Letters for Feb. 20, 2024
Policing needs laws, too
Police are necessary. “Good” policing by ethical, honest and insightful officers is much appreciated.
However, as long as their “blue wall” has them turn a blind eye, at least, or worse, actively provide cover for badly behaving officers, the stain of those bad officers marks them all.
Everyone who has ever tried to fight a traffic ticket has experienced how police will lie.
So yes, appreciate and support good policing, but do not give them a blank check, metaphorically or literally.
The police must be policed as well.
Tom Topping
Millwood
Good riddance, CMR
It’s a very good day when Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers announces she’s quitting the nation’s least productive Congress in 50 years.
I’m bemused by the praise heaped on her by GOP loyalists. Despite her popularity in some circles, she has betrayed the 5th Congressional District.
She claimed to “fight for veterans” but has been unable to halt a no-bid contract the Trump administration gave to Oracle Cerner for a new VA computer system that an S-R investigation revealed as a failure, causing delays and death for sick veterans.
She opposed lowering the cost of insulin and voted repeatedly against the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law that provided health care to millions.
Over 20 years, she has also opposed family leave legislation, raising the minimum wage and child care subsidies. She celebrated when the Supreme Court gutted women’s reproductive rights in the Dobbs decision.
Recently, she nominated Christian nationalist backbencher Mike Johnson as House Speaker, the leader of a plot to overthrow the 2020 election results, which she supported in an amicus brief in Texas v. Pennsylvania. She continued until the day that Trump’s U.S. Capitol mob put her own life at risk.
A compliant corporatist, she also held the House record in 2022 for PAC donations from special interests.
With CMR’s departure, we can do far better. Let’s remember that we were once represented by talented Democrat Tom Foley, who rose to House Majority Leader and House Speaker. History can repeat itself – if we work for it.
Karen Dorn Steele
Spokane
School officials scratching their heads, why?
School officials are scratching their heads over the bond failure and lower approval vote for the levy? Property tax collections have increased 41% since 2019 according to the Spokane County Treasurer’s Office. That’s $239,000,000! Property tax payments have skyrocketed for Spokane residents (even though we are constantly fed the nonsense that property tax valuation increases won’t translate into property tax increases). Schools get 59% of that, or $141,000,000. What is being done with that money and why do the schools or the other government entities need even more funds? How many of Spokane’s residents have seen their income increase by 41% since 2019? Scratching their heads? I’d say it’s a wonder that voters have taken this long to wake up. This time it was the bonds; next time it might be the levy too.
Michael Dugger
Spokane