Chickens home to roost
The chickens have had a field day for past two years. They puffed up their feathers and clucked around menacingly, climbed fence posts and crowed with in-your-face defiance, spread their wings pretending to be eagles soaring with pride. But now, as chickens always do, one by one they are coming home to roost.
The tax cut chicken came home to $1 trillion yearly deficits for foreseeable future.
The Supreme Court of the United States chicken energized a generation of women to say with one voice “Enough.” And history shows that when women rise up, they win. Their source of power is moral courage, not violence. Their focus is nothing less than equality for all, not tomorrow’s election.
The nine-year long repeal/damage/undermine Obamacare chicken now has their proponents running for cover, desperately trying to make voters forget their past repeated actions (“Can we please talk about the caravan”).
There are too many other chickens to mention here. But it would be remiss, especially today, not to mention the meanest ugliest rooster among them. Remember “…. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Though (for) the Second Amendment people, maybe there is …,” or the redefinition of “Good people.” That chicken has been homeward bound for some time. According to Anti-Defamation League there was a 57-percent rise in hate crimes from 2016 to 2017, and we are on track to exceed that in 2018. And last week, with unprecedented violence on a national scale, that ugly rooster may have finally arrived.
Today we mourn. But tomorrow we must act.
Sankar Ray
Sammamish
Schrier puts check on Trump agenda
A vote for District 8 candidate Dr. Kim Schrier is a vote for common human decency.
A vote for candidate Dino Rossi – Trump delegate for the Republicans—is a vote for the cruel Trump agenda:
• Forcibly separating children from parents.
• Passing tax cuts for the rich while creating record U.S. budget deficits.
• Attacking a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body
• Denying the reality of disastrous climate change
• Attacking affordable health care for Americans
If you think there needs to be a check on the Trump agenda, vote Kim Schrier.
Nancy Valaas
Bellevue
Problem solvers, not ideologues
Across America, Republicans are trying to steal this election using a variety of voter suppression tactics and dirty-tricks. Washington is not immune. A Republican political action committee, pretending to be progressive, sent out flyers to get Democrats to throw away their vote, by writing-in a person who is not running.
This dirty-trick campaign is aimed at our state Legislative races. Bill Ramos and Lisa Callan are Democrats running in the 5th Legislative District to represent us. If you receive a flyer saying they are not “real progressives,” don’t be fooled.
I have known Bill Ramos for about five years, and Lisa Callan for about a year, and they are two of the nicest people I know. I have never heard a mean word from either of them.
Bill Ramos, has expertise in forestry and transportation, and is currently serving his third term on the Issaquah City Council.
Lisa Callan is passionate about transparency and education, and currently serving her second term on the Issaquah School Board.
Caring deeply about building our community, they are smart pragmatic problem solvers, not rigid ideologues. “Progress not perfection” is a moto both embrace.
With hearts in the right place, they earned my vote.
Roger Ledbetter
Snoqualmie
Mob rule
“Mob rule.” It’s a phrase being endlessly bleated by President Donald Trump and Republicans since the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearings. Senators were directly confronted by constituents demanding the senators listen to their concerns, and answer their questions. They were exercising their Constitutional rights of free speech and freedom to assemble.
Protesters were armed with signs, blocked hallways and would not be shooed away. Oh, the horror of having groups of angry voters, mostly women, demanding answers. How scary. Republicans could not or would not give any reasonable explanations. There was no violence or property damage. Still, Trump and his supporters began to cry “Mob rule, mob rule.”
However, make no mistake, we are indeed seeing examples of mob rule. During Trump’s 2016 campaign, he told the crowd “Just knock the hell out of them [protesters]— I’ll pay the legal fees.” This was just the beginning of inciteful and hateful language being thrown about by Trump and his apologists.
There were mobs in Charlottesville last summer when hundreds of neo-Nazis and white supremacists descended upon the town hell-bent for violence. Wearing military garb and brandishing weapons, they marched through the streets. They carried torches, while chanting anti-Semitic and other hate speech. Four innocent people died as a result of their presence. Don’t forget, “there were good people on both sides,” to quote the president. So, I guess it wasn’t a mob after all.
Finally, we have pipe bombs being mailed to prominent Democrats and progressives. So please tell me, who is really the mob?
Dan Olah
North Bend
