Jim Camden

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Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Pay attention to voter fraud cases, but remember they’re extremely rare

Sat., Oct. 30, 2021

A voter fraud case evoked memories from days as a cop reporter that pointed to who might have committed the crime.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Attempt to recall Inslee faces even longer odds than recall of Newsom

Sun., Sept. 19, 2021

With the national media’s almost unabated attention to the attempted recall of California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week, several alert readers wrote to ask about something closer to home.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: The refugee struggles from the Afghanistan War are reminiscent of the resettlement after Vietnam

Sun., Sept. 12, 2021

Like many Americans old enough to remember the fall of Saigon, the video of people being evacuated from Kabul brings back memories of another time and another war.

News

9/11 led to permanent boost in airport security

UPDATED: Fri., Sept. 10, 2021

The skies went quiet after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

News

Spin Control: Dueling press releases on Texas abortion law ignore reality in Washington state

Sun., Sept. 5, 2021

One of my father’s favorite sayings, and one I try hard to follow, was never to borrow trouble. It’s one that politicians rarely practice when a controversial event is just too tempting to resist.

News

Spin Control: Local recounts pass election scrutiny

Sun., Aug. 29, 2021

Some Republican legislators seem to want the American election process to be drawn, quartered and a head stuck on a pike outside the Capitol for a period before the whole body politic is sewn back together and reanimated.

News

We the People: The reasoning behind the Vietnam War was not as simple as stopping the spread of communism

UPDATED: Fri., Sept. 10, 2021

Each week, The Spokesman-Review examines one question from the Naturalization Test immigrants must pass to become United States citizens.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Is the ballot initiative fever cooling in Washington?

Sat., Aug. 14, 2021

While newspaper reporters must be wary of pronouncing trends – that’s the purview of cable news talking heads who guard their territory jealously – some evidence points to a cooling in Washington’s love affair with the great populist institution known as the ballot initiative measure.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Are local income tax bans a red herring in Washington?

Sat., Aug. 7, 2021

The city of Yakima is following the lead of Spokane and giving its voters a say on a city charter amendment banning a local income tax.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Social media ads: Less negative, more polarizing than TV?

Sat., July 31, 2021

If you use Facebook, and about two-thirds of Americans do based on current estimates, you may have noticed plenty of political ads as the campaigns heated up last year.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Think twice before making that Nazi comparison

Sat., July 17, 2021

Some advice for politicians of both parties, liberal and conservative commentators and social media posters: Before you make a comparison between something happening today and Nazi Germany, think twice.And then just don’t.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: As numbers were drawn, the draft lottery had 18-year-olds on edge – including me

UPDATED: Sun., July 11, 2021

When the editors assigned me this week’s We The People Community Project story on the Selective Service, it may have been an agist thing. I may have been the only person available who was actually subject to the draft and can remember what that was like.

News >  Military

We the People: Registering for the Selective Service is not the same as having a draft

UPDATED: Sat., July 17, 2021

he United States has an all-volunteer military and has not drafted anyone into armed forces for almost 50 years. But it still has a Selective Service System that requires men to register shortly after turning 18.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Here’s our annual July 4th trivia quiz to prove you’re the dandiest of Yankee Doodlers

Sun., July 4, 2021

So you consider yourself a true, red-white-and-blue patriot, one who lists “The Star-Spangled Banner” as your favorite song for the security question to your online accounts and wears an American flag pin on your pajamas.

Satanic Temple staged Capitol demonstration

UPDATED: Thu., July 1, 2021

Satanic Temple staged demonstration

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Matt Shea still hasn’t paid to clean olive oil off the Capitol steps

UPDATED: Tue., June 29, 2021

Former Rep. Matt Shea, who opted not to run for re-election to the Legislature last year, is gone but not forgotten at the state Capitol in Olympia.

News >  WA Government

GOP lawmaker tours Cyber Ninjas ‘audit,’ considers changes in Washington called unnecessary

Sat., June 26, 2021

"Do I think our election system can be improved? Yes. By how much? I don't know," Rep. Robert Sutherland, of Granite Falls, said. 

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Inslee used both hands to pass the buck to Wyman on dual broadband bills

UPDATED: Sun., June 20, 2021

In nine years as governor, Jay Inslee has signed some 2,800 pieces of legislation and vetoed about 50, so you would think by now he’d have the process down of deciding which things should become law and which shouldn’t.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: With Washington only partially open, mask protocols seem muddled

Sat., June 12, 2021

A trip away from home prompts a question with no universally accepted answer: To mask or not to mask?

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Holding a member of the newest generation, born amid a pandemic, brings a surge of hope

Sat., June 5, 2021

There may be nothing that chases away the dark shadows of the news – a pandemic, a dysfunctional Congress, an unknown but number of people believing the loser of the last presidential election will magically become the winner before summer is over – as quickly and thoroughly as holding a new grandchild.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: In drawing new lines for Washington’s congressional districts, consider trading Walla Walla for Okanogan County

Sat., May 29, 2021

The Washington Redistricting Commission’s once-per-decade task of redrawing the state’s congressional and legislative boundaries is guaranteed not to please everybody.

News >  Education

School name finalist: Pauline Flett helped save Spokane Tribe’s language

UPDATED: Wed., May 26, 2021

If she were still alive, Pauline Flett might tell middle school students the story of how people came to live along the Spokane River in two languages, English and Spokane Salish.

News >  Education

School name finalist: Carla Peperzak helped save people from Holocaust and teaches about evils of Nazi regime

Sun., May 23, 2021

If they think about it at all, students entering a Spokane middle school may have a hard time connecting their young lives with the name of the person above the main entrance. They might be able to imagine themselves in the shoes of a young Carla Olman Peperzak, who some 80 years ago joined the Dutch Resistance as a teenager and helped save other Jews from the Holocaust.

Opinion >  Column

Spin Control: Here are 10 simple rules for new candidates to survive the campaign. Hint: Don’t whine

UPDATED: Sat., May 22, 2021

New candidates and their new campaign staffs sometimes call with questions they think a person who has covered politics since the Stone Age will answer. Newspaper reporters aren’t paid to give advice, but from time to time, Spin Control offers its 10 simple rules for surviving your first campaign

News >  Health

Inslee vetoes bill that could have blocked ‘critical need’ for vaccine incentives

UPDATED: Tue., May 18, 2021

OLYMPIA – Businesses, local governments and the state will be able to offer people freebies or other incentives to convince them to get vaccinated against COVID-19, based on action taken Tuesday.