Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1518 - 1542 of 3750
There's a lot of talk about the Trump presidency unraveling. Big mistake. That assumes it was ever raveled. Now, however, it is about to be Hopeless. Yes, that's a cheesy pun to note that Hope Hicks, who has been among the most trusted of Donald Trump's aides since even before he became a candidate, is departing the pressure-cooker White House. Although still in her 20s, Trump leaned heavily on her as his only front-stabber in a sea of intrigue. She ended up as communications director, but she's not the first one to bail or be bailed from that...
YYYY Warmer temperatures, signs of new growth. #!*! $17,000 simply lost. Send your pet peeves and okeydokes to Whitman County Gazette P.O Box 770, Colfax, WA 99111 or drop them off at the Gazette office...
“Set it, and forget it.” That was Ron Propeil’s declaration to buyers of his rotisserie oven several years ago, and it is what his audiences would yell during his television infomercials. This, of course, was long after he became famous for his Veg-o-Matic, Pocket Fisherman and other inventions. More recently people have been saying it in an entirely different context. Now, it is used in reference to Daylight Saving Time. They say quit fooling around with clocks. Switching time at various arbitrary points in the year is frustrating and confu...
It now looks like Boeing will add at least two more aircraft to the U.S. Air Force fleet which flies our country’s leaders around the world. They are the most recognizable---the 747s traditionally called “Air Force One”. The recent news that President Trump’s Administration now approves replacing the current presidential jets with larger and more modern 747s cements the deal. It means the new Air Force One, a 747-8, could be flying presidents within five years. That’s good news for the more than 70,000 Boeing workers in the Puget Sound reg...
Invest now In a public letter of 16 Feb., 2018, Representative Joe Schmick asked for opinions on “giving more money back to tax payers” because economic projections suggest greater than anticipated revenue. The report he cites sees this unexpected good news as a reflection of a healthy economy. The League of Women Voters supports adequate funding of government services. Thus the League of Women Voters of Pullman strongly suggests that it is precisely because our economy is healthy that this is the time to invest these tax dollars in add...
If John Kelly didn't exist, President Donald Trump would have to invent him, and he wouldn't be able to. The chief of staff had a rocky couple of weeks with the imbroglio over ousted White House staff secretary Rob Porter, but he is as close as it gets to an indispensable man in the Trump White House. Where else is the president going to find someone whom he likes and respects (at least on most days), who can intimidate the White House staff into a semblance of order, who has experience in wielding responsibility in even more difficult...
Allow me to play devil's advocate. It's what I do as a journalist, plus I personally enjoy taking on orthodoxy, particularly when it involves a binge of second-guessing. That's exactly what we are witnessing in the wake of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I'm about to defend the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm not necessarily a fan of the FBI or, for that matter, of so many police agencies that can be overzealous in pursuit of what they perceive to be law and order. That said, I think the feds and all the other...
YYYY Outside media covering Colfax city council meetings! Send your pet peeves and okeydokes to Whitman County Gazette P.O Box 770, Colfax, WA 99111 or drop them off at the Gazette office...
The Washington Legislature has regularly declared that public disclosure laws do not apply to it. A judge in January ruled that the legislature was not exempt from them. In response, and in a rush rarely equaled in Washington legislative history, a bill exempting the legislature from public disclosure laws was passed. The bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses. The public outcry was immediate and, and according to Governor Jay Inslee’s office, unprecedented. Inslee vetoed the bill after some negotiations with legislators and news media o...
It was hard to get excited about the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, but give the South Koreans credit for overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles to pull the games off—and pull them off exceptionally well. The odds were stacked against them. Few people know where Pyeongchang is and the Korean mountains lack the ambiance of Europe’s Alps and North America’s Rockies. The northern coastal range is known for its frigid Siberian winds and subzero temperatures. Both arrived in the first week of competition and disrupted skiing and snowb...
Teacher with guns? In all the discussion about gun control, an idea has been put forward by the President. He is proposing that some teachers at each school be armed in case of a school shooter. It would have been instructive for him to watch the Olympic Biathlon athletes compete. These Olympians race on cross-country skis carrying a .22 caliber rifle, stop at fixed targets to fire single rounds at the target, then continue skiing. These Olympians practice for years in their home country then practice on the specific Olympic course for days or...
If only Joe McCarthy had lived to see this moment, when it is suddenly in vogue to attribute large-scale events in American politics to the hand of Russia and to inveigh against domestic subversion. Robert Mueller released an indictment of 13 Russians for crimes related to their social-media campaign to meddle in our internal affairs in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2016 election. Mueller obviously isn't a McCarthyite, and can't be held responsible for the hysteria -- and hopeful expectations of an impeachment-level event -- that has...
Mark the date on your calendar: March 24. It's a Saturday. It'll be a test for the up-and-coming generation. For that matter, it will be a test for the United States of America and a system of government that gets many failing grades because it has corruption baked in. March 24 is the day that student organizers have announced a rally in Washington -- "March for our Lives." Anything short of an enormous turnout will reinforce the craven politicians' belief that they can wait out the outrage that accompanies each regularly occurring mass gun...
#!*! Downtown businesses who don’t clear snow and ice from their sidewalks. It is outrageous and bad for business. Send your pet peeves and okeydokes to Whitman County Gazette P.O Box 770, Colfax, WA 99111 or drop them off at the Gazette office...
Headlines are one of the fun and challenging aspects of the newspaper business. They can be flashy, fun, intense, somber or alarming. Reporters and editors are constantly faced with the question: what should I use as the headline? Sometimes you start with one headline and by the time the article is in print, the headline is something else; usually better or more fitting. There are many potential headlines that are not seen by the public because the news staff changed it before publication. Here's one headline you will not see in this's week's...
Do good military commanders make good education leaders? That is a question which Montana’s Higher Education Commission will answer in the coming years. However, if the new University of Montana president follows the pattern set by former Seattle Public School Superintendent John Stanford and Clark College President Bob Knight, the answer will be a resounding yes. Seth Bodnar, 38, is the youngest UM president since World War II. He started in January. He doesn’t have the coveted title “Ph.D.” His key academic credentials include Rhodes and Tru...
Appreciations On behalf of all of us at Whitman County Library, I want to express our sincere appreciation to local voters for restoring the library’s tax levy rate. I also want to thank the many businesses and individuals who’ve donated and volunteered over the years. We are honored to serve you from 14 countywide locations, online and through outreach programming, but it definitely wouldn’t be possible without generous supporters like you. Thank you for helping WCL make a positive difference in our communities and in the lives of the peopl...
The Pentagon has confirmed that it is in the preliminary stages of planning a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue -- one of President Donald Trump's fondest desires. Trump was, understandably, impressed in a visit to France last July by the pageantry of the Bastille Day parade. The parade dates back to the 1880s. Nothing the United States comes up with will match its resonance or its beloved, unifying nature. Trump's motivation for ordering up a parade anyway is pretty obvious. He likes big, brassy displays, and he gets a kick out of...
There are so many problems in making a charge of sexual misbehavior and even more starkly when it comes to accusations of domestic abuse. Not the least of this is when Person No. 1 (usually a woman) points the finger at Person No. 2 (usually a man). When the man denies the allegations, we often are left with uncertainty over which one to believe. That's exactly what the administration faced with two key people on the president's staff -- Rob Porter, the man who handled all the presidential paperwork and the most-classified material, along with...
Since when has mass murder been a political issue? Last week, 17 students and staff were gunned down in a Florida high school. Others were wounded. The shooter was an expelled student with a long history of troubled behavior. Apparently, the FBI was warned about him. Local social services and local law enforcement knew of him because of multiple contacts. Despite this, he was able to purchase a semi-automatic assault-style rifle and carry out his killing spree. Since that horrific day, a cry has gone out that this should never happen again in...
Have you carefully checked your utility bills lately? Most people don’t unless they are monsters like the ones for garbage in Scranton, PA, and Los Angeles. In Vancouver, WA, our garbage and recycling bill now has an added 3.6 percent refuse tax. It costs us $1.29 more every two months. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, in Scranton, residents started receiving a $300 annual trash collection fee which is a 68 percent increase since 2014. In LA, an assisted-living operator’s bill was less than $500 a month, but jumped to who...
History lesson Frank Watson should open his history book. He's upset that states are in rebellion against the federal prohibition. Does he disapprove of the Tenth Amendment, States' Rights? He's disturbed by the high rate of black market drug deaths, by the appearance of supervised injection sites, and the notion that drugs are trending toward legalization. (Safe Injection Sites, 2-8-18) His misguided fears cry out for a much needed history lesson. I intend to show that the elevated rate of addictions, and the elevated rate of black market...
No matter the criticisms directed his way by Republicans, Robert Mueller should count himself lucky: He's not Ken Starr. The punctilious, mild-mannered independent counsel appointed by a three-judge panel in the 1990s, Starr investigated all manner of Bill Clinton scandals, most spectacularly the Monica Lewinsky affair. As a former D.C. circuit judge and U.S. solicitor general in the first Bush administration, he had struck no one as a goose-stepping lieutenant in the sex police, or a partisan fanatic likely to be driven by sheer hatred to...
I covered Capitol Hill during my CNN phase, which was quite a while ago, but to this day, I have friends who are veteran members of Congress and, more importantly, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. These are Washington "friends," which is to say that when I'm reporting on them, they're often adversaries. In return, they don't give me any sort of favored treatment, particularly those on the two intelligence committees. Any conversation about the super-classified material they routinely see as they conduct their oversight...
Governor Jay Inslee is pushing for a carbon tax in the state. His proposal is intended to raise $3.3 billion over four years. This would significantly increase costs to consumers. Electricity rates could increase 4 to 5 percent, natural gas could increase 9 to 11 percent and gasoline might jump as much as 9 percent. The carbon tax, it is said, would cut greenhouse emissions and put Washington in the lead for fighting climate change. In the first years of the tax, however, the new revenues would not go to mitigating climate change. The bulk...
