Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Tobacco money chase stinks

Something stinks here. The state is collecting millions of dollars from the tobacco companies from their lawsuits. To pay for this, the tobacco companies raise their prices, so the smokers are paying for the lawsuit. It looks like just another way to raise taxes without a vote.

It seems if someone has a problem from smoking, he should be able to sue the state, as the state makes more from tobacco sales than the companies.

Also, when the state sued, it said it was doing so to pay for tobacco-related illnesses. But now the state wants to use it for other things. It just looks like it’s going into the general fund. Mel Brown Quincy, Wash.

Enforcement highly selective

Well, the cigarette police are out catching some real hard criminals! Looks like our tax dollars are really working for us again.

OK, driving to Idaho and buying cigarettes and bringing them back across the state line is against the law and yes, it shouldn’t happen. But, if we want to collect all the tax revenue that’s not correctly being paid, why aren’t we pursuing with as much vengeance the people who claim residency in Idaho and drive around with their Idaho license plates, yet reside in Washington?

These people do not pay the property taxes they should. It would seem that we are targeting Washington state residents for not paying the proper taxes, yet allowing Idaho residents to slide by. If we are going to make a statement about people avoiding paying taxes, let’s do it across the board, equally.

I urge all Washington residents who see license plates in their neighborhoods to call the Washington State Patrol and report them. David A. Peterson Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Diagonal parking is needed now

The editorial board need only look out the office window to see the lack of adequate parking in downtown Spokane.

Every parking space is occupied during business hours Monday through Friday around the Review Building, the main post office and the federal courthouse. That area should have diagonal parking.

There may be adequate parking for shoppers, as the editors state, but downtown Spokane is far more than retail and River Park Square and its parking garage. Downtown houses all kinds of other businesses that thousands visit daily, not for a shopping spree but for a few minutes, a half our or an hour. Downtown Spokane is the main library, main post office, City Hall, the IRS and many other federal agencies, the Chamber of Commerce, banks, insurance agencies, attorneys and CPAs, hotels, lunch at Travos or other fine restaurants, a quick trip to Noble’s for office supplies, to Auntie’s for a book or to Foto Factory for one-hour photos - and much more. For all these purposes, we need diagonal parking in downtown Spokane. Don R. Peters Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Judge’s decision makes racist sense

I find Judge Fred Van Sickle’s ruling allowing the federal government to seize slot machines off the reservations disturbing but not surprising. In a white world, why would this white man’s judge do anything to promote anything but this white agenda?

Forget that the tribes are just finding a way to educate their children and better their lifestyles. We white people must keep the Native Americans intoxicated and living in huts. Not to mention that we are hypocrites because we sure come up with the laws allowing the white man to make a ton of money on gambling. We “haves” must keep our foot on the necks of the “have nots.”

When Native American tribes started their own casinos on the East Coast, Donald Trump started his own lawsuit. Van Sickle, don’t you and your white pals have enough?

In any case, since I am white and a lawyer, I suppose I should be thanking you for ensuring that my white world will never be disturbed. Funny, though, that I am not grateful for your extraordinary efforts. Gloria Finn Porter Spokane

Death penalty a poor person thing

Howard Piper Jr. reasons seriously (Letters, Dec. 6) that many deep-thinking people approve of capital punishment not out of a sense of revenge or sadistic pleasure but out of a sense of justice.

Piper should realize that death sentences in the United States are disproportionately meted out to the poor, regardless of the circumstances of the crime. He should ask himself how often executions occur in cases where a well off or wealthy defendant was represented by private counsel.

Some of us believe that a state loses part of its moral high ground when it resorts to death as a punishment. This, like many other ethical points, is open to civilized and rational debate. What isn’t open to debate is that the death penalty is used primarily against only one income group. Surely this is not the justice we all seek. Fred Glienna Coeur d’Alene

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Polls shouldn’t mean a thing

Public opinion polls should not drive the actions of Congress. Polls are usually ambiguously worded so as to achieve the desired results, but that is a minor factor in my judgment. Congress is mandated to uphold the Constitution of the United States. To do otherwise would be a dereliction of its duty.

If Congress always followed public opinion polls we would not have instituted Civil Right legislation in the 1960s. We would not have initiated affirmative action programs in an attempt to correct previous wrongs. The previous two points would be moot because we would still have slavery, if Abraham Lincoln would have followed popular opinion.

To carry this to an extreme, Adolf Hitler was immensely popular in Nazi Germany. Did that make his policies right?

We elect our representatives to represent us, but their primary responsibility is to the Constitution of the United States. If we don’t like it we amend the Constitution. Bill Clinton has trampled all over the Constitution. Should Congress do the same? Not in my opinion. Mike Scalera Spokane

Obsessed with what shouldn’t count

As a Christian business woman, I am amazed by those who advocate letting the country stagnate as they pry into Clinton’s sordid sex life. They fiddle while Rome burns and say they don’t care.

Well, I care. I care about the 25 families employed by my company. I care that my industry is threatened by $9 billion a year of software piracy that takes money away from the U.S. economy and jeopardizes my employees. I care that Congress didn’t address this intellectual copyright crisis, addressing Monica’s dress instead.

I care that my dear friend Tammy’s daughter had a 10-pound abdominal tumor removed and was evicted from her hospital bed 24 hours later by her HMO, to shield its profit. Tammy’s daughter received care at elsewhere at her own expense. She was hemorrhaging, which apparently is not covered by her HMO. I care that Tammy’s daughter almost died and Congress didn’t pass the Patient’s Bill of Rights to protect her.

I care that some are apparently supporting and defending a thong-encased Jezebel who set out to earn her “Presidential Knee Pads” and succeeded. I care that, by her admission, this is the eighth husband she has seduced. I care that her father, a dedicated professional and my mother’s oncologist, has been tarnished and traumatized by her notoriety.

Maybe if it was your job, your industry, your daughter’s health and your husband being stalked, you’d also care about reforms that count, rather than sensationalizing encounters that don’t. Nancy Lynne Coeur d’Alene

Big business has Clinton’s ear

The Oliphant cartoon showing Mobil and Exon putting a squeeze on employees and consumers (Dec. 7) reminded me of the conventional wisdom that Republicans are the party of big business. Yet the Clinton record gives that cliche the lie, if ever a record did such a thing.

Think of the recent big company mergers: Boeing and McDonnel Douglas, Chrysler and Daimler Benz, DeutscheBank and Bankers Trust, AOL and Netscape and finally, Mobil and Exxon. Two of these mergers were, of course, that evil thing the international cartel, yet there has been no outcry from any source against these activities.

Obviously, the applicable cliche is the old one about the rich getting rich and the poor getting poorer, or is the weakness and hypocrisy of the Clinton administration more to the point? Don Barnes Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Clinton target of partisan assault

Democracy was obstructed by the House Judiciary Committee. President Clinton deserves to be censured but not impeached.

The wish of over 60 percent of the American people should be respected by allowing a vote on censure by the whole House of Representatives. Rep. Hyde and the very partisan Republican committee members are preventing a vote on censure to try to force the president’s resignation.

If lying under oath is the issue, why wasn’t Newt Gingrich impeached for lying about a far more important issue, campaign financing? If upholding the law is the issue, why did former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush get off scot free for their far more serious involvement in the Iran Contra Affair? Marilyn D. Ream, M.D. Spokane

Impeachment must go forward

Over the long haul, the pain of an impeachment proceeding will do less damage to the country and the Constitution than avoiding the issue. That would just send the message that our elected officials are held to a lower standard than we are and can avoid the consequences of their actions by lying under oath, abusing their power and obstructing justice.

We must proceed with the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Ron P. Grunwald, M.D. Spokane

Let this disaster go

I’m fed up with commentary and speculation about President Clinton’s potential impeachment and incessant media coverage of the circus in Washington. But, in the spirit of hypocrisy that pervades our entire government these days, here I am, registering my disgust with both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Henry Hyde and his pet Judiciary Committee have managed to shove the impeachment articles through. I only hope he suffers a great deal if and when the Republican Party wises up, starts doing what the American people want and leaves him to swing in the breeze.

Meanwhile, Slick Willie’s slicker defense team has done its best to warp, muddle, bend and distort the truth. They’re lawyers; that’s what they do. So, the Republicans are abusing the legal system and the Democrats are polluting it. And all because of Bill Clinton.

I don’t condemn Clinton’s actions; only his family has a right to do that. In fact, I respect him for maintaining at least the appearance of a functioning government at a time when the rest of our elected officials are busy pointing fingers and casting stones.

It’s time to let this disaster go. The entire fiasco will be the defining event of Clinton’s presidency. Isn’t that punishment enough? Joe H. Escandon Spokane

‘So sad I could cry’

The presidency is doomed. Even though President Clinton’s folly merited at least a stern rebuke, Republicans have muted calls for fairness and mercy. They’re moving inexorably to a trial and sentence. I am so sad I could cry. Isabelle Woods Spokane