Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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To think that President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office four times (through accidents of circumstance, twice each time he was elected). Taking the oath must have become such old hat that he stopped paying attention. The president is issuing an executive amnesty for illegal immigrants based on blatant contempt for the constitutional order that he is sworn to uphold. Where does Abraham Lincoln go to get his Bible back? There are many opponents of the president’s unilateral action, but few as eloquent as the president himself through t...
Now that Barack Obama, with his immigration executive order, has taken off the gloves and, in effect, raised that time-honored gesture of defiance to Republican “members of Congress who question my authority.” They are angrily throwing down their own gauntlets, basically saying that he and (to quote John Boehner) his “lawless” presidency are toast, with no chance they’ll deal with him. Don’t you believe it. We certainly can expect the GOP House and Senate to do their very best to make Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hil...
Remembered I so enjoyed the update on Clarita Liddle. She was my 4th grade teacher over 50 years ago. She left quite an impression on me and had a huge impact on my yearning for knowledge over the years. I remember doing a small newspaper in her class that I eagerly embraced and just retired from the newspaper industry after over 40 years. She pointed me in the direction of the newspaper industry as did Jim Stack and Bill Wilmot when I grew up in Colfax. My life was very fruitful due to their efforts and passion for the industry. God Bless... Full story
Nobody knows for sure, but the protests and rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, might have been avoided by virtue of a simple little camera. Many police departments around the country are requiring their officers to wear cameras. Although the practice is relatively new, many violent incidents between police and civilians have been recorded. For years, civilian videos and dash board cameras have been used to record violent moments between law enforcement and the public. An example is the Rodney King episode. Few could square the violence of his...
Thirteen students led the Colton honor roll for the first quarter with all-A grades. They included Savannah Chadwick, Sam Faerber and Winne Schultheis, seniors; Brady Chadwick, Kendyl Druffel and Peter Schultheis, sophomores; Erin Anderson, Reece Chadwick, Jordyn Moehrle, Brady Stout, Luke Vining and Rachel Willis, eighth grade, and Kian Ankerson, seventh grade. Highest honor students with grade averages of 3.4 to 3.99 included Emily Devlin, Carrie Hennigar, Courtney Hoyle, Courtney Kimberling, Cody Meyer, Lane Moore, Phil Niekenke and Kamryn...
The epic search of the Greek philosopher Diogenes for an honest man is finally over. His name is Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist once known as an intellectual architect of Obamacare, although his status is being rapidly downgraded by the law’s supporters with every one of his uncomfortably frank utterances about President Barack Obama’s signature initiative. Video surfaced of Gruber saying at a panel discussion at the University of Pennsylvania last year that the law was written in a deceptive, nontransparent way to exploit “the stupi...
Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends and give thanks for the blessings we enjoy. For others, it’s a time to volunteer at soup kitchens to help the less fortunate. For still others, it’s simply a chance to eat a huge meal and watch football. In reality, most Americans have no idea how fortunate we are. With the exception of military families, too few of us have fought to protect the freedoms we have. Few people alive today experienced the depravation of the Great Depression. A full one-third of our population was born aft...
Mitch McConnell and John Boehner’s Republicans may control Congress now, but it’s an open question as to whether McConnell and Boehner control their own party caucuses. That’s an important consideration, because as they try to work out their deals with the White House, at some point they’ll have to convince President Barack Obama and the Democrats that they can deliver enough of their members. There are all sorts of indications that they will not be able to guarantee the votes needed after the give-and-take is done. You have Ted Cruz in the...
Mail call As the holidays roll around I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge all the wonderful post office employees. As the catalogs in my mailbox multiply I think of all the sorters separating them and the carriers hauling them around. Of course all this comes about with unpredictable weather. Driving or walking through rain, fog, snow, and ice is a daily challenge. Let’s not forgot the eager dogs awaiting the arrival of the mail or the straying cattle, chickens, deer, or tumbleweeds along the road. I have always looked f... Full story
It was the day after Thanksgiving a number of years ago. My son wanted to outfit his new college apartment. After a long icy drive, our Black Friday expedition started with us standing in line about a quarter of a mile from the store doors. It was still dark, and the wind, rain and sleet had everybody bundled up. Like horses, we all had our backs to the weather. Some of those standing in line optimistically recounted their plans to get items they wanted. One even had a hand-drawn map of the store layout showing her route from item to item....
Dolores Haley welcomes the Nighthawk volleyball team to a cream tea party in their honor Friday afternoon at the McCoy Valley Museum in Oakesdale. Patty Johnson and Carol Marshall helped serve. The stylish hats worn by the attendees were loaned from Marilyn Kilpatrick’s collection. Apple pie scones, chocolate cake and lemon bars prepared by Mrs. Haley were served on china dishes and tea and hot apple cider in china teacups....
Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast in 2005, flooding cities and towns in four states and killing more than 1,800 people. The government response to Katrina, especially by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), became the poster child for an inept and incompetent bureaucracy. But out of this disaster has come a story of success. The hurricane gave New Orleans educators the opportunity to reinvent the city’s failing public schools. Two years before the storm struck, the state had created the Louisiana Recovery School District (...
Closer look This letter is in response to an article in the Whitman Gazette, regarding the proposed budget cuts in the Whitman County Health Department. Having worked in Public Health for 23 years and been an administrator for 15 of those years, I am concerned with the budget cuts and direction the Health Department is being forced to take regarding staff and services. The County Commissioners (Board of Health) have asked for budget cuts annually for 10 or more years. I have faced those budget reductions and I was able to save services for the...
In a fit of postelection modesty, President Barack Obama is offering not to take executive action to amnesty millions of illegal immigrants — provided Republicans do his bidding on immigration. It is extortion as conciliation. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie often invites comparisons to “The Sopranos,” but it is President Obama who is making a tactic out of the HBO mob drama his major postelection initiative. His bipartisan outreach now ends with a pointed “Or else ...” This offer Republicans can’t refuse includes the stipulation that the pr... Full story
Will somebody please explain why a reporter is not allowed to impersonate an FBI agent, but it’s OK if an FBI agent impersonates a reporter? It’s obvious why no one should be allowed to dishonestly pass him- or herself off as a law-enforcement official, but it also should be apparent why any cop, federal or local, should not be pretending to be a newsperson. It undermines our credibility, and given the sloppy performance of too many in our business, we don’t have a lot of credibility to spare. Let’s face it: Someone with sensitive material abou...
Tonight is the opening night for the Colfax High School. The play is South Pacific, an American classic by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The annual plays at CHS have become a tradition for both the public and students. It is no mean feat to line up a cast of high school, and sometimes grade school, students to stage a broadway play, especially a musical familiar to nearly every American. Yet, drama teacher Cary Cammack is able to put on a show every year. Productions such as this are important in schools. Many area schools put on plays. They give...
There is a new look to Bavarian tourism these days. In the past, tourists flocked to Munich’s city square like Seattle’s New Year’s revelers at the Space Needle. They came to see the ancient Glockenspiel, a giant cuckoo clock on the city hall tower, and then dash to the nearby famed Hofbrauhaus for beer, brats and Bavarian music. Now the Glockenspiel has some real competition. It is BMW World, a mammoth, ultramodern, high tech new car showroom adjacent to the 1972 Olympic Stadium. It is so large prospective buyers can take a “Beamer” for a test...
Appreciated I read your recent article explaining the maintenance problems at the Colfax Cemetery - it was very much appreciated! Kudos, too, to the elected board members who have volunteered their time to correct the problems. I hope and pray that the new caretaker will be competent in his care of the improvements to the watering system recently installed. Rev. Russell D. Clark, Newport Dark money Last September not one Republican senator voted for a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Republican-leaning Supreme Court’s 2010 Citiz... Full story
Never before have so many people watched an expressionless woman in a nondescript outfit traipse through New York City. Millions of people viewed a viral video that showed the woman getting all manner of uninvited and unwelcome compliments during hours of walking in the Big Apple. The video was a brilliant stunt by the anti-street-harassment group Hollaback! and prompted the Great Catcalling Debate of 2014. The video was taken as an indictment of the boorishness of men, a charge for which millennia of human history had already provided more... Full story
I’m about to be perhaps the one millionth news type to comment on the passing of Washington Post legend Ben Bradlee. I’ll be one of the few who acknowledges that I didn’t know him very well, our conversations limited to a few encounters in the same green room, where we never got much past platitudes. I am, however, in full agreement with those who lionize him in death as the personification of the highest ideals in journalism. He was fanatical about building air-tight stories — nothing less, based on facts, tediously accumulated by hard wo...
(This column was previously published in the Gazette and is run again by request.) In 1968, an American infantry company was patrolling along a stream in thick triple canopy jungle. It was one of the countless operations that promised to make little difference in the Vietnam War. The soldiers were strung out along the stream, moving slowly and bunching up when those in front were slowed by the rocky stream bed. The soldier walking point left the stream to avoid some obstacles, followed a narrow animal path above it for few yards and turned... Full story
It’s often difficult to “connect the dots,” to show people how the global marketplace affects their daily lives. But plunging gasoline prices are giving Americans a first-hand lesson in the law of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand holds that when a commodity is in short supply, the price of that commodity goes up. When the supply of that commodity increases, producers compete for market share by lowering their prices. As a result, consumers benefit. That’s what happening with gas prices. The price of gasoline has been droppin...
Fabric Recently there was a two page story in the Spokesman Review regarding the winning record of Sue Doering and her magnificent volleyball success. Glad to see that it centered upon how through the years Sue and her many helpful assistants, usually her former players, had also helped. Sue has worked hard and, indeed, built from the ground up. By being in control from the beginning it makes a world of difference and she rightly credited the great support that she has received from the parents who have entrusted their daughters to her. She... Full story
When the Supreme Court rejected a petition to stop a Texas voter-ID law from going into effect for the midterms, the left commenced its wailing and gnashing of teeth. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the law “purposely discriminatory,” and everyone piled in behind her with denunciations of the Lone Star State’s blatant racism. For the left, voter ID is tantamount to a poll tax. If so, the nation is awash in neo-segregationist election rules. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report on voter-ID laws, 33 st... Full story
In my opinion, far too many of those who live with me in Washington are jerks — duplicitous, self-important jerks. This does not include everybody; far from it. But the town is crawling with viciously ambitious sycophantic young people cozying up to the more-established officeholders, lobbyists, consultants and, yes, us media types, who hold on to their lives of unprincipled entitlement. Frankly, I think their pervasiveness has a lot to do with the disintegration of politics and government because they control the agenda. But here’s som...
