Letters to the editor July 25

Opinion cartoon

Unlike the national news media, the Daily Inter Lake has long prided itself as free of corrosive political bias and sexism.

Sunday’s editorial page opinion cartoon featured four conservative male Supreme Court Justices poking fun at ethics issues but very carefully looked away from liberal female Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s association with strong-arming schools and libraries to purchase her books, raking in $3.7 million, and failing to recuse herself from cases involving her book publisher.

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Perhaps there’s an innocent explanation for your selection. But we all remember Caesar’s wife.

— Andy Palchak, Kalispell

Mail forwarding

I was planning to be away temporarily and I submitted a paper form to the Postal Service for mail forwarding.

I sent the paper form because when I tried the online form, it required that I have a credit card. I thought that was unfair, because not everyone has a credit card or would be able to get one. And beyond that, it requires that you use that credit card online to pay a new small fee. So you must have a credit card and you must use it online to forward mail now.

Having used the paper route, I then received a letter at the new address telling me to go online to validate my identity.

The problem was that instead of validating my identity, it said “change of address order not found.” Despite the fact that they sent the letter to the new address. I talked to the postmaster in Whitefish and at the new location and before that had talked to someone at the 877 national number.

By the way, the letter says “Once valid activation code is received, your change of address will be activated” and gives no number to call or any process for you to follow if there is failure.

The 877 phone number suggested taking identification to the post office. I did this — it did not produce any results.

I got a third letter saying they received my change of address request, and for verification I should go online.

At the end of entering much info, they said I must use a credit card and pay them. Again, what if you don’t have the credit to get a credit card, and what if you don’t want to use your credit card online?

You can’t get your mail forwarded.

— Connie Cohen, Whitefish

Incompetent leadership

Recently, a Wall Street Journal article commented on the pattern of the Biden administration’s dithering and delaying in providing F16 and other tactical weapons to Ukraine.

A recent comment mentioned the cost to provide and support the F16s.

In the catastrophic departure from Afghanistan, the Biden administration abandoned over 2,000 armored vehicles, including 70 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPS), 40 aircraft, including UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, scan eagle drones and an assortment of other weapons and material.

What would have been the impact if this state of the art materiel was made available to Ukraine military early on? Lack of any forward thinking is a trademark of incompetent leadership.

— David Clough, Bigfork