Letters for April 25, 2024
End the era of ‘do-nothingism’
Our local and state Republican Party organizations put on quite a show in the last week. The county party couldn’t even accurately tally its own scoring system for congressional candidates. The state party is so divided it tried to forgo an endorsement in the governor’s race, with both candidates condemning the party leadership at different points of the convention.
Such missteps might be merely irritating or amusing, depending on one’s political bent. But it should also remind all local voters how completely dysfunctional the Republican Party has become on the state and national levels. Come November, Eastern Washington voters can help end this era of chaos and “do-nothingism” in Congress.
Robin Rauzi
Spokane
Good foreign policy is make or break
Carmela Conroy gives Eastern Washington voters the unusual, important opportunity to elect a foreign policy expert as their U.S. representative. As a foreign service officer for 24 years, she served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Norway, New Zealand and Tom Foley’s Japan office.
U.S. voters must weigh foreign policy experience much more heavily than usual in their 2024 voting decisions. Electing wannabe dictator Donald Trump would be a huge catastrophe for our national security by his policies towards Ukraine and Russia, with most congressional Republicans as his weak lackeys. Foreign policy expertise is also prerequisite for ending the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Trump has accepted uncaringly.
Trump makes clear he admires Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. His 2018 Helsinki, Finland, remarks showed him trusting Putin’s word over U.S. intelligence. Putin continually manipulates Trump. Trump told Putin-friendly Viktor Orban, Hungarian autocrat, he would “not give a penny” to Ukraine if elected.
Like retiring Cathy McMorris Rodgers, no Republican candidate has foreign policy experience. They praise McMorris Rodgers, calling her their mentor – raising the danger that any would just repeat her role among dysfunctional House Republicans and support incompetent Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she nominated. Like her, would they lack courage to ever confront Johnson – or Trump – though voicing support for Ukraine? Johnson, at Trump’s behest, twice withheld full House votes on urgent funding for Ukraine despite sufficient bipartisan votes for passage.
Alarmingly, would they copy her recent vote to shut down the government?
Democratic candidates can do better. Foreign policy matters, especially now. Elect Carmela Conroy.
Norm Luther
Spokane
Minimum wage too low in Idaho
Idaho Gov. Brad Little should have vetoed House Bill 545, which will ensure Idaho’s working poor remain not just poor but also at imminent risk of outright homelessness. Idaho stubbornly clings to a federal minimum wage of $7.25, unchanged since 2009 despite huge increases in both rents and cost of living generally.
It’s Orwellian doublespeak for Moscow Rep. Brandon Mitchell to prohibit cities and counties from capping rents or requiring landlords to accept federal housing vouchers because “we need to have as many properties in the state as we can, and that’s what brings prices down for affordable housing.”
Who put Mitchell up to this undemocratic and inhumane legislation? Has he ever visited and spoken with residents at any of the Moscow area mobile home parks affected by his bill? I knew people in the now-vacant Syringa park and have friends at Appaloosa, Palouse Hills, Abiel and Woodland Heights (formerly Valhalla, for us old-timers). These are hard-working people largely in the service economy, as well as veterans, disabled and older folks and kids, who are now being threatened with eviction by a predatory cartel that recently bought up the above parks and immediately jacked lot rents 40-55% overnight.
Chris Norden
Moscow, Idaho
Our current day civil war
The drive by vulgar and racist verbal attack on out-of-state students as they walk on Sherman Avenue is another incident in our nation’s current civil war. We have identified ourselves as Blue or Red, not Gray. The actors in these cars are right-wing loyalists in their cause, attacking not with guns or cannons, but with extreme ideology, radical and extreme social behavior. Soon, we will make the choices we make, and we’ll see our future before us.
Larry Lanning
Spokane