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Timex watch ‘takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’
To the editor, I am getting a new shoulder soon which I will invite all my friends to sign. That means I will be working one handed through winter so my firewood has to be split ahead of time for a one handed recovery. This has been a three month project, a friend cuts, then I gather it up, take it in and split and stack. Sometimes I have to chop saw and cut off a couple inches so it will fit in the stove because my friend who has a heart the size of a watermelon cuts it a wee bit long. When I cut with a chop saw I stand on the left, not in line with the blade and the off piece cutting on the right side. Well, firewood is uneven and doesn’t fit to the back fence well. Almost finished, I cut a piece and was slammed.
Stunned, I decided it must be quitting time. It required a glass of whiskey by the fish pond so I could decide if I was seriously hurt. Amazingly, a little whiskey and when a half an hour had passed I stopped hurting. In exploring for damage I discovered the piece of wood had nailed me right in the pace maker! If Boeing built airplanes as well as that pace maker was built, they would not have quality problems. It is quite squished and about ¾ of an inch wider than it used to be. The part that mushed out of one side is bumpy. It took all of the impact, I am not even bruised!
Cardiology is monitoring me, they say it is still working fine! They will let me know if I die, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue to worry about.
-Roger Castle
Newport
The 2025 nightmare
To the editor, The crooked Republican party finally came out with something that they really planned on doing and that was destroying our country and our democracy.
There are people in our country that have never ever worked, they’ve depended on welfare to survive food stamps to live on. There are the elderly that live on Social Security, there’s the disabled that live on Social Security disability. There’s the veteran’s benefits that would be gone as well. Low income anything would not be any longer.
People would no longer be able to pay rent, buy groceries, get medical care, and the list goes on.
Republicans you better start waking up, because project 2025 will affect you just as well as it’ll affect anybody else.
Oh don’t forget marijuana won’t be legal anymore or anyone nor will abortions.
You should read this and think about it. Better yet look into the project 2025 for yourself.
-Jeannie Hutchins
Newport
What did I learn?
To the editor, On June 29th I attended a candidate forum at the American Legion in Metaline Falls. This was an opportunity to see and hear candidates for the 7th Legislative District, 5th Congressional candidates and local individuals running for County Offices and the PUD position. Attending this type of forum provides an opportunity to hear directly from the candidates. To hear of their accomplishments, their qualifications, their goals and overall reasoning for seeking public office. I was primarily focused on the Commissioner positions.
Two candidates seeking the County Commissioner office for District #1, an incumbent and challenger. This is the same for District #3. What I witnessed concerns the incumbents, their statements and overall observations taken from my notes compiled at the forum.
One incumbent started his presentation with “where’s the beef?” How this was relevant going forward in his presentation was inexplicable. There was no message as to what he had accomplished as commissioner, no goals or present condition of the County. The other incumbent stressed his lifelong residency in the County and stressed that a higher voice called him to serve the County. Character was his #1 issue he brought to the table. Both attributes are admirable but does not translate into goals for the County and solutions to the challenges at hand or in the near future.
Numerous questions surround the present direction of our County. The two incumbent County Commissioners seem unable, or unwilling, to articulate how their election will strengthen our County, how challenges will be met, what plans and goals are bring developed or considered.
-Robert W. Schutte
Newport
Biden conspiracy doesn’t exist
To the editor, As usual fellow letter writer Kamori Cattadoris has it wrong on Biden and the media. This isn’t the left-wing media from 50 years ago, it’s today’s corporate media owned mostly by Republicans seeking clicks and views to make money. Journalism is gone except for some local papers like The Miner.
Fox News paid $787.5 million in a lawsuit settlement for lying about voting machines and the 2020 election. Fox still makes tons of money lying to gullible people like Cattadoris.
What remains of leftwing media is supersizing Biden’s debate performance failure in a futile attempt to keep up with the Trump MAGA media of lying for money. Biden is the same person he was in January when he gave the State of the Union speech. This episode reminds me of benching a quarterback that throws an interception, and then folds to the fair-weather fans demands to kick him off the team.
The Cattadoris conspiracy doesn’t exist. Biden isn’t a puppet for anyone and lying to gain power is a Trump thing. You might as well say you read The Miner on Sunday when it isn’t published.
Biden can stay or go, but we cannot allow Trump to implement project 2025. The Heritage Foundation president said he wants a second American revolution, and it can be bloodless if people like me allow it. Otherwise, we are looking at the barrel of a gun wielded by MAGA nutjobs who want to kill people over identity politics. Thousands of dead people will be in our streets and Trump will lie and say he knows nothing about it.
This November, voting may be the most hazardous thing we do. Authoritarian style government accepts no opposition. Voting against the leader (Trump) could mean imprisonment and death.
-Pete Scobby
Newport
Young and Minnich show and tell?
To the editor, Two candidates for County Commissioner share the same campaign promise: “End the Growth Management Act (GMA).”
At the June 29th Legion Meet and Greet, Steven Minnich led off with, “The Growth Management Act has to go. I don’t call it the Growth Management Act, I call it the Gross Mismanagement Act.”
Kevin Young followed with, “One of the first things I plan on doing is doing away with the Growth Management Act.”
When pressed on details of how this is to be accomplished, both Young and Minnich have, so far, remained mute.
The RCW’s (RCW 36.70A.040.(2)(b)(i) ) state that the opt-out option ended December 31, 2015. The Court of Appeals referenced that RCW in their Statement of Facts, Case 53038-4-II, Opinion in 2020.
Our own Senator Shelly Short has sponsored numerous bills to let small counties opt-out or modify GMA requirements; going back at least to 2019. Senator Short has all the Senate’s legal research staff at her disposal. If there was an “easy-out,” wouldn’t she have found it?
Would an attempt to “end the GMA” for Pend Oreille County slip unnoticed past the ReGressives and FutureWise? FutureWise has waged lawfare on neighboring Ferry County over their opt-out since 2017.
If there’s going to be a Quixotic legal marathon, who’s picking up the tab for the County’s legal fees? The taxpayers?
If Minnich and Young have a plan to end the GMA, they apparently know more than the courts, the Attorney General, and all the attorneys at FutureWise combined.
If there IS a “Double-Secret Magic Plan,” let’s hear it.
Now. Before the election.
Pend Oreille County voters shouldn’t buy a pig – or an elephant – in a poke.
Show and Tell, gentlemen. Show and Tell.
-Norm Smith
Diamond Lake
Stop endangering the rest of us
To the editor, On the evening of July 4th, a long-time business of Sandpoint burned to the ground after illegal fireworks caught the building on fire. And yet, the insanity continues with an absolute epidemic of huge aerial mortars and rockets fired off by private parties in our neighborhoods, fields, and forests.
The Idaho Fireworks Act of 1997 prohibits the private use of all aerial fireworks and common sense would tell you to do the same.
However, many scofflaw people act as if it is their God-given right to do as they please. Endangering all of our homes, businesses, properties and public lands. Elected officials and law enforcement – start doing your job and vigorously enforce the law. And to the people breaking the law – stop this idiotic behavior that is endangering us all.
-Dwight Tucker
Priest River
