Letters to the editor for Sept. 19

America, start fighting back

Here’s my checklist for saving America from GOP sabotage:

1) Put term limits on Supreme Court justices.

2) Balance the Supreme Court by increasing the number of judges to 13.

3) Senate, get rid of the filibuster.

4) Congress, pass the Voter Rights Act.

5) House Committee, aggressively pursue the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection investigation and send everyone who planned it or participated to jail. Everyone.

6) Congress, establish a new Congressional Medal of Dishonor and award it to GOP-wanna-be Sen. Joe Manchin if he succeeds at singlehandedly sabotaging America’s agenda for climate change, infrastructure, voting rights, and women’s rights.

At midnight on Aug. 31, the Taliban mob in Kabul got a full green light to start hunting women (among others). One day later, at midnight on Sept. 1, a mob waiting outside a women’s clinic in Texas celebrated the start of its own open season on women by screaming, honking car horns and turning car headlights on a clinic. The occasion was our Supreme Court pretending, at midnight, that there was nothing wrong with a new law inviting citizens everywhere to sue anyone who assists women seeking abortions: taxi drivers, receptionists, whoever holds the clinic door open for her, counselors, physicians, escorts, supportive friends, etc. — and be rewarded with the defendant’s $10,000 fine if the (Texas) court says “guilty” (and pay nothing if the verdict is “not guilty”).

That calls for one last checklist item.

7) Medical labs, invent an inexpensive clinical test that detects pregnancy before the sixth week.

David Milne, Lacey

39 deaths in less than a month

In less than one month, 39 people have died from SARS CoV 2 here in Thurston County. That’s the same number of deaths as the county saw in the roughly six-month span between Feb. 18 and July 29.

If 39 people were murdered in one month, citizens would be outraged. If 39 people died in traffic accidents at a particular intersection, citizens would be outraged and demand mitigation. If 39 people died of food poisoning, the serving restaurant would be shut down and no one would be whining about their freedom to eat at said restaurant.

I’m outraged because a sizable percentage of Thurston County’s population feels that their personal freedoms are more important than the health and safety of their fellow citizens, which has certainly contributed to the 39 deaths here in the county in the last month. Your childish selfishness masquerading as patriotism is shameful and embarrassing to our county and our country as a whole.

Act like the grownups you’re supposed to be: Put a mask on and get vaccinated.

Karl Kohlstaedt, Olympia

What is going on with Lacey City Council?

I am really baffled by our Lacey City Council.

After a year and a half of meetings, surveys, fliers and an overwhelming show of public support for tree protections, the Lacey Planning Commission listened to Lacey residents and told the city council not to make tree cutting exemptions for homeowner associations (HOAs). Why do we have this process if the Lacey City Council is going to ignore their own staff, and most importantly, their constituents? That is exactly what is happening.

Only 3% of people from Lacey’s tree survey stated the desire to have restrictions removed so they could cut trees, and despite this low minority, the council is considering giving HOAs different rules than other homeowners or businesses.

Even if people are supposed to replant after removing a large healthy tree, it mostly doesn’t happen. Walking in my neighborhood, this rule is clearly not enforced. Established trees are disappearing. Taking tree rules away will make it far easier to remove healthy trees, and obviously impossible to enforce planting.

Our summers are not going to get cooler. We need the shade from large trees. Water is a finite resource. We need large trees to protect our drinking water.

Lacey residents have made it clear: We want more tree protection, not less.

Marianne Tompkins, Lacey