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All major religions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhists, teach the importance of charity, kindness to others.
Judging others, whether they are worthy or not, is counter to these beliefs.
“Walk a mile in their shoes” is helpful to recall. We don’t know why people are homeless, or doing drugs, what experiences they have suffered, what choices they have made. Perhaps we would have made similar choices, given the same circumstances.
The world would be a much better place if we all practiced one act of kindness daily. Sadly, too many of our local and national leaders have forgotten this important tenet.
Even if we are not a religious person, there are many benefits we personally enjoy by practicing kindness. Acts of kindness lead to improved overall well-being, reducing stress, anxiety, and feelings of depression.
Kind acts release the good neurochemicals in our bodies, like serotonin and dopamine, which can improve heart health and lower blood pressure. It also releases antibodies into our immune system which can fight off aging and illnesses.
Whether or not the recipient is grateful is irrelevant. They provide us with an opportunity to increase our own well-being. Acts of kindness are not so much for others benefits as for our own, and who we want to be.
-Bon Wakabayashi Spokane
Musk is the real fraud, waste, abuse
Please explain how a fired US Forest Service Ranger working in Idaho committed federal waste, fraud and abuse. No, you can’t and won’t because you have been brainwashed and gaslighted into believing anything that the big orange man president says. Really, is a forest service or park ranger a fraud?
The big orange man’s manager, Elon Musk explains it. He claims that 92% of federal workers voted for Harris for president and are unelected bureaucrats that won’t bend to the will of Trump. Musk’s idea is to fire anyone in the federal government who didn’t vote for Trump. A South African immigrant billionaire is determining who gets to keep a career in USA public service.
Well, that’s the end of public service in America along with all of Trump’s “suckers and losers” serving in our military.
I am going to steer my grandchildren from any career in military or public service. I will tell them that no matter what they do supporting our government, they can be fired without cause by a computer programmer’s email. A college degree in public administration is a huge waste of time and money. All any future public servants will need is a red hat and a callous disposition.
The way that Musk is firing our public servants is cruel and arbitrary.
Not even a two-week notice. Musk believes that federal workers produce no value for our country. Once fired, they are going on unemployment, welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. That’s a strange way to save taxpayer money.
Musk is converting his unsold Tesla trucks into armored cars to hold all the tax cut money he is getting as a return on his investment in Trumpism. That’s the real waste, fraud and abuse in our country.
-Pete Scobby Newport
Who let the DOG(E) out?
Trump, Musk, Bondi, Patel and others were born to be alive at this historic time in America’s history. Trump and Musk are exposing the swamp corruption and waste, and Bondi and Patel will be there for justice. Accountability is incoming.
Trump’s tactics might be a little unorthodox to some. Consider this; could Trump be in a ‘strategic war’ with the ‘deep state’? That could explain his moves and countermoves. Where does he have his opponents? The deep state and media can’t respond fast enough to get ahead of him on anything.
Trump takes a couple of ‘actions’ on Monday, they plan protests for Tuesday, however they find themselves already behind on Tuesday’s actions. Trump is striking with blinding speed. They have gone to the courts to get Musk stopped but have lost every case. They are in total chaos. Reminds me of ‘Sun Tzu’ and ‘The Art of War.’ Trump/Musk appear to have them right where they want them.
Musk/DOGE are uncovering billions in ‘off mission’ spending. They found 4.7T in Treasury that was all but impossible to track. DOGE fixed that loophole so it won’t happen again. Remember when Trump went all the way to SCOTUS and then turned over his taxes? Hello Deep State, the precedent has been set.
Remember when Biden fired Sean Spicer from a Naval Board in September 2021? Spicer sued to force Biden to argue in court that the President has the right to fire anyone that he wants. Biden won the case and the appeal. When the media contacted Spicer telling him he lost the cases, Spicer replied, ‘did I’?
Hello, Kennedy Center Board. 4D Chess?
Trump 2.0 had four years to plan this. It’s totally by the Constitution.
Watch the Swamp Drain!
Glen Pierce Spokane/Cusick
PUD rate increase isn’t necessary
I am curious, should the headline read “PUD proposes 4.25% rate increase for this year and years to follow” or should it be more transparent and realistically read “PUD rates will approach an increase of 25% in the next 5 years”?
The PUD has over $10,000 per customer’s money in their pockets.
And quite frankly it has done less than a stellar job of expending those funds for purposeful capital projects. So, as the reserves of $100 million has grown year over year in the past 5 years, thank you Cascade, they want to take more of our money. In Ms. Owen’s statement without a rate increase we would lose $1 million, hardly a dent in the $100 million.
The next General Manager may have different visions and tactics to keep rates low.
The bragging rights contrasting neighboring utilities will go away with a 25% increase. I think the PUD should be embarrassed when contrasted to Inland Power. In 1990 Inland Power was at 4 cents/ kilowatt hour (kWh) and PUD was at 2 cents/kWh, half as much! Today the rates are near parity. Our rates have grown 300% and theirs have grown slightly more than 150% in this time frame. What are they doing right?
Or what are we doing wrong?
This rate payer’s recommendation is that we have a one-time small rate increase for one year and monitor over the coming year the success of expending some funds in the reserves to complete items in the budget. We have over $100 million dollars and the 2025 capital budget was in the range of about 10 million, that would be a decrease of 10% of the reserves and a challenge to complete capital projects that were predicted to be accomplished in the 2025 capital budget.
-Joe Onley Newport
Being born here doesn’t make you a citizen
In response to the Opinion (All Hail King Donald, by Frank Watson Feb. 19) contributor’s comment about birthright citizenship: the first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”
Emphasis on the words “naturalized” and “subject to the jurisdiction.” For instance, a person who was born in and resides in Mexico is subject to the jurisdiction of Mexico. Crossing over the border into the US to have her baby does not make that baby subject to the jurisdiction of the US – that child is still under the jurisdiction of Mexico. If my pregnant friend from England comes to visit me and has her baby here in Newport, it does not give that baby US citizenship. That baby is a citizen of and under the jurisdiction of England.
The Amendment was included to allow former slaves to become citizens, having been born here, lived here, and was under the jurisdiction of the US. I think Trump is right and your Opinion contributor is not.
-Lorraine Kirkpatrick Newport
Never seen this before
As an elder, I’ve lived through many political crises in this country — but I have never seen an attack on our democracy like this. In the past, there was bipartisan opposition to lawlessness.
Today, the guardrails are being dismantled before our eyes, and we must sound the alarm.
Please report the facts of what is occurring with this regime, including how the constitution and the checks and balances are not being followed with Trump’s and Musk’s orders because we need to hear the truth. Don’t cave to threats.
Call out violators. We need the press now more than ever.
-Dayna Jones Spokane
Founding fathers wouldn’t be so willing
We awoke today to a brand-new government, one that no body voted for and Americans have fought for other 250 years to prevent. No American citizen has ever had to call our elected leader “sire” or “his majesty,” and we have fought a revolution and two world wars to preserve our right not to do so.
Last week your elected leader signed off one of his emails “long live the king.” A side note, kings do not get elected, but why let technicalities get in the way of a monarchy? Adding to the dismemberment of democracy, it now appears we have a co-president, Elon Musk, who may be more powerful than the elected one.
No one voted for Musk, who earned his position by buying it for $630 million. He alone makes decisions to fire thousands of career civil servants and slash millions of dollars from the budget, duties given by the Constitution to Congress. If we truly want to slash the federal budget, perhaps eliminating Congress and the Supreme Court is the answer, as they have not done a thing to stop the imperial overthrow.
Musk oversees a group called DOGE, which is not a cabinet or agency in the federal government, and is not responsible to anyone. Perhaps a better name for this group would be DUNG-DUMMIES UNDERMINING NORMAL GOVERNMENT. I wonder what are founding fathers would think of our current situation? Mr. Pierce and others may be willing to bend the knee and kiss the ring, but the founding fathers would not be so willing, not after the price we have paid. Perhaps a second Declaration of Independence is needed?
-Greg Hicks Spokane
How much damage are we to endure?
Recently there have been some letters to the editor from some apparent non-liberal writers who disparage alleged liberals of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I would posit that what they really suffer from is Deranged Trump Syndrome.
Just how much chaos and damage to our Constitutional Republic are we expected to suffer from he who would be king, a person willing to break any law to get what he wants? With his new sidekick, an idiot savant with minimal empathy or social skills who bought his way into he who would be kings’ coterie, there seems to be no apparent thought or care for the consequences of their actions.
And we the people of this country are about to suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their actions. Their approach to achieving their stated goals is akin to performing brain surgery with a chain saw. It’s an ugly mess and fatal to the patient. Now we are faced with hoping the courts can keep this duo of destruction from causing the country to fall into such disarray that it cannot recover.
And despite what some writers to the editor feel is overreach by the judicial branch, what we are experiencing is an attempt by the executive branch to usurp the powers of the legislative branch and daring the judicial branch to do anything about it.
This is their stated goal.
Project 2025 lays this out in stark terms. And with the Republicans in the legislative branch willingly giving up their Constitutional role to fulfill their duties it will happen quite soon.
But, sadly, the people who voted for he who would be king and his sycophants will get what they voted for. That is an ongoing clown show for Congress and the inmates running the asylum.
What could go wrong?
Unfortunately we are about to find out.
-Steve Bennett Newport
