Columns – The Columbian

Jarvis: Cancer vaccine closer than ever

Lisa Jarvis — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:01:00 +0000

Scientists are on the cusp of fulfilling a decadeslong quest: to use vaccines to teach the immune system to spot and destroy cancer cells.

Lincicome: Burden of tariffs is worst for small businesses

Scott Lincicome — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:01:50 +0000

Mere hours after the Trump administration’s latest tariff scheme launched on July 24, the government was sued again by the same small businesses that already had defeated prior White House tariff shenanigans, most notably at the Supreme Court.

Westneat: MAGA dragging down Washington GOP

Danny Westneat — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:01:31 +0000

"This article (and especially the comments) should be mandatory reading for all the conservatives in Washington state.” That was one of some 2,000 responses, including more than 500 emails, that came back from the question I posed recently: “What would it take to get you to vote for a Republican?”

Schrager: Betting on sports isn’t investing

Allison Schrager — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:01:27 +0000

If the bad news is that members of Generation Z can’t afford to buy a house until they are middle-aged — which isn’t really bad news, honestly, but anyway — then the good news is that at least they are investing their money in high-performing assets. Or so we thought.

Estrich: Trump’s aide isn’t the issue

Susan Estrich — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:01:25 +0000

She is the human printer, controlling the flow of paper to the president and transcribing his social media posts. She thinks she owes her life to Donald Trump. She is always by his side. Her name is Natalie Harp. She is among the most recent troubling news.

Blas: Trump’s Iran strategy unlikely to work

Javier Blas — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:01:18 +0000

Over the years, I’ve witnessed firsthand countries going broke under U.S. economic pressure: Iraq, Venezuela and Cuba. The scenes I saw in Baghdad, Caracas and Havana were all very similar. The national currency became worthless, inflation skyrocketed and unemployment spiraled higher. And yet, American economic sanctions alone failed to force political change.

Harrop: U.S. already has mix of capitalism, socialism

Froma Harrop — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:01:57 +0000

Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan keeps calling himself a capitalist. And the Democratic Socialists of America keep backing him to the eyeballs.

Estrich: Trump’s greed has no limits

Susan Estrich — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:01:33 +0000

When Truth Social, President Donald Trump’s media mouthpiece, announced that it would be selling advance access to Trump’s posts, I thought it was kidding. I mean, has it no shame? When the announcement met with a round of criticism and Democratic demands that the SEC investigate, I figured it would back off.

Brown: Act now on teen shootings

Craig Brown — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:01:33 +0000

After writing or editing thousands of police stories over the last 40-plus years, I rarely have any personal reaction to tragic news. But this line in Columbian reporter Tyler Brown’s Tuesday story just made me sick:

Westneat: A river ran through it

Danny Westneat — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:01:22 +0000

‘Something is going terribly wrong here.”

Other papers say: ICE should be transparent

The following editorial originally appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:01:09 +0000

The good news is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to provide officers with body cameras over the next few months. The bad news is that agency officials don’t sound enthusiastic about actually releasing any video.

Feldman: Trump invites more corruption

Noah Feldman — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:01:31 +0000

The Trump administration’s latest assertions about executive privilege — that it protects the confidentiality of a president’s communication with private advisers who aren’t part of the government — are like too much else in this White House: politically unprecedented, legally wrong and morally dubious.

Jarvis: Food safety must improve

Lisa Jarvis — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:20 +0000

For the past month, Americans have viewed their lunchtime salads or even a single, crisp leaf of iceberg on their burger as a possible threat. Could it harbor cyclospora, the explosive-diarrhea-causing parasite that by early August had sickened thousands, hospitalized hundreds, and led to two deaths?

Schrager: Forget the haters; GDP matters

Allison Schrager — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:01:22 +0000

It is an odd confession to make about a statistic, I realize, but then again I am an economist, so I am just going to go ahead: I love GDP. There. I said it.

Jacobson: Power grid upgrades vital

Sheldon H. Jacobson — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:01:28 +0000

The nation’s service industry has been fueled in lock step with the digital economy. In such an environment, data has become a monetizable asset, a driver for innovation and economic growth. And with the spread and growth of artificial intelligence across numerous sectors of society, the collection, storage and analysis of data has become a multibillion-dollar growth industry.

Harrop: Are mainstream Democrats taking back the wheel?

Froma Harrop — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:01:37 +0000

You couldn’t find a wackier candidate than Francesca Hong, the Democratic Socialist vying to become the governor of Wisconsin. She wanted to defund police and abolish ICE, topping it all off with a call to end Thanksgiving. “Saturday Night Live” couldn’t have made her up.

Washington GOP needs to distance itself from Trump

Danny Westneat — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:01:15 +0000

What would it take to get you to vote for a Republican? This is not an idle question, but more of a burning one. Around here it’s like: What would it take to save the spotted owl? At least that’s the talk in some political circles, after the “alarming results” from last week’s primary began to sink in for the state GOP.

Calmes: Hegseth purges people of color

Jackie Calmes — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:01:13 +0000

Need another metric to show that, for President Donald Trump, “Make America Great Again” means regressing to a 1950s-style white patriarchy? Probably not. But here’s one for you, marking the deplorable progress of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war on diversity in the leadership ranks of the nation’s military:

Other Papers Say: GOP has supercharged deficits

Bloomberg Opinion — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:01:02 +0000

Faced with soaring deficits, an aging population, a teetering pension system, unsustainable healthcare obligations, $1 trillion in annual interest costs, rising long-term bond yields and net public debt at around 100 percent of gross domestic product, what’s a country to do? For the 119th Congress, the answer has been simple: Tax less and borrow more.

Jacobson: Clock chaos calls for simple solution

Sheldon H. Jacobson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:01:01 +0000

Last month, the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 with bipartisan support, as evidenced by a 308-117 vote. It will now move to the Senate for consideration. President Donald Trump has stated he will sign it into law if it reaches his desk.

Brown: Some big local ideas for Trump

Craig Brown — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:02:33 +0000

Under Donald Trump’s administration, America is a land of big ideas. Take the White House Rose Garden for example. Installed by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962, it featured lots of thorny flowers and a costly-to-maintain lawn. As a bit of nature, nothing about it screamed “exclusive” or “elite.” Trump saw the potential, paved it and installed a private outdoor area similar to the one at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Now he calls it the Rose Garden Club, open to events for his donors.

Westneat: Revolution fizzled here

Danny Westneat — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:01:38 +0000

When a young labor organizer named Hannah Sabio-Howell began her challenge against the Democratic old guard earlier this year, she framed it as a fight for the party’s core identity.

Other Papers Say: Killing wind energy a lose-lose-lose

The New York Daily News — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:01:16 +0000

The following editorial originally appeared in the New York Daily News:

Edwards: Middle class are losers here

Kathryn Anne Edwards — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:01:09 +0000

There are a lot of jobs in the U.S. economy that pay miserably low wages. And there are a lot that offer a reasonable hourly rate but still result in miserably low earnings because of unstable, fluctuating schedules.

Sergi: Boeing can turn latest problem into next growth spurt

Bruno S. Sergi — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:01:07 +0000

Boeing’s latest figures reveal an industrial paradox. The company ended the second quarter late last month with a record backlog of about $715 billion in outstanding orders, including for more than 6,200 commercial aircraft. That’s not as encouraging as it sounds, though, because its central problem is not how to sell more planes. It is how to build the ones it has already promised — a problem now more daunting than ever.