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YOUR OPINION
NEWPORT – Starting next week, April 9, the word limit on Letters to the Editor will be 200.
“We so appreciate all the letters to the editor we receive from our readers,” Miner publisher Michelle Nedved said. “In order to allow all those voices to be heard, we need to further limit the words allowed in letters.”
The deadline for letters to the editor is 5 p.m. Friday, the week prior to publication. Email letters to the editor to [email protected].
Letters about local topics, written by local readers will be given priority.
Evil version of the Three Stooges
I, and probably most Americans, would like to see fraud and waste eliminated from the federal government. Unfortunately for as long as there has been governments there has been waste and, to a more or less degree, fraud. After all governments are a product of human creation and thus subject to the frailties of human nature. But watching this administration attempt to tackle this issue is akin to watching an evil version of the Three Stooges. We are now experiencing how incompetently and cruelly the task is being carried out. But after all look at the source of the problem. We are being “led” by a man so pathetic, vile and petty as to beggar the imagination.
He is attacking everything in sight, whether it be a government agency, a judge, a university, a law firm or a legally admitted person or any law that impedes him. He traffics in fear because he fears no consequences.
I have scoured the Constitution of the United States but have yet to find any authority for an executive to harass or intimidate any part of the private sector such as being done now. He’s like an anti-Midas, where everything he touches turns to crap, or an infantile mafia don. Now, surrounded by a bunch of equally base groveling sycophants, he is wreaking havoc on the very foundations of our Republic. If there is one adage that sums up this administration it comes from the movie Forrest Gump. Stupid is as stupid does. And he who would be king sure fits the bill.
-Steve Bennett Newport
True Liberty
I have met amazing new friends through my letters. They’ve reached out to me upon recognizing that, like them, I had broken free of the dark spell cast upon us through propaganda. Here is one friend’s awakening.
She was a financial consultant in the runup to the 2008-2010 subprime mortgage crisis. On a hunch, she began researching more deeply into the financial system. Then she witnessed several incidences of outright market manipulation by the big banks. The glass house of a lifetime of propagandized beliefs came crashing down as she realized that neither the economy nor financial markets worked the way our entire country believes.
Based on what she uncovered, she advised her clients to get out of stocks. As the crisis unfolded, everyone else was losing money, but her clients were making money in their gold investments.
Eventually she quit her 29-year career and committed to activism on both sides of the political aisle.
That experience showed her that neither side was as bad as the other believed, yet neither side was open to changing their worldview. Later research helped her understand that this divided mindset was intentionally created. Not one, but both political parties are pawns in a much bigger game.
We each independently concluded that the “game” is “globalism:” the nefarious ambition of the obscenely wealthy to dominate the entire world. We’ve learned their weapons are patient stealth, infiltration into institutional positions of power, and deception through media capture worldwide. Applying their in-depth knowledge of our human weaknesses, outright lies and twisted truths are used to manipulate our emotions and behavior, polarizing groups against one another. It’s so insidiously effective that its victims believe their worldview, including values, are their own.
We believe that only exposing these truths can soften our hearts and set us free.
-Kamori Cattadoris Newport
The clowns are already here
“Don’t you love farce? My fault I fear… where are the clowns? … send in the clowns, don’t bother they’re here.” They are Tulsi Gabbard NIA, CIA John Ratcliff, National Security Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth SOD, SOS Marco Rubio, and VP JD Vance. These morons sent an email to Atlantic’s Editor Jeffery Goldberg plotting airstrikes against Yemen.
The emails shared secret plans, targets and attack sequencing taking place in hours.
If you can’t connect the dots, this put American soldiers ordered to implement the attacks in the sites of terrorists, Russia, China, North Korea etc. who routinely hack US government E-communications. Do you have family in the military? What if they were killed by Yemen-Houthi sympathizers in an attempt to preempt this strike?
Remember Trump’s mantra, “Lock her up,” when Hillary Clinton used an insecure phone for emails that weren’t classified or top-secret?
If you don’t see that this security breach is obvious evidence that Trump’s clown car of fools is riddled with incompetence, stupidity, sloppiness, absurdity, ineptitude, then you add those adjectives to your resume.
Trump does not have the courage; I have another word in mind, to fire any of these idiots. Do you? The word is integrity.
-Betty Gardner Priest River
Ideas for federal cost savings
The most recent example of the current president being too stupid to run this country can be seen in the foolish cuts of federal workers and programs which actually benefit people when other options exist.
Donny and DOGE have cut people and services relating to the VA, Social Security, the Forest Service, farm aid, and others. Why cut these valuable programs which benefit voters when other programs/services can be cut which benefit no one? I suggest the following should be eliminated as they are useless.
Start with the office of the First Lady. She has no duties and performs no services to this country.
She does not even live in DC.
Likewise, the office of the VP. Do we need a VP when we have a co-president? Also, abolish our do-nothing Congress, who are just Trump’s trained monkeys, although monkeys are cuter. Close both the National Archives and the Holocaust museum. The Archives house the Constitution, and we won’t be needed for the next four years.
MAGA denies that the holocaust happened, so why have a building relating to a fake event ? Also, get rid of the White House lawn. Trump has turned it into a car sales parking lot, highlighting his real skill as a car salesman, so why pay to water and mow the lawn? Finally, get rid of the White House chef and gym.
Looking at Trump, it is pretty clear he does not know how to eat healthy meals or exercise. I believe taking these measures would allow Americans to focus on what really impacts our daily life-renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
-Greg Hicks Spokane
Fear for what the president’s done
Every day I dread getting up in the morning. I fear what this idiot has done the night before. He’s out of his mind and people continue to coddle him. He has no clue what’s going on. All these horrible things going on in our country his big concern is a bad picture of him in Colorado. He spends millions every weekend golfing. They are looking for waste, and there he is every weekend wasting more and more money. The last two months have been a complete nightmare with this idiot in charge.
He has no clue what’s going on in our country right now. The only reason he is in the white house right now is because he didn’t want to go to prison. He sold cabinet positions to the highest bidder. Qualifications weren’t necessary. Insanity abounds with Trump and his buddies. There is zero accountability.
-Jeannie Hutchins Newport
Forgetting checks and balances again
The constitution specifically addresses the Supreme Court as the third branch and advises, in an open-ended way, about the lower courts. Yes, technically, five justices can decide what the entire nation must live with, but the Supreme Court only rules on about 180 cases per term. Most of the federal laws we follow are shaped by decisions at the district and appellate court levels.
Decisions made by district courts and the influence they have on the executive branch are part of the checks and balances between the branches. When Trump invokes the Alien Enemies Act, the courts can review whether he’s legally entitled to do so in that circumstance. When Trump orders people loaded onto a plane and flown to a third country prison facility, claiming they’re all “gang members,” the judge does have the ability to order those people returned in order to ascertain whether they are gang members or not.
When the government invokes the ‘state secrets privilege’ to hide information about the flights (including their whereabouts when the orders to return the people were given by the judge), the judge has the ability to review whether that privilege is applicable. The president simply invoking an act or privilege does not mean the judicial system is disallowed from reviewing the act or privilege. The government can of course appeal the judge’s decision to the next higher court or ask the Supreme Court for an expedited review.
Judicial activism involves judges allowing their personal views to guide their decisions. IN the example discussed above, the judge involved does not deserve the label ‘activist judge.’ He is simply doing his job.
Again, a system of checks and balances Paule Moore Newport
Eggs are the least of our worries
The FOX (news) is guarding the (Federal) hen house. And eggs are the least of our worries.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to choose just one or two issues to focus on because the Trump-Musk presidency is flooding the establishment with bad directives. It’s like, “Have you heard the one about…?” only this is no joke. There is no hierarchy of concerns. They are all real and scary.
I recommend reading George Orwell’s “1984” or rereading it if it’s been a few decades since it was assigned in high school.
We are metaphorically in the preface to that book.
MAGA proponents have worked to ban books for several years. Now they are succeeding in banning words. This is a small fraction of the words that have been REMOVED from Federal websites and publications: advocate, bias, Black, climate science, disability, Gulf of Mexico, mental health, Native American, race, and women (NY Times, 3/7/25). And this is from an administration that touts freedom of speech.
I would like to ask the MAGA voters, “When is enough, enough?” I would like to ask our Republican legislators, “Can you step back and see the big picture of what is happening?”
With every insane move, the Federal government is getting weaker and all those programs that were approved by congress to help us, will no longer be working. What we will see is that many, many of the slashed government agencies and programs have helped ALL of us, even in Pend Oreille County.
Shortly, perhaps, Trump will no longer be able to blame Biden for everything that’s gone wrong since he took office. How will he spin it to blame the last administration for the increase in child poverty at home or our loss of trust worldwide? I look forward to Trump’s standard response, “I didn’t know.”
Sure.
-Martha Nichols Newport
Trump Tax cuts
The Trump tax cuts of 2017 were recently analyzed in the March 26th Miner’s letters to the editor by Renee Webster. Renee wrote “The two highest brackets experienced a 2% reduction. However, the middle class saw the most substantial reductions resulting in an overall 10% reduction across all three middle-income brackets.”
Source cited is Investopedia, thank you for giving the source.
I occasionally read Investopedia and regard them as a relatively honest source of information, so I read several Investopedia articles on tax cuts but could nowhere find the middle classes getting a 10% cut in taxes. All my calculations were much smaller.
However, I did find an illuminating set of charts on Forbes website in an article titled “Who Benefited Most From Trump’s Tax Cuts?
The Answer May Surprise You.” Google “Forbes” and the article’s title to find the source. Forbes displays the data in several columns – before the Trump tax cut of 2017, after the tax cut, and a third column shows the difference.
The poorest get a 0.79% reduction, middle class a 3.66% reduction, wealthiest a 3.37% reduction.
How much does this save households? The lowest group saves $199, middle group $9600, high group $31,852. The rich get richer and the poor get breadcrumbs. 76% of the tax savings is going to our wealthiest citizens. And we wonder why wealth inequality in our country is growing!
What does this tax cut mean for the economy? If you are poor and get $199 you will likely spend the entire amount – rent, food, gas. In the middle class you might use the $9600 to go toward a new car, especially helpful after the auto tariffs start. In the wealthiest group I suspect you will invest the $31,000. Just a guess.
-Sandy Nichols Newport
Baumgartner town hall
Congratulations to Don Gronning on his excellent reporting on the Congressman’s Whitworth Town Hall.
Gronning gave us far more information on the many issues covered than did The Spokes-man Review.
Readers are lucky that Gronning was able to attend, rather than just repeating The Spokesman- Review report.
Don Peters Seattle and Diamond Lake
Efficiency
Some may ask where the President gets the power to downsize government. Article II of the Constitution is the President’s job description and where he gets his power. Trump is just doing his job differently than other former Presidents.
Two years ago Tesla was the car to save the planet from climate disaster.
Today they are burning them down and destroying them. What happened to saving the planet?
The DOGE audit is revealing interesting things.
They discovered 330M in SBA loans to children under 11 years old. 100K to a 9 month old. It’s all fraud. Someone steals their SS# and then takes out the loan. The children now have a negative credit report. Are they expected to pay it back?
Elon makes an interesting point. The government computer systems are completely outdated and none of them ‘talk’ to each other. In the above example, if SBA computers could ‘talk’ to the SS department, they could verify SS#’s and stop the loans. DOGE is fixing what they can as they go. There are millions of ‘active’ SS#’s of people over 120 years old. They are looking to see if payouts are made to them.
When Elon and DOGE are finished, our government will be so much more efficient. America will also be much wealthier. Find the Bret Baier interview with Elon and team on FOX. Fascinating!
Rogue Judges are still unconstitutionally blocking Trump at every turn. They are exposing themselves.
Congress is taking note.
When the Founders set up the Judicial Branch, they expected it to be the weakest of the three branches.
Today it’s the strongest.
Lower court judges were never to have the power to put injunctions across the entire nation. These shouldn’t stand in the Supreme Court. America will win.
-Glen Pierce Spokane/Cusick
Pend Oreille County is blessed, cursed
We have a great public hospital and good healthcare clinics in Newport.
We are blessed, but about to be cursed by Idaho and Trump. The cost of healthcare is X. The only question is who pays for X no matter of the state residence of the patient treated.
Trump and Idaho Republican cuts to Medicaid and potentially Medicare mean that Pend Oreille County property taxpayers are going to pay for Idaho poor people using our public hospital services. Since the hospital can’t turn away sick Idaho patients, Idaho needs to provide its own hospital in Priest River.
Let Idaho take care of their own poor sick people.
Think of where all the sales tax revenue produced by Old Town, Idaho businesses is going. Certainly, that revenue could pay for Idaho residents being treated in Washington.
The Washington State Attorney General should sue Idaho for losses our hospital has treating Idaho residents who can’t pay for healthcare.
There is a need for the federal government to resolve medical costs between states. I don’t want to fund the lifestyle of rich Idaho residents who want Washington to pay for their poor sick and injured residents who provide them services.
At least put up a sign that says “Welcome to Washington. If you are sick and can’t afford medical care, turn around and go to the hospital in Sandpoint.”
Cutting federal and state government spending on healthcare transfers the cost to local government entities like our public hospital. What will happen to us when our hospital closes because it can’t pay their employees or suppliers? Perhaps Elon Musk or the Trump Organization will donate millions to our hospital. The 68% that voted for Trump and his loyal servant Michael Bumgardner are going to be disappointed.
-Pete Scobby Newport
