LETTER OF THE WEEK
The emperor(s) appear to be buck nekkid!
Editor,
I am reminded of this children’s fable frequently when listening to the daily news.
President Trump and his tool, Elon Musk (or is it the other way around?), make statements daily that defy logic or truth, fail to offer evidence of the fraud and abuse they claim to have found, and as of yesterday, seem to think that they can rewrite the history of Russia’s war on Ukraine as if the American people and indeed the world don’t know that Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago and “annexed” Crimea in 2014.
Who do they think they are fooling? Surely the American public does not go along with this view or the assault on science, scientists and common sense.
I am embarrassed by our president. He must be stopped before our status in the world is completely destroyed, before world dictators take advantage of his weaknesses, and before any more starving children are denied life-saving food in order to fund a billionaire’s dreams of traveling to Mars and other such schemes.
Nancy Sheng
Bellingham
Editor,
Notwithstanding the sufferings of the patients and extraordinary challenges of the staff at the ER, what’s really intolerable is that Whatcom County now has a population of 232,000, with one ER, and has had the same ER since I moved here in 1978 when the population of Bellingham was 41,000 and there were two hospitals. What is wrong with this picture? While we have numerous urgent care clinics supposedly designed to handle the overflow, they hardly make a dent in the overall burden.
The current ER is simply not designed to handle the size of Whatcom County’s population. PeaceHealth is derelict in its service to our community by providing substandard care — with no reflection on its staff — as it has neither the space nor the staffing to serve the people needing emergent care. Somehow, the people of Whatcom County need to demand better.
Elizabeth Smith
Bellingham
Editor,
Peter Murray’s recent piece explains all of the problems being dumped on us by presidential decree and his billionaire co-president (CDN, Feb. 19, 2025). One solution is definitely to call those who represent you, 202-224-3121, and tell them to stand up for the people, since it is Congress that controls the purse. Ask them to support an expanded child tax credit and an increase in the SNAP program to end hunger, rather than extra tax breaks for the rich. And keep calling each day, asking your friends to do the same. Together we can make a difference.
Willie Dickerson
Snohomish
Editor,
As part of a border community, with family on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border, President Trump’s bullying policy and verbal attacks on our Canadian neighbors are an embarrassment and must be called out for what they are — poisonous, damaging and dangerous.
Canada has long been one of our most loyal allies and reliable trading partners. Canada, along with Mexico, under pressure from Trump in his first term, agreed to replace the previous NAFTA trade agreement with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). This agreement was negotiated and signed by Trump and came into effect on July 1, 2020 — during Trump’s first term.
Now less than five years later, Trump chooses to violate his own previous trade agreement by imposing onerous new tariffs on Canada that are counterproductive and harmful. Such capricious policy shifts destroy U.S. credibility as a reliable business partner. It is a costly mistake for multiple reasons, including that we will all end up paying an inflationary “tariff tax” on our future purchases.
Just as inexcusable is Trump’s juvenile taunting of Canada as our future “51st state.” He may feign it as all in humor, but it is not. His own White House spokesperson and others repeat it. It is wrong and cruel language designed to humiliate our ally and friend. It is not humorous. It’s damaging and dangerous. It provides a permission structure to other countries, especially Russia and China, to bully their neighbors.
Might does not make right. We cannot accept this dark ethos and mistreatment of our friends and neighbors in Canada.
Nathan Pyles
Lynden
Editor,
As the gangster states of Russia and the U.S. seek to expand their territories, we need to examine the history of ideas leading to this new world order where democracy no longer exists. The federal governments of both empires have long failed to deliver basic health and security to large segments of their populations, and both have embarked on ethnic cleansing and institutionalized bigotry.
Putin and Trump may represent competing gangster states, but they have a lot in common.
Jay Taber
Blaine
Editor,
In regards to the recent article on inter-border relations (CDN, Feb. 20, 2025), the first of many I am sure we will be presented within the foreseeable future, I would like to draw your attention to the description text of the last photograph: “With skyscrapers of White Rock visible …”
Now even I as a humble dual citizen living in the heavily wooded hills above the sheening waters of Lake Whatcom know that them ain’t no skyscrapers. Apartment buildings or condo towers sure, but skyscrapers — no.
Ian Craigie
Sudden Valley
Editor,
Just plain keep it up!
Elliott Almond’s article on Suzanne Simard and the iconic Douglas fir was just one more piece that is so relevant to readers and to the Great Pacific Northwest (I really love writing that; we are so fortunate to live here).
In the relatively short time that our family has had an actual subscription — replacing the Herald with the CDN — it has become apparent to me that the Cascadia is committed to bringing vital public issues into public focus. And this is just such an issue. If we are to live responsibly in these incredibly troubled times — I’m thinking the next four years at this point — then we need the kind of information that the Cascadia thrives on providing. So … a big thank you for whomever on your staff took the trouble to provide this article. I remain so appreciative.
Leaf Schumann
Deming
Editor,
When I was a young man of 19, not able to vote and not fully aware of the ignorance of warmongers like JFK and Nixon, I learned that it is true that old men always send young, naive men to fight their battles.
As a young man trying to stay in school and avoid the catastrophe that was the Vietnam War, my country changed the deferment rules, then demanded and got four years of my still-developing life. It also killed nearly 60,000 young men of my generation to fight a supposed enemy mainly to send a message to China and Russia. That was my “coming home” moment.
Other than being allowed to kill young men of my generation, while making me complicit in the murder of young Asian men, America left me only one other choice … to flee my country for Canada. But that was beyond my ability to reject the patriotic feelings, drummed into me by my father who had fought real enemies and promoters of fascism. The type of fascism Trump embraces.
So I chose to enlist and avoid being just more grist for the war mill by giving up four years of my life in hopes of surviving. Oh, I still saw young men die up close and personal, in the Navy Air Corps, but I survived.
Yet now with time and perspective, I feel it is fair to say that the Vietcong never did a tiny percentage of real damage to my country of the type being done right now by Trump and his ignorant followers.
It seems there will never be any piper paid by these fools. Absent a draft, sending young men to die for the sins of old men has become so ingrained, maybe America is just getting what it deserves. And that is profoundly saddening.
Michael Waite
Sedro-Woolley
Letters to the Editor are published online Wednesdays; a selection is published in print Fridays. Send to letters@cascadiadaily.com by 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Rules: Maximum 250 words, be civil, have a point and make it clearly. Preference is given to letters about local subjects. CDN reserves the right to reject letters or edit for length, clarity, grammar and style, or removal of personal attacks or offensive content. Letters must include an address/phone number to verify the writer's identity (not for publication).
Port commissioner: Add tariffs, border strife to expansion woes at Bellingham’s airport