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

Latest Stories

Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Bret Stephens: The face-plant president

Harold Macmillan, the midcentury British prime minister, supposedly said that what statesmen feared most were “events, dear boy, events.” Misfortunes happen: a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a foreign crisis. Political leaders are judged by how adroitly or incompetently they handle the unexpected.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Outside view: Pope Francis’ legacy of mercy and compassion is instructive for us all

As Jorge Mario Bergoglio prepared to assume the papacy, he chose a new name: Francis. That choice was a tribute to St. Francis of Assisi and set the stage for Pope Francis’ entire pontificate, in which he showed ceaseless solidarity with the poor and voiceless, just like his namesake. The pontiff set himself apart from all of his predecessors, as he was the first to go by this new name. ...
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Trudy Rubin: The 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride reminds us that ordinary citizens can defeat tyrants

ARLINGTON, Mass. — Driving through this old New England town, visiting relatives to celebrate Passover, I noticed every house on the street sported an American flag. This was the route Paul Revere and William Dawes traversed by horseback exactly 250 years ago on their way to Lexington and Concord to warn local militias that British regulars were coming to destroy munitions stored by the ...
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

George F. Will: The elevating, at times appalling, path to America’s founding

Saturday marks the 250th anniversary of the first day of the 3,059-day war that birthed the modern world. Commemorating the April 19, 1775, skirmishes at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge begins a celebration that will culminate July 4, 2026. These almost 15 months will inflame the perpetual scolds who, examining this nation’s history with a disapproving squint, see little to celebrate.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Politicians promise families tax cuts. Inflation keeps undoing them.

A “growing bipartisan consensus” holds that government policy needs to be easier on families, according to the New York Times. One Republican official told the New Yorker that his party is making “the family turn” in economics. Last year’s presidential race saw “each party trying to one-up the other on its family friendliness,” concluded CNN.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

F.D. Flam: We used to disagree. Now we don’t talk to each other

Since the COVID pandemic began five years ago, the U.S. has gone from being merely polarized to split into two separate and incompatible realities. Worse, according to a recently released survey, we lack a “common understanding of facts.” So much for the new normal. Your reality depends on whether you identify with the political right or left. In its study, Bright Line Watch asked political ...
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Bret Stephens: Free Gaza from its own tyrants first

The world should remember the name of Odai Al-Rubai. The 22-year-old Palestinian man joined protests in the Gaza Strip last week to demand an end to 18 years of Hamas’ violent misrule in the territory. Demonstrators could be heard shouting, “Out, out, Hamas get out,” and “Hamas are terrorists,” while displaying banners saying “Hamas does not represent us.” In retaliation, Al-Rubai’s family says, he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by members of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades. Then his body was dumped in front of the family home.
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Trudy Rubin: Signalgate leak reveals a worse intelligence disaster than most Americans realize

You think the Signalgate debacle is a national security disaster? You may not realize the half of it. This Pentagon blunder (don’t call it a mistake) lays bare the security risks posed by President Donald Trump’s unqualified and ill-prepared national security team. The incompetence on display is the real scandal — one which goes deeper than the astonishing decision by Defense Secretary Pete ...
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Andreas Kluth: Obsessed with Greenland? You too may have the wrong map

At some point in his life, Donald Trump looked at a world map and saw something he wants – something that, as president of the US, he now says he will take “one way or the other.” It’s Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, one of America’s closest allies. “I love maps,” Trump once explained. “And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’ ”
Opinion >  Syndicated columns

Commentary: Under Trump, the Voice of America has fallen silent. US enemies are cheering

Almost 30 years ago, toward the end of President Bill Clinton’s first term in office, Republicans in Congress forced a government shutdown that led some 800,000 nonessential federal workers to be furloughed. At the time, I was the director of the Voice of America, and VOA was broadcasting in more than 45 languages reaching more than 200 million regular listeners around the world. We ...