Sorted by date Results 981 - 1005 of 3198
Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the most dedicated, energetic and effective elected official I have ever seen. As chairman of the Pend Oreille County Republicans, I’ve seen a lot of them. Cathy covers her district, one of the largest in America, with a relentless dedication that flows from her deep and passionate commitment to the people of Eastern Washington. I have seen her repeatedly connect on a personal level with ranchers, farmers, veterans, loggers, single parents and people from all walks of life struggling to make it. S...
If you would talk to some of my Air Force buddies from the Vietnam era, you would find that I dreamed of being a teacher and football coach for a long time. When I had sufficient time in military service, I decided to obtain my teaching credentials and pursue my dream. I could have chosen any state in the union. I owned a home in Nebraska left over from my assignment to the base in Omaha. My parents wanted me to return to my roots in the Midwest, but I chose to settle in Eastern Washington. I had been stationed at Fairchild...
I get very upset about the dishonest, scare-mongering tactics from Lisa Brown’s campaign. I saw them again in the mail card that arrived at my house this week. Lisa claims that Cathy McMorris Rodgers has voted to cut Social Security and Medicare. No, she has not! It’s especially dishonest to make these claims when these programs are such a lifeline for friends and family and for some very vulnerable people. Cathy understands how much they matter. That’s why she has supported the hard work to make them safe and susta...
While waiting outside the Spokane Valley City Council in July, I met an elderly woman who was very proud that she grew up in Idaho and now lived in the Spokane Valley. We had a brief discussion about immigration, and she just couldn’t understand why all the migrants were coming to the United States with their children. “Why don’t they just stay in their own countries and fix them, instead of coming here?” she queried. I responded by asking her, “Well, why do you think they come here?” and she said that they want our stuff....
Last April, Washington wheat, apple and cherry growers hoped U.S. and China trade negotiators would resolve differences and prevent imposition of damaging tariffs on our state’s leading crops. Unfortunately, that did not happened and the costs are adding up. Thousands of Washington farmers now find themselves on the front lines of a battle between the two largest economies in the world. Here’s what has happened so far. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump imposed a 25...
One of Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ signature campaign promises has always been that she will help get veterans the care they deserve and that she has the military’s back. Cathy has fulfilled this promise in bounds. In just the last few years, Cathy has been instrumental in getting military personnel the largest pay raise in nine years. Cathy also sponsored the “Faster Care for Veterans Act,” which will modernize the system used by the VA. Among other things, veterans will now have the option of scheduling their appoint...
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency released the details of its new plan to roll back federal pollution restrictions on coal-burning power plants in an attempt to buoy the languishing coal industry and replace stricter Obama-era regulations. The Trump administration’s new energy proposal, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is intended to replace Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have phased out most coal-fired power plants by 2030. In contrast, the Affordable Clean Energy rule would shift power plant reg...
A friend and I were engaged in a bit of fanciful wishful thinking the other day when he asked me how I would improve our country with a $100 million or so. I quickly ran down the list of national problems we are rapidly leaving for our grandchildren. A hundred million wouldn’t do much for the national debt, so I scrolled down to our utter dependence on fossil fuels. I’m not concerned that our oil and coal reserves will run out in my lifetime, but the supply is finite and will eventually be depleted. In the long term, we hav...
There’s an article on the liberal website Vox.com called “America might be ready for democratic socialism. It’s not ready for the bill.” It should be required reading for Lisa Brown — and reporters at this paper shouldn’t stop until they get her to answer for it. Why? Because she’ll be voting with a party and Democratic minority leader — or Speaker of the House — seeking to implement that democratic socialist vision. The article says in order to do so, Congress could try to “Mix and match ... tax policies and it still repres...
While most of our attention in the Pacific Northwest these days is on trade wars, tariffs and wildfires, there are critical talks underway between the U.S. and Canada over future allocations of the Columbia River system’s water. The two countries are renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty which went into effect in 1964. It is a 50-year agreement under which both nations can redo, providing there is a 10-year advanced warning. That occurred and negotiators are now busy meeting...
Some comments on Frank Watson’s 8-16-18 opinion piece. In the article he stated: “Schools receive most of their income from real estate taxes. Those in the district who own homes are taxed while those who rent are not.” He continued “I may have missed something but the rich guy who owns the apartment building is taxed while the tenants are not.” That statement makes it sound like renters get off tax free. That’s not the truth. True, the tenants are not taxed directly, but they pay through their rent. Rents are high becaus...
I visited my favorite supermarket the other day and got lost in the produce section. The price of apples had gone up 50 percent. They were from New Zealand and sported green “organic” labels. They were supposed to have been raised according to nature’s way and healthier than those costing much less. I ended up buying some because I couldn’t find any at the regular price. They tasted just like the regular ones I bought last week When I was a kid growing up on the farm, we used only organic methods. It wasn’t because Grandpa wa...
Pardon me if this sounds like beating a dead horse. But the opposite is what I hope to accomplish with the following words. This is an effort to spur the horse on in the never ending race that journalists are supposed to run — that being to report the news in its entirety and opine only where it is prudent. A week ago newspapers of all stripes across the country went on the collective offensive to defend themselves against charges of being the “enemy of the people,” by Preside...
Cathy McMorris Rodgers has been a strong advocate for people with disabilities. She is one of the leaders in Congress, and the whole federal government, on bringing awareness to Down Syndrome. She brought to Congress’ attention the fact that less than one-hundredth of 1 percent is devoted to Down Syndrome research, and the fact that nearly every person with Down Syndrome develops Alzheimer’s or dementia. Cathy called on Congress to put more into researching Down Syndrome, so that people with that extra 21st chromosome can...
Recently I sent a letter to Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Part of the letter says: “I just needed to tell you how encouraged I was when I met some young people from your campaign at the anti-racism rally at the County Courthouse on Aug. 2 and while we were talking they told me that racism has no place in American politics and is in fact un-American.” On Aug. 4 I bumped into Cathy at the Hillyard parade and she told me that our land should be the land of opportunity for everyone. I was encouraged again by that and...
A few weeks ago, I was in a serious discussion with a young friend who claimed that the Washington state tax system is unfair to the poor. I asked how he came to that conclusion, and he said the rich in Washington pay a lower percent of their income in taxes than the poor. I pondered that for a second and asked where he came to that conclusion. You guessed it. He said, “Well, everybody knows that.” I told him that I didn’t know that and would need to think on it. He got mad and stomped out. I knew that his claim had to have...
Greetings and salutations. John McCallum here — your friendly, neighborhood enemy of the American people. I know there are some out there who would agree with the president’s reference to those of us in the news media. There are many who would say he wasn’t referring to everybody in the media, just specific news organizations. So for the record, here is a copy of his Feb. 17, 2017 Tweet: Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump — “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of...
The plight of a grieving orca who continues to carry her dead calf for weeks is reported by the Seattle Times. In Spokane, the Spokane Spokesman-Review lets people know for the first time the Legislature is forming a task force to exempt lawmakers from portions of the Public Records Act. The Columbia Basin Herald in Moses Lake warns that air quality for the county fair may be unhealthy because of wildfire smoke pollution. The Omak County Chronicle reports that Wally Richards is this year’s Omak Stampede grand marshal. The N...
Our “Christmas in July” fundraising event at the Medical Lake Pizza Factory was a great success. Angels, a Roman Centurion (to deal with any bullies) and Rudolph were all in attendance. The former mayor of Cheney, Allan Gainer, was our auctioneer. There were many wonderful angel gift surprises for moms, dads, boys, and girls. Many thanks to the Medical Lake Thrift Store, Food Bank, School District office, Church of Redemption, Girl Scout Troop and to all the others in Medical Lake who were of great help and support. Ross Nib...
I would first like to thank our committee members, Sharon Lemaster, Glenda Haugen, Dawn Eliliasen, Jake Wesselman, Ivanna Lomas and Robert Haugen for all their help and time to create a successful 21st year of the 24-Hour Medical Lake Tennis-A-Thon. Thank you also to Jay LeMaster for and Robert Bremer for our music. Thank you to our high school tennis players who helped with lessons for approximately 40 kids from ages 3-12 and volunteered painting faces. Approximately 60 adults participated in the Tennis-A-Thon. A special...
Cathy McMorris Rodgers is after $2.9 trillion of our Social Security money. She is now on record as being in support of stealing $2.9 trillion of the American people’s earned Social Security benefits. When Social Security runs a surplus, Social Security holds the funds in trust. We have built up a $2.9 trillion surplus over the decades to cover the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. We earned it; it’s our money to be kept safe until we need it. While 96 percent of Democrats voted to protect our money, Cathy and eve...
Last week my wife and I both received scam attempts. The scammers didn’t get any money from us, but they did cause some inconvenience. In some way that I don’t pretend to understand, they hacked into my wife’s computer, locked it up and demanded that she pay a ransom to have it released. She took it to our local computer store who got rid of the scammers in less than a minute. Mine was a phone call from a sexy voiced computer telling me that I had problems with my credit card, and I needed to call them to have the problem res...
Driving across the mountains and entering the West Plains felt to me like the whole world had heaved a sigh of relief. Out from under concrete skyscrapers and away from bumper-to-bumper traffic, moving back to Eastern Washington was as much of a transformation as leaving it behind had been nearly 10 years before. I grew up spending my childhood enjoying the best our county has to offer — riding the carousel at Riverfront Park on weekends, running through wheat fields in fading red sunlight and splashing in the river until t...
Since 2002, the U.S. Deptartment of Energy has funded construction of a $17 billion project to encase radioactive wastes in solid glass logs. It is scheduled to start operations in 2022 and treat more than 56 million gallons of hazardous liquids which are stored in tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. It is called vitrification, a process by which the state of Washington and federal government agreed in 1989. It is complicated, time consuming and very costly. To speed up...
One of the many scripts that recycle themselves and play out randomly these days in the media is how they are treated so horribly by President Donald Trump. Those poor 90-pound weaklings are constantly getting bullied and having sand kicked in their face by that big guy with the bad comb-over of yellow hair. Yeah right, those who buy ink by the barrel, newsprint in box cars and rule so much of the airwaves cry foul when someone takes issue with “reporting” that is pretty muc...
