Feb. 25 Letters Part 4: Our Readers’ Opinions

Time for open primary

I just received my card from the Idaho Republican Party allowing me to vote in the caucus for the presidential nominee for 2024.

The card does not say who will be on the ballot or what time the polls close. I will vote for Nikki Haley. Because the Republican Party cannot seem to find someone more qualified than Donald Trump, it seems a waste of time and money.

It might be a good time to sign the petition for the open primary initiative. It does not pertain to the presidential election. However, it should make it easier and encourage more to vote in state and county elections. All can vote their choice, regardless of party.

As a lifelong Republican, I would like to see an end to harassing librarians, doctors and women and keep politics out of our private lives. Take care of the infrastructure and do not divert education funds to private schools. It is said that less government is best government.

Ted Wilkins

Grangeville

We want a solution

I read with concern Rachel Sun’s Jan. 21 Tribune article about the homeless camp behind Walmart in Clarkston. The last statement really jumped out at me. “If people would just look at us like we’re human beings and not a problem ... Help us figure out a solution. We all want a solution.”

Yes, we all want a solution.

Ms. Sun pointed out some of the problems of coming up with a solution: limited city resources, reliance on grants through Asotin County, it being more of a metropolitan problem — Clarkston and Lewiston combined, even expanding to Pullman and Moscow. Someone later wrote it is impossible to get a job without housing, and it is impossible to get housing without a job. In other words, the people at that camp were in a Catch-22 situation.

A program that has been successful in other parts of the country has been a Housing First program, where homeless individuals are placed in housing first and then, working with a case manager, receive other wraparound services to address other short- and long-term needs.

Communities that have opted to do the Housing First program have found it actually reduces social expenditures caused by chronic homelessness.

I encourage the government leaders of the region to work together to get this done.

While Jesus did not directly say this, I think he would amend his sheep/goat sermon for today saying, “I was homeless, and you sheltered me.” Which side of that division do you want to be?

Wayne Beebe

Pullman

Records Act rules

The Presidential Records Act allows great latitude with secret documents. Obviously our elected leaders cannot be trusted with this. Either they take what they believe are mementos, or they have assistants pack them and take the wrong files, but it should never be an issue.

There should be an agency in charge of what leaves the Capitol grounds. If they say it can go, they are responsible for it. If they say no, then the person can file a request to be allowed to take it. If you sneak it out, you should never be allowed to run for any elected office again. If you sell it to a foreign government, that’s treason; pay the price.

There was nothing in the paper Feb. 9 about the special counsel’s recommendation in the Joe Biden document cases. The special counsel stated the president of the United States had willfully retained and disclosed classified materials while he was a private citizen but would not charge him because the president ... was not mentally sound enough to stand trial. So, if you think that he is mentally fit, then shouldn’t he be charged after he leaves office? And if he isn’t, shouldn’t he be removed from office? Or maybe we should try having a free press that isn’t biased for one political party and just reports the facts, and then let us, the voters, decide who they want as president.

Why The Associated Press wants to make this a banana republic is beyond me.

Dan Long

Clarkston

Government benefits?

Should we censor “disinformation” or broadcast truth?

Our country is currently experiencing a lot of political confusion: “wars and rumors of wars,” who’s above the law and who’s exempt from it and so on. But we, the people, the underdogs, need to understand, for our own best interests, the here and now: that many government “benefits,” under the following welfare programs — Medicaid, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Circuit Breaker, SNAP via CMS — cost our dying-out senior citizens “up to all” of their assets via estate recovery.

As time passes, the next in line dying-out senior citizens have “up to their all” taken, and so on. It’s a systematic digression into worthlessness, because we flock to government “free.” But if, in reality, what our government is offering and promoting is not free, is that misinformation or disinformation? Censor that? Why? To bring us to our knees? They already live above us. Or is that disinformation?

Kelly Sherman

Kamiah