Crisis facing fed workers
Federal employees, regardless of political affiliation, perform vital, nonpartisan work in areas like flood forecasting, wildfire management, agricultural water supply, and social services. Many federal jobs require advanced education and skills, yet federal workers are often paid less than their private-sector counterparts. Federal workers report being motivated by a strong sense of duty to their mission rather than by pay.
Hostility toward federal workers has reached new levels under this administration. In its early days, the administration halted all DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) efforts, instructed employees to turn in their peers for upholding values of workforce diversity, and threatened them with “severe consequences” if they did not. Firings without notice or cause have become common. Some employees reinstated following a court order returned to work only to find they had no computer or building access. Many of them resigned due to the dysfunction. Just last week, three employees in my office abruptly stopped receiving pay, and then DOGE tried to deny them access to their unemployment benefits without cause. This chaotic downsizing affects programs with full funding and legal mandates. In my work unit, we’ve lost 25% of our staff, yet our workload and legal obligations remain unchanged. Despite having the necessary funding, we can’t contract out to fill the gaps, making it impossible to meet those obligations. The administration’s planned layoffs are massive, with more than 100,000 employees expected to lose their jobs in the next few weeks, including hundreds in the Columbia River Gorge. These cuts would save less than 4% of the federal budget while resulting in massive destruction to federal services.
The uncertainty faced by federal employees has shifted our focus from our primary duties to protecting national resources and critical government data from the DOGE destruction machine. Additionally, the increased bureaucracy is creating inefficiencies, raising costs, and wasting taxpayer money. In my 19 years of service, I’ve never seen the government operate so dysfunctionally.
This administration’s actions are not about efficiency or saving money. They are aimed at dismantling the government. The administration is a circus. It is time to hold the ringmaster accountable.
Summer Burdick
White Salmon
Trump vs. Canada
The May 15 issue of The New York Times features an article on the negative impacts of Donald Trump’s self-serving negotiating style on the management of Columbia River water resources. The article, titled, “A Crucial River Treaty Is Tangled in Trump’s Feud With Canada,” includes excellent photos and video clips of our local Columbia Gorge area.
The Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in one of his final days in office. The treaty officially took effect in 1964, and it is now up for renewal. For the most part, it has served our region well in helping to manage Columbia River flows and hydropower generation, but its future is now in doubt owing to Trump’s desire to impose his will on Canada.
The significance of Columbia River management to our region was summarized well by Adrian Dix, the British Columbia energy minister. He said, “For the people of the Columbia Basin, this is visceral. This is part of their lives and histories and souls.”
Trump likely has little concern for the people of the Columbia Basin, regardless of whether we live north or south of the U.S.-Canada border. What interests him is building his personal power through tactics of intimidation — in this case directed against Canada.
Richard Iverson
Hood River
Definition
We’re not calling names but this dictionary definition defines the Trump administration:
FASCISM, noun
fas·cism, fa-shi-zem; also fa-si-
1 Fascism : “A populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition. At the core of fascism is loyalty to tribe, ethnic identity, religion, tradition, or, in a word, nation.”
These are the seven deadly sins in the Bible and they describe Trump. Wake up Christians.
1. Pride
2. Greed
3. Wrath
4. Lust
5. Envy
6. Gluttony
7. Sloth
S. Michael Carlson
Tygh Valley
‘TDS’
It seems a lot of letters and posts from Democrats these days are fixated on a common theme: Trump is bad, really really bad, so anything and everything he does is bad and if you voted for him and/or support anything he does, then YOU are bad.
I think the problem is it’s actually his policies they hate, and not just the outrage of the moment, either. It’s core issues like secure borders, protecting women’s sports, prohibiting racial discrimination (DEI), ending the war on fossil fuels, uncovering waste fraud and abuse, voter ID and supporting Israel they don’t like. If he were on the woke side of those issues, Democrats would be defending/rationalizing/excusing him and all his actions just as ardently as they do immigrant criminals. But he’s not, and since they’re on the wrong side of most of those issues, they continue with the unhinged obsession with the alleged character flaws of Trump and everyone who voted for him.
It didn’t work in 2024, and it certainly won’t work in 2028, but it’s all they have other than just desperately hoping things get as bad as they were during the Biden administration. They COULD reconsider their unwavering support for unpopular left-wing policies, but that would involve admitting error, and I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. Oh well.
Steve Hudson
The Dalles
More ‘TDS’
Definition of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome): A delusion that Donald Trump is in any way good. Additional symptoms may occur, such as believing that Vladimir Putain (yes, I misspelled it that way on purpose) is a great guy.
Adrian Fields
Hood River
Privilege
White male privilege is rich kid Trump dodging the draft with a phony doctor’s endorsement of heel spurs. He is a coward who could not stand up for his country. He is a coward who would not go to Canada to protest U. S. involvement in that war. My uncle served in the 1st U.S. Army during World War II with just one eye.
It is sexually assaulting 23 women in airplane seats, clothes fitting rooms, and dressing rooms. It is bragging about grabbing women by the vulva. It is placing full page advertisements in the New York Times advocating the death penalty for five innocent Black children who would spend collectively 35 years in prison. It is his bigoted-held, continued belief of their guilt and refusal to apologize. It is ignoring the Supreme Court by sending legal residents to an El Salvador gulag. It is firing the Library of Congress’ Black librarian.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has Christian foundations. It is the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:29-37. It is, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me,” Mathew 25:40. Remember the Sunday school song, “Red, yellow, black and white, they are all precious in his sight?” It is a paraphrasing of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, “… Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of Law.” The 14th Amendment extends the Fifth Amendment and includes this addition: “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It is Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech, “that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
Trump is an ignorant, bigoted, man-baby felon who wines after he has “due process.” We must remove this scourge. We are better than this!
Terry Armentrout
The Dalles
Vote benefits Newhouse
Rep. Dan Newhouse recently voted for House Concurrent Resolution 14 — a sweeping bill that slashes support for working families while showering tax breaks on the wealthy and politically connected. Unfortunately, it’s not just bad policy. It’s also self-serving.
Newhouse owns a large farm operation in Sunnyside, including an LLC that has previously received more than $1 million in federal farm subsidies. Under House Concurrent Resolution 14, the Republican budget expands loopholes and tax shelters for wealthy landowners and closely held pass-through businesses — while gutting clean energy incentives, Medicaid, and SNAP benefits that thousands of Central Washington families rely on.
The bill cuts $230–$300 billion from food assistance and pushes costs onto state budgets. That’s a direct threat to the more than 100,000 people in our district receiving SNAP, including 25,000 children. Medicaid cuts would also hit hard: WA-04 has the highest Medicaid enrollment share in the state, with nearly 300,000 people covered — many of them seniors, kids, and farm workers.
Meanwhile, repealing clean energy tax credits threatens rural solar projects like the Penstemon solar farm in Ellensburg and raises costs for farms that use solar to power irrigation, storage, and processing.
Let’s be clear: Newhouse voted for a bill that boosts tax breaks for people like him — wealthy landowners with pass-through income — while shifting hardship onto the rest of us. Our hospitals, schools, farms, and working families can’t afford that trade-off.
We need a representative who works for everyone in the district, not just those who look like them or bank like them.
Kathleen Bennett
White Salmon
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