Where Trump succeeded
Although I opposed the policy, it seems to me that President Donald Trump didn’t get nearly enough credit for something he excelled at: removing what he termed “excessive” restrictions in government.
I would say his greatest success was with the Republican Party. Particularly regarding Republicans in Congress, he was able to remove every last shred of integrity they had once been burdened with. Excellent job.
Dody Dozier
Moscow
Fed up
The headline in the Jan. 27 Lewiston Tribune states: “GOP largely sides against Trump impeachment trial.”
It goes on to say “proving Trump’s lasting influence.”
Perhaps the GOP, along with a good share of us Americans, are fed up with more than four years of the Democrats doing nothing but launching investigations against ex-President Donald Trump instead of doing what they’re sent to Congress to do.
What a waste of time and money.
The media has also spent the last four years portraying Trump in the least favorable way possible.
There was no need for the Democrats to campaign. The liberal media did it for them.
And now, the media portrays the Biden administration as arriving just in time to save us all.
Trump was no angel, and wouldn’t have been my pick for president. But he was elected by the people and regardless of what the Tribune’s liberal letter writers fail to acknowledge, he did have accomplishments.
It’s time for term limits and for our elected officials to work for the people who elected them, and not themselves.
Wayne Vantrease
Lewiston
No more fish studies
A study was done by a impartial scientist who studied all the rivers along the West Coast — rivers with dams and rivers without dams.
His research finds the ocean is by far the biggest problem for returning fish.
Fish groups in the Northwest don’t like this impartial study because it makes their studies look dumb.
This study looks at all the rivers along the coast from the U.S. to Alaska and finds the ocean the biggest problem for all rivers. For us, the way for higher returns is to barge small fish to the ocean.
Common sense shows higher returns when barging.
When it was done, we had the highest returns in recent history. So stop spending money on stupid studies and use it where we get the best results.
Abel Workman
Weippe
Learned two things
I wrote my state legislators to express support for Gov. Brad Little and encouraged the Legislature to keep $20 million allotted to Idaho for COVID-19 expenses in Idaho.
By refusing Little’s recommendations, $20 million in taxes will go to neighboring states. ...
I want my taxes to stay in Idaho.
I learned two things when contacting my representatives.
First, I was informed $20 million is not a lot of money as Idaho has adequate income and reserves.
Sen. Dan Johnson said: “Idaho has a very large surplus due in part to federal tax dollars. In fact, our economy is leading the nation in spite of federal dollars. Bottom line: It is all tax dollars, federal or state. Self-funding of the $20 million is a small percentage of the surplus Idaho already enjoys because of federal dollars.”
The federal government gave Idaho $20 million to pay for COVID-19 expenses. I admit I do not know about specific expenses, but it includes some of the following: unbudgeted hospital and long-term care center expenses, personal protective equipment for medical staff and first responders, laboratory equipment, testing supplies and equipment, preparing for vaccinations and needed equipment, National Guard assistance, contact notification, public education, helping schools adapt to at-home education and many more COVID-19-related expenses. ...
I suggest they budget the entire excess to public education. ...
I also learned Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger’s address is 613 Bryden Ave., Ste. C No.183, Lewiston. Must be cozy in that mailbox at the USP Store.
Dianne Waldemarson
Lewiston
Blames Chris Wallace
Who elected Joe Biden president?
Probably about 20 percent Democrats, maybe 20 percent political illiterates who never vote for losers and the other 60 percent of the votes were generated by Chris Wallace, widely known as Fox News’ interrogator, news analyst and fact-checker.
Everyday, he would show a poll on TV consisting of two pictures side by side. The picture on the left was always a picture of Biden with a devilish smile and sinister grin —“ Ha ha, I’m winning” on his face and a number representing his percent of the poll always much high than Donald Trump’s whose picture was always to the right and always showing a percent of the poll much lower than that of Biden’s.
Trump’s picture always depicted him with a puzzling expression on his face.
What’s going on here?
Wallace would show this poll very conservatively three times per hour on some 20 TV channels, 365 days throughout the campaign year. That’s some 525,600 showings.
Where did the money come from?
That is not free speech; it’s brainwashing.
The communist manifesto lists brainwashing as one of the final stages of becoming a full-fledged communist.
Impeachers all want to be president in 2024. Impeach and remove ex-presidential security. He and his family will be dead within hours. That’s deliberate premeditated murder.
Is that how campaigning should work ?
Ben Seubert
Lewiston
Mask up
Masks that protect against COVID-19 infection have been maligned by Opinion page writers. Politicians also disparage masks by turning this health issue into a political one. Some claim that COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold. Though true for many non-elderly, telling that to the family of the 41-year-old Louisiana congressman-elect killed by COVID-19 would be a cruel insult. Many with no pre-existing health conditions suffer terribly from this disease, especially non-whites.
Some complain they can’t understand the speech of a masked person. Fair enough. I encounter maskless store clerks who can’t understand me, and ones who can. Perhaps the formers’ hearing is helped by reading lips and the latter don’t need to. For the former, I step back extra and remove my mask and speak.
The largely maskless rodeo crowd at Grangeville’s Border Days celebration resulted in few if any COVID-19 infections. It’s self-evident that outdoor air and people largely not facing one another offered protection against infection for that coronavirus variant. But unmasked people up-close indoors clearly leads to disease spread.
We all might learn from Fox News’ excellent, live demonstration videos on masks: “Which masks work best” and another by Bill Nye, both at https://fox8.com/news/not-that-hard-to-understand-bill-nye-breaks-down-why-everyone-needs-to-wear-masks.
America has long been a nation that has sent troops and aid to others around the world. Yet nowadays, we are a country with citizens unwilling to help ourselves by temporarily wearing a mask in some places. This health issue should not be political.
It merits compassion and mutual consideration.
Steve Koehler
Grangeville
Climbing out
With Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump out of the way, Democrats can attack the very serious national emergencies that Trump and Republicans have caused, then neglected. Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock victories have enabled the Senate to lead the nation and climb out of the current conservative Republican ditch.
Trump stifled any early response to COVID-19, instead of taking timely, serious actions. From February, all his actions were to make himself look good, not defend Americans. Congressional Republicans have been Trump’s co-conspirators and they share credit for the slow, confusing actions and the deaths.
Trumpy Republicans started wrecking the economy with the 2017 Ryan tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporate donors. The cuts created the persistent increase in the national debt. With their failed COVID-19 response, the economy is now on the verge of total collapse. Small businesses and wage earners now suffer greatly while the stock market, big corporations and the wealthy are doing well.
The Trumpies deny global climate change and have done much to increase it and nothing to slow it. Australia’s dying, Great Barrier Reef now is Trump’s GOP Reef.
McConnell and Trump have loaded the Supreme Court with biased, Constitution-ignorant conservatives. Democrats must create four new justice seats and fill them with rational, moderate judges. Rulings can again all be constitutional and reasonable.
The latest is the treasonous armed attack on the Capitol. Who influenced these violent participants? Trump? What portion of these destructive traitors vote Republican — 90 percent or 100 percent?
Leonard Ross
Clarkston
Defends Nygaard
Some folks in Lewiston are disenchanted with our city manager because he is a foreigner from the Puget Sound area.
Somehow, when you are from the Seattle area you carry bad genes. God forbid that you might actually be a good person who is looking to get away from the urban blight of downtown Seattle and is tired of the commutes.
Apparently the Idaho Legislature overlooked the birthright necessity to be a good city manager because its not included in the Idaho statutes. Their concerns focused more on job performance rather than a DNA test or the banjo test.
Previous city councils must have overlooked this requirement too, since it isn’t in the city code, either.
Speaking of job performance, I think it would be hard to argue that Alan Nygaard has been less than diligent with most of the duties outlined in the state statutes and the city code.
But, of course, the biggest concern is money — our tax money.
Councilor John Bradbury argues that there was money misappropriated and that some charges should have been made that weren’t, consequently causing water users to have to pay more.
The city argues on the other hand it was done (or not) above board.
I’d be interested in what the attorney general’s office has to say before going to court. At any rate, the city manager (and the council) relied on the city attorney’s advice.
So I’m not going to lay blame on the city manager, if it’s wrong.
Ged W. Randall
Lewiston
Spring the trap
I have a question of grave concern for America’s churches: Who is their God? Put another way, from whence come the orders that, generally, people of faith follow so obediently today?
Centuries ago, their forefathers traversed dangerously wild oceans to escape political and religious tyrannies, seeking a land where they might be free to make unhampered life choices, guided solely by their personal consciences.
Fast forward to 2021. ...
What is it that dictates to believers now? In large measure, it’s ghoulish and greedy pharmaceutical con artists such as Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, fully enabled and backed up by equally power-hungry politicians and media moguls. Shamefully, pitifully, even tragically, these do seem to be the current gods of power and control over our people.
With the vast majority of our churches being professedly Christian, how is it that they’ve forgotten the words of their founder who declared: “Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt itself loses its savior, with what shall it be salted? It is good for naught but to be cast out and trodden under foot by men.” (Matthew 5:13)
Harsh and searing words indeed, but it wasn’t I who spoke them.
It’s high time to rise up, Christians. Spring the trap that’s been so cunningly laid for you, lest it soon become too late forever.
Truth be known, our entire world seems to be waiting for you to re-grow a spine, and show the way back to some true faith and freedom.
Carol Asher
Kamiah
Tribune’s tag team
In its Oct. 4, 2006, “dyslogy” for Idaho’s former U. S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, the Washington Post noted, “Former Idaho Gov. Cecil D. Andrus said that if (Chenoweth) were to come across a brush fire, her instinct would be to douse it with a pail of gasoline.”
One has to wonder if the actual originator of that nasty quip was Andrus-flack turned Tribune columnist, Marc C. Johnson.
Johnson quoted that same Post piece in the Jan. 15 version of his weekly attacks on the Idaho GOP. In doing so, he put words in Chenoweth’s mouth about “United Nations-sponsored storm troopers” that were actually the Post’s characterization of testimony at hearings she once held.
Not attributing those words to the Post is plagiarism as well as propaganda but perhaps Lewiston Tribune Publisher and Editor Nathan Alford has different standards on that point.
One also has to wonder why Johnson appears in the Tribune at all. He isn’t local and, as far as readers know, was never a journalist, never elected or appointed to public office, and has no track record of writing noteworthy letters to the Tribune. Moreover, the Andrus administration he staffed ended a quarter-century ago.
Apparently Alford decided that Opinion page Editor Marty Trillhaase’s Friday JEERS at the GOP need an extra helping of bile served up by a professional spin doctor.
And why not? After all, their tag team attacks did a great job of keeping Sen. Jim Risch from being reelected.
Oh, wait.
Thomas A. Hennigan
Asotin
Agrees with Dugger
For once, I agree with Marvin Dugger that the second impeachment of ex-President Donald Trump serves no good purpose. When former Vice President Mike Pence refused to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have just let it go.
President Joe Biden was not enthusiastic about impeachment, but said he wouldn’t stop House Democrats from going forward. Hopefully, with Trump gone, the dust will start to settle.
Dugger is also correct in saying Biden needs to do everything possible to help the country heal, including whatever he can do to establish the fairness, accuracy and validity of the election results for those who still think it was a “fraud and a steal” — if that is possible.
Trump’s biggest legacy will not be the double impeachment asterisk after his name in future history books, but his despicable accomplishment of dividing the country as it has not been since the days of Abraham Lincoln.
No matter who is in control of the presidency and the Congress going forward, those timeworn words — “United we stand, divided we fall” — must be heeded if this nation is going to survive.
Mike Epstein
Clarkston
Lock them up
... I was subjected to news coverage of a group of uncouth goons invading the halls of our government. ...
To see this group of hooligans invading the Capitol and disrespecting our revered institutions is sickening. The whole thing had the look of an insurrection in a banana republic. That is something the United Stated of America never has been — and never will be — as long as I am around.
This out-of-control group of Trumpers needs to understand elections are contests. Someone wins and someone loses. These people, for some reason, are willing to take ex-President Donald Trump’s word that the election was rigged.
Trump, and his clown buddy, Rudy Giuliani, keep saying they have proof of voter fraud but they never seem to produce it. That fact makes this group of hooligans doubly stupid. ...
We have people moaning about the fact that the police were unable to keep these thugs out of the Capitol building. They want an investigation because, by God, they want to get to the bottom of this allegedly incompetent policing. ...
The Trumpers and their complicit sycophants want to take the focus off the conduct of the Trump hooligans and blame someone else.
Yes, at some point it needs to be determined how to improve security at the Capitol. First, the authorities need to get hold of all video that they can, use facial recognition software to identify all of the violent insurrectionists and send them to prison for as long as possible. ...
Danny Radakovich
Lewiston
No small error
Nez Perce County Assessor Dan Anderson says that “his office” made a “little” $58 million error in crediting Clearwater Paper with a tax exemption twice (Tribune, Dec. 23).
No, you bozo, your “office” didn’t make the mistake; either you personally or a person working for you, identifiable by name, made it.
The your “office” claim is political doublespeak so blame doesn’t have to be assigned to an actual person. If this person hasn’t already been fired, he or she should be, publicly and immediately, and blackballed from any government job forever.
This isn’t a paper cut or a small rounding error. If the person making it has an accounting degree, it should be returned to the university issuing it, with humble apologies.
For you “officials scrambling to find a solution,” instead of an accounting tap-dance that will have unintended consequences, here’s a proposal: Give the money back to the taxpayers, you morons. Nobody believes your payback scheme won’t screw people. And quit pussyfooting around Clearwater Paper. It is able to adjust its books.
If you believe that a multibillion dollar international company didn’t notice the county had made a stupid mistake, undercharging property taxes by half, then I’ve got some cheap swampland in Florida to sell you.
As for relying on Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman’s advice on this or any matter, officials should have a private attorney on retainer. Coleman obviously doesn’t care if the city or the county get sued. There’s another degree that should be returned.
Rick Rogers
Clarkston
Gangland politics
I grew up thinking I lived and served in the United States of America and witnessed many elections of both Republican and Democratic presidents and offices of the Senate and the House.
Sometimes candidates I preferred won; sometimes they lost. Through it all, the majority of those elected found ways to support a bipartisan resolution because it moved the nation forward as a whole.
Lately it seems that goal of give-and-take has become an individual’s pledge to take no prisoners, to win no matter what or who you throw under the bus.
It’s become so caustic that parties are now battling internally for the right to control. And it’s not just at the federal level but has flowed down to the states and local level.
The irony of this practice of gangland action is that they may win, but it’s only temporary. The next election may prove out a different result.
Although some have finagled multiple decades in office, they don’t live indefinitely. I think that practice started when the Founding Fathers forgot that in the future elected politicians were not going to be mostly farmers and return home after a term or two. It became a lifelong ambition for many to remain in office.
I believe many citizens and politicians need to revisit more of our American history for educating themselves. Abe Lincoln’s immortal words in his 1858 debate with Stephen Douglas, which became his centerpiece in his 1860 Republican presidential campaign: “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”
Mike Petrusky
Clarkston
