Letters for Friday, Sept. 12

Jordan as role model?

Our U.S. “Representative” Michael Baumgartner chose Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan as his guest for Baumgartner’s mega-bucks fundraiser in Spokane on Aug. 17.

This was soon after Baumgartner joined Jordan in voting for the misnomer One Big Beautiful Bill, threatening their constituents with losing their health care, raising their cost of living (resulting from tariffs, e.g.), raising the national debt $3.4 trillion over 2025-2034 (quoting nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office), and deporting law-abiding immigrants.

Jordan has always been an overly disruptive and controversial force in Congress: “Jordan has such a reputation as a political brawler that former (Republican) House Speaker John Boehner said he’d never met someone ‘who spent more time tearing things apart,’ ” according to an Associated Press article from October 2023.

Jordan has been a favorite of President Donald Trump who once backed him unsuccessfully for House Speaker: “Some members of Congress – including those in his own party – label Jordan an extremist unworthy of the speakership, pointing to his active role in Trump’s bid to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, as well as his refusal to honor a congressional subpoena about the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. Further in his past, Jordan continues to be questioned over his alleged knowledge of sexual abuse (he did nothing about) in the wrestling program at Ohio State University (when he was wrestling coach there),” according to the same AP article.

Is this what Baumgartner wants to emulate?

Norm Luther

Spokane

Court loophole shields Teck smelter, harms Northport

In 2016, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Teck Cominco, deciding that airborne deposition of toxic metals from its Trail, B.C., smelter does not count as “disposal” under federal Superfund law. This loophole let Teck avoid responsibility for monitoring its ongoing air emissions, even though past testing in Northport showed dangerous levels of heavy metals in our air.

These toxins don’t kill quickly – they build up in the body for years. That’s why generations of Northport residents, exposed since childhood, began getting sick around the same time once their body burden was reached.

By excluding air emissions, the court protected industry over people. But there is hope: the 9th Circuit recently reversed itself in another Teck-related case, ruling the Tribes can recover millions in cleanup costs. If enough people speak up, maybe the courts will finally revisit air emissions too.

Jamie Paparich

Northport, Washington

How low can you go?

When I saw the article about federal agents holding 44 firefighters for three hours while checking their IDs and then arresting two who were supposedly “in the U.S. illegally,” I said, Wow. How low can you go? They were scheduled and ready to be fighting fires. We need these people. Let them protect us and fight the fires that threaten us. And who is to say that they are not part of the 40% of immigrants arrested who have not been charged or convicted of a crime?

Linda Greene

Spokane

Let’s see bipartisan cooperation from the Democrats

Now we have Sen. Patty Murray pre-emptively criticizing Republicans for the forthcoming government shutdown because they are not going along with minority Democrats. Murray seems to have forgotten her side lost in the last election. At over $37 trillion in debt, voters are obviously weary and rightfully fearful, of their wild, unregulated spending and endless government growth and intrusions.

Instead, Murray and her Democrats need to show us some of that “bipartisan cooperation” we keep hearing about – whether they are in the majority or the minority.

Mark McFall

Colbert