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Cutting federal departments like the IRS, National Parks, and CFPB, which generate more revenue than they cost to operate, is extremely foolish and counterproductive to the administration’s stated goal of “cutting costs.”
Destroying revenue is no way to balance a budget. If the administration honestly wanted a balanced budget for our children’s future, they would never have started DOGE’s BS – sowing chaos and destroying services only hurts constituents and further enriches a fistful of billionaires.
They are disrupting functions most of us, most of your neighbors and friends and family, rely on every day. We cannot sit by and let a handful of disconnected tech bros behave like robber barons; we’ve seen in the past what that sort of feudalism gets us. Contact your congress members and tell them we are a democracy, not a monarchy, and you didn’t sign up to be a serf. baumgartner.house.gov/contact/ email-me www.murray.senate.gov/writeto- patty/ www.cantwell.senate.gov/contact/ email -Jes Adams Colville
Ask yourself
How long will it take for your IRA and your stocks to rebound back to where they were at the first of the year?
What caused the sudden Stock market downturn? Could it be that the 1percenters were informed to sell?
How much more are you willing to paying for necessities (food, insurance, medical, Gasoline)?
Can you afford to pay the added cost the tariffs will add to everything else you buy? Do you think the 1% are hurting as much as us 99%ers?
DJ and his friends can afford such losses. We can’t.
-Budd Colucci Newport
Ask questions
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know” ~ Albert Einstein What if we were to apply this philosophy to our current political system? What might we uncover?
Might we be less emphatic about what we already claim to know?
Might we become more curious about what we don’t know? And might we become more understanding of those who know different things?
While we are at it, what if we looked at our need to be right?
What if we made it okay to be wrong? What if we actively practiced the humility of authentic intellectual exploration without the need to please our ego by defending a strong and hard stance?
And since we are on a roll, what if we practiced the art of contemplation? What if we took the time to research all sides to understand an issue and worked with our inner guidance to arrive at our own wisdom? What if that process helps us discern deceptions and agendas that we might have previously missed? And most importantly, what if today’s politics has a curriculum and its lessons are curiosity, understanding, humility and authentic contemplation? How might that understanding change the world?
-Stacy Cossey Priest River
Kids in West Bonner shouldn’t suffer
Levy…That dreaded four-letter word. It’s time once again that the citizens and children of West Bonner County School District are asking voters to approve a levy. If the levy does not pass then they will have to close two of the three elementary schools making class sizes larger.
I hear time and time again about the students’ test scores. How are they going to look with 35 kids to a classroom? In the end it will be the kids who suffer. Sports and extracurricular are not funded without a levy. Students must keep grade point average up to continue to play which gives them motivation to keep grades up.
Why do the students of WBCSD deserve any less than those who live in Sandpoint? Please consider voting yes on the levy and giving the kids a chance to play sports, have extracurricular and safe buses!
-Kylie Hoepfer Priest River
Baumgartner wrong on Ukraine
Michael Baumgartner’s, figuratively speaking, “all-over-themap” about Ukraine, but effectively supporting Russia.
He agrees Russia started the war and was/is the aggressor, and he’s assured Thrive International Ukrainian refugees he opposes their deportation. But he completely undercuts that by his Ritzville Town Hall statement, “I don’t think [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is doing a great job,” and by his outlandish calls for Zelenskyy’s resignation after President Donald Trump humiliated Zelenskyy.
Is Baumgartner unaware that Zelenskyy’s widely credited with saving much of the free world?
Immediately after Russia attacked Ukraine – when Ukraine was expected to quickly surrender – Zelenskyy bravely stood up against Russian President Vladimir Putin while inspirationally rallying Ukrainians behind him.
Baumgartner should abandon his cultish political ambitions—incredibly loyal to 34-time convicted felon Trump—and show some US patriotism by strongly supporting Zelenskyy and opposing the Trump-Elon Musk-Putin autocracy alliance.
Most critically, he must hear twice LD6 candidate Michaela Kelso. While admitting that Baumgartner’s Spokane Town Hall was unduly unruly—Baumgartner later slandered opposition as “unhinged lunatics” – Kelso countered “it was needed given the dire situation the country is in. I’m from Germany. I know what fascism looks like. We are rapidly approaching 1939 [when Nazis invaded Poland]’” (Spokesman-Review, 3/18/25) -Norm Luther Spokane
Don’t forget the big picture
With all the Trump induced chaos challenging us to focus and survive, it is easy to overlook the big picture, the very, very big picture.
However, Earth Day approaches, as it does every year, and brings us back to the dire situation climate change continues to present.
The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, and 20,000,000 people rallied, marched and staged clean-ups across the country. Now, in 2025, Trump celebrates Earth Day by gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, impeding its ability to protect human health and the environment.
He withdraws the US from the Paris Climate Accord and the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change. He mans his administration with climate change deniers and shouts, “Drill, baby, drill.”
On Saturday, April 26 this year there will be a celebration of Earth Day, sponsored and guided by the Newport Creative District. The Pend Oreille Democrats are proud to participate with a booth at T J Kelly Park, 11am to 3 pm. We hope to see many of you who care about our Earth and want to continue to work for her survival.
-Martha Nichols Newport
Judiciary
To clarify, the person ‘mistakenly’ deported to El Salvador was deportable. The Trump administration alleges Garcia is an MS-13 gang member and hardened criminal. Due to a Biden asylum technicality, he just couldn’t be deported to El Salvador. They will pick him up and deport him somewhere else. As anticipated, injunctions against Trump policies are getting overturned in the upper courts and at SCOTUS. These judges are way out of line on national injunctions. So much so that Rep. Brandon Gill introduced legislation to get this stopped. Judges were not meant to be Co-Presidents.
Let’s do a hypothetical. We know that Biden appointed 235 judges. Imagine 100 of them were never Trump judges, and took that ideology to the bench. Imagine lawyers in NY, LA, or anywhere, just waiting for Trumps next EO.
As soon as it drops, they file a lawsuit. They can pick the judge to hear it. They pick one of the 100 and a nation-wide injunction is slapped on.
Now imagine never-(any President) judges in the upper courts and maybe someday in SCOTUS.
It’s not far-fetched to see that judg- es could run the country from the bench. Thomas Jefferson warned of this.
-Glen Pierce Spokane/Cusick
Resist oppression
It is appalling that the Trump regime is feverishly working to not only control information and education in our county, but to actually erase our history!
Trump recently signed an executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, considered one of the ‘crown jewels’ of museums in the world.
Trump said he wanted to remove information that portrays what he considers “improper ideology” of the United States. He is also targeting National Parks and Monuments to be changed to hide the parts of history that don’t fit with his regime’s distorted perspective. Arlington National Cemetery recently stripped from its website information on the history of heroic black and female service members buried there.
Controlling information of the free press, attacking judges because the regime doesn’t like their opinions, white-washing and distorting the Truth of history in our education system, and creating fear, anger, and division is a common Fascist play.
Without honestly looking at the Truth of our history ~ the achievements as well as the wrongs ~ we don’t grow and learn and take accountability as a nation.
I feel it is my patriotic duty to resist the oppressive and unconstitutional decrees put forth by this regime.
-Myriah Pazereckas Roy Colville
A little about me
One of my friends who is also working on getting the levy passed suggested that I tell people who I am. I do not like talking about myself but I suppose they’re right. I am not a native Idahoan. I was born in New York and graduated from high school and college there.
My two children and my wife’s four children all went to school here. As did most of our grandchildren.
I have now been here for 56 years. Helen was born in Council, Idaho.
Along the way I was involved with Booster Club (president for a few years), was part of the inaugural Loggers Day pancake feed. I announced football games for 25 years and gave as much time to the school as I could. I helped win the fight to start our own district.
I love PR and have been proud of our school system until a few years ago when it was infiltrated by an outside interest group that has tried to change what we are and what we stand for. I support public education but do believe that parents and their children have a right to choose the type of education they feel is best. This can be done without undermining public education. All this takes so many allowable words that I would rather put to use to promote our necessary levy.
-Ernie and Helen Schoeffel Priest River
Only one person is responsible for cost increases
Silverwood theme park should become Trumpwood. An economic Trump Coaster ride would go up and down so fast that it makes your eyes bleed. The end of the ride would put you out of the park and make you pay for re-admission. A FEMA ride would make you swim out to your car as it is swept away from the parking lot by a raging river of water and mud.
Half the kids at the park would have the measles and the wave pool would be full of E.coli. The train ride would have a derailment with every loop.
This summer I hope to take my grandkids to Silverwood and have a great time as usual, but who knows what will happen with Trump in control of our lives. Last year, when Biden was president, we had a great time at the park. This year, the gift shop will have items made in China starting at $250. A Kokanee beer will be $50. A $5 waffle with Canadian maple syrup will be $10 more.
No matter what we do this summer, it’s going to cost more and only one person is responsible for the cost increases. Trump needs your devotion.
-Pete Scobby Newport
A little story from your average white guy
I just got back from a dentist appointment and I want to let people know what happened there.
Two women attended me; one white woman and one non-white woman.
Everything went well and as I was leaving I said, “Please remember, Immigrants and Diversity are what make America great. Please pass it on.”
They both smiled broadly and said they will.
-Jeremy Street Cheney, Wash.
Tax reductions aren’t fair
Response to April 2 letter, “Trump Tax cuts.” The author uses a false analogy to justify their conclusion. They cite Forbes and use 2018 data, ETR data with a monetary value. In the conclusion of this resource, it stated, the outcome is not surprising since high-income taxpayers pay a higher tax burden.
I, however, focused on the verified tax bracket changes as a percentage in the TCJA’s reductions.
Investopedia listed the top income bracket falling from 39.6% to 37%, a 2.6% reduction. The middle-income brackets experienced a combined 8% reduction, with the middle-income seeing a 1%, 4% and 3% reduction, respectively. The author’s Forbes resource indicated the middle-income brackets benefited the greatest, with tax savings expressed as a percentage. The Investopedia resource also summarized, if the tax cuts expire, the TPC estimates that 53.4% of taxpayers will face a tax increase, with 69.7% of middle-income taxpayers paying more compared to only 8% of high-income earners. The JCT projects that 22 million households earning between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 26.6% more in 2027, while 629,000 households earning $1,000,000 will pay 1% less. Drop the mic!
-Renee Webster Newport
