Letters

OK, I get it. Every one who likes Trump is a racist. Anyone who criticized Obama was/is a racist. This newspaper and the media in general appears to be incapable of accepting the fact that Trump is our president for at least four years. That can be a good thing, but if you and the rest of the so-called news can pull it off, you will undermine him, even if it jeopardizes the country. Get over your irrational hate and get behind the country we all love.

I am looking forward to the Monroe Street improvements. On a recent Saturday, I met friends at Vessel Coffee Roasters on Monroe. After parking outside the coffee shop, I worried about cars driving by so close to me.

So let me get this straight, we are going to reduce the number of lanes on Monroe in the hope that we make people's commute home so long, they are forced to stop and buy food on the way home before they starve. This is how we are going to increase business? If you want to build a business district for all the retired people to shop at the secondhand stores and sit at curbside cafes, do it somewhere out of the way of the people who need to drive to work.

Sue Lani Madsen's articles about our nation's health care system have valid points. Earlier she cited costs we pay for poor life habits. Blood, plasma and platelets are in limited supply. Working in a Hawaii hospital lab, I pondered the choice of giving them a fourth time to a drug addict vs. a child who needed them. It was theoretical, but the issues are real, and health insurance should have lower fees for people making healthy choices, yet cover pre-existing conditions, extra benefits and bad luck.

Assuming the article on Aug. 18 about President Trump's views on the removal of Confederate memorials is accurate, I support him completely. Removing the statues will not change the past. Nothing will change the past, but we can learn from it. Slavery was outlawed after the Civil War and as a country, we have moved forward.

As cataclysmic climate destabilization affects all of us, one must wonder if people like Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Koch brothers and other climate change deniers have children and grandchildren they care about. Do they not on some level fear the effects of rising temperatures, rising sea levels, historic hurricanes, drought, floods, and fires? Do they think that their children and grandchildren will be immune to the effects of global warming thanks to their status, wealth and privilege?

So Idaho U.S. Rep Raul Labrador calls for the president of Boise State University to resign because he criticized Labrador? Does freedom of speech apply only to those who agree with you? Believe it or not, many people in Idaho disagree with Labrador on a daily basis.

Does it ever amaze anyone else how someone who speaks from a balanced position - rather than taking one side or the other - typically gets flamed from both? No, I'm not talking about me. There are many others with far better credentials. The growing division, anger and hate – which has most recently been blamed on Presidents Trump and Obama - has existed long before either of them. Long before. Neither of them is the cause, but neither of them can heal it. How could they?

Our president, Donald Trump, has been criticized for condemning violence on both sides of the Charlottesville fracas.

In response to: 'Many Sides' in context and others claiming racist-in-chief isn't racist (Aug 25 letter):

All of the alt-right hate groups, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, neo-confederates and white supremacists, have something significant in common besides fomenting hatred, sedition and violence. Low I.Q.

I am writing to wish Doug Clark a very happy retirement. I am one of his fans and will truly miss his column and wry sense of humor. My only contact with him was in 1995 after I had unsuccessfully tried to get the Medicare fraud office to do something about an unreasonable overcharge submitted and paid for a toenail trim. Although Doug had no better luck than I had in getting any government action, his column was at least able and with humor give the situation some "ink" and perhaps embarrass the doctor involved.

"Ozone pollution persists in Spokane" (July 8) is telling. Did you know idling a vehicle uses a quarter to a half gallon of gasoline per hour? You waste gas, wear your engine and pollute the air. Toxic exhaust hurts the respiratory systems of asthma sufferers, children and the elderly.

In the Aug. 20 editorial, our friends at The Spokesman-Review proclaim they welcome different viewpoints. Our God-believers certainly make numerous comments in the paper centering on one storied God.

Like all old-timers, I remember World War II as if it were yesterday. Family members going off to war; air raid drills; the nightly blackouts; and hearing the horror stories of the inhuman things Hitler and his henchman were doing to innocent people.

I once subscribed to the newspaper for the news, but lately, more for the Jumble and crossword puzzles, sports page, comics, and Doug Clark!

Montana Rail Link derailed another coal train, sending several thousand tons of coal near or into the Clark Fork River near the confluence with Lake Pend Oreille. Thirty miles southeast is Sandpoint, Idaho, where BNSF wants to put in a new bridge across Lake Pend Oreille.

When I saw the Aug. 27 headline typo "Peach marchers flood Barcelona," it made me chuckle. I had just bought a box of peaches to share with family and neighbors. I am so glad I didn't have to march all the way to Barcelona to get those peaches. I believe mine were Washington-grown.

My knowledge of the student sit-in at WSU is secondhand, from what I read in the Daily News and The Spokesman Review. The Daily News reported that the students at the sit-in "argued for a differentiation between speech and hate speech, which would not be protected under the law." This is a false statement. The Supreme Court, most recently in Matal v. Tam (2017), has ruled that there is no "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment. The Spokesman Review said only that the students "asked for a clear policy defining free speech and hate speech." There seems to be no purpose to doing so, since hate speech is protected speech.