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Bottling plant is a danger to the whole valley

I am disgusted this bottling plant was approved.

Who is going to be responsible when they suck all the water out of our aquifers? They make their millions and we are left to suffer.

The people starting the business won’t. And we have no legal action to take when that happens. They will just file bankruptcy and move on to the next town to ruin. And I am sure the DNRC has covered their butts, too!

This country is going to hell and it is all because money can buy anything, even when it harms others. My opinion is the DNRC does not hold our community in its best interest. But that does not shock me! I guess petitions, signs along Highway 35 and a general knowledge that the citizens of Flathead County do not want it, was all in vain. The lawyers and greedy win again!

What did the lawyers and DNRC gain ... we will never know.

Again, not shocked! Just very disappointed by the actions of some people!

What does our family do to protect our aquifers? We take shorter showers. We make sure to wash full loads of laundry and dishes. We recycle. We care about and love our beautiful valley. Obviously, some don’t! —Kathy Putney, Kalispell

Don’t let secret police come to United States

Now is a good time for Americans to rent and watch the brilliant 2007 German film “The Lives of Others.” There is no better demonstration of what happens when the judiciary, intelligence and enforcement agencies of government unite in a collective effort to prosecute those holding political views unsanctioned by the state. The film details the actions of an East German Stasi agent as he monitors a citizen believed to hold unapproved political convictions. It seems we forget too soon.

Neither political party here in the United States should accept the weaponizing of our own judiciary, intelligence and law enforcement. The machinations of the inside-the-beltway crowd are on display as their efforts to de-legitimize President Trump while ignoring Hillary’s conspicuous criminality come to light. While DOJ and the FBI strained to find a series of dots to connect indicating deception attributable to the president and the Russians, the same agencies ignored the conspicuous, glaring red flags, clues, outright evidence and admissions of Hillary with regard to her private server. Besides evading the protections provided by experts, Hillary’s server was intended to dodge Freedom of Information Act requests. Her actions were criminal, but no matter. The law applies to thee and not to me.

The notion of one set of laws for the minions and another for the special people will shred the Constitution and end our republic. It reinstates the form of governance existing for most of mankind’s history; a system where a select few rule while others, the common people, are born into the world with a saddle on their back. Today with intelligence services and a politicized judiciary working closely with the muscle of an equally politicized enforcement arm to support one party over the other, the idea of totalitarian governance is making a comeback — right here in the USA.

Patriots should be concerned about what has happened over the last few years. If we are allowing the creation of our own Stasi, it won’t be long before you — no matter what your background — become a name on their list. We used to believe this couldn’t happen in America. The last 18 months have put that notion to rest. —Tracy A. Sharp, Polson

Abortion after 20 weeks is savagery

I cannot believe in what is supposed to be a civilized country that we’re still destroying life before that life can utter a sound. Also I can’t imagine a U.S. senator (man or woman) who has a family not voting for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Abortion is evil enough in the early stages of a pregnancy, but abortion after 20 weeks is pure savagery.

Now we have a new clinic in the county that’s willing to perform this atrocious surgery. Well, Ms. Cahill, I’ll be praying your heart will be changed. There is hope, even Jane Roe repented, asked forgiveness for her part in abortion, and now is a part of Jesus’ family.

Side note: If anyone, knowing Sen. Tester was a farmer, were to ask him what did you plant, most assuredly he would answer wheat, not seed and not wheat seed. That would sound as if the seed, when in the soil, had already begun life. Question, senator, would you let the wheat grow for a month, assuming there is no problem, then go out and plow it under? —Alan Winegarner, Evergreen

Embassy move is unacceptable

I am dismayed at the promises that the Trump administration has made that the U.S. Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem. This move clearly eliminates the United States as an honest broker in the negotiations for a two-state solution in the land between the sea and the Jordan River. It signifies that the United States is a silent partner with Israel as it colonizes land that would be part of a Palestinian state, and points toward either a continuing of the status quo in Palestine, or the formation of a single state, which could be Jewish, or could be democratic, but can’t be both. Jewish and apartheid is the most likely outcome.

The United States provides massive support to Israel — the most foreign aid to any country — and never questions the way that state ignores international law, colonizes with its own people the land it occupies, and keeps the 1.8 million inhabitants of Gaza in a poorly supplied open air prison. Even what water is available is often contaminated. (See for example, Norman Finkelstein’s interview on “Democracy Now” in January.) With each change of administration, I hope for progress towards peace and justice in what we call the Holy Land.

As the news cycle moves through other items, the ongoing plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is easily forgotten. I encourage readers to educate themselves by listening to these (Jewish) voices on the subject: Miko Peled, Norman Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, Anna Baltzer and Noam Chomsky. For an accurate account of the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, you may investigate the findings of the Israeli organization B’Tselem, at https://www.btselem.org on the internet. —Ruth Neff, Whitefish

What would God say about legal abortion?

Flathead Valley residents, if God were to write His thoughts down for us regarding an abortion clinic, the letter might look something like this one:

My Dearest Children: I want you to know that I love you quintessentially, and always want the best for you. The Word I have given you in scripture assures you of that. When your thinking and your actions arise from a flawed understanding of how to be in the world, I stand ready to graciously guide and assist you. When you resist My grace, I am prepared to flood you with My mercy.

I have your back at all times. Despite what you may hear these days — that I am a dotard, or even worse, dead; that I am an anachronism, and irrelevant today; that my Word means whatever makes sense culturally, and therefore I am flexible with Commandments — all these things are strangers to the Truth.

I see your comings and goings in Whitefish, Montana. I know you have opened an abortion clinic there. I hear all the cries of dying babies everywhere, and it stirs Me to wrath. How painful it is to Me that you believe you are justified killing My little children. I love them all.

Close the doors to the new abortion clinic in Whitefish, Montana, while My Mercy is still available. —With all My love, God.

It is my prayer that the scales will be removed from the eyes of the providers. I pray that they will see the folly of hubris, and listen to the King. —Bob Auerbach, Whitefish