Letters for June 21, 2023

Republicans face dilemma

Republicans are currently facing a “dilemma.” That being support for national security, or support for Donald Trump.

The recent indictment of Trump addressed his illegal possession of highly classified government documents, along with lying to Feds about having turned over all documents. Thus the raid on his home.

Reaction from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans defending Trump even before the indictment was unsealed shows callous disregard for national security importance. The former Republican party of “law and order” no longer exists.

Additionally, Republican stories about President Joe Biden and Jack Smith initiating this indictment are not factual. A grand jury (private citizens) saw enough evidence to indict.

We can be sure our allies across the world are watching and wondering how far can they trust us. Our undercover informants in foreign countries are surely feeling less secure.

Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general while in office, has said that if even half of what is stated in this indictment is true, he is “toast.”

Our rational security, bravely fought for by those in military service, is somewhat damaged by Trump’s breach of law. If he is not held accountable, our security will he severely damaged.

J. Gary Kavanagh

Spokane

No flag before the nation

Stan E. Hughes’ opinion (“Teaching respect for flag, country at a young age,” June 11) is a great example of what’s wrong with conservatives today. No, the flag isn’t before country. It’s all the people wearing flag pins and brandishing flags as a weapon, both in the coup attempt and elsewhere, who are the problem.

Teaching patriotism means teaching the Constitution and the promise of equality and inclusion that it represents. It means admitting the pledge added the word God in the last century only as a pander to the right wing as a way to get them to work for business interests over their own.

The reason a previous Supreme Court protected the right to burn an American flag was because it’s a symbol of many things, but it’s only a symbol. Free speech says we can say we’re outraged at what some use that symbol to represent.

Today, we have people using that flag alongside Nazi and Confederate flags to remove rights from other Americans, to fight against the Constitution, the rule of law and even democracy. We have people who claim to be patriots threatening the lives of teachers, librarians and administrators to prevent them from allowing children to learn about the real world. We have those same people vandalizing property and threatening the lives of employees of companies that say humans these people hate are actually humans and deserving of equality.

We need to teach respect for the Constitution, for freedom and for democracy. That is what seems to be missing.

David Teich

Spokane Valley

Elected officials need to speak out

I am outraged that politicians who are elected can choose not to do their job in protest to what is happening with Trump. Why can someone hold up our democracy for their own political feelings? I am sick to death that Republicans are still backing this twice impeached and twice indicted ex-reality star.

To tell Biden that they will not allow his judges to be appointed is illegal. Biden cannot tell the DOJ what to investigate. I am angered when I do not see every representative and public officials calling out such nonsensical behavior. We cannot have one political party holding up what is for the good of the people. It is my elected officials’ job every day to call out what is indecent for this country. All I see are Republicans holding grandstanding remarks for sound bites for Fox Faux News. Our elected officials need to have a spine and speak out.

Mikel Jent

Spokane

Arena parking fees are outrageous

I recently attended the Civic Theatre, as I do frequently, and was outraged at the fee the Arena was suddenly charging. The Civic parking has been lost due to the “new” sports complexes that the city is building, so we are told to park at other lots – in other words, the Arena. Note, the Arena lot was not full, but the fee was $25. I understand parking fees, however, this is just plain greed. The city wants people to support downtown and the venues, but at these enormous parking fees, who wants to go downtown?

Olivia Hawley

Spokane

Kudos to Sean O’Brien

Kudos to Sean O’Brien for his June 14 column (“Washingtonians prepare for even higher gas prices this summer”) on the actual financial impacts of the Climate Commitment Act’s Cap-and-Trade program that requires stationary sources with CO2e emissions above 25,000 metric tons per year, as well as transportation fuel suppliers and natural gas suppliers to purchase emission allowances at auctions that are equal to their actual emissions or the emissions from the fuels they sell, in metric tons.

The economic impacts are easy to figure out, as it is straight forward math. It is the cost of the auctioned allowance ($/metric ton of CO2e) times the EPA emission factors for gasoline and diesel fuels which can be found by looking them up in EPA’s GHG Emission Factors Hub for 2023 on EPA’s website. It should also be noted that the auction price quoted was the “settlement price,” which was the lowest bid price when the auction ran out of allowances. That means that the price paid by most others was higher.

A June 7 article by Laurel Demkovich that appeared in States Newsroom reported that “Supporters of the Cap-and-Trade program criticize fuel suppliers for excessively jacking up prices and blaming the state’s new policy.” Math is math and costs incurred get passed on to the consumer.

From the perspective of financial impacts of the program, it should also be noted that the program also applies to residential natural gas as well. Using the reported auction settlement price and EPA’s emission factor for natural gas from their factors Hub, the impact for a household using an average of 50 therms of energy from natural gas per month is about $14 per month.

Bernard Leber

Spokane