Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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There’s an old saying, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Well, what happens in Seattle should stay in Seattle. Seattle officials had a bad idea a couple of years ago, and now some state lawmakers want to expand that bad idea statewide. The bad idea is Seattle’s paid sick leave policy that applies to any business with five or more employees, even if that business isn’t located in Seattle. Approved in 2011, the controversial ordinance says that, if one or more of your employees spends more than 240 hours a year — or about 10 percent of...
We are in the midst of the least-suspenseful investigation ever launched by American law enforcement. Hundreds of investigators are seeking leads around the world to discover the motive of the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. This probe is considered a foray into the unknown, and perhaps the unknowable. “Do you have any clearer idea,” the host of “Face the Nation,” Bob Schieffer, asked Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, “of what the motive of these two young men was?” Patrick replied, “Not yet, Bob, and it’s hard for...
The town of Malden has been in the news lately, and its reputation has taken some serious raps. Malden needs a public relations makeover. Many people have the wrong impression of the town. To the rescue comes Mayor Ted Maxwell with his monthly missive in the town’s water bills. It reads, in part: “While I was away, my wife got a call from a guy who is almost always a pain. . . . He said loose dogs keep knocking over his garbage can and scattering trash while eating the choice tidbits. He is tired of picking up the mess. He wants all of you to...
To make them think In response to Gordon Forgey’s editorial last week: Yes, Monday April 15th was tax day and yes, Monday was also another heinous, evil attack on our people, at a memorial event, the Boston Patriot’s Day Marathon. We too thank God for each person who responded to help in Boston’s time of need. However, to suggest any similarity of two folks exercising their right to peacefully protest in Colfax, to the terrorist attacks in Boston is apples and oranges to the extreme! Is it possible that the right to peacefully protest has been...
There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” In other words, it is better to teach someone to take care of themselves than keep them dependent on others. In our country today, the growing tendency is to let government provide for us. Almost lost is the notion that, if people are willing to take risks, work hard and pick themselves up when they fall, they will eventually succeed. As government grows ever larger in an attempt to provi...
With all that is going on in the world, it is time for a break. That break can start this weekend. The St. John Community Fair kicks off today. Then, tomorrow the Colton/Uniontown Fair takes place. And, if these are not enough, towns throughout the county will be holding their own festivals in the coming weeks and months. These town celebrations are a tradition on the Palouse. The St. John Fair runs through Sunday. This is the first of the festival season. St. John opens up for everyone. The event includes a fun run, good food, games, animal...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. While the young and single life is certainly exciting, eventually a man wants to settle down, to have someone there to greet him when he comes home, someone to love him and care for him always, which is why we have dogs. When I was in my early 20s and decided to buy a dog, I carefully researched the most suitable breed by going to my neighbor’s house and picking a puppy from the litter in his garage. As it turned out, they were all huskies, a breed of dog about as easy to tra...
Colfax Slinging mud Patricia Bates letter to the editor last week would be humorous if it were not so vicious and dishonest. She blames Cathy McMorris Rodgers for the sequester and particularly for the results of the sequester in regards to Hanford cleanup. However, a majority of both parties voted for the sequester, and President Obama signed it into law. In addition, it is the Obama administration that is implementing the sequester cuts and not the Congress. So, we could substitute President Obama’s name into Ms Bates’ letter in place of Cat...
Imagine that you see a swimmer floundering in the water. You call the rescue squad and then you toss the swimmer a concrete block. Does that make sense? Of course not, but that’s what’s happening in Washington, D.C. President Obama recently proposed spending more than $20 billion on roads, bridges, highways and ports across the nation as a way to stimulate economic growth. Traditionally, the bulk of that money has come from federal fuel taxes. But at the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new mileage standards and air qua...
The TV cable-news network MSNBC runs sermonettes from its anchors during commercial breaks. They are like public-service announcements illuminating the progressive mind, and perhaps none has ever been as revealing and remarkable as the one cut by weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry. Harris-Perry set out to explain what is, by her lights, the failure to invest adequately in public education. She located the source of the problem in the insidious idea of parental responsibility for children. “We’ve always had kind of a private notion of children,...
Monday was tax day, April 15. It marked the 100th consecutive year of income taxes. A man and a woman commemorated the day in front of the Codger Pole in Colfax. They carried signs protesting taxes. One sign read, “Control Government.” The other read, “Over Taxed.” On the same day, two explosions ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three died from the blasts and more than 180 were injured. Live coverage of the aftermath showed hundreds of emergency workers and hundreds of police quickly descending upon the sce...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. Like many people, I live on the Earth. And like many people, I’ve recently become concerned with the size of my “carbon footprint” because of the cost of gasoline. In fact, I’ve become so concerned with the way my carbon footprint has been leaving its tracks across my credit-card bills, I’ve decided to explore alternative methods of transportation, such as having other people drive me. “I thought we could carpool,” I tell my daughter. “We could go to the grocery store tog...
Again Washington’s fifth district “representative” Cathy McMorris Rodgers is at it again. While smiling and telling the people of Eastern Washington she’s here to serve us, she supports a sequester that will slash $85 billion in 2013. She sees no problem with mandatory, across the board cuts to all government programs, no matter their importance. (There are a few exceptions, like Social Security, Medicade, refund tax credits to individuals, Children’s Nutrition Program and of course, pay for Congress.) In a recent address to the GOP Ms. Rodge...
When an errant SUV crashes through your picture window, you may not notice that your barbecue tipped over and caught your house on fire. So it is with the U.S. economy these days. All the focus on our national debt, sequester cuts and federal tax increases is obscuring a smoldering problem in the states. Declining tax revenues, budget deficits and underfunded pensions have legislatures scrambling for revenue. Many states are taxing and borrowing more just to make ends meet. The State Budget Crisis Task Force, led by former New York Lieutenant...
It has long been portrayed by many in the media and many politicians that the Iraq war was an unnecessary conflict because the Bush administration lied about the probability there of weapons of mass destruction. And that Colin Powell’s fallout with Bush was the result of his belief that he was misled about WMD when asked to defend the decision to go to war in a speech to the United Nations. Whether that affected his decision to endorse Barack Obama for president after a lifetime in the Republican party I don’t know. I am inclined to bel...
Washington is looking at increasing penalties for driving under the influence. A working group meeting this week mulled over a number of ideas that could cut down on drinking and driving. Some of the ideas under consideration include lifetime driving bans for repeat offenders, decreasing the threshold for felony convictions, greater use of interlock systems on automobiles and more active roadside checks. A sticking point in the discussions is money. The state cannot undertake massive new plans and programs. Increased penalties would lead to...
Cost plus When Pearl Harbor was bombed a determined F.D.R. and Congress wanted to strike back quickly and decisively. They needed to build an Army, Navy and Air Force as quickly as possible. Thus, the cost plus program was established. This program gave existing factories and businesses the incentive to switch to producing the machines (planes, vehicles, ships etc.) as quickly as possible. There was no risk for the business world as the plus was a guaranteed profit so there was no chance for them to lose money. The plus contracts varied as to...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. Welcome to your middle-age body! This is your owner’s manual. Delivery: You will note that your middle-age body arrived far earlier than you anticipated. No need to thank us. If you feel you have received this body in error, too bad. New and Improved: Your middle-age body is more roomy and better cushioned than your old body. We’ve added padding to areas where it is most visible so that other people will be envious. And you know how teenage girls wear their pants reall...
During the 1992 presidential campaign, then-candidate Bill Clinton famously intoned, “I feel your pain,” an attempt to reassure voters he understood what they were going through. Since then, similar statements of empathy have become a staple for politicians. But they don’t always ring true for every constituent. Take small business owners, for example. Most elected officials have no idea what it’s like to risk everything you have or to struggle to meet payroll for your employees and their families as waves of new regulations threaten to drow...
President Barack Obama signed an executive order last week to authorize a commission to make recommendations to improve our elections. Some people take it as an attempt to federalize the elections and attribute nefarious motives to the order. Others say the goals of the commission are too modest and won’t solve the real problems. Regardless, our national elections have been a mess. Results are often questioned. Too many different ballot forms exist. Some have been declared difficult or misleading and prone to error. Too many different c...
Honoring Booth Gardner The tributes to former Gov. Booth Gardner, who died March 15 at the age of 76, remind us of a better time. Throughout his political career, Booth was known for his respectful demeanor, good humor and dedication to consensus. That is in stark contrast to today’s reality. Now, partisan rancor is the norm in a high-stakes blood sport where the only goal is political advantage, and people with opposing views are assailed as enemies. This scorched earth mentality has become so pervasive, people assume it’s the nature of pol...
The Beetle and the Pipeline When progressives talk of government, it is in an alluring can-do spirit. Making the case for more spending, President Barack Obama invokes the 19th century as a heroic age that built government-supported railroads. MSNBC hosts pose in front of monumental 20th-century public-works projects and speak of what all of us can do together. This is all well and good as nostalgia, but is utterly detached from the spirit and the practices of 21st-century government. We don’t excel at building things. We excel at studying thin...
Consider Cyprus. The country, part of the European Union, is bankrupt. Its banks are failing. In fact, they have been closed for over a week. The second largest has been shut down forever. Although a small country, Cyprus became a haven for international money. The banking sector itself exceeded the rest of the country’s economy many times over. Banks in Cyprus held billions in international money. Some was legal money, stashed there to avoid taxes and instability in other countries. Some may be illegal, sent to Cyprus for laundering. Also usin...
Positive focus Okay, I for one, am sick and tired of the negative anonymous comments about the flags that decorate our Colfax Streets. I cannot believe that there has been so much criticism over flags that add much to our aging downtown. If you do not have the courage to sign your name to any comments, then you have no business tearing down our community by your negative comments. Furthermore, we should be proud that we have a state college 20 minutes from our town. There are many Colfax residents employed at WSU, we reap the economic benefits...
One-Stop Tax Collection Makes Sense Regulations are like bricks. One brick doesn’t weigh that much, but as you add more bricks, the load gets heavier and heavier until eventually it becomes a crushing burden that slows progress to a crawl. Complying with one regulation doesn’t require that much time and money, but as you add thousands of regulations a year from hundreds of federal, state and local agencies, compliance consumes an ever larger portion of an employer’s time and money — money that isn’t available to hire or sustain jobs. Take some...
