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Gary Crooks

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

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Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: School district showdown began with Legislature, not teachers

You might know that the Washington Supreme Court ruling that commands the Legislature to fully fund basic education is tied to the state constitution’s “paramount duty” clause. But did you know that’s also one of the legal rationales for why strikes by school employees are considered illegal? School districts are the agents by which this duty is carried out. Unlike private businesses, districts don’t have the option of just closing up shop if teachers and others withhold their services. That’s why districts go to court and win injunctions against striking employees.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

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.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Climate change affects fire season, drought

If you think global warming is bunk, or occurs randomly based on natural forces, then your reaction to wildfires and drought in our midst is to shrug and say, “Tough break, but Mother Nature could turn on the spigot at any time.” If you think the warming planet is the top menace facing people for generations to come, you aren’t surprised at what’s occurring, but are immensely frustrated because the experts studying global warming have issued very clear warnings.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Homework on education needed

You can’t fully understand the complexities of funding basic education without reading the two bills the Legislature adopted to accomplish this constitutional mandate. ESHB 2261 and SHB 2776 were passed in 2009 and 2010. I recommend reading both to discover what this controversy isn’t about. It isn’t about complying with two voter-approved class-size initiatives, I-728 and I-1351. Nor is it about I-732, the initiative that called for teachers to receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment. It isn’t about Common Core or “excessive” student testing. It isn’t about a lot of issues mentioned by teachers during their May walkout to protest legislative inaction.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Congress unlocked fetal cells

The popular conservative blog RedState.com says this about Planned Parenthood: “Our muddy moral moment might obscure this searing truth: we are not simply keeping up to speed with the Nazis. We are outpacing them. Planned Parenthood is operating by a for-profit motive that was largely alien to the Third Reich.” There is no evidence on the deceptively produced videos that the organization is profiting, but that doesn’t stop RedState from calling this “our Auschwitz.” But even if the profit charge is bogus, that still means the country is “keeping up to speed with the Nazis” by funding Planned Parenthood, according to RedState.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Spoiler alert – No fetus scandal

Now that the Planned Parenthood “scandal” has proven to be bogus, will politicians who based their charges on deceptively edited video clips be angry with the laughably labeled Center for Medical Progress, which secretly recorded a meeting with a Planned Parenthood official? Of course not. They’re interested in political gain, not the truth. In fact, they’ll probably continue to parrot the debunked notion that the organization is looking to profit from fetuses. Factcheck.org has an extensive write-up of this sting operation based on the entire video, and it’s clear that pro-life activists were pulling a fast one.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Smart Bombs: Pledging to close minds

Business interests lobbied heavily for a transportation package, but Sen. Michael Baumgartner was the lone Republican in the Spokane area to vote for the gas-tax increase that will finance it. In the last go-round, he was also the only Republican advocate from around here. Though his fellow Republican legislators agreed that the North Spokane Corridor must be completed, they said they couldn’t vote for the previous gas tax unless our region got more projects and Democrats agreed to some reforms. This time, the project list was more favorable to Spokane (we get more spending locally than we send in tax dollars to Olympia), and Democrats agreed to phase out the sales tax on highway projects. Democrats also dropped their call for a low-carbon fuel standard.