Letters to the editor for Sept. 11
Mejia is the right choice for County Commissioner
Carolina Mejia is clearly the best choice in the upcoming election for County Commissioner. She is highly qualified, dedicated, and ready to protect our community with balanced, thoughtful service.
Her endorsements by our Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Senator Sam Hunt, and Representative Laurie Dolan show how highly she is regarded in our community.
As a retired public school teacher who cares deeply about the future of Thurston County, I urge you to join me in standing up and supporting Carolina Mejia. She is clearly the right choice.
Stephen Cifka, Olympia
Washington needs a gun responsibility governor
A few years ago, I took a petition around Seattle to get signatures for Initiative 1639. The only real objection that I ran into was that the police, as well as the family of a gun owner, could report a dangerous person and keep them from getting a gun. It seems that Loren Culp, a police chief from eastern Washington who’s running for governor, doesn’t trust the cops to report and remove danger!
A yes vote supported the ballot initiative to implement restrictions on the purchase and ownership of firearms, including raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21, adding background checks, increasing waiting periods, and enacting storage requirements.
Last month, I watched truckloads of Trump supporters invade Portland, Oregon, waving flags and carrying guns. Some of them ended up being paintball guns, but one of Trump’s supporters ended up dead.
I suggest that an “extreme risk protection order” could be a federal law that would be used to stop gun owners from rushing into demonstrations “locked and loaded.” There’s almost always an online pitch to a group of yahoos who want to make a statement. That would be a red flag and they could be stopped.
Culp received national attention for proposing that his jurisdiction become a “2nd Amendment sanctuary city” after the passage of I-1639. Does that mean that he’d welcome the vigilantes from Portland to Seattle?
Loren Culp is the wrong person to be the governor of a state in need of peace.
Leslie McClure, Lacey
Fantasy and facts about Biden
On Aug. 31, Joe Biden said what he thinks about street violence, in a speech in Pittsburgh. “I’m going to be very clear about all of this. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness. Plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change.”
That does seem very clear. Maybe it will put a stop to some of the ongoing efforts by President Trump and the Republicans to portray Biden as some sort of anarchist sympathizer or closet Socialist, but I doubt it.
Trump himself seems to be more enthralled by fantasies and conspiracy theories and less interested in or even aware of facts every month. (He also says that street violence from people who support him is real patriotism, and street violence from people who don’t is anarchy and chaos.)
The people running his campaign seem to have decided that they can’t possibly win by talking about what he’s actually done and failed to do so far, or about who Biden actually is and what he actually says he’ll try to do if he’s elected.
I’m afraid we’re in for several months of nothing but full-throated propaganda, pretty much unconnected to reality, from the President’s campaign.
Thad Curtz, Olympia
‘Losers and suckers’
As former lieutenant commander U.S. Naval aviator, and Desert Storm/Shield vet with 210 arrested landings at sea, I have been disgusted by the banal criminality, lies, and gaslighting of the Trump administration and its cronies.
From Bannon to Barr, with a record number of convictions and charges — they are a shameful representation of our nation and its policies. The total failure to protect Americans from the ongoing pandemic, with the worst record by far of any developed country, is pathetic. With the most recent stories of Trump’s disdain for veterans and our dead war heroes, I feel I cannot remain silent any longer.
Vets for Biden.
Dana Partridge, Shelton