Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1784 - 1808 of 3749
What happened to the American spirit of compromise? Our political landscape has fragmented into bastions of ideology that refuse to give an inch. Is this rigidity new with the first Obama administration or is that just as far back as my memory goes? I’m not sure, but I do recall being somewhat surprised when President Obama refused to listen to the opposition. I remember thinking that his repeated, “I won and can do whatever I want,” would come back and bite him as well as become the new political normal. The masterpiece that is our Const...
Driving east along SR 14 these days, you see water pouring out of Columbia River dams. It is already a high water year with much of the runoff from our heavy mountain snowpack yet to come. It is part of our “feast or famine” weather cycle. As you pop over the hilltop near the historic Maryhill Museum, you look down to see John Day Dam with its floodgates open spilling massive amounts of water. Then you see remains of the razed Goldendale Aluminum Co. smelter next to the dam. That plant once accounted for 1,300 jobs, $40 million in personal inc...
A connection I believe most Americans would agree with the opinion Mr. Mark Bordsen expressed (March 23) in a letter to the Whitman County Gazette, regarding Russian Federation President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He is a bad guy. A very bad guy. But then Mr. Bordsen attempted to establish a connection between Putin and President Trump. However, all of the news stories I have read that “speculate” on some such connection say somewhere deep within the story that there is no evidence yet. Hmmm. However, I do recall that Bill Clinton was pai...
There's stumbling out of the gate, and then there's what Republicans just did on health care. They came up with a substantively indefensible bill, put it on an absurd fast track to passage, didn't seriously try to sell it to the public, fumbled their internal negotiations over changes -- and suffered a stinging defeat months after establishing unified control of government. There has been a lot of finger-pointing after the collapse of the bill, and almost all of it is right. This was a partywide failure. House Speaker Paul Ryan has -- faint pra...
Let's dispense with the sanctimony and admit it: Most of us really enjoy piling on. I know I do. There are few things more exhilarating than participating in mass malice. Rarely do we get such an obvious opportunity for schadenfreude than the Trump-Ryan health care debacle. Maybe Donald Trump should have his ghostwriter create a new book: "The Thwart of the Deal." And while we are being brutally honest (or is it honestly brutal?), let's acknowledge that cheap shots like that are the best shots. They're certainly no cheaper than all the...
Most agree that the climate is changing. And, the changes are not good. Large swaths of coral are dying along the Great Barrier Reef. Weather patterns are changing dramatically, causing extremes of weather and potential loss of productive land while the world’s population soars. Sea levels are ticking up. Fifteen of the 16 warmest years have been recorded since 2001. Greenhouse gases are a major contributor to the problem. As early as 1957, during what was called the International Geophysical Year, greenhouse gases were predicted to be a p...
A connection I believe most Americans would agree with the opinion Mr. Mark Bordsen expressed last week in a letter to the Whitman County Gazette, regarding Russian Federation President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He is a bad guy. A very bad guy. But then Mr. Bordsen attempted to establish a connection between Putin and President Trump. However, all of the news stories I have read that “speculate” on some such connection say somewhere deep within the story that there is no evidence yet. Hmmm. However, I do recall that Bill Clinton was paid $5...
A major hurdle for lawmakers in Olympia working to finish the next two-year state budget and adjourn is the so-called “carbon tax.” However, Gov. Jay Inslee wants a first-ever levy on CO2 emissions. While it targets coal and natural gas power plants and manufacturing facilities, everyone will pay more. His proposal is part of a grand plan to raise $5.5 billion in higher taxes. That scheme also includes imposing a new tax on investor’s income and increases existing business and occupation (B&O) tax rates on services. Higher taxes are troub...
It's called a "skinny budget," because it's just a president's blueprint for where the federal money goes, and it doesn't get into details. Those will be fleshed out later. Actually, this one is anorexic, containing the usual bullet points that Donald Trump always prefers rather than getting tangled in the weeds of messy specifics. However, even these budgetary bullet points target the entire notion that the United States has a kindhearted government. The money largely affirms the idea that this is a nation in a defensive crouch. There are...
For years, the Congress of the United States has been poorly regarded. It has been ineffectual, obstructionist, overly partisan and prone to ridiculous squabbling. That situation was to end after the Republican sweep in November that gave the party President Donald Trump and control of both houses of Congress. Nothing has changed, however. It might even be worse now. The Republican party is in disarray. After eight years of big promises and strong criticism, the party now seems frozen in indecision and disagreement. The party has even failed...
PACCAR’s recent announcement it is teaming with computer chipmaker Nvidia to build driver-less trucks is good for Washington. PACCAR, the century-old Bellevue-based truck builder, plans to manufacture new Kenworth, Peterbuilt and DAF computer-guided trucks capable of delivering freight over our nation’s roadways. Hopefully, many of them will be assembled at its Renton plant. Self-driving cars already exist. Google has been testing them since 2009. They have logged more than 2 million miles. The company reports of the 11 accidents, none were cau...
Risky business What is happening to America? Why have Republicans and conservatives changed? It used to be their complaint that Democrats were not tough enough on communism and liberals were weak on defense. Now we have President Trump who says he wants to increase our military budget (already the world’s biggest), at the same time he is soft on Russia. Trump and some of his staff and associates have ties to Russia’s dictator, Putin and to Russian businesses tied to Putin. This is bad. Russia is not our friend. Putin is former KGB, the Rus...
Of all the arguments to make for repealing and replacing Obamacare, the very worst is that people don't need health insurance. Yet this is a Trump administration talking point. White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently told reporters, "When we get asked the question, 'How many people are going to get covered?' that's not the question that should be asked." Pressed on the merits of the bill by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney shot back, "You're worried about getting people...
Many Republican leaders are leery about having their name attached to the GOP's replacement for Obamacare, a health care overhaul they have demonized since it was passed seven years ago. But they're having a devilish time coming up with one of their own that doesn't make things worse. It's hard to blame them for preferring not to be identified with their American Health Care Act, which is the official title of their slapped-together replacement. They have to come up with something now that they have a lock on our government. After all, they...
Despite pre-election predictions to the contrary, Donald J. Trump is the legitimate President of the United States. Many Americans are unhappy with the election results and are gunning for him. He is getting very little slack from those who opposed him. Some of his efforts are being fought, in part because of what they are, but also because of who he is. Just weeks into his term, still within his first 100 days in office, he has jolted the status quo and embarked on sweeping changes. Agree with him or not, change is in the air. The change, howe...
In 2003, Gov. Gary Locke (D) faced a 10 percent revenue hole in the state’s budget. He also stared at a sluggish economy still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. People were reluctant to fly and airlines stopped buying Boeing jets. Locke faced either recommending substantial tax increases or finding a new way to allocate state tax revenues. He turned to Minnesota’s former commissioner of finance, Peter Hutchinson, who helped his governor balance the budget by cutting waste, tightening efficiencies and prioritizing spe...
During the campaign, I agreed with much of what Mr. Trump proposed. We need to defend our borders, but when he proposed building a wall that Mexico would pay for, I was hoping that he was speaking metaphorically. Walls have never provided security for the builder. The Great Wall didn't keep China safe from the Mongols in the 13th century any more than the Maginot line kept France safe from the Germans in the 20th century. They just don’t work. If there is actual or perceived benefit from breaching the wall, it will be breached. Thus, I was s...
Colfax Conflating In a letter to the editor last week, Mark Bordsen was outraged that the President characterized the mainstream media as ‘the enemy’. In the technical nuance of the words, Mr. Bordsen may be accurate in that the mainstream is not an ‘enemy’. However, it is unarguable that the mainstream media has shed the fiction of objective journalism and has become the President’s political opposition. Conflating the terms ‘enemy’ and ‘opposition’ is not difficult. Politicians of all stripes do it all the time. I seem to recall, a certain...
At Middlebury College earlier this month, Charles Murray needed a safe space -- literally. In a significant escalation of the campus speech wars, protesters hooted down the conservative scholar in a lecture hall and then roughed up a Middlebury faculty member escorting him to a car. The Middlebury administration commendably tried to do the right thing and stand by Murray's right to be heard, but was overwhelmed by a yowling mob with all the manners and intellectual openness of a gang of British soccer hooligans. Sometime soon, we may yearn for...
It's early in his presidency, but already Donald Trump has faced one controversy after another. None has been more perilous to him than the accusation that he was elected in large part due to the interference on his behalf by his comrade Vladimir Putin and Putin's agents of the Russian government. That one just won't go away. When the blustering, battering and bullying don't work and the media reports threaten to consume his administration in dangerous scandal, POTUS leaves his Plan B and falls back onto Plan T. "T," of course, stands for...
This is a nation that can’t find someone to host the Academy Awards. Is this relevant? Is it just the opinion of someone watching a broadcast few pay attention to anymore? Jimmy Kimmel just hosted the 89th Academy Awards, the annual ceremony in which Oscar statues are given for achievements in filmmaking. The year was marked by a wild twist of a bungled Best Picture award, though not all that many people were watching when it happened. The Oscars, feeling the downturn in ratings over the past 1...
As lawmakers in Olympia inch toward adjournment, they must keep in mind the total added costs of new taxes on our state’s economy. It is not just about the taxes and fees they impose. They are working against an April 23 deadline to enact a two-year financial plan and find sufficient funding for it. Unlike Congress, states must balance their budgets. While the funding decisions are generally contentious, this year’s legislative tension is high because Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and lawmakers must find ways to pay for our K-12 public schools as man...
Enemy In calling the press “the enemy of the American people,” President Trump attacks the same journalists and publications and broadcast networks which propelled him to victory in the Republican nomination and into the office of the U.S. President. Now that the press continues to report the truth, much of it critical, any that do not support Trump are labeled “fake news” by him. It is more than ironic that when Trump makes an accusation, it is as if he were talking about himself. “Crooked” Hillary applies more to Trump than it does her, s...
OK, OK, OK, you say. Enough already. We in the media have made our point. In fact, we have made it ad nauseum. We are alarmed over Donald Trump's vicious descriptions of us. Besides, our precious little feelings are hurt. According to our current president, we are "dishonest." He also implies we are in cahoots with terrorists when we refuse to report on their violence. We are particularly all atwitter over his declaring us "enemy of the American people." Actually, it's President Donald Trump who is all atwitter -- he's all Twitter, all the time...
Steve Bannon blew a dog whistle for constitutional conservatives when he spoke of "deconstructing the administrative state" at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Although not everyone got the reference. Trump haters interpreted the line as an incendiary call to decimate the federal government, when "the administrative state" was a more specific reference to a federal bureaucracy that operates free of the normal checks of democratic accountability. The administrative state has been called "the fourth branch" of government. It involves...
