Stingy
How can you even consider cuts to Medicaid during these dire days of COVID.
Certainly these higher than exspected costs should not be surprising with the current pandemic raging in our state.
If I am not mistaken, Idaho touts a healthy financial surplus and now is the time to put this to good use. Let’s not be stingy during this time of crisis and take care of all of our citizens, most of whom have contributed to the surplus.
Mary Baker
Moscow
Welcome back
Many letters leave me angry and sore.
Some letters are just a bore.
But for a letter that gives a chuckle or laughter,
You can’t go wrong with Vaughn Jasper.
Welcome back to the editorial page, Vaughn. God knows we need smiles more than ever now.
Robanna Brosten
Lewiston
Rebutting Goetz
In rebuttal to Sheriff Chris Goetz’s May 13 letter: Absolutely, I am a disgruntled 36-year member of Clearwater County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, including 20 years as an officer involved in uncounted searches, recoveries and community service events.
I disagreed with the sheriff when he took over search and rescue and anointed himself treasurer. I disagreed with his flawed treasurer reports. He kicked me out to protect his ego.
Then he attacked my wife, discriminating against her and intimidating her. ...
The letter from the attorney general actually stated he did nothing illegal. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. The attorney general deemed it was not illegal for the sheriff to discriminate, intimidate, retaliate and not refund the sixth grade forestry tour for overbilling, flawed treasurer reports and more.
When my wife read the part about the state reimbursable expenses being voluntarily donated back by search and rescue members, her comment was: “Bull****, he just takes it.”
Since 2016 when Goetz took over search and rescue, no member has received a state reimbursement requested in their name.
More than a dozen of her time sheets, many out of county, requested reimbursement and the handpicked search and rescue secretary even stated: “If you want reimbursement, put it on your time sheet,” which is in his minutes of the meeting.
Search and rescue members are absolutely an asset to the community and the sheriff should treat them all equally as such. He still blurs the truth as I see it.
Frederick Allen
Orofino
Trump lost, get over it
Recently, an individual from the upper Clearwater area wrote a rather smarmy letter wanting to know why, if President Joe Biden is so smart, more than 30,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 since he took office.
Well, let’s see.
Back in the beginning of 2020, former President Donald Trump decided to withhold information about the deadliness of COVID-19 from the American people, so we wouldn’t panic. (... It was caught on tape by Bob Woodward.) ...
We Americans don’t “panic” when faced with danger. We charge ahead and take it on. He should have told us. ...
Trump downplayed COVID-19 until it was impossible to hide the truth.
When vaccines became available, Trump and his band of incompetents fumbled the vaccine rollout and the whole thing morphed into Operation “Dork Speed.”
Instead of the goal of 20 million vaccinated in the U.S. by Dec. 31, it was 2.8 million.
When Trump’s term was mercifully over on Jan. 20, total U.S. vaccinations were about 16.5 million and COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were around 400,000 in about a year.
As I write this about 27 days since Biden took office, total vaccinations in the U.S. are around 52 million, more than tripling what Trump accomplished.
So why have 30,000 died since Biden came into office? Simple. You can’t instantly stop a speeding freight train.
I give two pieces of advice to this smarmy letter writer:
1. Engage brain before opening mouth in public.
2. Your boy Trump lost. Get over it.
Danny Radakovich
Lewiston
Trump was right
Well, well, well. I remember back months ago when ex-President Donald Trump stated that he could go out in the middle of the street and shoot someone and get away with it.
I guess he knew he had those Republicans (at least, most of them) in his back pocket. In other words, paraphrasing his own words, he could do anything he wanted because he was the president.
Prophetic indeed.
Darlene Plant
Clarkston
At the breaking point
I place the success of my salmon and steelhead outfitting business largely in the hands of Mother Nature. Like my north central Idaho farming neighbors, poor fish returns hit our pocketbooks just as deeply as poor crop years, but we put our heads down hoping that next season will turn the corner so we can work hard, make up for our losses and provide for our families.
We are at a breaking point for our fish and our industry.
Too often, rural Idahoans have faced this situation, thinking next year will revitalize the logging or mining industry but then watch it, and our towns, disappear without taking action to save it.
We are predicting yet another season closure for spring chinook on the Clearwater because we can’t get meet the needed minimum hatchery broodstock.
Mother Nature has tried her hardest, but we have done our damnedest to prevent these fish from surviving the Snake and Columbia rivers system. We’re circling the drain on these fish and cannot wait any longer.
I would never wish this uncertainty onto my neighbors. That is why I support Congressman Mike Simpson’s plan to save our fish while investing billions into new infrastructure for my neighboring farmers so they will not have to feel this same uncertainty that we feel annually as fishing outfitters.
Simpson’s plan is far bigger than just breaching the four lower Snake River dams to save fish. It is a plan for Idahoans to look up while we still have a fighting chance.
Kyle Jones
Deary
No dams, no power
Rarely is a politician is accused of having common sense, and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson can rest assure no one will attach this label to him.
His recent dam breaching proposal, and those that support it, are simply not paying attention to the future demands of power or the science of fish recovery.
States have experienced blackouts of power as they do not have sufficient power. One of the reasons is their growing dependence on solar and wind power, which are not available when there is no wind or during the night.
Keep in mind power demands will continue to grow as automobile manufacturers are moving from petroleum-burning engines to electric power and these cars will add to the strain on power grids. This strain will never be resolved with solar and wind power as there is no current technology for large-scale storage of the power for future need.
Hydroelectric is clean and by storing water behind the dams, power is stored and ready for our use anytime.
Fish recovery? As for dams, survival for salmon migrating through the Columbia and Snake rivers is about 50 percent today, about the same as in rivers of similar length without dams, such as the Fraser River.
Consult this recent study at www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-01734-w
Use common sense.
Mike Cloke
Clarkston
Brainwashing students
The public education system in the U.S. is funded by taxpayers. Public education at the college level has turned into the teaching of socialism to our young people.
They have used our tax dollars to shove socialism garbage down our children’s throats.
One only has to look at Moscow to see the results. Our children are being brainwashed into believing the government will give them free education, health care, food and free money.
Now ask yourself: How does socialism compare to communism?
Socialism and communism are almost the same type of government. The only difference is that communism is done at the point of a gun. Look at North Korea, China and Russia. They are communist countries controlled by a gun.
Our Capitol is now surrounded by a huge fence and a large number of armed troops protecting a socialist dictator, Joe Biden. We are now as close to having a communist president as any time in history.
Janell Willson
Reubens
