Turnabout turned about
The Lewiston Tribune’s Aug. 14 Turnabout is fraught with misinformation. Blaming the lower Snake River dams for the status of Snake River salmon is like blaming the last straw for breaking the camel’s back.
The truth is that the lower Snake River dams provide very high survival for both upstream migrating adult salmon and downstream migrating juvenile salmon.
Blaming high water temperatures on those four dams is bogus, too. Up to 80-degree water coming from eastern Oregon rivers and southern Idaho coming through Hells Canyon flows over cool water from the Clearwater River in Lower Granite Reservoir, while a few feet down, temperatures less than 70 degrees are provided.
Using mass spill to bypass juvenile salmon subjects them to extreme pressure changes as 30 of the 34 spill gates pass water 40 feet deep with instantaneous pressure loss. Adult fish falling back through narrow slots under the gates are injured and subjected to high gas supersaturation that leaves them and juvenile fish compromised and subject to injury or predation.
Using smolt-to-adult return rates is bogus because in high ocean survival years, fishery agencies liberalize harvest, depressing SARs, and in poor ocean years, harvest is limited by the fishery agencies, but poor ocean conditions cause lower SARs.
Loss of spawning habitat to upstream dams and irrigation use, poor water quality due to upstream water use and a century-and-a-half of poor harvest management are the true causes of the status of the salmon.
John McKern
Retired biologist
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Walla Walla
Who is Matt Zeller?
Have you heard the name Matt Zeller mentioned in any of the Lewiston Tribune’s coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal?
His biography:
l CEO of No One Left Behind.
l Army veteran in the Afghanistan War.
l Ran as a Democrat for Congress.
l CIA analyst.
I urge you to Google the Matt Zeller Brian Williams interview on MSNBC.
There are 86,000 names on a Special Immigrant Visa list, which was later provided to the Taliban by the Biden administration.
The Trump administration was working with Zeller to get these folks out of Afghanistan before the withdrawal. The Biden administration did not want Trump to get any credit for the withdrawal.
You have heard the unrealistic speeches by President Joe Biden on how the Taliban were going to honor our withdrawal. I am disappointed in the Tribune’s lens of bias in their reporting.
There are so many ways to lie:
1. Outright.
2. Little white.
3. Righteous (“Are you hiding Jews in your home?”).
4 Or the most popular — lies by omission.
The slaughter has just begun.
Watch the Matt Zeller Brian Williams interview and decide for yourself.
Steven Nash
Asotin
Staying close to home
Regarding the anti-vaccinaters: I have heard with my unwilling ears of one of your “drivers.”
Here is a summary of the Republican anti-vaxxers greatest fears:
President Joe Biden might get some favorable credit if the COVID-19 disappears. Is this true?
Hundreds of thousands of people have already died for your cause. It is their fault and your fault.
Be a man about it. Own what you have done. How many more people do you feel should die before you are satisfied that your cause is protected?
Do you enjoy funerals? Do you enjoy hospital beds? Do you laugh when people cry? Have I described you?
I certainly know that everyone who is now living will some day die. That includes me. That includes you. That includes the innocent people who surround you.
How will your life be better if you or the people near you die prematurely or become horribly ill?
I am not willing to shorten my life to help cruel Republicans elect their favorite ruler. I intend to live close to home with Lena, my wife of 62 years, until COVID-19 is gone.
So my friends, for now but not forever: Fred says goodbye.
Fred Kuester
Kamiah
Get the shot
In 1933, my 16-year-old brother died of polio. Like COVID-19, the polio virus affected his lungs. The iron lung closest to Weiser that might have saved him was in Portland, Ore.
When the polio epidemic raged, it was like a curse hanging over our heads. Without a vaccine for years, many spent the rest of their lives in a wheelchair or in an iron lung.
Raising six children, polio was always on my mind. Finally, an American doctor, Jonas Salk — our hero — developed a serum that killed the virus and was given to children by injection. Then in 1953, Albert Sabin developed an oral vaccine for the general public.
In those days, there were no foolish people waving signs protesting the vaccine.
Everyone got the polio vaccine in the form of a sugar cube. There were only rare cases of polio for 30 years because now it is a regular shot for babies.
We are so fortunate to have a reliable vaccine for COVID-19 today. I hope my little story would inspire someone to get the COVID-19 shot and wear a mask.
Eleanor Wagner
Grangeville
Fixing the wrong streets
Why aren’t the roads that are used the most not repaved? Grelle Avenue and Powers Avenue are horrific, not to mention Bryden Avenue. You are paving the side streets when you could be using the asphalt on these streets.
While I’m on the subject, why can’t the county pave Gun Club Road? Talk about horrific.
I’ve been here 18 years and it’s never been repaved to my knowledge.
You think you are fixing the problem by spot patching. It’s not working.
Furthermore, bulldoze those dumps on Gun Club. It’s nothing but a eyesore and a rat motel.
Tami Dean
Lewiston
Carter is smiling
Sleepy Joe has had so many failures in his short term as president it’s hard to decide where to start.
In his defense, we all know he is not calling the shots in Washington, D.C. But the buck stops with him, he says. In the case of China, it’s a million bucks.
We all saw how he took responsibility for the Afghanistan debacle. “It’s Trumps fault,” he claimed.
Whoever is in charge took a good Trump plan and did just the opposite. Sound familiar?
Gen. Mark A. Milley said an additional 5,000 troops would be needed to follow Trump’s plan, but they didn’t want to upset the Taliban. Then, after surrendering Bagram Air Base and refusing the offer to control Kabul throughout the evacuation of Americans, they brought in another 5,000 or more troops anyway. ...
There were so many troops in the airport they had no room for Americans to get through the gates. I just hope enough Afghan translators (those who we were supposed to bring home) made it over here because we’re going to need them to translate for the 100,000 plus non-English speaking and unvetted Afghans that somehow got on planes. Way to go State Department. Joe stares at the teleprompter and reads the words “big success” and “greatest evacuation ever,” then turns and shuffles off stage. He didn’t bother to answer questions because his people didn’t have time to review/edit reporters’ questions in advance and coach Joe for two days. Jimmy Carter is smiling somewhere.
David Klatt
Kendrick
Step aside, Rep. Giddings
An open letter to Rep. Priscilla Giddings:
I again watched the House Ethics and Policy Committee meeting when they came to the conclusion that “... the committee finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Rep. Giddings has conducted herself in a manner unbecoming a representative which is detrimental to the House as a legislative body. ...” Members of this committee indicated that you had frequently lied in your testimony to them and when you had spoken to the media.
Rep. Giddings, what happened? How could you have so compromised the values that you have held for so many years? Has your morality become so overshadowed by politics that you found it necessary to justify the assault of a young woman simply because the perpetrator was your political ally? How could you have so misplaced your loyalty? I am confident that your service to the Air Force Academy and to the Air Force was very admirable. However, for now, the best thing that you could do is to step aside.
Perhaps your time to serve is somewhere down the road, but not now.
Watching you crisscross this state and ask the good people of Idaho for contributions has been both disturbing and bewildering, and I do not believe you have any business running for higher office at this time.
After what you chose to do, how can you continue to campaign and to ask Idahoans to support you?
I wish you well.
C. Mark Peterson
Burley
America’s Dunkirk
The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is upon us, and the absolute disaster of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermath is unfolding. As an airborne infantryman who served with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan in 2001-2002, I am left almost speechless as I analyze the wholly moronic decisions made by the foreign policy halfwit Joe Biden. Many are comparing the withdrawal from Afghanistan to Dunkirk. This disaster was completely avoidable, but now the reputation of the United States on the international stage has been damaged beyond recognition, and will continue to be for decades to come.
This is all due to the utter ineptitude and gross incompetence of Biden and his cabinet. With no military or intelligence assets on the ground, the situation in Afghanistan is now devolving into a hostage crisis that the Taliban will undoubtedly exploit to its maximum benefit, causing our country yet even more embarrassment. To abandon Americans behind enemy lines like Biden has is literally the worst form of dereliction of duty there is. Make no mistake: This international disaster is just one part of the leftist conspiracy to destroy America, and right now they are succeeding.
Nevertheless, I thank all of the military and intelligence personnel, and first responders who have sacrificed so much for our country during the years. I salute you.
You performed your duty with great courage and honor, while the government and politicians have miserably failed you and this country with their treasonous corruption.
Aaron von Ehlinger
Lewiston
Biden’s no joke
Many people perceive the bungling and bumbling of the Biden/Harris administration as a sign of complete incompetence and ineptitude as crisis after crisis is ignored or mishandled.
From the worsening border invasion and economy-busting inflation to their Big Pharma-sustaining virus fiasco, old sleepy Joe is now even snubbing his lifelong religious convictions to push for murder of the unborn. It’s embarrassing and alarming at the same time.
Now we find they’ve isolated us from our allies while leaving a ton of weapons and a ton of Americans behind in Afghanistan. The lying, deception and treachery belie the corruption and duplicity, and must lead everyone with open minds to realize it’s not incompetence, but actually planned.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know why globalist puppet-masters are doing everything in their power to bring America down. You realize why international financiers and communists work together to obstruct and malign all that’s good in the world, as their tech/media partners recite propaganda and disinformation to divide and enslave us.
You probably know why we bring in thousands of unvetted “refugees” from all corners of the globe to dilute our culture and burden our social systems.
While it is true that the Biden administration is a complete joke, it is also a carefully planned transformation of our country by the deep state military/industrial complex conjoined with insiders and “one-worlders” of all stripes. The only reason they fortified, then stole the 2020 election from America was to keep Donald Trump from draining the swamp.
Dennis Fuller
Orofino
Here today ...
Two-hundred-eighty-one dollars and seven cents — that’s what the Idaho Legislature and our governor sent to us for property tax relief.
Should we be grateful?
The refunds are part of Gov. Brad Little’s “Building Idaho’s Future” plan to use our record budget surplus for tax relief and on key investments in critical areas to keep up with Idaho’s incredible growth.
But with this growth comes infrastructure needs for education and health care, as well as hard infrastructure such as our aging and increasingly dangerous bridges and roads.
“These tax cuts boost Idahoan’s prosperity,” he said.
Make that case to Idaho’s educators who in the last year kept Idaho’s children connected to school during the pandemic, reinventing the ways they made learning meaningful when they couldn’t even be in their classrooms or see their students in person.
And our health care folks? Unless we’re a part of it, we have no idea the pressure, stress and heartache they have been experiencing without support for masking and getting the vaccine.
Two-hundred-eighty-one dollars and seven cents — will that be helpful for those who really need it? Quite possibly. But it’s not what we would have chosen for property tax relief, nor for the use of a record budget surplus.
This could have been a time of real improvement and vision. Instead, it’s probably going to show up in campaign slogans — and when that $281.07 is gone, it’s gone.
Liz Chavez
Lewiston
Thinking not allowed
In the July 30 Tribune, Jim Fisher joined the chorus attacking Washington State University football coach Nick Rolovich, who refuses vaccination.
Fisher, a control freak, fears that WSU and its president, Kirk Schulz, will “look weak.”
One can imagine Fisher sending storm troopers to arrest Rolovich, staging a show trial and forcibly vaccinating in public the unruly recalcitrant with RNA-modifying, spike-protein-producing material as punishment for daring to think for himself.
Rolovich’s real crime is thinking.
Thinking is contagious, so it must be stamped out before more people start thinking. It would be only a small leap until the public begins to realize that the state is figuratively and literally destroying the people. That cannot be allowed.
A true-believer in absolute state power, your yon editor-emeritus has himself been inoculated against critical thinking. Scoffs to Fisher.
The establishment detests the individual and here’s prime evidence.
Connie LaRue
Spokane
Tribune stokes paranoia
When I read the Aug. 22 Lewiston Tribune’s Opinion essentially telling unvaccinated Lewis-Clark State College students to go back to where they came from, it put me in mind of the paranoid hysteria that resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. One of those camps was in the Gem State.
When I recall the Aug. 12 Tribune’s Opinion conspiring with Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News to lump together age groups who cannot yet be vaccinated with those who can to inflate child COVID-19 cases, I see more drumming up of hate and fear.
When I read Sept. 5 letters from readers so blinded by hate and fear that they can in good conscience send desperately ill people to the health care “back of the bus” if they weren’t vaccinated, I can see the ghosts of people who were just fine with interning their fellow citizens.
It all makes me wonder where the Tribune stood on Japanese internment. Did it have the nerve to call out President Franklin Roosevelt on that injustice? Did it stand mute? Or was it a voice stoking the paranoia as it is with COVID-19 today?
Thomas A. Hennigan
Asotin
Do your part, win the war
I’m writing this letter to suggest something to think about.
Imagine being bombed day and night every month by a foreign enemy. The president goes on TV and asks for your help by turning off the lights at night to prevent the enemy from finding targets. The casualties by this bombing are 1,000 deaths a day and 155,000 casualties a day being admitted to the hospitals at the present time.
Look at these figures. We are at war. This war is with the COVID-19 virus. The president is not asking us to buy Liberty Bonds, but to turn off the lights at night (in other words, get vaccinated).
This is a war and everyone’s health is interdependent on everyone else’s.
Help win the war by getting vaccinated.
Richard Hanby
Lewiston
