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I have a couple basic rules regarding who I vote for. It has nothing to do with their political party. First rule: Never vote for a president who won’t show his tax returns, or who is secretly supported by our enemies (FYI: Russia is our enemy and has been so since WWII. I learned that in high school history class). Second rule: Never vote for a politician who didn’t graduate from high school. Trump and Culp are therefore eliminated as far as I’m concerned. Greg James Mercer Island...
The stock market has largely rebounded from COVID-19 and American retail sales are improving steadily. Even more encouraging is that the U.S. unemployment rate fell for the fifth consecutive month in September. Each of these gains are sure signs that the Trump administration’s economic response to the coronavirus crisis is working. But we are not out of the woods quite yet. Many factories and offices are still closed or operating at reduced capacity. Fortunately, the Trump administration is working to boost U.S. exports by h...
President Donald Trump just signed a new executive order to reform our healthcare system. While his desire to lower costs for patients is appropriate, the proposed changes would do more harm than good. The new “most-favored-nation” executive order would tie Medicare payments for certain medicines to the lowest price paid in other foreign nations. While this would result in some modest and short-term government savings, it would also have disastrous consequences for American patients and severely restrict the discovery of new...
I’ve lived in two exclusive vote-by-mail states during my time as an eligible voter. My first ballot ever cast was via the mailbox in Oregon. There the ballots are due in the hands of election officials by 8 p.m. on election night to be counted. Now living in Washington, I’ve trained myself not to worry about election results until the Friday following election day due to the state’s postmark deadline eligibility for ballots. I’ve often wondered how the country would react to...
No doubt each person has several issues influencing their voting decision for the presidential candidates. I am asking you to consider another one. Upon taking office in 2017, President Trump immediately canceled massive foreign aid funding that helped families at many clinics around the world. These serve great numbers of the poorest women, and make available pre-natal care, contraceptives and abortion when needed. They help in the family planning that every woman should have access to in this world. We want families to...
Are you as disappointed with our 5th Congressional District Congresswoman as I? Not once has Cathy McMorris Rodgers had the courage to stand up to Trump and his divisive actions. It is time to vote for someone who has the courage, who has demonstrated skill in dealing with people of all walks of life, and who will work across party lines to serve us and our country. It is time to vote for Dave Wilson. Any successful challenger to CMR must bring all Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans together to defeat her....
For several years before broadcasting my weekly radio show, “The Brief Congressional Update,” on KYRS Thin Air Community Radio (92.3 and 81.1 FM), I believed that the political party to which one belongs really doesn’t make a big difference — just vote for the person who is honest, has integrity and is friendly. Preparing for the radio show by studying local, state and national politics, however, I learned so much and changed my mind entirely. I realized that the political party to which the candidates belongs makes a HUGE di...
We, the below-listed retired Spokane County Superior Court judges, are pleased to endorse Tom McGarry for the Washington State House of Representatives, District 6, Position 2. Tom has practiced civil law in Spokane for more than 30 years and a respected attorney who zealously represents his clients. He understands that often the best result for his client is obtained outside the courtroom, but when he does come to court, he is prepared, respectful of all parties and a consummate professional. We believe Tom will serve the...
To the average American, China’s control of the world production, processing technology and stockpile of critical metals is not their concern. However, to our military and high-tech leaders, it is a very big deal. Our government has a list consisting of 35 metals considered to be vital to our national economy and security. While 17 are classified as “rare earth” and are not commonly known, all are critical components of products such as smart phones, laptop computers, lithi...
The Cheney School District administrators, teachers and staff have had a solid, positive start to the school year. They have worked many long hours all summer, prepping for our students. Their efforts have really paid off. Our family appreciates the new schedule and improved focus on academics. We have four especially talented, engaging teachers and our sophomore is very motivated to succeed. School districts are often caught between a rock and a hard place — no way to keep all families happy in the present COVID-19 c...
Cathy McMorris Rodgers represents our 5th Congressional District with strength, courage, and vision. On issues vital to those of us who live here she has led from the front, always searching for ways to improve our quality of life and then converting those ideas into meaningful public policy. We send her to Washington D.C. to pass laws that put our values into action and that’s what Cathy has done with honor and distinction. At this turbulent time in America it is vital that our leaders be people of grace, wisdom, and i...
The coronavirus pandemic has hit all parts of American life, but some of the hardest hit have been the small businesses that drive our economy. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was quick to support critical relief for businesses, farmers and hospitals. I believe that this quick action saved a large number of small businesses and jobs in Eastern Washington. Terri Nester Asotin, Wash....
Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks that drug companies may develop a COVID-19 vaccine before year’s end. But that doesn’t mean the pandemic will be over. Distributing hundreds of millions of vaccine doses will pose an enormous challenge, and our country’s medical supply chain — responsible for producing, transporting, and delivering crucial equipment and treatments — is already overwhelmed. From shortages of life-saving medical devices to logistical obstacles, the United States is woefully unprepared — especially since the flu season...
Interestingly, while restaurants and airlines continue to be clobbered by the coronavirus, recreational vehicle (RV) sales and rentals are taking off. People have switched their travel preferences to minimize their Covid-19 exposure. Travel trailers and motorhomes are iconic symbols of campgrounds in our “Great Outdoors”. Meanwhile, outdoor recreation increased once the initial lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19 lifted. Before the pandemic came ashore in the US, the...
Donald Trump and his staff have created a method to destroy Social Security and Medicare. The President signed an order that allows employers to choose the option of not collecting and submitting payroll taxes to the federal government for the rest of the year. These taxes are not part of the federal income taxes paid monthly but they are funds dedicated to pay for Social Security and Medicare. The payroll tax is 7.65%. If a person makes $15 per hour working a normal year of approximately 2,000 hours their income is $30,000...
Local manufacturing businesses and jobs have experienced a resurgence in recent years that needs to continue for our state’s livelihood and connection to the global economy. Before the pandemic, the manufacturing sector employed 11.6 million workers in the United States. During the past three years, approximately 500,000 manufacturing jobs were added to the economy. In 2018 alone, 264,000 manufacturing jobs were added, the most created in any single year in more than two decades. Locally in Washington state, there were n...
COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on Americans’ mental health. One in three Americans suffers from severe anxiety, and one in four battles depression, according to recent Census Bureau data. Texts to federal emergency mental health lines are up 1,000 percent for the year. And a May survey from the University of Chicago found that four out of 10 respondents felt a sense of hopelessness at least once a day. Sadly, insurance companies are exacerbating the mental health impact of the pandemic by making it needlessly difficult for p...
There’s a term that was developed in the academic field of peace research, and it deserves far more currency in political discourse and everyday language than it currently receives. It’s called “structural,” or indirect, violence, and, as the name implies, it refers to violence that is embedded in social structures or institutions. You can’t name a specific perpetrator as you would when an individual shoots, stabs, or suffocates another person. But structural violence inflicts no less harm than its direct counterpa...
What happens in China, doesn’t always stay in China. We learned that a couple of years ago when the Chinese stopped buying massive volumes of the world’s used paper, plastics and textiles; and, again last March when the coronavirus escaped Wuhan and spread across the planet. Like other nations, China is struggling with the deadly COVID-19 virus and suffocating under mountains of trash its residents generate each day. Wuhan hospitals generated six times as much medical was...
“Are you guys OK?” It’s the first thing we say to each other in the Malden/Pine City area these days. Once that question is answered, it is immediately followed by “Is your house OK?” We lost so much on Labor Day. Our community’s heart got burned up. Malden and Pine City are more than a collection of buildings. They were where we fought for years to get a library and finally got one. It was where we met, all of us for miles around. The Masonic Lodge Hall that burned held every bit of history from Eastern Star chapters fr...
After reading and watching the news online and on TV, it appears that our country is divided into those who care about property and those who care about people, and most astute observers could easily identify which political party caters to each group. Since I have traveled and lived in many different countries of the world — some “developed” and some “developing,” which President Trump called “shithole countries,” — I have never seen such wretched living as some people experience in certain parts of the United States....
Replanting the millions of acres scorched by wildfires in our western woodlands will be herculean task priced in the hundreds of billions. Thankfully, many businesses, such as Bank of America, Microsoft, and Salesforce, have joined with conservation organizations to fund planting a trillion trees in our public forests by 2028. BofA pledged $300 billion to fight climate change by planting young seedlings. Salesforce plans to “conserve and restore 100 million trees,” acc...
I read with interest the Cheney Free Press’ “Back to School” supplement which detailed Cheney School District officials’ timid decision to open the school year with on-line instruction only. (Cyberspace, apparently, provides the ideal in social distancing.) Nonetheless, these intrepid educators are going to teach the children to “take risks” via something called “social and emotional learning.” What a curious irony. David Haugen Spokane...
Voices across the state continue to ask the Governor to call a special session to allow lawmakers to balance the budget and address COVID-19 related policies. A special session would provide the legislative branch of government its first opportunity in more than five months to address problems caused by the pandemic. Sen. Hans Zeiger this week also sent his colleagues a letter calling on them to support a special session. From Sen. Zeiger’s letter (in-part): “I write five and...
Not only is the world in the grasp of the COVID-19 pandemic, but America’s western wildlands are burning up, as well. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters his state has a dual crises: the massive wildfire complexes and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “At this time last year, California had seen 4,292 fires that burned 56,000 acres. So far this year, we’ve had 7,002 fires that have burned a whopping 1.4 million acres.” California reports more than 660,000 coronav...
