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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Smart Bombs: GOP needs extreme makeover

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul popped into the Inland Northwest last week and delivered his basic stump speech on freedom and liberty. I was hoping he’d explain the difference, but alas.

He did, however, deliver his pitch for why the message of libertarianism, which has failed to popularize the Libertarian Party, is a sure-fire winner if shrouded in Republicanism. But he lost his chance to woo reasonable Republicans when extremist state Sen. Matt Shea and compatriot Clint Didier, a loser in races for Congress and state lands commissioner, took the stage first. After they dropped their rhetorical bombs, the kinder and gentler Paul materialized in the craters.

And moderate Republicans were left to remove the shrapnel once again.

Tear down that wall. Last week, I asked when the business community was going to wake up on global warming. This week, I wonder the same about immigration.

Let’s revisit Donald Trump’s news conference, where he bellowed “Go back to Univision!” to anchorman – but not “anchor baby” – Jorge Ramos, who was asking him about his incendiary immigration rhetoric. Univision is a television network with the largest Spanish-speaking audience in the world. Viewership in the United States is right up there with the five biggest English-speaking networks. Republican strategists know that wooing the Latino vote is a huge challenge for them, so Trump’s removal of a respected journalist had to be a Maalox moment.

After the thumping Mitt “Self Deportation” Romney took in the 2102 election, Republican strategists sifted the results and wrote a postmortem. It read, in part, “We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, must be to embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

Since then, immigration reform has gone into hiding, and the Republican Party has become an even larger sanctuary for white Americans eager to blame all of the country’s ills on illegal immigrants.

The business community, which is generally Republican, wants immigration reform, but it looks like it will have to push for party reform first.

I’ll hydrate to that. Now that “awesomesauce,” “beer o’clock” and “butt dial” have made it into the Oxford Dictionary, it might seem churlish to pick on an actual word but, seriously, when did “hydrate” become ubiquitous? Probably around the time various forms of packaged water took over the store shelves.

The following public service announcement is brought to you by chemistry. A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. I feel like I need to mention this after Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (so adorbs!) mentioned that drinking something called Recovery Water might have staved off the effects of a hit to the head in the playoffs last year. This makes no sense, unless you’re a shill for the product (still adorbs!).

If you become dehydrated, the water from a garden hose is just as effective as that slick version selling for $3 a bottle. That price point is currently higher than a gallon of gas, which is a tad more difficult to extract and refine.

One more thing. That hydration formula of eight glasses of water a day? That’s also bunk, says Dr. Aaron Carroll, writing for the New York Times “Upshot” blog. No research is behind that metric. We get plenty of water from fruits, vegetables, juices, coffee and beer, preferably at beer o’clock.

Just think of all the money you’ll save with this knowledge, especially if you’ve been hoodwinked into buying bottled water to hydrate.

Associate Editor Gary Crooks can be reached at garyc@spokesman.com or (509) 459-5026. Follow him on Twitter @GaryCrooks.