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Letters, week of Feb. 5, 2025: Our friendly neighbors up north, wellness centers and ‘Dems, snap out of it’

Send letters, maximum 250 words, to letters@cascadiadaily.com

By Audra Anderson Assistant Editor
Editor,

The proposed WIAA amendments  (CDN, Jan. 27,2025) sound an awful lot like the “separate and equal” sophistry used to discriminate against minority students across America for decades.

How exactly are the two trans athletes in Alaska to compete in any team sport besides tennis? It strains credulity to argue there will be near enough trans athletes to form reasonable teams and league competition even in more-populous Washington state. That is built in inequity, plain and simple. You have your own division, but it’s not our fault you don’t have enough student-athletes to play against.

Rodd Pemble
Bellingham
Editor,

Is it too soon?

Too soon, that is, to talk about impeaching Donald Trump?

I don’t think so. Leave aside, if you can, his cruelty. Cruelty is not an impeachable offense. Leave aside, if you can, his incompetent policies. Incompetence is not an impeachable offense.

However, Trump’s freeze on federal spending is cruel. It is incompetent, both in concept and delivery. And more importantly for the question of impeachment, it is both illegal due to specific laws (since 1974) and unconstitutional in its general intent. He clearly intends to seize Congress’s control of American finances for himself.

The Constitution is vague on just what constitutes an impeachable offense, but if violating the law and the Constitution, creating chaos, and harming tens of millions of Americans does not qualify, nothing does.

It is not too soon, it is time for impeachment No. 3, and this time, let’s make it stick.

Greg Beatty
Bellingham
Editor,

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are being separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Written by Anne Frank 82 years ago, these words sound prescient for today’s MAGA-magisterial regime. Ending civil rights protections, withdrawing from global health and climate alliances, and freezing federal aid are just the start of a litany that amounts to brazen, illegal seizure of power. Not to mention unimaginable suffering.

If it looks and sounds like a coup, then … it’s hardly a surprise. The cartoonish, yet cruel, would-be emperor said as much, whatever his flimsy denials. He is, after all, a true Ameri-con.

So, what now? “Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice … but to carry on,” as Stephen Stills sang? Or heed Gandhi’s exhortation, that “civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt.”

Your choice. Our choice.

James Loucky
Bellingham
Editor,

“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.”

Thank you, Cascadia Daily News, for filling the gap in local news coverage. You’re doing a great job.

Now, with the new administration in the other Washington, you are called to do more. With every fresh executive order threatening our civil rights, our planet and even our lives, we all need to speak up. 

The immediate outcry in response to the freeze on federal grants and aid led to that order being rescinded. Yes, the courts can require the administration to obey the law, but that’s a long and expensive process, and with the current U.S. Supreme Court, not assured. We used to rely on an independent national media to speak truth to power. Bezos’ Washington Post and Disney’s ABC have already capitulated, and Jim Acosta has been sidelined at CNN. Fox News rules.

Now it’s up to CDN to uphold the First Amendment on behalf of our region. Please report on how this fresh new hell is affecting local residents, immigrants in our community, federal employees who live here, the services we rely on, and the prices in our grocery stores. Speak up!

Marian Exall
Bellingham
Editor,

Last week I re-read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984,” borrowed — in one volume — from the Bellingham Public Library. A useful primer on what we’re beginning to face.

Curt Wolters
Bellingham
Editor,

Why do Democrats keep getting drubbed in elections? Look no further than the Letters to Editor (CDN, Jan. 28, 2025) about the new Bellingham Shipping Terminal tenant. I watched FOX News pundits squawk for years about “coastal liberal elites that don’t care about workers.” That can’t be true, can it?

The BST is now facilitating the shipment of … gravel! That’s right, what our roads and driveways are made of. What’s worse they’ll ship it on … trucks! Like the ones that deliver every product in our homes plus the material they are built out of.

I doorbell heavily for the Whatcom Democratic Party and have been yelled at, cursed at and threatened. By far the worst experience ever was asking for the vote of a member of our local Longshoremen’s Union making his living in part through work at the BST. His reply was to puzzle over why he was being treated like a criminal by supposedly pro-middle-class, pro-union liberal voters.

Climate change is killing middle class people and their livelihoods alike. Amazing things are happening though! The BST will soon be connected to the rail system and there are already hydrogen fuel cell train locomotives operating in the U.S. The Port is upgrading the BST’s electrical systems to provide clean power to boats berthing there to reduce diesel emissions. Let’s earn back those moderate working-class votes by instead writing letters pushing our leaders to support clean energy jobs.

Andrew Shelton
Democratic Precinct Offer, Precincts 241 and 158
Editor,

Heartfelt thanks to our Swinomish neighbors for their extraordinary gifts of expertise and resources to fight the opioid epidemic in Whatcom County. As reported by CDN on Dec. 4 and Dec. 29, 2024, and Jan. 21, Whatcom County was approached by the tribe with the offer of two mobile medical units and a Bellingham clinic staffed and supported by the tribe. Based on their successful Didgʷálič Wellness Center in Anacortes, they will show us the way to support the recovery of those facing addiction here in Whatcom County. The tribe is also offering free transportation to the Anacortes Wellness Center for primary and dental care. Bellingham City Council member Dan Hammill also deserves thanks for being the first point of contact with the tribe to initiate this effort with the city and county.

In this time of division and fear, our Swinomish neighbors are showing us what it means to live in community, and to include in that community those who struggle. We extend our deepest gratitude for these gifts.

Ellie Posel and Stephen Gockley
Bellingham
Editor,

There has been much discussion about birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There are five sections in the amendment. Section one, sentence one, is the only portion that addresses citizenship. I quote: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

I am not a lawyer. I am a native user of American English. The word “and” appears twice in the sentence. The first “and” indicates two requirements for citizenship. The first is to be “born or naturalized in the United States.” The second is to be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” It is not enough to just be born in the United States to be a citizen.

Any dictionary of the English language indicates that the word “jurisdiction,” used in this context, indicates the authority to make legal decisions. Parents have jurisdiction over their minor children. Countries have jurisdiction over their citizens, even when they travel or live abroad. It is possible for countries to have jurisdiction over non-citizens, such as the former slaves after the Civil War.

Children born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens, belong to the country which has jurisdiction over the parents. Parents who give birth, outside of their country, register the birth with a diplomatic facility representing their country to document jurisdiction of the child.

Doug Lilyroth
Lummi Island
Editor,

Reading the reports about the recent hearings to determine suitability of the nominees for various cabinet offices, I realized that I was wrong to keep posing the question, “How’s this working out for you guys?” to the people who voted for Trump. I should be asking all the people who DIDN’T vote, who couldn’t be bothered to vote, if they like what they’ve seen since Jan. 20. You know, the ones who said there’s no difference between Biden and Trump. Those guys.

I also should pose the same question to the ones who voted for some third-party candidate, one who had no chance of winning. The voters who wanted the country to know how “pure” they are. The ones who haven’t figured out that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and thus wind up with neither, but instead now have the horrible, and for four years. Those guys.

Voting is NOT the time for virtue-signaling. A vote is too important to be wasted that way. Go march in protest, or put a sign on your lawn, or a sticker on your car, if you want to virtue-signal. But make your vote — the most important tool a citizen has — count, so that the person who wins is someone who is competent, and sane, not someone high on his own importance.

Lauren St.Pierre
Fairhaven
Editor,

As I watched the hearing for RFK Jr., I was filled with sadness. There were our democratic representatives, hostile and disinterested in answers. They wanted to repeat the meaningless soundbites meant to inflame and cause distrust. No interest or curiosity in what Kennedy knows that they do not know. In addition, they did not put forth any ideas or solutions to our abysmal health status. 

My father, who ran for public office, taught me to think and read critically and be curious about the complexity of issues. In order to debate meaningfully, you must truly understand other perspectives. In this age of labels and the ability to instantly transmit ideas to the world, we are pushed farther apart and woefully unequipped to solve problems. It takes time, work, the ability to admit to being wrong and the recognition that as a society, we are uninformed and intolerant. 

That was NOT a “hearing” as there was not much listening or respect, and the model for our electorate was not good. There is no such thing as “misinformation” — there is just information which must be fairly evaluated for veracity.

Marian Neevel
Bellingham
Editor,

Ron Judd’s column on the water rights legal saga (CDN, Jan. 24, 2025) effectively summarizes the perspectives of farmers, conservationists and tribes. But the “only likely solution” offered, basically adding large reservoirs/dams, is last-century thinking.

The good news is there are solutions to make our watersheds more resilient, and what’s more, they are not top-down, capital-intensive, or a government mandate. Every resident of Whatcom County can contribute to starting tomorrow, and local Conservation Districts have been teaching how for years.

How did we get here? Immigrants moved in over the last 150 years, clearing land and building roads and roofs over more and more of the landscape. These “impervious surfaces” speed up water, leading to erosion, pollution and rapid runoff, and decreasing infiltration back into our aquifers.

But the same is true in reverse: Simple swales can divert runoff from every driveway, rain gardens can collect from every roof, small ponds and stormwater basins sink road runoff in for a fraction of the price of dams. Conservation hydrology is proven science. The “Slow It – Spread It – Sink It” approach, with techniques like drip irrigation, contour tillage, rotational grazing, grey water, water catchment, restoring native vegetation, etc., can transform our landscape back to hydrological plenty.

And these small-scale solutions don’t cost much or even require permits in many cases. Start tomorrow! References: www.whatcomcd.org/crep.

Pliny Keep
Bellingham
Editor,

On Jan. 29, an airliner collided with a Black Hawk helicopter in the Washington, D.C. area. Sixty-seven people died in that crash. And Donald Trump is making the situation worse.

No one could make it better: It is a genuine tragedy. But Trump attributed the crash to diversity and diversity-related policies. He did so before an investigation had been completed, and when asked how he knew, he said it was “common sense.”

To speak without knowledge is quite literally to be ignorant. To speak before an investigation has been completed shows poor judgment.

And to say it is “common sense” that diversity initiatives caused a fatal crash is simple racism.

This is not someone who should be president. This is someone whose every action demonstrates he lacks the mindset and character the position requires.

Greg Beatty
Bellingham
Editor,

You have rightly said that now more than ever your readers will need to be alert to governmental actions affecting our community. I imagine you’d agree that they must also be ready to respond to their elected officials so as to express their views of what’s happening. In order to do so, people need to know something about how our local, state and national governments work, and I have often heard friends worry that our schools no longer teach civics.

Well, fortunately, the state of Washington does mandate civics education, both as a stand-alone course required for high school graduation and as a component of the social studies curriculum K-12. To better inform the community about what our students are learning and what needs teachers and schools may have in order to implement the requirements, the League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County will host a panel discussion at 10 a.m. on Feb. 22 at the Unitarian Fellowship in Bellingham. The panel will feature Kristin Garlatz of Meridian Middle School, Shannon Eubank of Sehome High School, and Kristi Dominguez, Superintendent of Ferndale Schools. It will be in question-and-answer format. To participate in person or by Zoom, readers can register on the League’s website, at lwvbellinghamwhatcom.org. There is no charge for this program.

Minda Rae Amiran
Bellingham
Editor,

Re: “Guest writer: Under Trump, the global ‘Doomsday Clock’ creeps closer to midnight” (CDN, Jan. 28, 2025)

This sort of over-blown, irrational and excessive opinion detracts from your reputation as a reliable purveyor of national issues. There is no legitimate justification for inclusion of this sort of garbage in a responsible newspaper. The media today has a tendency to make the worst of the current political environment, instead of attempting to report facts without negative editorializing. I’m deeply distressed by the actions of this administration, but see no point in making them sound even worse. A more reasoned approach is necessary to a responsible publication.

Paul Beckman
Ravensdale, King County

(Editor’s note: This was submitted not as factual reporting, but as an opinion piece.)

Editor,

Donald J. Trump claims he does not drink alcohol. But, he appears to be on a bender, shooting executive orders from a barstool.

The chaos Trump, his multi-billionaire enforcer Elon Musk, and faithful acolytes have created in the first three weeks of this administration has wreaked considerable damage, direct and collateral.

Trump’s sweeping move to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans threw individuals, schools, governmental entities and other organizations, in red and blue states, into a panic. A court quickly intervened to restrain the administration. Following the court’s ruling, the Office of Management and Budget rescinded Trump’s freeze order. Common sense prevailed, for now.

Another one of Trump’s antics was the firing of 17 inspectors general, who served as watchdogs at a variety of agencies. The purge, at least in its timing, was illegal. When are Trump supporters going to realize that “drowning government in the bathtub” hurts them, too?

Trump’s indiscriminate governing by executive fiat and strongarm slogans is no way to run a country. The “checks and balances” system of our government — the executive, legislative and judicial branches — was intended to ensure the balance of power remains steady.

The courts and Congress, as the other two co-equal branches of government must be the designated drivers to get us home safely — we, the people, need to put their feet to the fire.

And, snap out of it Democrats. A lot of people worked hard for you in the last election, so stop moping and wringing your hands and get to work.

Micki Jackson
Bellingham

Audra Anderson is CDN’s assistant editor; reach her at audraanderson@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 115.

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