Someone recently gave me a book of photos taken on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1890s. The conditions were horrible: homeless, malnourished children sleeping in a clump, barefoot in a doorway. There was a block, on Bayard Street, with 39 tenement houses, and 2,781 people squeezed …
In late 2015 then-candidate Donald Trump accused Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, of being part of a political conspiracy.
Today is my father’s birthday. He’s been gone for three decades — if he were alive he would be 104.
As an organization invested in the health of every person in our communities, we were extremely disappointed to hear that the Oregon Legislature abandoned House Bill 3063, a bill that would ha…
“I love the poorly educated.” So declared Donald Trump back in February 2016, after a decisive win in the Nevada primary. And the poorly educated love him back: Whites without a college degree…
Most of human history has been marked by war. Between 1500 and 1945, scarcely a year went by without some great power fighting another great power. Then, in 1945 that stopped. The number of ba…
I’ve taken up the hobby of toponymy, the study of the way in which places are named. I have uncovered some rather interesting factoids that I would like to share with the reader.
Just when you think you’ve seen and heard it all from Donald Trump, he sinks to a new low that leaves you speechless and wondering: Is he crazy, is he evil, is he maniacally committed to unwin…
It’s hard to work up much sympathy for the hollowed-out husk of a human being that is Mitch McConnell, or Lindsey Graham for that matter. This country is a harder, colder, more mean-spirited p…
When I was a boy I was taught a certain story about America. This was the land of opportunity. Immigrants came to this land and found an open field and a fair chance to pursue their dreams. In…
There was a slight breeze as I walked down the ramp of the clubhouse — green fees paid, a few new tees in my pocket, and a scorecard in my hand. The red and white flag on the No. 9 green waved…
Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Mexican exports unless our neighbor does something — he hasn’t specified what — to stop the flow of asylum-seekers is almost surely illegal: U.S. trade…
The cost of Oregon’s green goodness will come at the pump. To get Oregonians to use less fuel, House Bill 2020 raises its price. The carbon reduction bill — seemingly destined to become law — …
Editor’s note: When correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese machine gun bullet in 1945, his columns were being delivered to more than 14 million homes. He wrote about war from a sold…
During my stint in the U.S. Army, I picked up a lot of life lessons. One of those examples was from an officer I knew who once told me that as a leader you are responsible for all that your me…
Over the past several years, teenage suicide rates have spiked horrifically. Depression rates are surging, and America’s mental health overall is deteriorating. What’s going on?
Joe Biden has been attacked by politicians on the left — and now, thanks to Donald Trump, on the right — for his role in shepherding the 1994 crime bill through Congress. One of these attacks …
Robert Mueller certainly looks as if he could use a rest. Give the man credit. There’s nothing more exhausting than trying to analyze the inner workings of Donald Trump’s mind.
Hats off to Beth Ford for calling out President Trump’s questionable arithmetic.
Ella is a British woman who grew up in a broken home and was abused by her stepdad. Her eldest son got thrown out of school and ended up sitting around the house drinking. By the time her daug…
There is no crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, apprehensions of illegal crossings have plummeted over the last two decades, from 1.6 million in 1999 to just 400,000 in 2018, according …
Growth has come to the Northwest. The signs are everywhere: new buildings, new roads, more cars, more people. And lights.
PRO: Democrats are doing it this time; Republicans have done it in the past. CON: Not a constitutional crisis, just a supercharged political moment of democracy in action.
In today’s world, we don’t need an awful lot of help fostering misunderstanding and polarization. That’s why a recent editorial defending Gov. Kate Brown’s nominations to the ODFW Commission w…
From a very early age, I have been interested in — or perhaps more correctly stated, enthralled by — airplanes. My grade school drawing-doodles were frequently rudimentary depictions of the “d…
Oregon’s wolves are in serious trouble. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently announced their support for a misguided and reckless proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service …
Every year, I’m struck by the powerful — and often, opposing — emotions that Memorial Day stirs.
Sometimes it’s important to write a column about something you’re pretty sure isn’t going to happen. In this case, that thing is war with Iran, which Donald Trump clearly doesn’t want, and whi…
Recent education rallies raise important questions about our K-12 education system. Despite years of growing frustration, little progress has been made. This is due, in large part, to the misi…
My colleague David Bornstein points out that a lot of American journalism is based on a mistaken theory of change. That theory is: The world will get better when we show where things have gone…
The U.S. Forest Service has decided to build a wall of permits and fees to dramatically reduce public access to wilderness trailheads in the Deschutes and Willamette national forests.
There was a school of thought that said former Vice President Joe Biden would begin to sink in the polls the moment he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden…
As a pear grower in Hood River, and the only full-time farmer currently in the Oregon Legislature, I’ve faced solving agricultural challenges throughout my career. I understand the value of en…
The state of Iowa contains 55,869.36 square miles, 2,987,345 humans, and 16,900,000 hogs. That works out to 52.4 humans per square mile and 302 hogs per square mile, or roughly six hogs per pe…
Economists, reports Politico, are fleeing the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service. Six of them resigned on a single day last month. The reason? They are feeling persecuted for p…
Good news — Molly Gloss is coming to town. Or rather, coming back. Six years ago, in May 2013, Gloss kicked off the First Draft Writers’ Series, reading to a standing-room-only crowd in the Pr…
Much attention has been paid to see-sawing U.S.-China negotiations over a bilateral trade agreement. But a U.S. trade agreement with Japan is even more essential for us wheat producers in the …
You don’t have to search very far across the wide media landscape to find evidence newspapers are in trouble. Declining circulation and vanishing advertising all paint a depressing picture for…
When a gunman opened fire in a synagogue in California, 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye jumped between the shooter and the rabbi. She was killed, but the rabbi credits her with saving his life.
For more than two years, Democrats and their media friends have confidently insisted the U.S. economy under President Donald Trump (a) would crash and burn; or (b) benefits only the few; or (c…
At his contentious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr dropped a big hint about his investigation into the conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation.
I had to walk. It had been a long week and I needed the spring air to brush up against me and the breeze to blow over me — maybe even through me. I needed the first calf heifers to watch me ma…
In the 20 town halls I have held across our district so far this year — including here in Eastern Oregon — I can’t think of a time that someone didn’t ask the question, “How can we put a stop …
Oregon’s broken foster care system continues to make headlines, the most recent story details a heated legislative hearing in which a key senator said she has lost confidence in the state Depa…
The year 2019 will be remembered for a lot of things, but in foreign policy it may well be remembered as the year our luck ran out.
As spring settles in across the United States, Western states are already preparing for summer and wildfire season. And although it may seem counter-intuitive, some of the most urgent conversa…
Editor’s note: On Tuesday, two students were killed and four others injured at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte by a gunman.
Oregon’s housing problems are statewide. They’re being felt in relatively small upper Willamette Valley communities and in Malheur County in far Eastern Oregon. Two bills in the Legislature ta…
“The recession talk in late 2018 got way, way out of hand,” New York Times reporter Neil Irwin tweeted a few days ago. Indeed it did.
The drama of Stephen Moore, Donald Trump’s controversial not-yet-nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve, is a nice microcosm of the larger drama of conservatism in a Trumpian age. In the mo…
The demographic changes coming over the next few decades — the continuing rise of a more diverse electorate, with more liberal views than previous generations — won’t destroy the Republican Pa…
At its best, America is a nation where every individual has opportunities to get an education, to find work, to support oneself and their family, and be a contributing member of this great dem…
Democrats, with good reason, have frequently chided deeply religious American Christians for voting for Donald Trump in 2016.
The Oregonian
OK, see how many Democratic presidential candidates you can name.
