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I am proud to be a supporter for the campaign of Joe Pakootas for U.S. Representative for the 5th Congressional District. I have volunteered to help campaign for him in 2014 and 2016, by phone work, sign waving, encouraging everyone to vote for Joe and funding support. I support Joe in the Cheney area and during his campaign debates, I was especially impressed when he referred to himself as a person of color and told how he was treated differently when he travels off the reservation. To me, he looks more American than I do....
Regarding “locker room talk” I can’t help but comment and share my own experiences. I’ve been using a gym of some kind now for 50-plus years and have heard hundreds of locker room conversations. Not once in 50 years have I ever heard any kind of demeaning of women. Mostly the conversations are about vacation trips, family matters, sports, medical issues and work related matters. I’m very proud of the quality of men that I’ve been privileged to get acquainted with in “locker rooms” either in high school, college or gyms...
Ballots are out and we must choose between deeply flawed candidates. Choose the lesser of evils? While questions of personality/character are important, they never invalidate our responsibility to vote. Everyone must consider his/her personal principles — non-negotiables — against the policy proposals of every candidate. My list of deal-breakers follows. Abortion on Demand. Life begins at conception — unquestioned. By the time pregnancy is known, differing DNAs declare “it’s my body” only a partial truth. (Most abortions?...
I had the honor of representing the West Plains and Cheney for 12 years in the House and eight in the Senate. Now as Senate Majority Leader I have a fond spot for the area and want the best for our schools, higher education and business climate and my many friends I made representing the district. The person best prepared to handle this job as state representative in the 6th District is Mike Volz. I have known Mike and his wife and their families since their days in high school in Ritzville and know them as quality people...
According to MSNBC Fact Finder, a lot of Mr. Donald Trump’s accusations towards Hillary Clinton and others have been proven false. Like so many other areas, including policies, etc., he has no idea what he is talking about. Mr. Trump owes so many people huge apologies, starting with the Kahn family. He owes apologies to a number of women he has assaulted and to all women in general for the things he says. It’s degrading, embarrassing and humiliating. He owes all of our children and grandchildren an apology for being a bad...
I’ll be honest, I am a little sick and tired of the election and I am waiting for it to be over. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of this year’s presidential race, it will decide the next person — Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton —who sits in the Oval Office for the next 4-8 years. But the election itself is not the problem. What is aggravating to me is all of the mudslinging, insults and name calling that is going around, not just between the Trump and Clinton camps, but al...
Uncoupling state timber sales revenue from public school construction funding doesn’t make sense. It is akin to killing the goose laying the golden eggs. That idea came up during this year’s campaign for public lands commissioner. Democrat Hilary Franz, a Seattle environmental attorney, and Republican Steve McLaughlin, a retired Navy Commander, are the finalists. Franz stated her position in a candidate questionnaire, according to the business publication, Lens. She wrote the...
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ empty promises and lies, and her allegiance to Donald Trump’s racist, hate-filled misogynistic message belie her self-proclaimed image of a caring individual. Her voting history is a matter of public record, and her lack of support for basic needs such as food (voted against SNAP), health care (voted more than 50 times to repeal the ACA) and fair wages (voted against equal pay) is appalling. As a woman, I find it unconscionable that she voted against the Violence Against Women Act. To...
This November voters will consider Initiative 1464. Spanning 23 pages and 37 sections, I-1464 is a very complex proposal covering many aspects of campaign finance including a proposed repeal of the current ban on giving tax dollars to political candidates. Starting in 2018, I-1464 would allow eligible individuals to give up to three taxpayer financed $50 contributions (available until funds are exhausted) to “qualified” candidates for their private political campaigns. Thi...
A word or two, if I may, regarding the two pages you see about you. At the top of this page, note the heading: Opinion. According to Webster, the simple definition of the word “opinion” is: a belief, judgment or way of thinking about something : what someone thinks about a particular thing. There is more of course, but I leave that to you. I write this because I sometimes receive comments and criticism about what appears on the Cheney Free Press Opinion page. It’s good to hear, and one came in this week, so I thought I’d u...
All in all, Homecoming 2016 at Eastern Washington University looks like quite a success. If measured by last Saturday when over 10,300 people packed Roos Field to watch the Eastern Eagles score a 49-31 Big Sky Conference victory over Northern Colorado, and remain undefeated in the conference, it only adds an exclamation point to the week. Along the way, however, there was one notable glitch that gained some ink on these pages, that being the unfortunate cancellation of an Oct. 7 event being promoted by the Cheney Merchants...
As ethologist Konrad Lorenz wrote in his classic 1963 book, “On Aggression,” we humans are closer to prey than predator — but that makes us more dangerous in some terrible ways. A “real” carnivore very rarely kills members of its own species. They have instinctive signals that allow for surrender and subservience. The dominant animal will almost never cross that signal to kill another of its species. Prey, however, do not expose their jugular vein to fellow members of their species. And since they do not possess fearsome...
I do research and vote according to my conscience as someone must fill these government offices or we would have complete anarchy. However, I also recognize that changing leaders and parties in and of itself will not resolve our issues. I continue to seek “a better way” of relating to one another than we have now. We need to rise above the consciousness of “us” and “them” and see our essential oneness as members of one human family. When we begin to see how interconnected we all are, regardless of the many human labels that...
It is estimated that annually, police in the U.S. have 385,000,000 contacts with the public and make 11,205,833 arrests, in which 48,315 police officers are seriously injured and 990 people are killed by police. According to the Dolan Consulting Group (Richard R. Johnson, PhD), since 1971 police shootings have decreased at approximately 3.3 percent annually to historic lows. Locally, here in Cheney officers responded to roughly 32,000 calls for service last year, and physical force was used in only 13 cases, with no deadly...
October is known for Halloween and cooler weather, but it is also known as a month for awareness of breast and liver cancers. Chances are we’ll see pink ribbons on numerous products at the grocery store. We’ll also see pink during athletic events — NFL and college football players will throw pink into their uniforms and gear during October. However, Liver Cancer Awareness Month, which is symbolized by a green ribbon, does not get as touted. Cancer, in any form, is something that touches people’s lives. According to a study f...
What’s that they say about people who live in glass houses should not it throw stones? It’s been interesting the past several days to watch once again the media coverage of Donald Trump’s income tax issue. For me, it’s what they cover, and why. But more importantly from this vantage point is what is so often left out. While the current “scandal” has moved off the front page and out of the lead in most newscasts — displaced by Hurricane Matthew — it should only be a matter tim...
I’m not sure who scares me the most. Hillary Clinton and her history of lies and criminal activities or Donald Trump and, his self worship and incoherent rantings. What I do know is that the political class failed us big time in giving us these choices. I’m tempted to fear for our country — but then I realize that Clinton and Trump are so deeply flawed that they can’t possibly succeed as president. My guess is that by the 2018 mid terms, this will be obvious to the voters and the party in charge of the White House will pa...
I have a partial solution to unwarranted police shootings of unarmed civilians. Since most of the recent shootings and killings by white policemen and policewomen have been carried out against minorities, I believe we should start to correct this awful situation by screening the police recruits. All those who are afraid of minorities, especially African-American and Hispanic males, should be screened out and not allowed to have contact with the public, especially since they are supposed to uphold the law and protect all...
In early September 2016, Donald Trump announced his plan for a vast expansion of the U.S. military, including 90,000 new soldiers for the Army, nearly 75 new ships for the Navy and dozens of new fighter aircraft for the Air Force. Although the cost of this increase would be substantial — about $90 billion per year — it would be covered, the GOP presidential candidate said, by cutting wasteful government spending. But where, exactly, is the waste? In fiscal 2015, the federal government engaged in $1.1 trillion of discretionary...
The $15 minimum wage is an example of elected officials with tunnel vision passing sweeping legislation while ignoring the cumulative impacts of all of the other government mandates on employers. They only zero-in on the costs and benefits of a single issue, such as the $15 an hour wage, when they ought to focus on all of the taxes, fees, regulations and laws. Seattle’s ordinance took effect on April 1, 2015. It directs businesses with fewer than 500 employees to pay the $...
Now that Eastern Washington University is back in session, that means not only more people in Cheney, but more vehicles on its streets and roads and more pedestrians and cyclists trying to cross or co-exist on those thoroughfares. As a story in last week’s Cheney Free Press noted, transportation in the city is only going to get more congested over time as well. So, it’s not a bad time to remind people about a few important aspects of using our streets and roads so that everyone can travel safely in the community. Those asp...
The Remember a semi-comic Cold War movie, “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming”? A deadly Soviet Union nuclear submarine, capable of killing millions of Americans, suffered engine trouble and was forced to surface in a little New England fishing village. After some awkward dealings, villagers with shotguns and rifles went to the waterfront. Soviet sailors lined the deck with machine guns. Weapons aimed, they faced each other in a tense standoff. If anyone pulled a trigger, a double massacre would occur. Suddenly,...
The Environmental Protection Agency recently released its renewable fuel rules for 2017. Private energy companies will be required to produce at least 18 billion gallons of renewables next year, over half a billion more than this year. That’s a step in the wrong direction. The EPA’s renewable policies are badly broken and outdated. This backward looking mandate is failing to meet its goals while driving up everyday costs for working families. It needs to be reformed. The new renewable production target is housed under the...
The feigned outrage over the Clinton Foundation by Republican operatives is the height of hypocrisy, but most people won’t realize this. “Never heard of it.” This was a response I got all too often as I went door-to-door as a volunteer collecting signatures for I-735, a grassroots movement to make Washington the 18th state to ask Congress to overturn Citizens United. It was disheartening to learn that so many people knew so little about something so important. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the 2010 Citizens United...
Spokane Transit Authority’s Proposition 1 on the upcoming Nov. 8 General Election ballot would raise sales tax 2/10ths of 1 percent to pay for regional transportation improvements. According to information from STA, if approved by a majority of voters, the increase would amount to 2 cents per every $10 spent going to pay for transit; about $2 a month and $24 a year extra to the average household. While a lot of the focus may be on financials, what the vote really comes down to was aptly expressed by Cheney Mayor and STA b...
