Letters to the Editor

Agenda-driven news

Editor, the Journal,

I read with disappointment the recent coverage of two Shelton School District meetings in which an important policy change was reduced to an attention-grabbing, click-bait type, and maybe agenda-driven reporting.The articles in question were those covering the district's discussion and then vote to modify its Policy 1400 covering board meetings, meeting notifications and public comment at those meetings.

First, the front-page headlines for both meetings referencing "weapons bans" were completely inappropriate. I attended both school board meetings, there was never any discussion, public input or questions on this issue. The policy does include one paragraph confirming weapons are not allowed at board meetings which has been true for years since almost all board meetings take place on school property where weapons are not allowed.The issue is not really that this paragraph was included in the policy, it is that your coverage, especially Journal headlines, highlighted a nonissue and ignored several other important issues with the revised policy.

What your readers might have been interested in is that the written policy reduces the opportunity for public comment at board meetings. This is the result of the broad definition of when an emergency meeting can be called (as our governor has shown, emergencies can be used for many purposes and last years), limiting both public attendance, and no allowance for public comment.

Even ignoring emergency meetings, the policy does not allow public comment at special meetings and even limits public comment periods in regular meetings to only those meetings where final action is to take place. The policy also imposes the standard of civility that the board imposes on itself onto public commentators. The public are not board members and are not subject to board internal rules. I agree that public comment should not be obscene or targeted at named individuals; however, broad leeway should be given to public comments in any public meeting.

Finally, a second article on the district's proposed 2022-23 budget. Your article failed to report the largest glaring issue in the presentation, and the topic of discussion at many board meetings I have attended. That issue is dropping enrollment. Enrollment in the district is down about 300, with the projected enrollment showing a slight increase from 2021 but not back to the level of several years ago. This with the district performing many outreach initiatives to increase enrollment. All this decline in a county where the number of school-age children is up 4% since 2010, based on census numbers.

Another issue discussed was the use of millions of dollars of federal COVID funding. The COVID funds were for direct COVID mitigation and also to mitigate learning loss from lockdowns. As I understood the discussion, the funds will be used as required by the feds but are not additive as some existing funding will be used to increase the general fund ending balance not additional learning catchup due to lockdowns.

With the general election season on the horizon, I hope the Journal will work hard to cover issues in a way that informs people rather than looking for the sensational headline or article. Your community is depending on you.

Bob (Robert Gay) Rogers, Shelton

The reality of energy

Editor, the Journal,

I am responding to a letter-writer in the Aug. 11 edition. The writer focuses on gasoline prices to blame Democrats for all our ills. It was a long letter, so I will take the liberty to respond in kind. First, I will start with the matter the writer spent the most time on, gas prices.

The writer demonstrates two things. First, he did not read a letter I wrote a few weeks back analyzing domestic production. The United States is not really relying on foreign sources to supply our needs. As I pointed out, we have been a net exporter of oil for over half a decade. That has not changed since 2020. Every day we are exporting gasoline and diesel fuel. The market you are in right now has nothing to do with oil production problem and the fictitious war on fossil fuels. That is just the line that corporations take to hide their record profits.

The United States' oil market is not an isolated market. There is no isolated oil market. The entire market is global. Producers game the market. Prices reflect the global situation, not the U.S. situation. Gas prices are rising globally. That means that producers and refiners can keep the U.S. prices higher by simply exporting gasoline in the face of reduced U.S. demand. The economic term is called balancing demand. We're not asking the Saudis to increase production because we need it. The increased production would affect global prices, and by extension, ours.

If you want to be energy independent, you need to be energy independent. Right now we are being whipsawed by a global oil market because we are heavily dependent on oil. The surest way to break that is not drilling. That will only make you more dependent on oil. The way to break the cycle is to diversify your energy portfolio. That is why the fossil fuel oligarchs fight green energy so hard. Green energy represents competition, and a competition that might outcompete them. I don't care about them any more than I care about the old purveyors of buggy whips and whale oil.

Now, as far as electric vehicles are concerned. Are they really unaffordable? It's not hard to see Teslas driving around. And EVs are now easy to find in the sub-$50,000 price range. That is the price range of an SUV or truck. Sure, you can buy a $100,000 Tesla. You can also easily find a $100,000 SUV too. Now, let's get to the stock market. I learned an adage about the stock market. If the market does not go up, it must surely go down. That's what markets do. It is one of the defining characteristics of a capitalist economy. It is cyclical. And 99% of the reasons are manufactured in the private sector. There is no such thing as the unending bull markets. If you cannot accept that, then you should not own stocks. And when anyone tells you they can deliver that market, they are lying to you.

Let's ask why we worry about what our 401(k) is doing. We used to have strong unions and defined benefits plans. Whose idea was it to ditch that? Republicans. If you are sweating your 401(k), thank a Republican. And what do they want to do? Well, they keep saying they want to eliminate the last defined benefit plan, Social Security. They want to privatize it, which means putting your Social Security money in the market. Why? Well, how else are the private fund managers supposed to get fat fees for managing what was formerly your Social Security?

Does the latest tax increase scare you? It is a mere $30 billion or so on a $21 trillion economy on an annual basis. But what is the Republican plan? Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, announced it. The plan is to make sure that the bottom half of earners pay their fair share. That is a tax increase on workers and retirees. You don't hear them complaining about that. They're only outraged because their rich buddies might have to pay something.

I, like everyone else, do not appreciate inflation. But I also recognize that 90+% of what happens in economic fundamentals has nothing whatever to do with government. We have an expectation that somehow the entire world economy can experience inflation and magically the U.S. will not. People analyze the economy by who is in office. Who is in office is usually just the recipient of blame or praise over events they have no control over. If you are upset about things like baby formula shortages, blame the people who couldn't keep their plant running without poisoning kids. Why? Because they spent their tax cuts on themselves and let their production facilities rot.

Supply chain problems? Well, when large quantities of goods and parts are coming from a nation that routinely shuts down whole cities at the mere hint of COVID, you will get supply problems. Who built those supply chains? Private businesses. Now, if you think supply chain problems are bad because of COVID, just wait for the impacts of climate change to hit with full force. We are already seeing adverse effects of storms, flooding and heat waves. Get ready folks, because this is just the leading edge. We haven't even begun. Remember, it is the long-term effects of cheap gas. Finally, the writer mentions a number of other ills. He mentions fentanyl. This isn't anything new. The drug has been in plentiful supply for over a decade and flourished under the Trump administration too. What is it that people who claim to be capitalists don't understand about supply rising to meet demand at a given price? In fact, everything he blames on President Joe Biden is nothing new.

So, let's look at the facts. Who is the Republican Party really protecting? They are protecting the wealthy. The one and only thing Republicans did during the Trump administration was ride an already rising economy and pass a tax cut for rich people. That is why I am in the Democratic Party. Or maybe I simply agree with that old socialist, J.P. Morgan himself. "Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy."

Andrew Makar, Hoodsport

Homeless pause

Editor, the Journal,

Let's go back a few months ...

Dec. 9, 2021, the Shelton-Mason County Journal ran a story about the nonprofit Community Lifeline applying for an amendment to expand the number of shelter beds from 35 to 50. Public hearings were held on Dec. 6, 2021, and May 16, 2022, at the Shelton Civic Center that included testimony from the public and surrounding owners who described noise, verbal and physical threats, assaults, garbage, drug and alcohol use, and vandalism. Mike Olsen, a former Shelton city commissioner, is quoted as saying he moved from the area partly due to the degradation of the neighborhood. The amendment was sent to the city of Shelton hearing examiner. See Mason County Journal article dated Dec. 9, 2021 and June 23.

On June 13, Shelton Hearing Examiner Terrence McCarthy rejected the amendment to increase Community Lifeline shelter beds, saying the expansion would "add gasoline to a fire." He further stated they could apply again for the amendment "once they reduce their negative impact upon their neighbors and the surrounding area." See Journal dated June 23.

Aug. 2, the Shelton City Council approved code amendment changes that allow community organizations to host "temporary" homeless encampments of up to 30 people. It was passed in a 6-1 vote, with James Boad being the only one voting against it. See Journal dated Aug. 4.

The amendment changes are full of rules and regulations but are short on accountability and enforcement. One rule is when an organization applies for homeless encampment approval, the public and surrounding owners will have a chance to speak prior to the camp being approved.

But in the case of the Community Lifeline expansion, the public and surrounding owners did speak out and it was heard and rejected by the Shelton hearing examiner on June 13, just a little more than six weeks before the council approved the homeless camping ordinance. I'm sure this is all a coincidence but if it walks like a duck... I am asking the Shelton City Council to delay the homeless encampment plan until they can provide a framework to verify that the people being helped are local and that the camp host is getting people on a path to permanent housing. Just allowing camps do not work to get people into housing and will attract homeless people to Shelton that are not from here. If the council wants to help homeless, make it about connecting them with services and then find them a home.

Pam Burger, Shelton

A-bomb sources

Editor, the Journal,

Once again, I feel a need to ask a letter writer for sources.

A writer to the Journal was published quoting numbers of projected deaths if World War II had continued with conventional machinery: "1 million American warrior deaths" and "6 million Japanese deaths." No source was cited.

The letter writer goes on to say that those numbers far exceeded the projected deaths from the atomic bombs. Those alleged numbers were not quoted, nor was attribution provided. None of the projected numbers were identified by source.

On the website for the Harry Truman Presidential Library, under the heading "The decision to drop the atomic bomb" in the folder "Diary Entries" (bit.ly/3w8Mct7), the projected number of deaths resulting from an invasion was 63,000, out of a force numbering 190,000. I was unable to find a source for projected A-bomb deaths. I would hope that Mr. Truman and his advisers possessed projected A-bomb death forecasts as well as the conventional weapons' death probabilities. If the letter writer wants to sell their emotional "what was our alternative?" he should please quote the numbers and attributions. The letter writer insisted that we must look at the facts of 77 years ago, but he provides only unattributed speculative numbers and claims that this letter provides the real history of the decision to deploy an atomic weapon. It does not.

Arthur Rohlik, Shelton

Polio anyone?

Editor, the Journal,

In early 2018, I took my letter to the editor to the office of a small weekly newspaper in eastern Oregon. The editor read it and said he would not print it.

A few months earlier, I had read a magazine article by John Barry about the flu epidemic in 1918 and then I read his book. I guess I was suffering from the disease called TMI - Too Much Information. I was curious and got on a website about Oregon's vaccination stats in Oregon schools. I would click on a county's name and a map of the county would appear. If a school had poor vaccination rates then a red dot would show up and I would click on the red dot and all of the vaccination info about the school would show up. In the county where I was staying, I clicked on the county and did not see any red dots. Then I did the zoom that makes the map bigger and there it was - a gigantic red dot. The red dot identified a charter school in the county. The school had an enrollment of about 100 to 150 students and the overall vaccination rate was about 75% to 85% for the school. All of the different types of shots were listed. The word polio got my attention. Only about 72% of the kids had that shot against polio.

I wrote a rather scathing letter to the editor expressing my opinion of the school and especially of the parents for not getting the vaccination of the children. I really focused on polio. Well, the editor, like I said before, did not print it. He never said why, but I assume it was a little too close to home and sensitive for the folks in the local newspaper readership.

Today I heard on the radio about a sewage sample taken in New York City and the polio virus was found in the sample. To all of you anti-vaccination folks reading this letter, why are you not getting vaccinations for yourself and for your children? Please, please share your thoughts in a letter to this fine newspaper so that I can hopefully understand your position.

Earl W. Burt, Bremerton

Tax targets

Editor, the Journal,

The Senate has passed the Inflation Reduction Act and sent it to the House. I am not sure what in the act is supposed to reduce inflation and neither does Bernie Sanders, the Congressional Budget Office and several other organizations that have reviewed it, not to mention this is a pared-down version of the Build Back Better Plan, written way before inflation was as rampant as it is now. There are a lot of potentially worrisome things in the 755-page bill, however, I am only focusing on one issue.

Did you know that the act includes the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents, phased in over 10 years? Did you know that the original job posting, which has been taken down, had the requirement for the agent to be able to possess a firearm?

Did you know that there are only 724 billionaires in the U.S. in 2021?

Did you know that only 1.8% of taxpayers make over $400,000 a year? According to "Trac.syr.edu" those making less than $25,000 were audited five times more than those making higher incomes last year? Of the audits done in 2021, 75% were under $200,000.

Did you know there is a Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS? And that in 2017 a Governmental Accounting Office report showed that the IRS has more than 5 million rounds of ammunition and more that 5,000 weapons? Did you know they just recently purchased more than $700,000 worth of additional ammunition? Did you know that the National Treasury Employees Union Pac (which IRS agents are a member of) paid 97% of their donations to Democrats?

Why are these numbers important? Because they say the audits that will result from the new IRS agents won't impact those making less than $400,000 a year, but they wouldn't add an amendment to ensure that. They also said that the percentage of those audited under $400,000 won't change. Since those making less than $25,000 were audited (whether a document audit or otherwise) five times more than those making more money, that means there will be a lot of audits of small businesses and lower- and middle-income families.

Are the existing agents that incompetent that there needs to be an increase of 87,000 more agents to investigate 724 billionaire returns as they stated in press conferences? As a reminder, most corporations don't pay taxes, they pass any "tax" on to you the consumer as a price increase or maybe even a reduction of overhead, which is usually employees. So, "corporations paying their fair share" means you the consumer pay more. It has also been said that the $80 billion is to replace the funds that have been cut and to replace those agents who leave the organization. If the funds are already there to cover the wages of the existing employees, why do you need so much more to cover new employees that replace them? Funds are also to be used to update technology, they've been trying to update that for years to no avail, and many agents are working at home still, so is the need as great as they say?

Who do you think will be an easier target, someone making $400,000 or more who can afford a good tax preparer and lawyer or a lower- or middle-class person who probably can't afford the same protection? Working in accounting for many years, I have seen firsthand the same information given to two different tax preparers with vastly differing results on the tax return. The outcome depends on the knowledge of the tax preparer, usually the more knowledgeable and educated, the more expensive.

If you want to catch "tax cheats" make the tax law simpler, not more complicated, which this bill also does.Do people cheat on their taxes? Probably, but let's not lie to the American people and say that the IRS agents will only ensure the "rich pay their fair share" when the tax law loopholes favor the rich.

Personally, I think the funds being spent on the IRS would be better spent on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop the flow of illegal immigrants that are overwhelming our cities/counties/states, as well as stopping the drugs that are killing our citizens.

Val Martin, Shelton

Religion, abortion

Editor, the Journal,

So much has happened since I last reached out to you with a letter, however in light of all that's been happening, especially with regards to the Roe v. Wade issues and the upcoming Senate and House elections, I feel compelled to once again take my hands to the keyboard and reach you. Wow. Such a long preamble.

First of all, I unashamedly serve

my lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and must inform the Darren who wrote such a blasphemous letter a few weeks ago (or was it a month, boy time does pass fast sometimes) that God does not approve of baby killing, whether it's an unborn baby or an older baby. Jeremiah says that I knit you together in your mother's womb. It's unbelievable (almost) that someone can take so many scriptures totally out of context and end with "since God commits abortion, why can't we?" First of all, for whatever factors are involved, women do have miscarriages. God doesn't cause them.

Moving on to other topics. Democrats are right on only a few subjects, and I for one am praying that as more people see the true light many will get voted out of office, Sen. Patty Murray as well. Democrats believe in abortion (baby killing) up to the time of birth, transgenderism, gun control to the max, government control, people dependent on the government for everything almost, brainwashing of our children in public schools even young children as shown in the LBGTQ agenda to encourage children to be something other than what God created them to be. Of course, there usually are some exceptions, like everything in life! As for President Joe Biden's last speech I heard ... the new word is "possibilities?" Can you believe this? Tell this to the engineer whose 19-year-old son died shortly after being vaccinated, the thousands and thousands of people who lost their parents to this "plandemic." Using "possibilities" as a catch word ... what's wanted and possible for one set of people can often infringe upon what's wanted and possible for another set. Take the people who have become jobless on the road to becoming homeless or could become soon, because they stood up for their rights to not take the COVID-19 shots and weren't even allowed to claim any exemption because their job demanded it!

Also, I'm not afraid to mention what some people call religion, others call a way of life. So here we have one of the few, the brave, the sold out for Jesus because they see the light of how much Jesus loves us, who sees possibilities of new businesses, new books, new websites, whatever it may be. And then there are atheists and Satanists and other semi-Christian cultists whose possibilities might be the same but with a totally different slant on things.

Satanists still do sacrifices out there, Wiccans (of which I've heard are many in this area) want to do their own things too. Again, united we stand? Divided we fall?

Taking the right supplements to keep on living is important. Big Pharma wants people on as many of their meds as possible because when it gets right down to it, what they care about is the Benjamins. How much money can they make off of the bamboozled doctor-dependent people who are most likely vitamin D-3 deficient and magnesium deficient, eat fast foods, drink soda, beer and GMO foods galore.

Why? Because they have been bamboozled by a stupid culture, in my opinion of course. Thanks Ardean for some great letters to this editor. I hereby encourage people to write more good letters to the editor, seriously think about what their life is all about, what kind of legacy will they leave for others.

Did you know if it wasn't for God's great mercy none of us would even be alive? Not only that, everyone who rejects Jesus' life, death and resurrection won't live forever. Still, as for me, I will continue to do my best to provoke and practice righteousness, truth, justice for all, and of course Jesus. Apologies for any grammatical errors in this letter.

Faith Wilson, Shelton