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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Gary Crooks

This individual is no longer an employee with The Spokesman-Review.

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Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Legislators made own beds

The “meltdown” melodrama of the third special legislative session could’ve been avoided if lawmakers finished on time and the process was easier for the public to follow. Nobody thinks it’s a good idea to take government to the brink of shutdown, with legislators making rapid-fire decisions after pulling all-nighters. So this is a case of lawmakers making their own bed, being unable to sleep in it, and coming away cranky.
Opinion

Busy week for Tyranny Man

“I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch,” thundered Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and presidential aspirant, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. “We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.” So that settles it. If government gendarmes try to force Huckabee to marry another man, he will grab the musket or flintlock. Unless by “acquiesce,” he means some other form of active resistance to same-sex marriage. Rip up an unlikely wedding invitation?
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: When terrorism is denied

“People in Charleston are going to have that fear now forever,” said Jeremy Dye, a 35-year-old taxi driver and security guard from Charleston, South Carolina, who knew three of Dylann Roof’s nine victims in a horrific massacre. “It’s not going to wash away. They’re going to be worried about, ‘OK, when’s the next church going to get hit?’ ” Sounds like terrorism to me, but for many Americans the t-word isn’t invoked unless the perpetrator is Muslim. When that’s the case, the tragedy cuts across myriad issues such as homeland security, immigration and foreign policy. The religion of Islam itself is placed under the microscope.

Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: State remains rigid on revenue

The House issued a revised budget proposal for the state of Washington last week, and simple math shows that it moves that chamber a lot closer to the Senate’s budget. The new plan would erase a proposed business and occupation tax surcharge, end a bid to close some tax breaks and drop a tax proposal for some out-of-state Internet sales. All told, the House reduced its tax package from about $1.5 billion to $550 million. In a news release, Sen. Michael Baumgartner ignored this $950 million compromise, choosing to focus on the single tax proposal that remains: a capital gains tax that would affect 32,000 well-off Washingtonians. He calls this a “roadblock” to a deal, and he attributes it to the “rigid structured ideology” of House Democratic leaders.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Soft on white-collar crime

Maybe if you grow up in a certain culture, you just don’t know any better. You feel you’re entitled to things without really expending an honest effort. Hard work and merit become foreign concepts. You hate to judge people just on appearances, but you have to concede that most of them are white, well-dressed and from privileged backgrounds. It doesn’t help that the criminal justice system is so lenient. In some states you can serve 10 to 20 years for minor crimes if it’s your third offense. But if you steal from the comfort of a cubicle, there are no three-strikes laws, no mandatory minimums. Seems like the more you steal, the less apt you are to do time.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Despite objections, Obamacare has worked

The Affordable Care Act covers 1.6 million Floridians. Florida Health Choices covers 80. The latter was pushed through the Florida Legislature in 2008 by then-House Speaker Marco Rubio. He told the Palm Beach Post back then, “It’s about competition, it’s about choice, and it’s about the marketplace.”
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Riled up over maneuvers in Texas

Jade Helm 15 is not cologne. It’s the name of upcoming military maneuvers in the Southwest, and Chuck Norris says it smells funny. “The U.S. government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise,’ ” writes the former star of “Walker, Texas Ranger” in a column for World Net Daily. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Tax levies about to burst

Volatile events in Olympia are a sign that, though budget talks ended in a stalemate, pent-up revenue demands can’t be held back forever. Tim Eyman pleaded with Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to “save the day” in the face of a “massive” property tax hike proposed by big, bad Senate Republicans. House Democrats joined Eyman in bashing the proposal, even though wealthy property owners would be the chief losers of the proposed “levy swap.” Democrats prefer a capital gains tax, which would touch only the super rich.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Let the future drive transit policy

The following comment on The Spokesman-Review’s website appeared after an item on the proposal to raise the sales tax to improve and maintain bus service and to add trolley transit service across the city’s center. “Why can’t STA (Spokane Transit Authority) pay for their own way? Nobody helps those who drive their own cars offset the cost of their transportation, why should everyone else pony up to help pay the way for those who take the bus.”
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Can’t stand the 2016 suspense

So grateful that Sen. Ted Cruz announced he’s running for president because other politicians make it so difficult to determine their intentions. Hillary Clinton has amassed a pile of money and recently bobbed and weaved in the face of email jabs. Just like anyone who’s set on being a private citizen.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: A reality-based ruling, please

The U.S. Supreme Court is cloaked in tradition, resistant to public access and generally standoffish, but there are consequences to this separate reality. For instance, when the court overturned campaign finance limits in the infamous Citizens United decision, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said it wouldn’t be such a big deal. “With the advent of the Internet,” Kennedy wrote, “prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.”
News >  Marijuana

Smart Bombs: Blunt talk on marijuana

The views of many pot prohibitionists haven’t advanced past “Dragnet,” an ancient TV melodrama in which Sgt. Joe Friday lectured caricatures of hippies over the use of drugs. Here’s an excerpt from a 1968 episode: “Marijuana is the fuse, heroin the flame and LSD the bomb. So don’t you try to equate liquor with marijuana with me, mister. You may sell that jazz to another pothead, but not to somebody who spends most of their time holding some sick kid’s head while he vomits and retches sitting on a curbstone at four o’clock in the morning.” He finishes with, “I’m the expert here!”
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Business-friendly, worker-mean

Would you sell a hand for a hundred grand if it were vital to your career? Under workers’ compensation, which covers damage to your body and future lost wages, losing the use of a hand is valued at $37,400 in Alabama and $738,967 in Nevada. In Washington, it’s worth $106,440, and in Idaho, $102,317. The average for all states is $144,930, according to an investigative report by ProPublica and National Public Radio.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Idaho nurtures unborn supremacy

While Idaho Rep. Vito Barbieri’s vagina dialogue with a physician was entertaining, the larger issue is more enlightening. Barbieri’s legislation, which sailed through committee, would halt “webcam abortions,” during which consultations with physicians are done online. Instead, they would have to be done in person, even though this isn’t medically necessary.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Shift burden to the wealthy

It’s a harrowing ride on the Plenty O’Revenue Expressway, with budgetary shifting behind every twist and turn. In Washington state, the Senate offers a transportation package that keeps proceeds from the gasoline tax in transportation accounts, but there’s no mention of what general-fund programs will run on fumes as a result. In Idaho, a legislator proposes a transportation package that dips into the general fund. In Kansas, a governor facing a self-inflicted revenue shortfall wants to siphon gas tax dollars to pay for ill-advised tax cuts.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Big Vitamin flexes its muscle

As a mainstream media guy, I realize that what I’m about to say will be instantly suspect among dwellers of the alternative universe. We’ve all met the enlightened people who load up on natural products, curse chemicals and drugs, pray for the arrival of Whole Foods, and believe only alternative media. Reminds me of that insufferable phase when I only listened to bands that hadn’t “sold out.” Anyway, here’s what I wanted to say: There is no cure for the common cold. If there were, it would be very big news. The kind with giant headlines of the “MAN LANDS ON MOON” variety.
Opinion

The pseudoscience of vaccine’s ‘harmful’ effects

Perhaps the answer is “crunchy moms.” That’s my theory for why the Bellevue School District leads the state in the number of parents who decline to vaccinate their children against the measles. Spokane Public Schools is second; 2,077 students have exemptions. Plus, the immunization status of another 5,175 students is unknown because of incomplete records. Overall, the Northwest lags the nation on this critical public health issue.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Critics losing their religion

Do conservatives claim there’s a war on religion? Is the pope Catholic? Why, yes, he is, and quite religious from what I understand. And yet, some conservatives have been sharply criticizing the pope on issues such as global warming, wealth inequality, thawing relations with Cuba and the downside of humans “breeding like rabbits.” When he said, “Inequality is the root of social evil,” he was blasted. But is it so hard to imagine Jesus saying the same? Seems His Holiness is only infallible if they agree with him; and when they attack, it isn’t combat.
Opinion

Les suis Charlie and decency

I once wrote an editorial that referenced the name of the slave in “Huckleberry Finn,” but I had to write around it, just as I am now. The mere sight of the word was deemed too hurtful and inflammatory. The character is portrayed sympathetically, but context didn’t matter. If there is a controversy swirling around the use of this word, most newspapers will describe the word, but won’t print it. Is this reasonable or cowardly?
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: It isn’t so; ask Arizona’s Sheriff Joe

After Monday’s rowdy Spokane City Council meeting, Jackie Murray, who filed the initiative to repeal the illegal immigration “sanctuary” ordinance, said, “I’m a refugee from California. I’ve already lived through this.” Well, I’m from Arizona, so I lived through some of this, too.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: A constitutionalist context

Video shot at the Spokane Valley Mall shows a deputy explaining why the Sheriff’s Office needs a mine-resistant, military-style vehicle. He replies, “We’ve got a lot of constitutionalists and a lot of people that stockpile weapons, a lot of ammunition.” I’m not thrilled with the militarization of law enforcement, but I don’t believe the buildup is leading to an assault on law-abiding citizens. Law enforcement is increasingly afraid of the public and vice versa.