Acting like communists
Regarding the cancelation of Dilbert: Having lived in a communist country and witnessed the evil of censorship there, I was stunned to see you bow to the same evil. How cowardly.
Someone in your leadership should pick up a copy of “1984.”
James Rockwell
Grangeville
Drew wrong conclusions
Marvin Dugger, ... concerning Executive Order 13526 and presidential power to declassify government documents, I find it hard to believe how you arrived at this conclusion. ...
Former President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13526 says:
“1.3. Classification Authority. (a) The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by: (1) the President and the Vice President; (2) agency heads and officials designated by the President; the president and vice president have the power to “classify” documents.”
The E.O. also says declassification in “Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification. (a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order. ... (b) Information shall be declassified or downgraded by: (1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position and has original classification authority; (2) the originator’s current successor. ... (3) a supervisory official of either the originator or his or her successor in function.
“(4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official of the originating agency.”
But not the president. What we get is fiction.
“The Director may require the information to be declassified by the agency that originated the classification. Any such decision by the Director may be appealed to the President through the National Security Advisor. The information shall remain classified pending a prompt decision on the appeal.”
Donald Trump did none of this.
Marv, please read the correct information next time. ...
Jim Roach
Moscow
Documenting history
Terry Buffington was born Black in Jim Crow Mississippi. We all heard about the civil rights turmoil of the 1960s: the sit-ins, marches and voter registration drives; and about the white response: bombings, murder by gun and rope, police dogs, water cannons, night sticks and jails, and loss of employment.
I don’t remember hearing that the people who did the organizing and activities were teenagers.
Teenagers.
When adults saw teenagers with voter registration papers in hand, they would literally run away or shoo them off the porch, sometimes with a gun in hand. They were deathly afraid of a popular white terrorist organization.
Buffington was one of those teenagers.
Buffington, a cultural anthropologist, collected material and oral histories of those tumultuous times and donated them to the library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The oral histories have been digitized, and can be searched online: The Terry Buffington Collection.
She spoke Feb. 23 as part of the Lewis-Clark State College Black History Experience.
Wiley Hollingsworth
Pullman
Ready, aim, fire
I have a suggestion for Sen. Dan Foreman. Instead of Idaho having a firing squad for those sentenced to death, just eliminate the death penalty. Case solved about not being able to obtain lethal drugs for injection.
As the Christian he purports to be, this should be a fix that coincides with the commandment of “thou shall not kill.”
On the practical side, research has shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent, and is much more expensive than a life sentence. If the accused is guilty, then let the person live with the crime until death.
On a basic decency level, killing someone because he killed someone accomplishes nothing but revenge. The state makes itself become a killer. Other states have abolished the death penalty and Idaho should, too.
If this barbaric firing squad bill passes, then I suggest that those who support it take turns being on the squad, hoodless, and face the person they are killing. May they then live with that image the rest of their days.
If the person is later shown to have been innocent, may it haunt their dreams forevermore.
Linda Pike
Moscow
