Fish misinformation
Misinformation filled the Jan. 12 Turnabout by Richard Scully and Rick Williams.
Between 1975 and 1995, the average yearly number of adults returning to Lower Granite Dam was 97,881. Barging provided an average yearly adult return of 368,168 between 2001 and 2011 to Lower Granite, a 376% increase over prior years. This number peaked at 567,000 in 2009. Fortunately, fish numbers speak for themselves.
On June 20, 2005, after barging 12,032,623 smolts from Lower Granite, the court-ordered spill started for fish passage. Spill has increased through the years, reducing the number of fish barged. The yearly average number of returning adults (2015 and 2024) fell to 197,170, a decrease of 186% because of increased spill. With only 489,010 smolts barged in 2021, the 2025 adult return will be abysmal, potentially under 50,000 fish. In 2024, the Corps of Engineers barged half as many, with only 271,814 smolts. Therefore, the 2028 returns will be almost nonexistent. The spill experiment has failed.
Do sportsmen want an average of 368,168 to 567,000 adults (successful barging returns), or do they applaud the mismanagement plan of under 200,000 fish caused by spill?
Fred Mensik
Pomeroy
Hypocrisy run rampant
Why is it that MAGA morons considered themselves “patriots” for flying full-sized “f--- Biden” flags against a sitting president, but now they consider any criticism of Donald Trump to be un-American?
Hypocrisy in politics is not uncommon, but it has run rampant in the supposed law-and-order party, despite the convict-in-chief’s mass pardoning of prisoners who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
Republicans also consider themselves the “family values” party, despite their morally corrupt leader being found liable for sexual assault and his nominations of cabinet members who have allegedly abused both women and substances.
Republicans have also historically boasted about their reverence for the Constitution, yet now they are trying to change it to suit their needs. But the most irritating hypocrisy is their sudden reverence for the presidency.
Less than a year ago, anti-Biden items sold like hotcakes to idol-blinded Republicans. I saw “f--- Biden” flags at hunting camps high in Idaho’s Lemhi Range as well as flying from jet boats far upstream into Hells Canyon. But now even fair criticism of the president offends their patriotic sensitivities.
For example, Asotin’s Thomas A. Hennigan’s letter (Jan. 22) condemns columnist Marc Johnson for his “attack,” a simple admission that he’d misjudged Republican willingness to “embrace a convicted felon.”
Come on. If that’s an “attack,” what isn’t? Johnson merely stated a fact, but I can understand the confusion of Hennigan and others whose worldview is shaped by Fox News, where facts are like a foreign language.
Mike Ruskovich
Grangeville
Resist the tyrant
Michael Fanone is a former Capitol police officer who nearly died at the hands of the rabid Trumpistas who attacked him during the coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day the clown prince commander of goons calls “a day of peace and love.”
Fanone and longtime Republican strategist Stuart Stevens identify the root of America’s currently untenable situation as “cowardice.”
The Republicans who are kneeling to kiss Donald Trump’s ass are the same ones who were running for their lives on Jan. 6, 2021, during the Capitol siege. Yet only a handful voted to convict Trump after the House impeached him.
By the way, didn’t the clown prince promise to lower grocery prices and end the Ukraine war on Day 1 of his monarchy? Have your grocery bills shrunk? Are eggs cheaper? Is Ukraine at peace? Ha. Trump is too busy deporting your relatives, friends and neighbors, but y’all geniuses voted for him, so laugh it up.
Trump is making the country safer by deporting hardworking immigrants who have contributed to America’s economy for years, while he turns violent murderers and anarchists loose to roam freely? Seriously?
And he wants to ship all the Palestinians out of Gaza ... .
CNN anchor Jim Acosta recently remarked, “It is never a good time to give in to a tyrant. Refuse the lies. Refuse the fear. Hold on to truth and hope.”
And resist the tyrant. Resist, resist.
Mike Epstein
Clarkston
Tech bro oversight?
Yeah, I’m not comfortable with President Donald Trump giving $500 billion public taxpayer dollars to wealthy tech bro donors to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure without ethical oversight.
The tech industry is actively engaged in robotics and AI to replace human jobs for corporate profit. That is not what I want my tax dollars to do, and I don’t think that is what voters want either.
In addition to human job elimination, without oversight, what stops a tech corporation (with a fiduciary duty to produce quarterly profits) from hiding codes that ransom the U.S. to the use of their product? There could be codes that rope regularly scheduled code patches to one entity so nobody else can fix it (think John Deere). Or codes to weaken or crash the infrastructure we depend on for national security to manipulate the speculative markets. There is no ethical use oversight, and that is a problem.
Human ethicists specializing in AI and its uses to benefit humans are sorely missing in President Trump’s tech package. The tech bros won’t like it, but ethicists must be allowed to participate in the development of technological infrastructures so that it doesn’t harm humans. Handing over something as important as national security, robotics and AI to indiscriminate profit-driven development is dangerous.
Janet Marugg
Clarkston
Hold them accountable
I have documented and sent to The Associated Press their lies, coverups and censoring of the news over many years. I sent the following to The Associated Press, but they have continued their same course, even after losing the election that they tried every way to win.
My hope is that this publication will start holding The Associated Press accountable for telling the truth or, like 200 other newspapers, finding other sources. Following is an (edited) email I sent to The Associated Press:
I have warned and pleaded with you at The Associated Press to report the truth. I spent 35 years working for a newspaper and I knew you were liberals, but you have worsened even more the last few decades.
I have been praying for years that if you and the rest of the mainstream media do not tell the truth, that you be run out of business.
I told you years ago that my mother, father and sister were all journalists, while I was in newspaper circulation. They were all liberals, but they all believed in telling the truth.
One final thing to demonstrate what I am talking about ... and that is the article written by Jennifer Peltz on the acquittal of Daniel Penny. A huge ... omission in the story by Ms. Peltz was that she never mentioned that Jordan Neely was arrested 42 times ... .
This is just one story that exemplifies the reasons why we can’t believe anything The Associated Press reports.
James Fry
Pullman
Promises delivered
Our new president promised a flurry of activity on his first days in office. He delivered.
He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, convicted of conducting Silk Road, a $200 million global black market bazaar for illegal drugs. He also pardoned about 175 people charged with using weapons or causing serious injury to uniformed police officers defending the U.S. Capitol four years ago. The new president then canceled an executive order of the prior administration that would have lowered the cost of certain very expensive drugs to Medicare patients.
Was our vote to support drug lords, release people who harmed police officers and make life-saving medication more expensive for seniors? Will he be the president of drug kings, thugs and Big Pharma? Because that’s what President Donald Trump delivered on Day 1.
Jim Wallis
Moscow
Interpreting the law
Why is it attorneys interpret the law differently? Some are for and some are against.
Example: defense and prosecution. They go A-B-C-D, etc. One loses. So how is it that a judge can rule, then his decision gets appealed and on up the ladder, maybe more than once? Why can’t a jury decide the correct decision of the law?
It just seems to get more and more complicated. Just as the Lewiston Tribune deciding an opinion letter can’t be printed. Yes, I’m sure they have an attorney but just like the foregoing, another attorney may disagree.
I am sure there are others who would like this question answered. Come on. Write your opinion.
Jim Griffin
Clarkston
