Sad and angry

I cannot believe what is happening in our country. How can executive orders from one individual define who we are? How can a non-elected billionaire who has never served our country, never lived on a limited income, never had worries about paying health care bills, and doesn’t know what it means to be an American destroy people’s lives?

I am sad and getting angrier every day. This is not about Democrats and Republicans, this is a problem that everyone needs to solve. Congress needs to unite and stand up for the people who elected them, not someone who believes in extortion to run America and the world.

America is a country that used to be proud of our accomplishments, proud of all the differences among the communities in America that made us great in the world and so glad the Constitution was written to guide us and serve as a strong buffer against a dictator, a person who wants to control the world at America’s expense of everything we built.

It is time to get angry, angrier every day until we can stop this destruction of the America we love. If you didn’t know, the Constitution is nowhere on the White House website. Federal agency websites, federal workers, any tribute to women or minorities are all erased.

It’s time to resist, time to make America even better by standing up for what you believe, write Congress, write the White House, talk to everyone you know to save America.

Eileen Cummings

Sequim

Elon, be gone

Musk is an imperious immigrant ruining the USA.

He fled South Africa to avoid mandatory military service, began an illegal start-up company in Silicon Valley, used our educational system and personal liberty to get ahead, to now wield unlawful power to slash important departments such as Social Security, to destroy our jobs and confidence in government of, by and for all people.

This frenzied spendthrift bought elections in state after state, millions spent to elect yes-men, decrying “Western Civilization’s” problem as too empathetic, thus easily manipulated, while cynically criticizing McKenzie Scott, billionaire ex-wife and Amazon business partner of Jeff Bezos, as “a threat to Western Civilization” for spending her money on diverse, beneficial projects.

His injurious character is plugged into the worst POTUS ever, Trump, whose own identity is electrified by the kleptocracy of the world’s worst enemy, Putin. The three make quite a trio, each using their wealth not for good, not for the benefit of humanity and our earth, but to amass more money, grandeur, land, and power to brutalize and exploit, to abolish opportunities and institutions which make life better. Madmen.

The DOGE ringleader, billionaires, ultra-fanatics, colluding Republicans, and Trump use doublespeak – “euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language” to persuade us to surrender, to believe that “war is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength.”

It’s time for Musk’s deportation back to Canada. (Sorry about that, Canada!)

Gayle Brauner

Port Angeles

The next COVID-19?

Five years ago, the world was challenged and changed by COVID-19. Over 7,000,000 people died from the virus, 1,200,000 of them here in the richest country in the world.

What will our response be to the bird flu? The most common form, H5N1, has already crossed into humans, cows, cats, and rats. Recently, a more virulent form, H5N9, was discovered on a farm alongside H5N1. Mutant, more serious strains can develop if and when the viruses merge.

Experts say bird flu poses little risk to humans. However, since 2022 there have been 70 documented cases of infection in humans in North America, and one person has died.

The National Institute of Health (NIH), the world’s premier medical research institute, has been funding research on the bird flu virus and attempting to adapt the mRNA vaccine, which saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came Trump and Elon Musk, who cut $4 billion from the NIH, setting research back and hobbling a potential response to the virus. Staff in the U.S. Department of Agriculture who were working to monitor and control bird flu have also been fired.

Will the nominee for NIH Director demand that funding be restored? Will Kennedy dismantle the NIH?

We cannot face this threat unprepared, as happened with COVID-19. We must advocate for the NIH’s research to continue. Join me in contacting our members of Congress to demand that research funding be restored.

Margaret Walthall

Sequim