Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1493 - 1517 of 3750
“Traitor” Trump One of many things I can't understand about the supporters of "Treasonous" Trump is the extreme hypocrisy of otherwise honorable, God fearing people. Multiple evangelistic and other Christian leaders have publicly given "Adulterous" Trump a "mulligan" on his many violations of the Ten Commandments -- What?? A mulligan like in a golf game!! What happened to morals? This son-of-a-gun screwed around on his third wife with at least two other women while his wife was taking care of their newborn child! Also, it is very well kno...
President Donald Trump gets results. His attacks on Amazon have tanked the company's stock. It's hard to think of a more pointlessly destructive act of presidential jawboning in our history. The online retailer is a jewel of our market economy that has delivered more choice and convenience at a lower cost. The backdrop for Trump's animosity is that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, which, like much of the major media, is unrelentingly hostile to the president. The bias of the Post is nothing new, nor should it be taken out on the...
Does anybody know or care where Laura Ingraham is "vacationing"? Ingraham, who has been a mouthpiece for right-wing nastiness for decades, recently had gravitated to a perch at Fox News (where else?) to do the venomous schtick that has brought her fame and fortune. But then she crossed the teeny-bopper. Not just any teeny-bopper. This is David Hogg, the extremely telegenic Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior and survivor of the shooting massacre there on Valentine's Day. He's a founder of the Never Again MSD movement and a leader of...
The last presidential election was targeted by Russia and others. The alleged purpose was to sway the results towards Donald Trump. Allegations claim that hackers gained access to 21 state voting systems, although reportedly no votes were changed in those systems. These breaches were the most direct attack on the election process. Yet, during the campaign, other attacks occurred. False news, fake endorsements and the like were disseminated to confuse and influence votes in favor of Trump. Some call the efforts “meddling.” Others call them dir...
I have followed Mark Rypien’s denunciation of the NFL, and football in general, as the cause of his mental illness. I have no doubt that his condition is genuine, and there may be some merit to his claims; the courts think so anyway. His lawsuit against the NFL resulted in a $765 million judgment and initiated a strict concussion protocol. His cause is supported by Dr. Omalu, author of the book “Concussion.” Dr. Omalu warns parents against allowing children to play any contact sport. He would have us believe that most football players suffe...
Rewording Frank Watson (Stop the Violence - March 29, 2018,) oh you are the good company man, as exemplified by your implied rewording of the firearms industry slogan, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" into, "Guns don't kill people, frivolous lawsuits kill people." However, tort reform will not stop the violence. Mark Olson, Seattle Unacceptable I have never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, most of the people that know me would probably say “Yeah he’s a good guy, a little slow sometimes but he means well.” I don’t...
All you needed to know about student activist David Hogg's speech at the "March for Our Lives" in Washington, D.C., was that he affixed a price tag on the microphone to symbolize how much National Rifle Association money Sen. Marco Rubio took for the lives of students in Florida. The stunt wasn't out of place. Indeed, it perfectly encapsulated the braying spirit of the student gun-control advocacy in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. These young activists are making our public debate even more poisonous and less civil, and are...
YYYY Nice person that left wonderful gifts on porch on Southview on Easter Sunday!! YYYY The wonderful Rosauers Easter Egg Hunt #!*! Colfax school & city – not what they were 20 years ago....
There are arguments over the number of those who participated in the March for Our Lives, as there always are disputes over crowd size at these mass demonstrations. Suffice it to say, a bunch of people took part. In Washington, the spat is over just how many hundred thousands flooded the nation's capital, to say nothing of those who turned out in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the United States and around the world. The organizers -- rank amateur teenagers who rose up from Parkland, Fla., after the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas...
Years ago on the southern California coast, certain beaches were often covered with tar. It was just part of going to the beach. One thing that had to be included with the beach balls, towels and plastic shovels and buckets was a can of turpentine. That was to clean off the tar before going home. Also Catalina Island, famously 26 miles off the coast (at least according to the song) was often obscured by a dirty brown band of pollution that blew over the channel from Los Angeles. In 1957, the International Geophysical Year marked greenhouse...
Wondering Wowie! President Draft Dodger Trump sure does act guilty of something. I wonder why? Richard Stanton, Colfax...
President Donald Trump's pick for CIA director is about to experience a good Borking. No one doubts her professionalism, and she's been endorsed by Obama intelligence officials. Yet Gina Haspel's long career at the agency, including extensive work undercover in the field, is getting blotted out by her reported involvement in the CIA's black-site interrogation program, which has become a warrant to say anything about her. Her critics assert she should be in jail, and The New York Times editorial page wrote about her nomination under the...
Most of the 2.5 million annual Alamo visitors focus on the epic 1836 battle in which a small band of brave Texans was eventually overrun by the Mexican army. Folk heroes like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William Travis were among the Texans killed while fighting for independence from Mexico. However, the Alamo is more than a small Spanish-style church depicted on tourism brochures which barely withstood a 13-day pummeling from Mexican cannons. It is a large complex built nearly a century before the seize where irrigated agriculture was...
The death of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking brings to mind Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. How weird is that? But bear with me. Hawking credibly speculated about a parallel universe on the other side of a black hole. What if, in that alternative existence, Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election? How, in that black hole that is U.S. politics, would she be doing as president? In a word, badly. She wouldn't be the disgrace that Donald Trump is -- there's no way anyone can match his bigotry, hateful appeals to our worst instincts...
Two guests appeared on a recent episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO: Donna Brazile, former head of the Democratic National Committee, and Anthony Scaramucci, “The Mooch,” the disgraced former Trump administration communications director who got fired for vulgar comments to a journalist. Who would you expect to come off better on the show? The result may be a microcosm of the state of both parties. Brazile came on first and delivered some comments peppered with gratuitous swearin...
I was concerned when the senate seat in rural King County went to a democrat, giving them a one vote majority in the Senate as well as control of the house and governor’s office. The liberals are now unencumbered in their self-appointed mission to see how much money they can squeeze out of the state’s taxpayers. Washington budgets on a two year cycle every odd numbered year. The 2017 budget was not only the largest in history, it had the largest increase over the past budget. We exceeded 20 billion in proposed spending for the first time. Our...
In the 1950s, America’s “Big Three” automakers (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) were the pacesetters for our industrial dominance. They had the skilled workers, financing, mass production technology, sales networks, supply chains and customer base. In short, they had it all. President’s Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy even tapped their CEO’s to be Secretary of Defense. "As General Motors goes, so goes the nation" was the commonly heard theme across our land. However, in the last 25 years, our country’s manufacturing power has been in...
What age for drugs? What?! Raise the legal age for pot, alcohol and tobacco to age 26? Who suggested that? Nobody. But let's consider it. "Our brains are still developing up to age 26... The receptors making connections in our brains stop making those connections under the influence of marijuana and other drugs," said Diane Harp, who was repeating some things that were said at a drug abuse prevention conference. (Gazette 2-27-14). Never doubt that marijuana will become as freely available and as lavishly advertised as alcohol and tobacco are to...
There's already a trade war, and it's being waged by Beijing. China's ascension to the World Trade Organization nearly 20 years ago has failed in its strategic objectives. It hasn't created a liberalizing regime or a free-market economy in China; in fact, it hasn't even created a China ready and willing to abide by the norms of free trade. The regime of Xi Jinping hasn't been pushed toward democratic reforms by a rising middle class. China still champions state-led, rather than market-led, capitalism. And it takes advantage of the WTO, using...
Thursday, March 8, 2018. Mark down that date. It was a day for news of huge significance: Tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, and a startling announcement about negotiations between President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Ho-hum. We'd much rather discuss sex. The Washington swamp is teeming with that kind of wildlife. Let's face it -- many, if not most, of the leaders in a position to determine how we live and love and all that important stuff are really just a bunch of horndogs. They jeopardize their elevated status for risky...
Inattentive driving is one of the biggest threats on the nation’s highways. Local and national programs are spotlighting the dangers. Still, at the same time autonomous cars are being pushed. A recent Cadillac commercial shows a driver behind the wheel of his new Cadillac with his arms folded. Another shows a man drinking a pop. The tagline taunts Tesla. Uber and others are testing autonomous vehicles. In fact, just on Monday a woman in Tempe, Arizona was killed by a driverless Uber car. This was not the first fatality or injury from the experi...
During our recent trip through the wine country of Argentina, I became friends with our guide, Oscar. Oscar is an interesting guy. His first real job was as a newspaper columnist for a large daily in Mendoza. In 1983 he wrote a piece criticizing Argentina's conduct of the Falkland War. He was promptly arrested, jailed and exiled to Europe. After 20 years, he was allowed to return home and now guides tourists in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. When I told Oscar that I thought socialism was responsible for Argentina’s economic problems, h...
This St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) the Irish have a lot to celebrate. Ireland is cleaner, greener and more prosperous. Ireland is an island nation roughly one-third the size of Washington with 4.7 million people. It is no longer the agrarian country which its patron saint converted to Christianity in the early Fifth Century. Today’s Ireland attracts tourists, high tech companies and manufacturers from around the world. One of the keys to its economic growth is its low corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent which is nine points lower than the new...
Endangered In our animal world, a species found to be "endangered" can often be protected, propagated and perpetuated. Salmon and bison are examples of such successes. But there are exceptions. Our carrier pigeon is now extinct and South Africa's white rhinoceros survives only in the form of a single remaining male animal. In our plant world, scientific attempts to propagate and perpetuate "endangered" botanical environments are rarely successful. Whitman County's Palouse Prairie may soon become our version of the white rhino and is no longer...
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been attacked and belittled by President Donald Trump more than Vladimir Putin has. Trump has had rough patches with most of his top officials, but there is a particular poignancy in his humiliating treatment of his own attorney general, who got on board the Trump Train early and supports the president's policy instincts as much as anyone. But Sessions is not personally loyal, at least not in the way Trump expects, and so the man who looked past Trump's erratic temperament when he decided to support him now ro...
