Letters: Energy solutions, voting party lines, press freedom and more | March 1

Time has come for energy solutions

Environmental activists, led by our own governor, Jay Inslee, wish to see our dams, plus our coal-fired, natural gas-fired and nuclear-powered generators silenced. The sooner the better! Their Utopian world would be powered by the sun and wind. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? With their “reality blinders” on, they refuse to realize that in their world on a calm, dark night no power would be generated. Minor issue? Not if you have 1,000 thirsty acres under irrigation in July. Nor, if you are a homeowner on a freezing January night.

Dear Energy Northwest and participating utilities, please follow your gut instinct and start installing the new, 50-megawatt mini-nuclear reactors, ASAP. Get ahead of the obvious, future power demand curve.

Electrical demand is on the rise. Interest rates are low and stable. The time to act is now! If necessary, form a sub-set of Energy Northwest made up of sensible, realistic utilities to finance, build and operate the mini-reactors. Those utilities whose constituents are ‘dreamers’ need not participate.

Our society cannot afford brownouts. Please don’t be intimidated by a radical minority. While ardent environmentalists may be willing to live in trees and caves, the rest of us aren’t.

Don’t just vote your party’s line

I am a Democrat urging Republican voters (all really) to genuinely weigh their presidential candidate’s record rather than simply voting the party line.

Trump’s pathological narcissism renders him incapable of negotiating alliances. Trump abrogated hard-earned trade and defense agreements, plus the Paris Agreement on climate. Climate change denial is amoral.

Trump isn’t effective as a negotiator because he cannot be trusted, nor does he have the intellect. Heads of state manipulate him and make fun of him. Trump is frighteningly thin skinned. Iranian leader Soleimani’s assassination occurred shortly after he owned (embarrassed) Trump on Twitter.

Unwarranted disclosure of sensitive intelligence to Ambassador Lavrov in the Oval Office forced the abrupt extraction of our most valuable human asset in Russia. This profoundly hurt our ability to counter Putin.

Don’t be manipulated by Fox “News.” They knowingly pass Russian disinformation to you and our President, such as “Ukraine did it.” Traitorous acts.

Trump has used his office cruelly and has declared his intention to become ‘President for Life.” The presidency is now immune from impeachment, so your vote matters now more than ever. This is authoritarian rule.

Our November ballots will include a candidate better than Trump. Vote your conscience. Please.

SARC tells rights for crime victims

In Washington state, if you are a victim of a crime, survivor of a crime or witness to a crime, there are certain rights that are provided; see RCW 7.69.030 and RCW 7.69A.030.

At the Support Advocacy & Resource Center, we recognize the importance of the victim's participation throughout the criminal justice process and work to make sure survivors are educated about their rights and that those rights are upheld. Among these rights, victims of sexual assault have the right to have an advocate or other support person present during any legal or medical proceedings. See RCW 70.125.060.

Advocates also make sure that victims are aware of benefits they may be eligible for under the state's Crime Victims Compensation program (CVC). This program can help cover the cost of medical, dental, mental health, and/or wage loss. See RCW 7.68, WAC 296-30 & WAC 296-31. Advocates understand that the process is not straightforward and there may be many questions that come up.

If you are interested in working with an advocate or have additional questions, give us a call at 509-374-5391.

Press freedom now being abused

Freedom of the press was gained through hard-fought battles by brave souls.Today's news media is doing Americans a disservice by abusing the great power with which they were endowed.

Owners of news media are just people. People like you and me. People like Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Turner and Jeff Bezos, with feelings, emotions, experiences, prejudices and beliefs. People who want things their way, to advance careers or have an agenda.

Editorials/opinions are one thing, but front page headlines are quite another. I used to turn on the TV or read the front page, just to keep abreast of what was going on in the world. News was non-partisan, informative, and fair. Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley would deliver the news. Now we have an overabundance of Prima donnas delivering opinions, enhanced with sensationalism, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on any device available.

“Journalists” now frame questions with unverified facts, or worse, their own opinion, and assume a majority agrees with them. Whether motivated by fame or fortune, today's press only wants to pressure, accuse, embarrass and sway opinion. Wielding power irresponsibly is not their place, but it is abuse of power.

Senate contradicts our democracy

It has happened! The Senate of our United States government has approved of and now obviously supports the impeachable actions of Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America. Aquitted or not, he is now one more gigantic step closer to an autonomous ruler and a total contradiction of constitutional law and a democratic system of governing.

In November 2020, the American voter will have the power to remove Donald Trump from office. That power must be taken seriously since four more years of our current president will guarantee the destruction of our form of government as we know it.

Good start for Richland in 2020

Last night was a great start at giving notice to the Richland City Council, city manager and new mayor that Richland citizens are watching how their money is being a spent.

Randy Slovic hit them with the fact that the council probably doesn’t read the spending documents and that the few items reviewed in the meeting were insignificant compared to understanding the total budget. Lloyd Becker, as usual, pointed out the lack of technical information for proposed project changes.

Joel Rogo, director of the dance studio, reminded the city to stick to its promises not to impact the studio with proposed projects. Best of all was the turnout of 30 or more people supporting improvements at the area animal shelter. You might think this request is not important, but their clear message was, keep your commitments and listen to what we want versus what the city manager wants, pointing out that “the new City Hall wasn’t needed.”

The removal of both the Richland mayor and mayor pro-tem positions was great. Now it is time to get the city manager in line to help the council listen to their citizen’s desires for use of their taxes.

This story was originally published March 1, 2020 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Letters: Energy solutions, voting party lines, press freedom and more | March 1."