Editorial

Recognizing the population of Washington state is growing and aging, access to health care is an increasing problem, especially at a time when our physician workforce is aging. The mean age for family physicians is 52 years, for internal medicine physicians 49, for pediatricians 50 and psychiatrists over 55 years old. In Washington state, this is complicated by a maldistribution problem between Western Washington and Eastern Washington among general internists (26 per 100,000 population in Western Washington versus 19 in Eastern Washington), general pediatricians (14 versus 10) and psychiatrists (11 versus 5).

In response to George Wuerthner, “Harvesting dead trees is bad for forests,” ( Feb. 8): When we first saw the title of this opinion piece we knew it was going to be a direct challenge to the work we have been doing on the Colville National Forest over the last 15 years. It’s OK, we’re used to it. Collaboration gets challenged from the right and the left and all levels in between. It usually comes from those who have not participated or have no interest in engaging in the collaborative process. Mr. Wuerthner isn’t the exception.

They’re the students of Douglas High. Just listen to them. Their voices are remarkable and offer something no one saw coming in the aftermath of this tragedy.

This is in regard to your Feb. 4 article (“Child sex sting arrest exposes former leader’s dark past”) about Ron Nold and the Coeur d’Alene Eagles. I am the current president of Coeur d’Alene #486 Eagles and would like to clear up a few misconceptions that may have resulted from this article. Because Mr. Nold was initiated back in 2005, nearly 13 years ago, I cannot speak for what was or was not determined with the interview committee at that time in regard to his application. That was back before most of our current trustees and officers were members and we cannot speak for past officials whom we have never met or who are now deceased. This is why no official statement could be provided on how Ron Nold achieved membership.

A bill floating around the Idaho Legislature seems to assume that Idaho judges do not know what law they are supposed to interpret and apply. House Bill 419 says it is the public policy of Idaho “to protect its citizens from the application of foreign laws when the application of foreign law will result in the violation of a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution of the United States or the constitution of the state of Idaho.” Where to start? At the outset, it seems strange that the bill would permit the application of foreign law when it would not violate a fundamental right. The fact is that Idaho judges do not apply foreign law in deciding their cases, even if it would not violate someone’s rights. And, they would certainly transgress their oath of office if they applied a foreign law in violation of someone’s constitutional rights. That is why the proponents of House Bill 419 cannot point to one instance where an Idaho judge has done so.

The following editorial appeared in the (Vancouver, Wash.) Columbian: While recent discussions about the stability of American democracy have centered upon Russian meddling, the issue of gerrymandering presents an equally significant threat. By actively disenfranchising voters, officials in several states have undermined the very purpose of our electoral system.

Legislation proposed in Olympia will extend Washington’s existing data center investment incentives statewide. Expansion will make Washington’s metro areas more attractive for data center location, but everyone, regardless of where you live, should support passage.

Nothing symbolizes the foreclosure of the future like the slaughter of a nation’s young. And it’s so routine now – there have been 18 school shootings in 2018, an average of one every 60 hours – that attention will quickly fade, as it does with subjects one doesn’t intend to do anything about. Another word for that bitter fatalism is defeat. And we have been, in an important moral sense, defeated. We won’t do anything about it, or can’t; the fact is so well understood that we don’t even need new commentaries stating as much for each shooting – we just recycle the old ones, from the old shootings. If this is what American freedom means, if this is what the Constitution entails, if this is where prayer gets us, then it’s easy to understand why millennials – the first generation to be raised on a steady stream of schoolhouse slaughter – barely believe in anything, democracy, American-style liberty, America’s future and organized religion included.

The following editorial appeared in the Baltimore Sun: One might be tempted to assume that having Scott Pruitt – a devout climate change denier who, as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is to public health what medieval rats were to, well, public health – admit that humans have influenced the planet’s climate would be a good thing. Not so fast.

By example and as advocates, millennials of all racial backgrounds will undoubtedly continue to make the case that investing in a more inclusive, younger America is essential to the nation’s economic success and can only help today’s older populations. Older Americans should listen, and help make the country whole.

Now we’re firmly in the selling phase of the Republican tax plan, and President Donald Trump’s constant refrain is that the cuts are “the biggest in history.” History doesn’t quite support his claim. Ever since 1913, when the states ratified the 16th Amendment and thereby allowed Congress to levy an income tax, rates have been on a wild roller-coaster ride. The top rate on both individuals and corporations started at a mere 1 percent. Just two years later, Congress jacked up the top rate on individuals to 77 percent and the corporate rate to 12 percent. The rationale was the need to finance World War I. Wartime necessity was the primary justification for later tax hikes as well, including the jump to a top individual rate of 94 percent in 1944 and to a top corporate rate of 50.75 percent in 1951.

The following editorial appeared in Thursday’s Washington Post. Is Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke cynical or incompetent? Those are the options after his capricious treatment of states that object to his plan to open oil and gas drilling off their coasts. (There’s also: (c) both of the above.)

The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News: Congress moved back from the brink of total dysfunction Monday when the Senate voted to end the Democratic filibuster blocking a House-approved bill to continue funding for the government. A vote to approve the temporary funding bill [passed] later in the afternoon.

Three recent stories that might have gone unnoticed reflect endemic problems within the Trump administration.

The Trump administration’s recent abolishment of a rule that prohibited federal aid to religious organizations was the right decision.

The following editorial appeared in Saturday’s Washington Post. In contrast with those of other advanced industrial democracies, especially in Europe, the U.S. system of social insurance and income support distributes benefits based not only on membership in society, but also on work effort, past and present. In the realm of health insurance, this means that instead of adopting universal coverage as a national legal standard, then devising a unitary system to meet that goal, the United States cobbled together programs whose organizing principle, such as it is, is work. A plurality of adults get tax-subsidized insurance through their employers; most retirees get Medicare, paid for out of deductions from their past paychecks. Many others – poor children, people with disabilities – obtain insurance from programs whose premise is that the recipients are neither expected nor able to work, which is itself a work-related criterion.

The White House’s rapid exemption for Florida to its new offshore drilling plan raises troubling questions.

The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News:

The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times: All 2017 had to do was go away quietly, but no. It left us a nasty New Year’s gift: “Swatting” is now officially a thing, with an innocent Wichita man shot dead by police in his own home a week ago for opening his front door, and an apparently callous Los Angeles gamer in jail pending his transfer to Kansas sometime in the next month.