Partisan politics
I have avoided political posts recently, but remember the lessons from Germany of the 1930s, when too many kept silent and enabled a dictator. I was long a centrist, carefully studying the ballot to find the candidate, either Republican or Democrat, who best reflected my personal values. I remain a centrist, but have come to fear today’s Republican Party.
However, don’t forget the role of the Supreme Court, which has now assumed the power to amend the Constitution at will, and their consistent choice to ignore the fact that the founders had many views on how to build a successful union of one from many. The founders ultimately rejected all the routes the far right Supreme Court majority is pursuing today. The Boston Tea Party was not about banning taxation itself, but taxation without equal representation of all citizens. The Boston Tea Party was also aimed to break the hold of the king’s corporations and the tyranny of a king. While a minority wanted a king, the country formed not around a king for a leader, but a leader elected by the citizens where EVERY VOTE counts equally, a situation not consistent with the electoral college, and also not consistent with either partisan gerrymandering (a situation that the founders had not anticipated) or with corporations buying influence (a worry of the founders).
Most of all, there was to be no state religion. Many had fled state religious persecution when they left Europe, and our founders established the separation of church and state as a critical feature of forging a nation of one from many. Nothing but pure far right partisan politics currently guides the Supreme Court majority.
Michael Beug
White Salmon
Praiseworthy?
I actually laughed out loud when I read that Trump praised the Chinese immigrants who came to America and worked under deplorable conditions and inhumane treatment to help build our railroads. If they came here now to try to make a living, this same man would be rounding them up and deporting them to some third world country. He’s such a farce of a human being. But he doesn’t feel that way at all. I mean after all, he erected a 20-foot golden statue of himself to stroke his limitless ego.
Kathleen Evinger
Hood River
History rewrite
Just think of this: Trump has setup a $1.7 billion fund to compensate people who broke into the Capital, hurt and wounded police, destroyed federal property and were found guilty in a federal court by a jury of people just like you and me. He has already pardoned them all, but now he is promising to pay them for any claims they make against the government with your money. He didn’t set up a fund to pay the capital police or Washington, D.C., police for the harm that was done to them. So, in doing this he’s saying, “What you did in rioting on Jan. 6 was OK, and you can do it again”... that the Proud Boys and all the rest can be assured that they’ll be protected and vindicated if they do something like this in the future in support of Trump. Let me put this another way: Do you think he has given any thought to the single mom who is doing two jobs and can’t make ends meet because she’s paying so much for gas? Or do you think he has any sympathy for the many federal workers who have lost their job in the past year? Or for the non-profit that was doing great things before their federal funding got cut?
What Trump is doing is rewriting history and devaluing our legal system. He’s making it all seem illegitimate and unfair. Please go back and look at the photos. Look at the harm that was done on Jan. 6, and remember all of this can happen again. This time with someone at the helm that says it’s OK.
Gary Rains
Hood River
Lessons learned
On March 16, 2001, Tucker Sherman died from injuries inflicted by his mother and her boyfriend; it has been more than 25 years since 5 year-old Tucker Sherman of The Dalles died. According to Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne, Oregon’s deputy state medical examiner at the time, more than 70 bruises and scrapes were found on Tucker’s small body, and the fatal injury occurred within 24-36 hours of his death. Tucker died years before Oregon enacted what is now known as Karly’s Law. Had that protection existed in 2001, it is possible Tucker Sherman’s death might have been prevented.
Enacted in 2008, Karly’s Law requires that children involved in abuse investigations who present with suspicious injuries receive a specialized medical assessment within 48 hours. The tragic deaths of children like Tucker and Karly — and countless others whose names the public may never know — forced Oregon to confront the devastating consequences of missed opportunities to intervene. Their stories became the catalyst for meaningful reform. Today, thousands of Oregon children benefit from specialized medical evaluations and a more coordinated response among law enforcement, the Department of Human Services, medical providers, prosecutors, and child advocacy centers.
Since 2009, SafeSpace has served as the Children’s Advocacy Center for the Columbia River Gorge region, working alongside local law enforcement, child protective services, medical professionals, and prosecutors to ensure children who may have experienced abuse receive compassionate, specialized care, in one safe location. Instead of asking traumatized children to relive their experiences multiple times in multiple settings, child advocacy centers provide coordinated services under one roof — including forensic interviews conducted by specially trained professionals and medical evaluations performed by providers trained specifically in child abuse assessment.
The existence of laws, like Karly’s Law, only matter if communities continue to support the systems designed to carry them out; children in the Gorge deserve access to the same protections, expertise, and trauma-informed services available elsewhere in Oregon. Lessons learned from the deaths of Tucker, Karly, and so many other children should never be forgotten, nor our responsibility to ensure these tragedies are not repeated.
Susan Baldwin
Hood River
Commented