Was it appropriate for the media to identify rioters from the U.S. Capitol attack?”
Social media “censorship” seems to be the new cause celebre in Washington, and it’s now crept into the Oklahoma legislative session. S.B. 383, authored by Sen. Rob Standridge (R-Norman), has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill, if passed by the Legislature and signed by t…
Sen. Josh Hawley refuses to pass up any opportunity to remind Americans of his role in encouraging the insurrectionists who invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Instead of just keeping his mouth shut, doing his job and allowing the commotion to die down over his role in the insurrection, he i…
The Lawton City Council took a step in the right direction on Tuesday when it entered into an agreement with Garver LLC to prioritize projects approved in the 2019 Capital Improvements Program.
It's already enshrined in the Democratic Party platform, and Biden mentioned it more than once on the campaign trail, net neutrality is coming back. It's just a matter of when.
Only the strong survive?’ That isn’t the society we want. Former Colorado City Mayor Tim Boyd has government all wrong
What really constitutes a disaster?
In the social media/texting lexicon, “SMH” stands for “Shaking My Head.” Our thoughts on a couple of items in this week’s impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump leaves us “SMH”.
In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden said that “unity is the path forward” to overcoming our nation’s challenges. He said it would “restore the soul” and “secure the future” of our country and insisted that “we have never, ever, ever failed in America when we have acted together.”
The City of Lawton is moving forward with its plan to create a master parks plan. Meetings were held last week to assess the needs of the community and how to move forward. Part of that assessment will include a survey of about 500 residents seeking input on city parks.
Symbols matter. In his thrashing, malicious way, former President Donald Trump understood that — which is why he refused to carry out an inherited plan to replace President Andrew Jackson’s face on the $20 bill with that of Black abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The technical excuses the White H…
Lawton residents will go to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of a new hotel/motel tax. In-person voting will be held Thursday and Friday at Comanche County Courthouse.
The Congressional Budget Office now projects that economic recovery in 2021 will be faster than it predicted last July. It projects that the economy will be back to its pre-pandemic levels by mid-2021. This very good news reflects the fact that the economic turndown was not as severe as the …
The proximity of two recent events got us to thinking about how far society has fallen — or at least the basest instincts of society.
LAWTON, OK — A fresh look by the City of Lawton related to some of their zoning rules should be applauded by the citizenry.
Centrist members of Congress from both parties are asking a question that merits an answer: Why this rush to spread pandemic relief money to people who don’t need it, when so many others clearly do? The push by left-wing Democrats and populist Republicans to send out $1,400 (added to the rec…
Vaccines offer hope for an easing of the pandemic, but the coronavirus is not loitering around, waiting to be vanquished. Two significant genetic variants in Britain and South Africa pose a challenge on top of all the other misery and suffering. They require an urgent response and a concerte…
America has proven the strength of its democracy for nearly 245 years, as power has shifted peacefully from one leader to another.
Though it was hardly peaceful, it was a transition — an essential transition after four years of tumult capped by an insurrection led by the outgoing president to stop Congress from certifying his successor’s election. The historic proportions of President Joe Biden’s inauguration cannot be …
With a new administration coming in today, now is a good time to hit the reset button and come together as a nation.
As justified as it was for Twitter, Facebook and others to ban President Donald Trump from their platforms, the issue requires further discussion. The bans were justified because Trump fomented violent insurrection with his incessant lies about election fraud. Previous warnings from social m…
It appears the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, resulting in five deaths, may have had inside help — and not just from President Donald Trump. One organizer claims three members of Congress were in on the planning. One congresswoman who was inside the Capitol tweeted…
Some American children won’t get stimulus checks just because they were born to immigrant parents. That’s wrong, and Congress must fix it.
Both political parties should proceed cautiously with determining how to hold those responsible for last week’s violence at the United States Capitol.
LAWTON, OK — City of Lawton officials have begun a new process aimed to cleaning up city neighborhoods.
Leaders of both political parties need to stop fanning the flames of the current political situation.
The efforts, led by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to overturn the results of November’s presidential election are nothing short of disgusting.
Food banks across the country have been especially hard hit during the pandemic.
The Holy City attraction in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge may soon be another casualty of the coronavirus.
President Trump’s recent actions are a little hard to understand. On Wednesday he vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act and threatened to veto the COVID relief bill.
The City of Lawton is moving ahead with its plan to create a technology park in Lawton.
A little sprout of history germinated in the U.S. House recently, with passage of a measure to legalize marijuana nationwide and expunge the records of those convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related crimes. The measure won’t become law any time soon, but this first-ever congressional nod to …
As COVID-19 became the dominant presence in American life in 2020, most of us resigned ourselves to a year absent of familiar trappings, hoping the reward for enduring these difficult times would be a return to normalcy in 2021.
Help is on the way.
Two COVID-19 vaccine candidates, one from Pfizer and one from Moderna, are before the Food and Drug Administration awaiting emergency approval. If all goes well, the first batch of doses will be administered by the end of the month, or less than a year since development began. This breakneck…
Last week, the City Council directed city staff to come up with options to encourage individuals to wear masks and businesses to enforce the ordinance. One of those options may be fining businesses and/or individuals who do not follow the city’s mask ordinance.
When we stood at the dawn of a new decade almost 12 months ago, who among us could have predicted the twists and turns 2020 would take?
OK, we admit it. We just don’t see what the big deal is about wearing a mask when out in public. Unfortunately, our nation and communities seem to be divided on the issue of mask-wearing.
It has been more than a week since the Biden-Harris ticket has been declared the winner of the 2020 General Election, yet our nation is still in turmoil over the results.
What we were reminded of last week is that democracy is sometimes long and messy, but it works.
Monday
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has come out with its first-ever position statement on the biannual switch between Standard Time and Daylight Savings Time. The verdict: America should ditch the switch and stick with one time year-round. The current system of setting clocks an hour ahe…
It’s Election Day in this oddest of years in recent memory. Our guess is that everyone is excited, anxious and ready.
Oklahoma voters will decide two state questions on Election Day. We encourage you to support one and reject the other.
Elected officials at city hall seem to have a problem with transparency. They preach it but they don’t practice it.
Tuesday is an important day in our state. That is the last day to request an absentee ballot for the Nov. 3 General Election.
The internet has been a powerful source of innovation and opportunity in the half-century since the first electronic message was sent between experimental nodes at UCLA and Stanford. And in some industries, it remains a great equalizer — giving upstart creators and service providers the sort…
This week, Johnson & Johnson paused a clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate because one of its 60,000 participants is experiencing an “unexplained illness.” This comes after AstraZeneca briefly paused a trial just last month after one of its 30,000 subjects had experienced an …
In last week’s playground skirmish of a presidential debate, America saw the candidates mostly on split screens because of their social distancing on stage. It would have looked the same had President Donald Trump and Joe Biden been in separate rooms — but that would have been far safer. Wit…
There’s a buzzword gaining traction in our business: News deserts. And it’s not a good thing.
This is the 80th year National Newspaper Week has been observed, and we want you to celebrate with us.