Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1829 - 1853 of 3750
In 1993, President Bill Clinton was pictured holding a Washington state apple while promoting the virtues of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). That photo only underscored the importance of the agreement and our trade with Mexico and Canada. Washington is the most trade dependent state in the nation. The Puget Sound Business Journal (PSBJ) reported last November, Washington state exported at least $134.5 billion worth of goods to Canada and Mexico since the agreement was signed. The dust-up over NAFTA focuses on Mexico, from which...
The start of the Trump administration has been a vindication of the American nation-state. Anyone who thought it was a "borderless world," a category that includes some significant portion of the country's corporate and intellectual elite, has been disabused of the notion within about the first five days of the Trump years. The theme running throughout President Donald Trump's inaugural address was the legitimacy of the nation-state as a community, a source of unity and the best means of advancing the interests of its citizens. The address was...
Let's take the good with the bad about Donald Trump: On the positive side, he has rendered utterly useless those clocks the news networks like to put up as part of their screen clutter. They count down the seconds till some major event occurs, days or even weeks away. But even when President Trump declares when he's going to announce some big decision, that can change the moment he needs to deflect attention from a mess. In other words, his schedule is no schedule. That's terrific, because these idiot clocks had been procreating like they...
Enemies can be helpful. Both focus and inspiration can come from facing off a known enemy. It can concentrate effort. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its Communist ideology were the enemy. It motivated the country to do many things. Some were good. Some, such as befriending totalitarian, anti-democratic governments, were not good. Still, the nation’s energies were concentrated on its single biggest and most threatening enemy. Although bad, an enemy can be good. An enemy can clarify situations and responses. Not having any enemies, o...
Congratulations on your first 100 years, Boeing. Cut the cake and get back to work! Last July, Boeing passed the century mark, growing to become the world’s largest and most successful aerospace manufacturer. Boeing’s website proudly proclaimed: “Since July 15, 1916, we’ve been making the impossible, possible. From producing a single canvas-and-wood airplane to transforming how we fly over oceans and into the stars, The Boeing Company has become the world's largest aerospace company. And we're just getting started.” Boeing’s success is well kno...
Ammo Regulation I am a conservationist. I am also a hunter. I’ve spent the last nine years in our great state of Washington supporting the pastime. When I spend money on hunting, which many of us do frequently, I’m proud to know that I’m supporting local jobs and conservation programs through my hunting dollars. Needless to say, I was deeply disturbed to learn that one of the final acts of the outgoing Obama Administration was to undercut public access to hunting opportunities by banning the use of traditional ammunition on federal lands...
The work of unraveling President Barack Obama's legacy is underway, but even if the Trump administration and a Republican Congress reverse every last law and regulation, they won't be able to touch the core of it. Obama's enduring legacy will be as a cultural symbol, the first African-American president who represented a current of social change in the country and reflected the values and attitudes of the progressive elite. He will be remembered -- and revered -- by his admirers as his generation's JFK. The standards here are largely stylistic,...
His "America First, America First, America First" inaugural address is seen by many as divisive, particularly those who are miserable that Donald Trump is actually president of the United States. They continue to look for straws to grasp and might take solace in the Irish bookmaker who is setting the odds that Trump will be impeached within six months at 8-1; it's 4-1 that he'll be tossed before his term is done. Of course, the bookie took a bath predicting that Hillary Clinton would win the election. But also factor in polls that show...
On Sunday, Jan 15, an old house converted to six rental units went up in flames. It was located on East Street in Colfax. Fire units from around the county responded. A ladder truck from Pullman was even brought in to direct water down on the building. The age of the structure and the changes made over the years made the emergency response dangerous. The firefighters reported some injuries as they made sure the building was evacuated. In the cold, water froze on the structure and iced up the surrounding area, even causing dangerous conditions...
Keys to fulfilling President Donald Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” are well-prepared people who employers can hire to run our factories and businesses. Jean Floten, who is retiring as chancellor of WGU Washington at the end of January, is one of those trailblazing leaders who has been an innovative educator with vision, drive and tenacity. People like her are vital to accomplishing the president’s aspiration. Floten has been an accomplished education leader for 53 years. Most of her career has been in Washington as a highly-...
Several years ago shortly after I had been assigned my first command, I was called out late at night to a tense situation. All I knew was that the issue was in my squadron. As I walked up, a security policeman asked me who I was; I told him, and he loudly addressed the crowd, “It’s okay now the commander is here.” I immediately felt a great burden of responsibility. I spent the next several years trying to justify that security policeman’s statement: “It is okay now the commander is here.” I had to develop what I call a command presence; a...
Donald Trump should do press conferences more often. Not for the country's sake, certainly not for the media's sake, but for his. He really shouldn't have waited 167-plus days to hold one, because the man gives great sound bite. Although I've participated in probably thousands of these staged encounters as a reporter, they're not my favorite way of getting news -- you almost never get any. The guy at the podium controls the proceeding. He can get his message out with little challenge from the assembled journalists, who are limited to a...
“Hello, I’m Wolf Blitzer, and this is the Situation Room.” But, it wasn’t. It was Jake Tapper opening his news program, The Lead, on Monday. He wanted to give his viewers an example of “alternative facts.” Tapper’s opening was in response to an uproar over the weekend. Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump’s press secretary, excoriated the media for reports on the turnout at Trump’s inauguration. Spicer claimed that it was the most attended and watched inauguration in history, “period.” That is an obvious falsehood, and Spicer was called on...
Fifty years ago, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser and PACCAR were the “Crème de la crème” of Washington’s publicly traded corporations. Twenty-five years ago, Microsoft, Costco and Starbucks joined the list. Now, when people talk about our state’s top businesses, Alaska Airlines is part of that conversation. Alaska Air Group, consisting of Alaska, Horizon and now Virgin America airlines, is Seattle-based. It is important to Washington because 7,000 of its 19,000 employees are located here, and when indirect employment is added, it creates nearly 22,000 job...
President Barack Obama has finally had it with Russia. It only took eight years of cold reality – topped off by the Russian interference in the November election – to make the outgoing president almost clear-eyed about the Kremlin. Not that Obama is ready to admit error. Asked by George Stephanopoulos if he underestimated Vladimir Putin, Obama said no, he had only missed how cyberhacking could be used to meddle in our electoral system – in other words, it was a technical mistake, rather than a fundamental misassessment of a foreign adver...
Time to look back Today we have Donald Trump, who wants to round-up all the Muslims and put them in a camp. Talk about timing. About a week ago, when I received the January-February 2017 edition of the Smithsonian, I turned to page 88, and up pops an article, entitled American-Incarceration, that hit home. The article contained personal stories about the 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII that were rounded-up and put into “detention” camps. Some of these camps were located on the east side of Washington state and even Idaho. It hit hom...
Let's call him President-elect Tweety Bird. Donald Trump clearly has decided that he will continue to utilize his stream-of-consciousness Twitter messages to intimidate others -- whether it is an individual whose actions or comments have bruised his fragile ego; or a corporation that faces his threats because he believes (correctly or not) that it is shutting down American facilities for the promise of cheap labor across the border; or the "liars" in the "dishonest media" who dare to report on you-name-it unfavorably. He has commented on issues...
Friday is inauguration day. Donald J. Trump will become the 45th President of the United States. Some political leaders are vowing not to attend the ceremony, claiming Trump is not a legitimate president. Others will not attend simply because they don’t want him to be president. There will be protests. In fact, at last count 25 activist groups have received clearance to demonstrate at the event. That is five times the average for presidential inaugurations. Reportedly, a number of motorcycle clubs will attend in support of Trump. From Friday o...
The late Yogi Berra coined the phrase “it’s déjà vu all over again!” It is used extensively to describe political miscues. Case in point: ObamaCare. Recently, Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel wrote a column describing President Obama’s failure with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “The vision of the president calling on his party members to–yet again–lay down their political lives for his ‘signature’ law was a reminder of how this disaster began.” Unfortunately, Republicans, who now control Congress and the White House, may be poised to...
Back in 2008 when Obama and McCain were getting into their campaigns I wrote an identical letter to each of them. I explained that although I considered these United States to be the greatest country in the history of the universe I had some concerns. My letter said that my top concern was our national debt. We were borrowing to fund our routine expenses. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that this cannot be continued forever. The interest on the debt was our largest single expense. Sooner or later we will run out of borrowing power. To m...
We've come a long way from Daniel Patrick Moynihan excoriating the U.N.'s 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution in one of the finer exhibits of righteous indignation in the history of American speechifying. The Obama administration acceded to -- and, reportedly, assisted behind the scenes -- a less notorious but still noxious Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. By the administration's lights, the action is clever -- it will be extremely difficult to reverse and will increase Israel's international isolation. But the...
Forget about the honeymoon being over. There won't be any honeymoon. If you're thinking my outburst came because I had a bad reaction to all the sugar in my Froot Loops this morning, that's always possible. But in this case, I'm merely expressing the dismal reality that Donald Trump will face when he becomes the 45th president of the United States. Usually, when someone is inaugurated as the new chief executive, he starts out with a bit of goodwill, at least for a few weeks while his administration gets its bearings. That certainly will not be...
It was 10 years ago January 9th. On that day in 2007, the late Steve Jobs made one of the greatest new product introductions in history. Had he been alive today, he may have regretted it. The stunning iPhone and its quick and ubiquitous copies from Samsung, Google, Microsoft, etc., made what was already established on the internet that much more potent. Texting exploded because of how easy it was. Facebook and YouTube came to the phone. Instagram and sexting were next. Texting while driving skyrocketed, leading to national campaigns to prevent...
The number of police officers shot and killed last year rose dramatically. So did the number of assaults on cops and the stress under which they work. That trend ought to concern every American because violence impacts our neighborhoods, schools and where we work and shop. Ask any realtor and they will tell you that safe streets and good schools are top of mind among renters and home buyers. Officers Down, the group sponsoring the national law enforcement memorial, reported that 140 officers died in the line of duty in 2016. Gunfire claimed...
Required English? A century ago Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed that people who came to America and wanted to become citizens must be fluent in English. He had a strong belief that language is what binds a country together. The fight for having English as our official language became more serious in 1968. La Raza, an organization that wants us to be multi-lingual which is backed by the blue party, was formed that year. Finally, a Hawaiian senator organized U.S. English in 1983. They presented congress with a resolution in 1996. A poll was taken to...
