Letters to the editor May 17

Grateful for mom’s care

My wife and I would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Brandon House nursing home staff for their “above and beyond the call of duty” service they provided to our mom these past eight months. Mom entered Brandon House after she fell and broke two vertebrae in her lower back and became immobile. She was cared for all during the Covid epidemic and never caught the virus. Mom continually praised the staff for taking excellent care of her. We cannot thank them enough. However, we loss mom on April 27, 20 days before her 92nd birthday.

Thank you Brandon House. We will forever be grateful for what you did for us and our mom.

—Philip and Lianne Gregory, Kalispell

Changing climate

Great Daily Inter Lake article (Flathead gets ‘F’ in air quality report, April 23) on the air pollution report for Flathead County. It spoke clearly about how climate change leads to more forest fires which leads to bad air quality.

This is a climate problem that exists in our here and now. How would you like to see it get worse, with bigger fires burning longer and making more smoky days? If you don’t care for that future, you want to start thinking about climate solutions. The best and most attractive solution is a carbon fee and dividend program. Check it out.

—Liz Hoveland, Bigfork

A bunch of liars

The time has come to be honest about the liberal media and stop excusing the lies they write in blind support of the liberal agenda. Every one of their lies is in the same direction — Marxist, fascist anti-conservatism.

Recently two obvious lies have been exposed. The Russians did not pay bounties for the execution of American soldiers with the full knowledge of President Trump, and Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police Officer who died after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, was not “beaten to death.” As his wife and mother claimed months ago, the D.C. medical examiner has finally admitted he died of two strokes — natural causes, not trauma from a beating. Another lie.

This doesn’t even include the lies told by Biden, the media and several hundred spineless corporate CEOs that the Georgia election law is racist and worse than Jim Crow. Read the law!

Combined with the rampant censorship of conservative voices by social media, I fear the left is thrusting our country into a second civil war — either Black-White or socialist-capitalist or both. We on the right will not allow the Marxist-fascist liberals to destroy our country.

After the Georgia election gave Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House, I said I was glad. Perhaps even moderates would finally recognize the lunacy of the Democrat “progressive” movement hell bent on destroying our country. I may have misjudged the radical left and their puppet president. The speed of lawless radical change is astounding. The lies told to accomplish this radical agenda terrifying.

I only hope we can survive until 2022 when I am sure Congress will flip to Republicans. But will they have the spine then or in 2024 to fight for us?

I have my doubts.

— David Myerowitz, Columbia Falls

Demographics

A national survey of 1,151 Republicans in January of 2020 showed that over 50% agreed with the following statement: “The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast we may have to use force to save it.” And 40% agreed with this: “A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.”

The common denominator of the Republican voters who agreed with these statements was ethnic antagonism directed mainly at Blacks, Latinos and immigrants. A recent poll by the American Enterprise Institute confirmed these findings.

The virtually all white Trump-inspired mob of self-described “patriots” who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a failed insurrection were acting out the violence that millions of Republicans appear to condone.

In the summer of 2009 our first Black president had been in office less than six months when the Tea Party staged disruptive demonstrations at town hall meetings across the country, shouting “We want our country back!”

Rapid demographic change will bring about a majority-minority USA in a few decades. The Trump-controlled GOP is now panicked at the thought of losing their white privilege and cultural status. For decades the Republican party has preached right wing nationalism, religious zealotry, and fear of the other, and Trump is the culmination of all this. Trumpsters would rather throw our democracy under the bus and submit to an authoritarian leader if the result were to “keep America great.” In other words, white and Christian; you know, ”their” country.

—George Mclean, Kalispell

Nuclear reaction

Rep. Skees handed the governor a bill (HB273) that would repeal the Nuclear Vote Initiative and he signed it. The bill repealed I-80 and a very interesting exception it contained. Under the exception, a small-scale nuclear module producing 50 megawatts or less would not be covered by provisions of the Major Facility Siting Act.

Montana could have kept the Nuclear Vote Initiative and allowed a “test drive” on how a small-nuclear module could be added to the Montana electrical grid. Even Nuscale, the company that hopes to produce Montana’s nuclear modules, offered to build a 30 megawatt demonstration module simply because it would be exempt from the Major Facility Siting Act requirements.

But not now, even the tiniest nuclear module producing less than one megawatt will be subject to the Major Facility Siting Act. Unanticipated consequences can be quite significant and make lawmakers look incompetent.

—Carole Mackin, Helena