Letters for July 29, 2023

Time’s right for SCOTUS reform

There is something the secular world uses successfully in public spaces allowing for vibrant trade of commerce and ideas necessary for a functioning modern society. It’s called a disclaimer.

Religious people and entities can use disclaimers, too. Disclaimers allow people and entities in the religious-industrial complex to engage in public space without necessarily endorsing the content and ideas or actions of others in the public space.

LGBTQ+ folks are taxpayers who contribute to the public space infrastructure, police and fire protection, national security, water and sewage treatment, transportation and education, all of which benefit religious people and entities operating in the public space. If we allow tax-supported religious entities to refuse service to the taxpaying public, it is forcing taxpayers to pay for their own discrimination. It’s barbaric.

As our current SCOTUS is going for shameful placement on hate watch lists, I’m following discussions examining solutions to present and future activist courts. On the table, we have term limits. I’m stubbornly on the fence about term limits for elected officials, but here I see one pasture is clearly safer than the other and I’m not suicidal.

Court expansion is a point with both pros and cons. It seems sensible to have one justice for each circuit court if only to handle the workload.

I favor a sworn board of legal experts (law professors and congressional scholars, perhaps) to nominate, vet and install SCOTUS to deflate the congressional political circus we currently endure.

Ethics and oversight? Yes, please!

Janet Marugg

Clarkston

Democrats allow GOP to spread lies

Since being elected, Joe Biden has been under constant GOP attack. With his approval numbers and election chances fading, Democrats are doing what they do best: absolutely nothing.

When a Democratic president has problems, his party, including Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, will always desert him, as we saw with Clinton, Obama and now Biden.

With 2024 being a referendum on Biden, down-ballot elections will hinge on voters’ perception of him. With Dems doing nothing, Republicans and Donald Trump will have no problem winning everything.

With Republicans in control of all branches of government, including the far-right Supreme Court, they will continue their assault on voter rights.

The right to vote is constitutionally guaranteed. Democrats should have gone ballistic when the GOP started attacking it. Instead, they went silent.

With the Supreme Court on their side, Republicans can eliminate the amendment that limits a president to two terms, allowing Trump to serve forever.

Biden has done more for the 99% than any Democrat since FDR. Plus, the economy is rapidly recovering, unemployment is at 3%, the stock market is rallying, and inflation is rapidly cooling. Independents and even conservatives have benefited from what he’s done.

Since Dems don’t message, voters have no way of knowing all this. It allows Republicans to lie about Biden. A lie told often enough will gradually be accepted as reality by most.

Democratic voters should fully expect a Republican sweep in 2024. It starts with their party’s spineless inability to defend their own.

Ray Simmons

Spokane

Exceptional people don’t bomb

The U.S. has always considered itself to be exceptional, which means, “Why should we do the right thing and sign the Geneva Convention outlawing cluster bombs, as have so many other countries around the world?” (Over 100 other countries who apparently have a conscience.) Republicans have convinced Biden that it is the thing to do. So, let’s face it, neither is a party of morality.

How is it moral to bomb indiscriminately, soldiers and perhaps civilians in the area and really, how is it moral to bomb at all? We should be negotiating, making compromises, not upping the ante, which could lead to WW III. But if not, the least we will do with giving Ukraine cluster bombs is create years of danger for those people (mostly children) who come into contact with cluster bombs that didn’t explode when they were supposed to, and instead explode when a child steps on them years later.

The cluster bombs used in Laos in 1964 are STILL a threat to civilians who are maimed or killed when they come in contact with them. I understand that Russia and Ukraine have both been using cluster bombs in the current fiasco. However, this does not justify our doing the same thing.

Remember? We are supposed to be exceptional. Maybe even moral.

Linda Greene

Spokane

Letter left out truth regarding dams

Jasen Bronec (“Snake River dams are important for grid reliability, clean energy,” July 15) argues against removing the lower four Snake River dams, arguing that they supply stability to the electric grid and necessitate an unfortunate compromise that disadvantages salmon.

Bronec casually papers over other details.

The four Lower Snake River Dams provide one-seventh of the generation capacity of Grand Coulee. They provide less than one-third of the wind generation capacity in the Pacific Northwest. A single natural gas-powered generation facility in Rathdrum provides nearly half the capacity of all four Lower Snake River dams. The lower Snake River dams are not a critical source of regional electricity.

Bronec mentions the importance of barge traffic through the locks of the lower Snake. Barge transportation is about 50% more fuel-efficient than rail. But that’s precisely the point: A compromise is available – it is not “barges or nothing.” And rail offers something that barges cannot: speed. It takes a bit over two days to barge from Lewiston to Portland; it takes about a day to travel by rail from Boise to Portland.

Bronec suggests that there is no proof that salmon runs would recover from dam removal. Contemplate the spectacularly rapid recovery of salmon on the Elwha River following the removal of those two dams – a matter of a couple of years, not decades, not centuries.

John D. Sahr

Otis Orchards

Judgment will come

Independence Day is one of the few days when Americans even think about their freedom. People put out flags and dust off their military uniforms.

Most people see freedom as an excuse to be self-indulgent. Heaven forbid that we should give up our assault rifles, or the Coors in your cup holder.

Mike Noble hit a bull’s-eye with his epistle. Homosexuality and adultery are both sins. Period. Nonthreatening abortions are nothing less than a continuation of Moloch worship. As part of this religion, pagans would incinerate their own children at the altar.

I considered it an honor to serve my country in the U.S. Navy. However, all the combined military forces will not stop God’s judgment. There are certain individuals who may bring down His wrath if they don’t repent.

In closing, I will lightly touch on homelessness. There will always be those who live on the streets. The best way to help them is to walk a mile in their shoes. Blessing Under the Bridge had the right idea.

Douglas Benn

Tum Tum, Washington

Good advice for Donald Trump

I have advice for Donald Trump, if he wants to gain support from independents.

Unless he truly aligns with them, I would suggest that he quit borrowing phrases familiar to us who know the history of communism, especially under Stalin, and of national capitalism under Hitler.

He has quoted Joseph Stalin and then Hitler’s, “The press is the enemy of the people,” supporting his claim of fake news.

The “America First” movement was touted by him during his 2016 campaign supporting nationalism and anti-immigration. Nationalism is a strong ideology in fascism. “America First” was a U.S. fascist movement supporting Germany and Italy in the 1930s. “America First” was led by America’s famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, who reviewed Hitler’s Air Force prior to our entry into World War II. (To Lindbergh’s credit, he supported the U.S. after our entry into the war in 1941.)

The slogan “Make America Great Again” is borrowed from the Nazis whose slogan was “Make Germany Great Again.”

His social media called “Truth Social” resembles the Soviet communist newspaper “Pravda” which meant “truth.”

Former President Trump spoke of reading Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), though his first wife and others said it was Hitler’s speeches that he read. Having read Hitler’s speeches, I would say they appear to have influenced Trump.

I suggest he find something from someone who supports democracy if, indeed, he himself supports democracy.

Robert P. Crosby

Spokane

Florida curriculum alarms, disturbs

Recently adopted by its board of education, Florida accepts new curriculum standards for teaching Black history to include that Black people benefited from slavery. What if Germany decided to rewrite its history and included that Jewish people benefited from the Holocaust? Alarming, right? So, what makes this new curriculum standard in Florida any less disturbing?

Kath McChesney-Lape

Spokane Valley