-buck profits thanks to the astronomical ratings that come when they present the primary elections' presidential debates. So they're not going to be thrilled with my advocating that we end our Faustian deals with the parties and stop producing their candidate cattle calls ... or perhaps stampedes. I've criticized certain CNBC moderators for embarrassing us all with their vacuous and blatantly hostile questions and...
Recently, journalists have been in the news as much as they have been reporting it. The media is once again being roundly attacked. This is nothing new, but the fervor increased when Republican candidates for president objected to the tone and nature of the questions asked by moderators during the CNBC Republican presidential debate. Then, CNN and others investigated some of the personal claims made by presidential candidate Ben Carson. There has been no confirmation of the facts from Carson’s camp or from his friends and relatives. In fact, Ca...
To listen to liberal politicians such as President Obama and Hillary Clinton, political donations by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch epitomize what’s wrong with America’s political system. But Obama and Clinton are silent when liberal billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer do the same. Casting politics aside, the Koch brothers embody the ideals of our free market system, which has made America the economic power it is today. Charles Koch’s book, Good Profit, details his philosophy that consumer choice in the marke...
Solution Reading Mr. Allert’s letter in your newspaper over the weekend, “State neglects rail-to-trail”, was a very educational experience for me. I learned about vocabulary. For example, I learned that he has a completely different definition for the word “compromise” than I do. According to Mr. Allert, the midnight closing of 135 miles of state public park/trail land, without any public announcement or input from trail users was the “the definition of true compromise”. Usually a compromise involves input from at least two parties. I be...
It was inevitable that Bernie Sanders would be accused of sexism sooner or later. His day came at the signature Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa. Hillary Clinton hit the Vermont senator for saying in the first Democratic debate that "all the shouting in the world" wouldn't keep guns out of the wrong hands. According to Clinton, Sanders had directed a notoriously sexist insult at her -- although not one of the 15 million people watching at the time had noticed it. "I haven't been shouting," Clinton intoned, "but sometimes when a woman speaks...
After Joe Biden announced that he wouldn't be joining the Democratic fray, I was asked on TV if it meant that Hillary Clinton was "unstoppable" in her march to the party nomination. Overlooking the fact that Bernie Sanders is quite an obstacle, the reality is that there are all kinds of ways that Hillary could fall flat on her face and not get up. First of all, it's way too early to draw any conclusions about anything, certainly about inevitability. The first Iowa caucuses are more than three months away, the nominating convention nine months... Full story
Colfax has hosted some different, fun events recently. First, ghost hunters from around the nation converged on the town for two weeks. They came to “investigate” paranormal activities at the old hospital. A good scare is hard to beat. Most of those who took the tour of the hospital had a good, if not unusual, time. Those who reported being spooked seemed to have had the most fun. Second, the PAC-12 Cross Country Meet was held at the Colfax Golf and Country Club. Runners from PAC-12 schools ran a circuit around the golf course. Two races wer...
Maybe there is finally something Democrats and Republicans can agree on – fixing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). From the day it was signed into law in 2010, Republicans have tried unsuccessfully to repeal Obamacare, saying it is unworkable and unaffordable. Until this year, Democrats have held the line for the President. But not now. After the President leaves office, change will come. The first is repeal of the so-called Cadillac Tax, the 40 percent excise tax on generous health care plans, which is scheduled to begin in 2018. According to t... Full story
