Letters for June 18

Baumgartner supports girls sports

Recently, Rep. Michael Baumgartner spoke on the House floor in support of Lauren Matthew, a West Valley High School student who ran in the State 2A girls 400-meter dash. Lauren should be a two-time state 400 champion but was beaten out by a trans athlete.

June is the 53rd anniversary of Title IX, which was meant to protect girls sports, yet parents and girl athletes everywhere are frustrated with what is happening now.

I am very thankful to Rep. Baumgartner for bringing attention to this on the House floor, speaking out for fairness in girls sports and encouraging girl athletes to keep working hard.

Carolyn Williams

Spokane

Baumgartner represents Trump’s values

It’s hard to ignore Rep. Michael Baumgartner’s close ties to the values, words and actions of Donald Trump. It goes far beyond party affiliation. Baumgartner embraces the tone, priorities and, yes, and even the lies of Trump. That worries me.

I understand being conservative. I know conservatives. But there’s a difference between being conservative and following someone convicted of 34 felonies, who led an insurrection against the United States, has been found liable for sexual assault, pardoned 1,500 violent criminals and goes out of his way to divide Americans. Baumgartner seems more interested in pleasing Trump than representing the people in Eastern Washington.

Trump’s push to outlaw diversity, equity and inclusion is a prime example. He hates diversity, he hates equity, he hates inclusion. But these are basic American principles, not a fringe idea. Our nation was founded on these principles. Trump ridicules those he does not like, denies due process to those who do not show him fealty and favors those whose ethnicity he prefers. Baumgartner has jumped on the Trump bandwagon to replace diversity, equity and inclusion with exclusion, inequality and sameness. That’s not who we are as Americans.

We deserve a representative who represents us, not one who looks to a man in Florida to tell him what to say and do. Rep. Baumgartner may sit in Congress for the 5th District, but his loyalty lies elsewhere. From all indications, Donald Trump represents Baumgartner’s values and that is very disturbing.

Roger Chase

Spokane

Trump takes astronomical step backward

In regards to Trump’s plan to kill dozens of NASA missions: On a more local note, the recent budget proposal also suggests shuttering one of the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory facilities located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford. LIGO is an experiment to detect the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. LIGO successfully achieved this in 2015, detecting gravitational waves from a pair of merging black holes, and three researchers were subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017.

The way these facilities work requires two locations, separated by thousands of miles. Closing one facility is equivalent to shutting down the entire LIGO experiment. Let’s hope that Representatives Newhouse and Baumgartner are aware of this and work to prevent an astronomical step backward in U.S. science and astronomy leadership, as well as the loss of local scientific excellence in their districts. Future science with LIGO includes the discovery of gravitational waves from the mergers of neutron stars. These mergers also shine brightly and can be found with optical telescopes. This “multimessenger” approach will define 21st century astronomy.

The proposed cuts to NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science will cripple U.S. leadership in the sciences, particularly the future science returns of the LIGO mission, which has already received significant U.S. investment. Throwing away a Nobel-prize-winning experiment when it has so much more to give is shortsighted, which is what the “One Big Beautiful Bill” seems to be all about.

Willem Hoogendam

Spokane