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I read an article in a liberal publication the other day. Although I lean to the right, I try to listen to arguments left of the middle. That is only fair. In this particular article, the author bemoaned the fact that his poor brother-in-law was being victimized by his rich neighbor. The brother-in-law didn’t go to college and had few marketable skills, so he had spent much of his life dependent on public assistance and can barely afford gas for his old Chevy. When he found work, it was usually part time, minimum wage and n...
I admire leaders who surround themselves with very smart people. Good managers use their experts to make their organizations better. It would seem that President Trump missed that lesson in management class. He has obviously been successful in business, successful enough to fund his own campaign. But managing a private business is different than administrating a government. The profit motive of private business is paramount to all other considerations. Not so in government. Private business is “for the stockholders.” Gov...
I can’t feel sorry for Stormy Daniels. This saga shows American politics at its worse. For those who haven’t followed the scandal in detail, let me recap the sequence of events as I understand them. In 2006, a sleazy British tabloid claimed a professional bad girl had a one-night stand with a rich American tycoon. The bad girl categorically denied the whole thing. Then, 10 years later the tycoon decides to run for president. The bad girl threatens to publicly expose the affair that she earlier denied unless she is paid a who...
I finished my taxes a few weeks ahead of the deadline. Yippee! Now I can worry about something else. When I talk to my friends, I find I am one of the few who prepares their own tax returns. Most are afraid to make a mistake or decide not to spend the time. The IRS publishes estimates of the time required to prepare each form. They are pretty accurate. By the time I read the instructions, sorted my files into the appropriate piles and completed the forms, I had invested more than three full days. I recall a big IRS push a...
I have watched with interest as students across the country demonstrated to bring attention to the rising number of senseless school shootings. The national media reported these demonstrations as anti-gun protests. I listened closely to student interviews and for the most part they didn’t advocate bans on guns or even reform of laws allowing gun ownership. They asked for an end to the violence. An end to violence does not equate to a ban on guns except for those who are predisposed to ban guns anyway. It could very well be t...
I was concerned when the state Senate seat in rural King County went to a Democrat, giving them a one vote majority as well as control of the House and governor’s office. The liberals are now unencumbered in their self-appointed mission to see how much money they can squeeze out of the state’s taxpayers. Washington budgets on a two year cycle every odd numbered year. The 2017 budget was not only the largest in history, it had the largest increase over the past budget. We exceeded $20 billion in proposed spending for the first...
During our recent trip through the wine country of Argentina, I became friends with our guide, Oscar. Oscar is an interesting guy. His first real job was as a newspaper columnist for a large daily in Mendoza. In 1983 he wrote a piece criticizing Argentina’s conduct of the Falkland War. He was promptly arrested, jailed and exiled to Europe. After 20 years, he was allowed to return home and now guides tourists in English, French, Italian or Spanish. When I told Oscar that I thought socialism was responsible for Argentina’s eco...
By FRANK WATSON Contributor I read an article in a medical journal the other day that said people who eat faux-burgers made from peas or beans eat 12 percent fewer calories at their next meal. I was astonished. Have you ever eaten that stuff? A couple veggie burgers can ruin your appetite for days. I studied at a Seventh Day Adventist School in Spain one semester. The Adventists are vegetarians and had a plant on campus that made imitation beef patties, weenies and chicken nuggets. I could never figure out why they had to...
I drove over to Wenatchee last week for a meeting. As is normal for me when I travel alone, I enjoyed the countryside and day-dreamed most of the way. As I drove pass the irrigation canals, forests of electric transmission lines and crossed the bridge at Vantage, it dawned on me that we have transformed this planet into a habitat for humans. Not long ago, Central Washington was an expanse of arid sage brush. Now it is crisscrossed with paved roads, and the sage brush scrubland has been replaced with lush cropland. As a boy I...
I see my eye specialist five or six times a year. My normal route to his office takes me past the homeless gathering under the I-90 bridge across from Lewis and Clark High School. They don’t seem to be hurting anybody, and there is no law against hanging out under the bridge, but I can understand school administrators’ concern for the safety of the students. Spokane’s homeless population is far less than I have seen in Portland and Seattle, but the time and resources spent to find a solution is significant. Efforts have...
I voted for Initiative 502 in 2012, not because I wanted to legalize marijuana, but because what we were doing wasn’t working. I thought it inconceivable that the U.S. government would allow any state to openly ignore federal law. At best, I was hoping for a wake up call and Congress would recruit some very smart people to find a solution that worked. I thought the worst case would be for the state to be forced to cease and desist such that we would revert to the status quo. I was wrong — the worst case was that the sta...
The Washington State Legislature is back in session debating ways to balance the budget while fully funding schools and trying to end run the Constitution on gun control. Encouraged by our state attorney general and governor, we have joined 15 other states considering state laws to limit the size of magazines, outlaw bump stocks and ban assault rifles. I have no real problem with any of these restrictions. I don’t even care much for pistols. I used to have one and discovered it was only useful if I wanted to shoot my n...
It seems we should have learned something from Donald Trump’s short tenure as President. We should realize that our current system of campaign finance doesn’t produce the most qualified candidates. We have discovered that popularity and ability can be two disconnected characteristics. Additionally. It should now be obvious that the President of the United States shouldn’t be an entry level position. There are thousands — if not millions — of people in these United States who are more qualified to govern than the current o...
Our governor’s plan to raid the state contingency fund to pay for schools, then repay the fund with a new tax, violates sound financial principles. Creating a budget is not rocket science. The basic principles are the same for every organization, be they military units, government agencies or families. The first step is to list all the possible demands for funds that you can think of. A good budget also includes regular inputs into an emergency fund to take care of those things that you didn’t think of. Step two is to arr...
The media frenzy surrounding accusations of sexual misconduct continues to gather momentum. Many of the allegations are true, and those who have abused their power should be held accountable. Many charges, however, make no sense unless sexual misconduct has been redefined beyond the realm of logic. The snowball effect has taken on a lynch mob mentality to the point that the abuser and victim are no longer clearly defined. The Associated Press recently published an article exposing an Idaho State Representative who made a...
I am getting to the age where young folks ask me about my best and most memorable Christmas. They are not the same. My most memorable one wasn’t my best, but it is the one I think of most often. I had completed Air Force flight training and was assigned to an air refueling crew at Fairchild Air Force Base. After a few short months, our crew was notified that we would depart in mid-December for a short tour in Southeast Asia as part of the Vietnam conflict. We were excited and anticipating a great adventure. We hadn’t yet dis...
Those of us who live east of the Cascades seldom pay a lot of attention to local politics in the suburbs of Seattle. However, the implications of the 2017 senate race in the 45th state legislative district extend to our doorstep. The seat is now in the hands of the Democrats, giving them control of both houses of the state Legislature as well as the governorship. For the past several years, the state senate has been the only buffer between us and the free-spending liberals west of the mountains. Gov. Jay Inslee has announced...
