Letters to the Editor for Thursday, Nov. 20

The Patriot and the Coward

My current read is “Patriot,” by Alexei Navalny who courageously tried to save Russia from Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship before Putin murdered him.

That raised my mind’s question: Who is currently our U.S. Patriot playing the same role as Navalny was in Russia? I immediately thought of former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and her courageous dedication to saving our democracy from wannabe dictator President Donald Trump.

At the other (bottom) end of the courage scale, my recent read was the Aug. 18 Time magazine featuring Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. Notably, our former Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and her successor, Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner, are implicated because McMorris Rodgers nominated Johnson for speaker and Baumgartner has fully embraced Johnson’s conspicuous cowardice.

Johnson appeared on the Time magazine cover with the label, “The Survivor,” having survived as House Speaker by the blessing of his idol Trump, a 34-count convicted felon. In reverence to Trump, Johnson shut down the House for over seven weeks, preventing any chance of negotiation with Democrats to reverse the government shutdown and also as a flimsy excuse to avoid swearing in recently elected Arizona Democrat Rep. Adelita Grijalva, whose vote helped force Johnson and House Republicans to ask for the release of the child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein files that include Trump.

Johnson and Baumgartner claim to be Christians, but their worship of Trump violates the Bible’s Ten Commandments – “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” – and, most non-Biblically, supports Trump’s cruel violations of Jesus’ teachings.

Norm Luther

Spokane

Lower Snake Dams antiquated

As Josh Mills and Mike Leahy made clear in their letter, the four lower Snake River Dams are doing virtually nothing to ensure we can meet our future energy demands. (“Clean power and abundant salmon: Both are possible”). What they are doing is killing fish.

It is time for us to recognize the severe limits of those four dams in producing energy, and the profound harm they are exacting on our region. Those aging dams produce 3-4% of Northwest energy and are only growing costlier and more inefficient as drought and a diminishing snowpack take their toll. Plus, much of their electricity is produced in the spring, when energy demand is low. Investing in their continued maintenance means spending money on structures that will not seriously help us address energy shortages during times of peak demand. Instead, we need to develop affordable and reliable energy from clean sources, like wind and solar, married to emerging battery technology that can actually provide energy when we need it most.

Meanwhile, the dams are destroying fish habitat. They have turned miles and miles of habitat into over-heated reservoirs, deadly to our cold water-dependent salmon and steelhead. As a result, remaining Snake River stocks are listed as threatened or endangered. Several are on the verge of extinction.

We must take a hard look at those dams and stop pretending they are critical to our energy future. That is the smart path forward, not continuing with inefficient dams that kill fish.

Abby Saks

Spokane