Saturday letters

Madsen leaves out info

Sue Lani Madsen’s attempt (Aug. 20) to justify the sudden changes made by the new postmaster general fails to mention that along with closing the sorting centers in Yakima and Wenatchee, and in other states, he also removed hundreds of mailboxes and mail sorting machines around the country as well as limiting overtime work.

That the post office has been closing sorting centers over time as the situation seems to warrant is quite different from the sudden flurry of changes just made by this administration.

Madsen only wants us to look at one part of the picture, but we can all see the whole picture and it’s not a pretty one.

Fred Jessett

Spokane

Flush ’em out

The Trump/DeJoy USPS kerfuffle appears to be subsiding. The Great Barrier Reef of Mitch McConnell’s Senate obstructionism is still holding. But cracks may be appearing. Senate races in many states with formerly secure GOP seats appear to be more and more in doubt.

Could there be a Lake Missoula-style event in the U.S. Senate this fall? Could we see a rise in pressure to flush out McConnell and his minions that have been enabling this president for four years? There are 23 GOP senators up for reelection that voted to acquit this president. Some of whom actually napped during that procedure. They need to have a moment of judgment for their inactions.

Could we finally see a consequence for this unconscionable act committed upon the American people? Couple the fiasco that was that Senate trial with the complete lack of action on the continuing disaster that is the economic and social effects of the pandemic and we could have some significant fallout.

Isn’t it time that McConnell and his sycophants were flushed out and replaced with fresh water?

That chamber also needs a new air freshener. The new scent could be called “progress.”

Gil Beyer

Sandpoint

Trial challenging fluoride

Serious ongoing litigation — a national lawsuit challenging our USEPA, to be exact — is exposing how fluoridation is a potent neurotoxin, similar in toxicity to lead and mercury. Yet, The Spokesman-Review, instead of disseminating court findings, is failing to do their homework and feeding us the same outdated and inaccurate pablum that has circulated since the 1940.

What is this lawsuit? An alliance of groups led by Food & Water Watch, a government accountability nonprofit, has sued the Environmental Protection Agency, and has presented substantial evidence that the fluoridation chemical presents an unreasonable risk of causing neurological damage, especially to young children and babies in the womb.

More than 60 peer-reviewed studies demonstrate fluoride’s toxicity to the brain. This neurological damage can result in children having lower intelligence scores and higher rates of ADHD. You can find in-depth information regarding these studies at Fluoridealert.org.

Witnesses who have testified against fluoridation include Dr. Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, who is well-known in the environmental science community for authoring research on the neurotoxicity of lead; Dr Howard Hu, MD, MPH, SCD, Chair of Preventive Medicine at USC Keck School; and Dr. Philippe Granjean, MD, DMSc, an environmental epidemiologist with a Doctorate of Medical Science from the University of Copenhagen.

I challenge The Spokesman-Review to present a fair and transparent discussion on the topic of fluoridation. This is a critical issue that deserves in-depth analysis — certainly, for the sake of our children’s health.

Emily Kalweit

Seattle

Objecting to fluoridation

The board of the Spokane Chapter of Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR), capr.us, objects to fluoridating Spokane’s water supply. CAPR promotes the individual rights of Spokane citizens to drink pure, clean, unaltered, drug-free water that Spokane currently provides. Whereas, the fluoridation proposal is an inflexible, tyrannical approach to force all Spokane citizens to drink water which contains a drug, fluoride.

Under the idea of social justice, our Spokane City Council members are working a scheme to force a chemical drug, fluoride, into Spokane’s pristine water supply.

Council members have teamed up with the Arcora Foundation and Delta Dental to seal the deal. The Arcora Foundation endorses a social justice agenda of diversity, equity and inclusion. The big moneyed insurance company Delta Dental has offered three million dollars to Spokane to build the infrastructure to fluoridate Spokane’s water supply.

Thus, the council, Arcora and Delta are working in tandem to pass an emergency ordinance to fluoridate Spokane’s water supply, without public testimony. Spokane citizens have rejected the addition of fluoride into Spokane’s water supply in three separate referendums.

Reject the City Council’s agenda to force fluoridation on all Spokane citizens. Stand with CAPR to protect individual rights for a safe, drug free, fluoride free, water supply for all.

Cindy Zapotocky

President, Spokane Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights

Spokane

Vote on facts

When Joe Biden introduced Kamala Harris as his running mate they spoke for 35 minutes without drawing a single red flag from fact-checkers. Shortly after they finished, the president responded with lies about both. He was well past 20,000 lies for his tenure, long before that unhinged performance, which alone should deem the challenger the best choice to lead America. And don’t forget the president completely botched the COVID-19 response, crashing his already unstable, propped up economy. (Now do you believe the stock market and the economic well-being of most Americans are not related?)

Closer to home, Cathy McMorris Rodgers has long ignored the president’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic and cruel tendencies, yet still signed on as honorary chairman of his state reelection campaign. Always elected by mail-in voting, she doesn’t even have the courage to stand up for the Postal Service, let alone against the bully child in the White House. Dave Wilson won’t be afraid.

Lori Feagan and Lance Gurel would give the 4th Legislative district solid, commonsense leadership despite being called extreme leftists by opponents who are so radically right Republicans don’t recognize them. Feagan is running against Matt Shea’s caddy, who blindly did as he was told when Shea was in office and probably would continue that practice. Gurel is running against a Shea wannabe, who touts Trump truth and whose stated goal is to keep Shea’s 51st state pipe dream alive. It’s time to erase all remnants of Shea from our government.

Remember that when you mail in your ballots.

Dave Trimmer

Spokane Valley

Madsen misses point

Regarding Sue Lani Madsen’s column (Aug. 20) about the changes to the post office: The fears of voter suppression aren’t fueled by Donald Trump’s “streams of consciousness,” but by his direct public statements claiming (without evidence) mail-in voting will lead to widespread voter fraud or his claim, if he loses, it will be because the election was rigged.

The post office may need some cost-cutting, but it’s common knowledge the GOP has wanted to privatize it for years. Why else would Susan Collins write and shepherd through Congress, during a lame duck session in 2005, a bill that requires the PO to pre-fund their pension plan by approximately $50 billion every year from 2007 to 2016, a requirement no other government agency has.

While eliminating overtime may be a reasonable move, it’s hard to see how dismantling over 600 high speed mail processors does anything besides slow the mail.

Madsen rightfully states the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has only been there two months but she fails to mention he has contributed over $1 million to the Trump campaign and is heavily invested in post office competitors. It seems to me the only thing politically cynical is Sue Lani Madsen’s dismissal of this situation.

Rick Gallinger

Greenacres

Stop punishing kids

It’s unbelievable that our political, medical and educational “leaders” from the federal level down to local levels can’t see the damage that they are foisting on our children and their parents by not fully opening our schools, both public and private. No need to debate the volumes of dueling pro and con “scientific” data.

Life is a risk from the time our children get out of bed each day (even at home). Apparently our “leaders” do not want to take the political and legacy hit if things don’t go flawlessly on their watch. It is time for them to show some coherent leadership and save our children and their parents before it is too late and open the schools before they also deteriorate.

“Grandpa” Bob Keeland

Spokane

Missed out on history

One of the greatest, successful “key victories for peace” in the Middle East in decades received no accolades, but a small column on the third page of The Spokesman-Review. I waited since Aug. 14 to see if this headline news would eventually move to the front. But it didn’t.

Why? Because, efforts to make the world a better place to live is now graded by politics, and who is in office.

Would a mere mention and a sigh grace the pages of this newspaper if this accomplishment had come from someone other than a Republican? I think not.

It’s disappointing, sad and disheartening the welfare for humanity is lowered to such levels.

Sharon L. Reidenbach

Spokane

Where’s your mask?

I was appalled when I opened yesterday’s paper and saw the entire Washington House Democrats unmasked and not distanced from themselves as My-linh Thai cast the vote foe Joe Biden. What am I missing?

And yes I vote Democrat. Shame on you!

Mark E. Bender

Newport

From the trenches

As we try to make sense of the world of the coronavirus, we need to see that solutions will be developed. We may see the world death toll exceed 5 million by the end of the coming winter. I’ll be surprised if the U.S. death toll is less than 300,000, but the pandemic will eventually be resolved. It should have been less than that but political leadership across the entire world was lacking. So, we’ve learned a hard lesson that is still being pounded into our national consciousness. The big question remains. What do we do with this hard-won knowledge?

We don’t know when the next pandemic will happen. We are struggling with this one. If the future disease catastrophe is anywhere near as severe, will we have enough medical supplies to deal with it? Will our industry stockpile everything we’ll need? We have the ingenuity.

JPL just produced, in 37 days, a cheaper and more powerful ventilator than any private sector medical firm has produced. What is the delay in going into production?

There are also other crises over the horizon. Having seen what happens when our government ignores warnings about potential pandemics over the past forty years, what will we do about that next pandemic, the next massive volcanic eruption, the next 1,100-foot diameter asteroid hitting Europe, the Middle East, Washington, D.C. Are we ready? Are we even planning for them?

Michael Williams

Spokane