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Serving Whitman County since 1877
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- Don C. Brunell: Lawmakers Must Consider Costs of All Taxes
Mar 8, 2017
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...
- Letters March 9
Mar 8, 2017
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...
- Bob Franken: Who Cares What We Think?
Mar 8, 2017
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...
- Rich Lowry: Yes, Deconstruct the Administrative State
Mar 8, 2017
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...
- Is it over yet?
Mar 8, 2017
In a few days, it will be Spring. March 20 is the magical date. As a harbinger of the end of winter, Daylight Saving Time starts this Sunday. The snow berms are gone. Temperatures are generally above freezing. And, the days are longer. What more can anyone ask? The long nightmare is coming to an end. It has been cold, snowy, wet and dark for too long. The wearisome long winter made one commiserate with the Donner Party and wonder over the mishaps of the Ernest Shakleford expeditions. At its worst, one was prompted to think of Napoleon’s retreat...
- Don C. Brunell: Rosellini’s Plan to Fund Bridges Deserves Another Look
Mar 1, 2017
Remember the old saying: Hindsight is 20-20? If only Washington voters had followed Gov. Albert Rosellini’s tolling plan to build, maintain and replace our state’s major bridges, we would have replacement funds today. Now, lawmakers in Olympia are scrambling to find the billions needed for the new I-5 bridge connecting Vancouver and Portland. Predictably, tolling needs to be included in the funding scheme, but it is still a political hot button. Rosellini, the Seattle Democrat elected governor in 1956, staked his political career on tol...
- Frank Watson: Life is Good – Don’t Mess it Up
Mar 1, 2017
It has been a long, hard winter. I feel the cold and snow in my aching joints, so my wife and I try to take a couple weeks in February to go somewhere warm. We had never been to Jamaica, so we booked nine nights in a five star all inclusive resort. Good choice! We were treated like visiting royalty. Lots of sun, sand, and pampering for about half of what it cost last year in Hawaii. I found it interesting that I had to provide our return flight information at the desk when we checked in to the resort. I asked why and was told that they were...
- Letters March 2
Mar 1, 2017
I can't believe what I am seeing these days. I never would have imagined it just a few years ago. In the news, we see pictures of women dressed in vagin* costumes with what they call "puss*" hats, claiming they are demonstrating for women's values, family values, and American values. Really? Then there are the pictures from Berkeley of protesters with "stop the hate" signs; cheering while fellow demonstrators smash in the windows of a Starbucks store. Are you kidding me? I read where the same people who throw out the "Hitler" epithet are also...
- Rich Lowry: What’s Happening in Sweden
Mar 1, 2017
As if on cue, riots broke out in a heavily immigrant suburb of Stockholm as soon as the media mocked President Donald Trump for a vague warning about immigration-related problems in Sweden. At a campaign rally, Trump issued forth with a mystifyingly ominous statement. "You look," he declared, "at what's happening last night in Sweden." What? Had the president invented a nonexistent terror attack? As it turned out, the reference was to a segment on Sweden he had watched on Fox News the previous night rather than to any specific event in the...
- Bob Franken: The Incomplete Enemies List
Mar 1, 2017
My feelings are hurt. I'm not on President Donald Trump's list of "enemies of the American people." Here is his exact tweet: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People! 1:48 PM -- Feb 17, 2017" I mean, what do I have to do to make the team? I've called him a know-nothing buffoon. I've condemned his actions on immigration. My comments on his reaction to judges have dripped with scorn. I've ridiculed the ineptitude of both him and the people around him. Yet I'm not...
- Some impetus for improvement
Mar 1, 2017
The long saga of county financial accounting has taken a sad turn. Cinnamon Brown, former financial administrator in the Whitman County auditor’s office, has been arrested in Shelton, Wash., for alledged embezzlement and fraud. The charges against her pertain to her employment with the City of Shelton where she was hired in the fall as finance administrator. At this point, no conclusions can be drawn. She is innocent until proven guilty. In fact, Monday she pleaded innocent of the charges. In Whitman County, the auditor’s office is con...
- Don C. Brunell: When You Dig Deeper, The President’s “Tough Talk” on Trade Doesn’t Sound as Good
Feb 22, 2017
When President Trump spoke to Boeing workers at its South Carolina production facility, he reiterated his campaign promise to bring jobs back to America. It is a goal we collectively desire, but it is much more complicated than his campaign slogan would have us believe. If it is not carefully implemented, it could hurt the very workers and communities the president intends to help. Unlike America in the 1950s, today it is rare to find a product that is made exclusively in one country, especially complicated machines and electronic devices For...
- Frank Watson: Not My Fault
Feb 22, 2017
My ancestors came from Scotland, Germany and Ireland. The Scottish branch of the family lost their lands in the “cleansing” following Bonnie Prince Charlie’s war in the mid-1700s. They made a living as best they could until one of them got hungry enough to emmigrate to America as a bonded servant around 1830. He worked for wages, and his descendants slowly migrated west and found work in the mines of western Missouri. When the mines closed, my grandfather became a skilled craftsman and constructed interior walls of lath and plaster. My fathe...
- Letters Feb. 23
Feb 22, 2017
Rejects premise To the person who submitted this statement in last week’s Pet Peeves, “Unplanned parenthood makes unloved babies”: The premise here is that if you have an “unplanned” pregnancy then that baby will be unloved. I reject that premise. No one is unloved. God loves everyone. What is your solution to “unplanned parenthood”? Don’t tell me you only meant birth control (which is against God’s teaching, but that is another discussion) because it fails and then you are left with abortion. Most parents don’t consider their children as p...
- Rich Lowry: Trump Tweet Exposes Judiciary
Feb 22, 2017
As you might have heard, Donald Trump tweeted at a judge. The commentariat shuddered at the effrontery of it, and some worried that the foundations of the separation of powers had been shaken. Trump's slam of Judge James Robart was undeniably crude and ill-considered, but it wasn't a threat to our republic. In fact, it is a symptom of our distorted and overly sanctified view of the judiciary that a criticism of a judge with a lifetime appointment is greeted with such pearl-clutching. It is entirely appropriate that the political branches have...
- Bob Franken: Trump Overdoes the Fatherly Love Thing
Feb 22, 2017
For those of us who have found it difficult to say anything nice about Donald Trump, here's something: He clearly is a family man. No, that is not a joke about any of the mafia associations he inevitably accumulated during his rough-and-tumble construction days in New York and elsewhere. Nor is it a snarky comment about his cavalier approach to his various marriages. That's his business. It's about Trump's obviously intense affection for his children and, in the case of his daughter Ivanka, her husband. He brought son-in-law Jared Kushner onto...
- An answer is training
Feb 22, 2017
A proposal has been made to lower the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers in Washington from .08 to .05 percent. About 37 percent of all crashes are alcohol related. Impaired driving is dangerous. Drugs such as marijuana and prescription medicines are all part of the impaired driving problem. Another pernicious danger also exists on American roads. It is that of distracted driving. Although driving under the influence is dropping, distracted driving is rising. Use of cellular phones, dashboard maps, entertainment systems and all the other...
- Letters Feb. 16
Feb 15, 2017
Bad manners Over these past several years, it seems that the term “political correctness” has been getting a bad rap. A few days ago, a senior US Senator from Utah, publicly labeled nearly half of his Senate peers “idiots.” As perplexing as this may seem on the surface, I would argue that it is in actuality not all that surprising given the current tone and attitude being used by Donald J. Trump, arguably the most influential human being on the planet. We are back-sliding. Progress is being lost. The President of the United States of America...
- Don C. Brunell: Carbon Dividend is Worth Exploration
Feb 15, 2017
Recently, some of America’s most respected statesmen announced a different strategy to reducing carbon pollution–one which is based on incentives as opposed to penalties. Believing that carrots work better than sticks, the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) announced a new plan to enact a federal tax on carbon emissions with an accompanying payment program to U.S. citizens. The centerpiece is a “carbon dividend” which, as they put it, would increase the disposable income for the majority of Americans while disproportionately helping those s...
- Rich Lowry: Gorsuch Is the Anti-Trump
Feb 15, 2017
If President Donald Trump is a budding authoritarian, as his critics allege, one of the safeguards is Judge Neil Gorsuch. For all that Trump has flouted norms and gotten off to an at-times amateurish start in the White House, his pick of Gorsuch was extremely normal and highly professional. The Gorsuch nomination is exactly what everyone should want from a President Trump, especially those who most fear and loathe him. Yet Trump's fiercest opponents began denouncing Gorsuch immediately. This is the dilemma for Democrats: Either Trump is a...
- Bob Franken: Chaos With No Purpose
Feb 15, 2017
With his executive order to build that southern-border barrier, President Donald Trump simply was keeping his campaign promise, placating his millions of anti-Latino bigot followers and not really causing any sudden problems -- except maybe forever antagonizing Mexico. But his other hateful order -- which kept another campaign pledge to his anti-Muslim bigot followers, many of them the same as the anti-Hispanic ones -- caused total chaos. Not only was the order based on hate, it was carried out in haste. Rarely have such incompetents misused...
- At least, jaywalkers listened
Feb 15, 2017
More than 100 years ago, jaywalking was an epidemic in big cities. So many pedestrians were being killed by new fangled automobiles that Los Angeles seriously considered banning autos from the streets. A California automobile club was horrified by the prospects of these vehicles being barred. It started to look into ways of stopping the practice of pedestrians walking into the path of on-coming cars. Nothing seemed to help. Then, a man who was put in charge of solving the problem came up with a simple solution. He started a campaign to...
- Letters Feb. 9
Feb 8, 2017
It’s time Once America was occupied by Native Americans we called “Indians.” Travelers from other continents moved here. In time, a ‘tidal wave’ of peoples wanted what Native Americans had – a spacious land and resources – and the Indians were swept away by a ‘human tidal wave.’ Once again, America let people move here – and again a ‘tidal wave’ of peoples are moving in, and Americans are being displaced as the Native Americans were. Over population is a problem. The problems of other countries must be solved by their citizens. Americans hav...
- Don C. Brunell: A lot riding on NAFTA
Feb 8, 2017
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...
- Rich Lowry: Revenge of the Nation-State
Feb 8, 2017
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...
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