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Is our president fit?
There was a lot of talk about Biden’s age during the last presidential race, and rightly so. He was 81 years old, and showing his age in several ways – lack of stamina, memory lapses, etc. He was our oldest sitting president ever. And yet our other choice was only 3 years younger, and currently at age 80, will soon be our even more oldest sitting president. Since Trump’s first term, his health has deteriorated some, as you would expect a senior citizen’s health to do. But since he took office in 2024, his mental health has plummeted. He has fallen asleep during a LOT of meetings, has problems with memory, makes slack faces, has strange bruising, can’t keep all his facts straight – multiple signs of dementia there. He surely doesn’t seem fit, from his actions and words.
I love my elderly parents and neighbors. But their aging brains and bodies shouldn’t be in charge of one of the world’s most powerful countries. We (and the world) deserve better.- Meg Lyman Deer Park
Election fraud
Wow! It didn’t take WA’s Secretary of State (SoS) long to respond to Trump’s speech about fraud in our elections. The fact that several SoS’s put out OP Eds tells me that they may have been pre-written and ready to go. Trump told us ahead of time what his speech would be about. They are in full panic mode, trying to get ahead of the narrative.
Anybody with half an ounce of research ability knows there has been fraud in our elections for years. It was even said that JFK was elected by fraud. This is nothing new. Anybody that doesn’t think there is fraud, go rent the documentary ‘2,000 Mules.’ You can watch it happen on security camera footage. Several days after Trump’s speech, they found thousands of non-citizens on New Jersey’s voter rolls. That’s why they don’t want DOJ looking at voter rolls. When was the last Republican Governor elected in WA State? Right before we went to mail-in voting.
I think one of a couple of things may happen prior to the mid-terms. Congress passes the ‘Save America Act’ or Trump calls a National Security Threat from foreign interference. I could be wrong.
-Glen Pierce Spokane/Cusick
Enough is enough
I have serious concerns about Proposition 1 and the proposed $51 million bond for Newport Community Hospital.
I understand the need for a good local hospital, and I appreciate the care provided by the people who work there. But we need to ask a simple question: Can our community afford another major tax increase?
The proposal is described as costing approximately $37 per month—or $444 per year—for a home valued at $300,000. That is a significant new expense, particularly in a county where many residents are seniors living on fixed incomes.
And the timing could hardly be worse. Property owners are already facing substantial increases in assessed valuations and, consequently, higher property tax bills. In our case, our assessed value increased 26.5%. Now we’re being asked to approve another long-term tax obligation on top of those increases.
The hospital may be dated, but it is currently serving our community.
Before committing taxpayers to $51 million in new debt for up to 30 years, shouldn’t we be looking carefully at less expensive alternatives, phasing improvements over time, seeking other funding sources, or determining what is truly essential?
There is only so much money to go around. Every new tax, bond, and fee comes out of the same family budget— and many of us are already paying more than enough.
-Scott Roberts Newport
Look at hospital, PUD for communism
Letter writer Kamori Cattadoris has it all wrong about Democrats being a communist threat. She needs to look at our PUD for her concern about communism. The PUD owns the dam, substations, and powerlines for monopolistic electrical distribution. It has three commissioners, much like they had commissars in the former Soviet Union. These ‘commissars’ raised our electrical rates and awarded contracts to favored crypto miners, data center and Clark County. We peasants paid for the infrastructure that the favored customers now enjoy for free.
Who does Kamori think paid for the federal dam relicensing which included replacing the expensive dam turbines? The residential rate payers paid because the crypto, data mining and Clark County customers didn’t exist so the burden fell on the peasant ratepayers.
There isn’t a single elected Democrat to blame for our current electrical rate which is now raised annually. The favored contract customers don’t pay the rate increases as they have locked-in low contract rates.
Also, look at our communist public hospital for another example of local communist rule. Who is going to pay for the hospital upgrade? Perhaps Kamori would like our public hospital sold to a multi-national capitalist corporation who would sell off the assists and close it.
-Pete Scobby Newport
Housing bill shows Trump’s priorities
A notable action has recently happened in Congress and it should be getting more attention. In early 2025, Sen. Tim Scott, a conservative Republican from S. Carolina and Elizabeth Warren, the liberal Democrat from Mass., both leaders on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, got together and forged a comprehensive housing bill. Both parties are well aware that there is a major housing crisis and both want to be able to brag about a solution before the election in Nov.
The bill had to be haggled over for most of a year and the two houses had to make compromises, but by late June 2026, they had agreed and the final vote was 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate.
But Pres. Trump would not approve the bill, even though by approving it by more than a 2/3 majority, the Congress could override a presidential veto and the bill would, and did, become law on July 11. So Trump did not veto the bill but he refused to sign it.
Mysteries abound. He could have been on the winning side in this but he chose not to help out low and middle-income folks while insisting that his unconstitutional SAVE (bogus election intrusions) act should have been approved before the housing bill. Priorities?
-John Stuart Newport
