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Breaking down the budget

With all the discussions swirling around the budget proposed by the president, it would be a good idea to look at how the federal government spends every dollar:

Area – Amount

Military – 27 cents

Health care – 22.7 cents

Interest on debt – 13.9 cents

Unemployment and labor – 9.8 cents

Veteran benefits – 5.1 cents

Food and agriculture – 5 cents

Government – 4.5 cents

Housing and community – 4 cents

Education – 2 cents

Energy and Environment – 1.7 cents

International – 1.5 cents

Transportation – 1.4 cents

Science – 1.1 cent

Total: 99.7 pennies

And we want to take how much from where? —Dan King, Bigfork

It’s Comey who is desperate

Former FBI Director Comey will begin dancing in Congress this Thursday, double-talking, hesitating, and excusing himself for the restroom in an attempt to conceal evidence in the investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

As a subordinate of the Department of Justice he was an employee of Director Loretta Lynch, who had a meeting on an airport tarmac with Bill Clinton, as both left their airplanes for 15 mysterious minutes. Lynch says they talked about “family.” In the age of cellphones this was an expensive conversation at the expense of taxpayers. Prosecution of the Clinton Foundation was soon abandoned. Many international players and payers, including Saudi Arabia, escaped scrutiny for interfering with American democracy, while Bill and Hillary held onto nearly $300 million of accumulated loot.

Obviously, Mr. Comey was told to bury his investigation by Lynch. He is now walking a tight-rope, since he knows their criminal activity and is obliged to report it as a citizen, but not as an employee of Department of Justice. When Trump fired him, he fired him on the spot. Comey was obligated to leave his office immediately. He had no legal right to touch any of his computers. When he walked out of his office that day, it shut the door on Comey tampering with evidence. The media gives us the impression that Comey will expose President Trump, but Comey is a desperate squirrel, who will be hiding nuts. My guess is that we will soon be punished with the most excruciating, boring, interview Congress has ever held. All we will hear is why James Comey is “not at liberty” to give Congress, or anybody on the face of the earth, any information for any reason that he originally volunteered, including the right time of day. —Mike Donohue, Kalispell

So just what is the fake news?

On March 12, Managing Editor Frank Miele wrote that Trump’s tweet about the media being “the enemy of the American people” applies only to fake news media. That’s an interesting line of logic. Let’s follow it.

Trump tweeted that his inauguration crowd was the largest in history, 5 million aliens voted illegally in the election, Mexico will pay for the border wall, no one on his staff had contact with Russian officials, and Obama tapped his phones. The Daily Inter Lake reported all these tweets as news, although all of them were presented without evidence at the time or since. Therefore, the Daily Inter Lake is among the fake news media and an enemy of the American people.

Of course, I don’t really believe that the Inter Lake is anyone’s enemy. But it’s amusing to see how a well-intentioned and respected editor can get into a preposterous position trying to defend a reckless and flagrant liar. —Michael Merchant, Kalispell

PTSD is real; more soldiers will suffer

Any of you ever thought about what it is like to walk around in military clothes and gear in another country? All at once one of the soldiers in your formation drops like a large sack of potatoes, spurting blood from a head wound, dead before hitting the ground. At about the same second, you hear the rifle shot from about a hundred yards away. Do you think this incident might mess with your head years later?

It is called PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). In World War II it was called “shell shock” or “battle fatigue.” Years later, a veteran might have vivid nightmares, outlandish and embarrassing anger outbursts, or crying spells out of nowhere. Your emotions are a wreck! Many times, your emotional displays are totally inappropriate.

Heaven help you if you are married or have children. You realize that you are not right in this regard, so you withdraw within yourself and from society. If you don’t do this, you could become a sociopath, or a person who cannot identify or empathize with the suffering of others.

For many years after Vietnam, the VA simply did not seem able to deal with Vietnam veterans who returned from Vietnam with PTSD, other than heavily medicate them. Because of this, some Vietnam veterans were literally reduced to quivering, slobbering heaps in the corner of a VA psychiatric hospital. I know, because I was one of them. PTSD is a natural human response to an unnatural traumatic event. Anyone can get PTSD, if placed in the right situation.

Many of our troops are returning from Afghanistan with PTSD. Why are we there? —Sinowa Cruz, Kalispell