Women members of Congress have tried for years to whittle away at U.S. military commanders’ broad powers to intervene and squash an investigation when a fellow officer stands accused of sexually assaulting a subordinate. The typical response from the male-dominated House and Senate has range…
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision leaves Southwest Oklahoma families in limbo and may cause them to re-live painful memories.
The Republican response to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan strips away a lot of bells and whistles while focusing entirely on traditional infrastructure, yet a $1.43 trillion gulf remains to be bridged between the two sides. The nation has grown far too comfortable…
Some proposals in this year’s City of Lawton budget need careful consideration before the council signs off on them. And we think some need to be rejected.
The Lawton City Council made the right decision on Tuesday when it agreed to open neighborhood wading pools this summer.
The U.S. Supreme Court today has far more impact on the lives of regular Americans than the Founders likely ever envisioned. That’s why the cynical moves by Senate Republicans in recent years to politically manipulate the court have been so damaging to its legitimacy and to the nation. Given…
There appears to be an escalating trend in this nation — and locally as well — of citizens choosing to believe only the facts that support their narrative. Activists will demand information, accepting it if it meshes with their viewpoint, and dismissing, or even attacking the presenter, if i…
President Joe Biden suggests he has run out of patience and options to resolve the two-decade military disaster that is Afghanistan. On Wednesday he announced the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It’s safe to say, given the…
Companies with headquarters or major interests in Georgia are winning plaudits from progressives for criticizing that state’s new restrictive voting law, while top Republicans are apoplectic, telling corporations to butt out of partisan politics. What planet are these people living on? Corpo…
Lawton was awash in good economic news last week.
Promises from presidents to overhaul America’s infrastructure have been made and broken so many times in recent years that the whole topic has taken on an aura of impossibility. In the world’s richest nation, there should be nothing to prevent bringing all those crumbling highways into the 2…
So it begins. Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, last week signed into law a raft of new restrictions clearly designed to make voting more difficult for minorities, urban-dwellers and others likely to vote for Democrats. Georgia thus becomes the tip of a long spear of pending red-sta…
Welcome back, spring.
It’s time to make your appointment, roll up your sleeve and get your COVID-19 vaccine.
As politicians hurl blame and lies about the unrelenting surge of migrants at the border, the Biden administration is engaged in an unprecedented effort to transform a broken immigration system.
We found it ironic that two stories on the failure of local and state officials to be transparent were reported last week during Sunshine Week.
Democracy is a brand that should always be synonymous with the United States of America. And yet, because of former President Donald Trump’s extraordinary efforts to undermine democracy, it appears the world is looking elsewhere for guidance. A world that in the past three decades has witnes…
This week — March 14-20 — is “Sunshine Week”.
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.