Sunday letters

Postal disservice

The postal service was established in 1775 by the Second Continental Congress with Ben Franklin as its first postmaster general. The USPS has been in existence for 245 years.

Now we have the Congress and President Trump refusing to bail out one of the oldest institutions in the U.S. Go figure. It was OK to fund the corporations (airline, cruise lines) with billions of taxpayer money from the economic stimulus package last spring.

Congress, not Amazon, has messed up the postal service. One huge part of this is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which has been called “the most insane law” ever passed by Congress. In the House the vote was 208 Republicans and 201 Democrats voted yea and 20 Republicans voted nay; in the Senate the vote was unanimous consent. In other words, it flew through without a voice vote. The law requires the USPS, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees’ health benefits up to the year 2056. This costs $5 billion per year and is a requirement that no other entity, private or public, has to fulfill.

This is the definition of insanity. Without this obligation, the USPS can actually turn a profit. It is nothing but a “manufactured crisis.” Since other large carriers, such as FedEx and UPS, would benefit from full USPS privatization, they have their PACs spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress and contributing to the Trump reelection campaign.

Talk about the corruption in Washington, D.C. It stinks to the outer edge of our atmosphere.

John Wodynski

Cheney

Unemploy Dejoy

I felt compelled to comment on Sue Lani Madsen’s article (Aug. 20) addressing the postal system.

I do not agree that people are upset strictly due to politics. Just yesterday, I saw a story about almost 5,000 chicks delivered dead due to the slowdown of delivery. There are rats gathering around packages with food which have not been delivered. The postmaster general is continuing to remove and destroy sorting machines even though he said he would cease and desist until after the election. Individuals are not receiving necessary medications and their health is endangered.

Many people are communicating more through the mail in this time of the pandemic.

This postmaster general would benefit from the dismantling of the system as he has interests in private mailing services. He likely knows exactly what to do to bring about the failure of the postal system.

I appreciate all who are bringing the abuses to light for all to see.

Mary Jane Henderson

Spokane

Undermining Medicare

Recently, through an executive order, President Trump “ordered” deferrals allowing wage earners to hold off paying withholding for Social Security and Medicare, stating his intention to make the deferrals permanent so that the funds would not need to be repaid. If he succeeds in making the deferrals permanent, the loss of funds will directly impact the funding of Social Security and Medicare negatively due to the loss of revenue.

Spokane has a large population of retirees, including my wife and me. Like others, we paid into both Social Security and Medicare for decades, only to now find them under attack by a president who doesn’t seem to care for the common people. He doesn’t need to worry about retirement income and health care like we do, nor do his allies in Congress, due to the benefits they’ve put in place for themselves over the years – in fairness, his enemies in Congress get the same benefits. The point is, they don’t need to deal with some aspects of life that we do; and, it seems, he and his allies can’t/don’t relate to us.

I’ve tended to vote Republican over the years, but I can’t in good conscience vote for President Trump. He seems intent on destroying the social programs that we’ve had in place for decades and on which millions of Americans depend. Those programs do need some improvements, but they shouldn’t be dismantled and we should get what we paid for during all those years of employment.

Don Potts

Spokane

Madsen duped

In her column, “USPS turmoil inflated by left,” (Aug. 20) Sue Lani Madsen explains that an intentionally planned and coordinated process to slow mail delivery nationwide is both a simple allegory of improvements endured by rural Washington and a “trumped-up claim of a conspiracy to sabotage voting.” If only what she claims and sugarcoats was true!

For instance, many of the high-speed mail sorters removed from service ARE in centralized facilities, not in Colville or Edwall. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy did NOT “choose to postpone ANY changes in operations,” rather, he agreed not to make additional changes. He did NOT agree to replace maildrops and sorters already removed.

Let’s be clear: USPS is not a ‘self -sufficient business.’ It is a federal agency. It costs (loses) money. So does every federal agency. The historically nonpartisan USPS Board of Governors has been completely replaced with Trump appointees, who in turn appointed a Trump megadonor with NO postal experience as postmaster general.

After two days on the job, on June 17, DeJoy notified the postal workers union of his intent to remove more than 650 automated sorters from service. Why? Not for upgrades. High-speed sorters with two employees complete in hours a task that takes 30 employees an entire shift to do by hand. In normal times, why? During a pandemic, why? A few months prior to a competitive election with unprecedented demand for mail-in ballots (like Washington has enjoyed for years), why?

Trumped-up, indeed.

Greg Jones

Spokane

Typical GOP response

I had to laugh at Jon Hall’s letter about Democrats “harvesting ballots.” Such a typical Republican response when they lose an election. Of course, there has to be some nefarious reason they lost, so the blame game begins.

Hall suggests that it is just a bad deal for the Republicans if every last ballot is counted; or if every voice is heard. Well, Mr. Hall, that is how our democracy works, even if the ballots were found in the trunk of a car. (How else are they transported to election offices?)

I also chuckled when he said there is “no hard evidence” to any of this supposedly late ballot counting being the least bit fraudulent.

Then he ends with a threat, that it will be at Democrats’ “own peril” if all the ballots are counted in November, and that the “patriots will take matters into their own hands.” All this hyperbolic rhetoric would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Colleen Downey

Spokane

So what if it fails?

So what if the U.S. Post Office fails? No one uses it anyway, true? No.

A lot of our neighbors (veterans, seniors and others) use it for getting prescription medicine (insulin, eye drops), since it is far cheaper.

Farmers use it to get baby chicks which become your next chicken nuggets or fried chicken dinner. The soldiers we seldom hear about anymore get pictures from their children and love notes from their mates, as well as us sending Treats to Troops after Halloween. Letters to military go through a winding course if on active fighting duty.

This debacle all started with President George W. Bush signing into law a required advance payment system of $6 million a year for future retiree benefits and pensions to start in 75 years.

Do the arithmetic: 2007 plus 75 equals 2082. Those mail carriers have not even been born yet.

Call your senators and the president to remove this chokehold from the United States Postal Service. They’ve been delivering the mail through snow, rain, hail and dark of night for over 100 years.

Cathy Gunderson

Spokane

Lose Monday deliveries

With all the hue and cry about the postal service losing money every year, here is a possible way to save money. Why not go to five-days-a-week delivery instead of six?

Most younger people I know only check their mail once or twice a week at the most anyway.

We could easily give up Monday delivery and get mail Tuesday through Saturday. This way, working people could get their bills on Saturday to pay them, and labor costs would be decreased by one-sixth.

Many people probably are too tired to deal with mail on Mondays anyway. If Monday’s regular mail arrives Tuesday instead, it probably won’t make much of a difference to most people. Worth a thought.

Tom Cassidy

Deer Park

Speaking of mail

With all the talk about changing postal service, I just noticed that a first-class letter, mailed from the South Hill, postmarked Aug. 15, arrived at my home in Liberty Lake on Aug. 20. Wow! Such a long journey.

Tom Brattebo

Liberty Lake

Not without my consent

Many medical professionals oppose water fluoridation for good reason.

According to the FDA, “Fluoride, when used in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or animal, is a drug.” Fluoride is intended to prevent cavities, and like any drug, it can have harmful side effects.

The standard safety protocols for a doctor prescribing a drug include its being taken in a specific dose for a specific period of time. The doctor reviews the potential benefits and harmful side effects. Then the patient makes the final decision on whether to take it. This is informed consent.

When you put fluoridation chemicals in drinking water, every one of these protocols is violated, taking away your right to choose what drugs you put in your body.

Fluoride is the only drug – anywhere in the world – allowed to be put in drinking water.

Administering a drug as a one-size-fits-all through the public water supply is one of the most ill-advised ideas I’ve ever seen. No fluoridation – Spokane’s City Council has no right to play doctor with my body.

Carol Black

Spokane

What killed Floyd

In a recent letter, a reader submits that George Floyd died of a drug overdose. This is a tired racist trope, promoted frequently in right-wing media to deflect from lethal police brutality. If David Wordinger (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 23) had done a little checking beyond right-wing media, he might have learned that the coroners’ reports, both the official one and the one Floyd’s family demanded concluded that drugs were not a factor in Floyd’s death. There was no attempt to censor either autopsy report. Both revealed the presence of the drugs Wordinger mentions, but in amounts so minuscule as to have had no impact on his cause of death.

Readers should understand that coroner reports in these circumstances always assess the presence and levels of drugs in the bloodstream of the deceased at time of death. This is true for Black male shooting victims or white female suburban homicide victims. Coroners have a lot of experience assessing causes of death with evidence of drugs present in the deceased. In this case, both autopsies concluded the presence of these drugs at this level was not a factor in Floyd’s death.

The police killed George Floyd. Full stop.

Jim Wavada

Spokane

Science behind fluoride

It was gratifying to read that the Spokane City Council was willing to make a determination concerning adding fluoride to the water supply, rather than wait for further studies, considering we have had positive empirical evidence for more than 75 years. The CDC states “community water fluoridation (is) one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.” Furthermore, “water fluoridation also is effective in preventing dental cavities among adults. Fluoridation reduces enamel cavities in adults by 20%-40% and prevents cavities on the root surfaces of teeth.”

Approximately 70% of all U.S. cities with populations of greater than 100,000 use fluoridated water. Why not Spokane?

The costs for preventive care alone outweigh the expenditure: “Water fluoridation costs average 31 cents per person per year in U.S. communities of greater than 50,000 persons.” Compared with other methods of cavity prevention, water fluoridation is the most cost-effective for the United States in terms of price per saved tooth surface.

The practice is safe and widely implemented. Since 1950, opponents of water fluoridation have claimed it increased the risk for cancer, Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, Alzheimer’s disease, allergic reactions and other health conditions. The safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation have been reevaluated frequently, and no credible evidence supports an association between fluoridation and any of these conditions.

When you go to the dentist, and rinse and spit at the end, that is fluoride. Why not get it everyday?

Gerald Wilson

Spokane