Herald letters on Congressman Newhouse, State of the Union, Richland recall | Opinion

Keep close eye on China’s activities

The United States must confront communist China. Their spy balloon(s) was simply the latest example of their aggression and a test of our willingness to push back. President Biden embarrassed us again by failing to shoot it down until it had already flown over the entire country. Thankfully, Congress seems interested in finally doing something about China with the creation of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

Our own Rep. Dan Newhouse was appointed to the committee and has introduced a bill to stop the China from purchasing any more American farmland. I look forward to seeing the work Newhouse and the new committee can accomplish to counter the China’s threats to freedom around the world. I didn’t serve six years active duty in the U.S. Air Force so that my kid could be raised as a Chinese Communist.

Ryan Jacobs, Richland

Respect, courtesy not observed

RESPECT (noun): Due regard for the feelings, rights, or traditions of others. COURTESY: Showing of politeness in one’s attitude and behavior toward others. As a parent and grateful American, I bow my head in shame at the lack of self control and respect of some U.S. House Representatives (members) in attendance at the State of the Union address on Feb. 8. I give big credit to President Biden and Majority House Speaker McCarthy for their composure and demeanor during these outbursts.

Dorothy Rawson, Pasco

Newhouse needs to be fact checked

First, Rep. Dan Newhouse keeps haranguing us with the crisis of Chinese ownership of agricultural land in America. The Wall Street Journal recently did an analysis of this. About 3% of U.S. private agricultural land is owned by foreigners. Of this 3%, 1% is owned by China, and 15 other nations, all friendly to the U.S., own more. So China owns 0.03% of all U.S. agricultural land, or a proportion of 0.0003, three in ten thousand. This is a crisis? The Chinese have to do something with all those dollars Walmart shoppers send to them!

Second, (Newhouse) in his emails to constituents also keeps saying that we have quote “record inflation.” This didn’t seem right to me, so I looked online at the CPI statistics, which show an average of 8.0% for 2022, and I saw 13 different years since 1914 (when the CPI started) when it was higher. I think Dan is a little older than I, so surely he remembers the 1979-1981 years when it got as high as 13%. Come on, Dan!

Just doing some fact checking.

Stan Kuick, Richland

Richland board: pay your own fees

According to a recent Herald article the three Richland School Board members that are subject to possible recall may be able to award themselves RSD money to fund their legal expenses!

It would be by a 3 to 2 vote of the school board. The three would not have to recuse themselves from the vote if they maintain that they acted in good faith on behalf of the students and not realizing they were violating the law when they boastfully forced an ambush vote by the school board to make masks optional just a few weeks before that was to become legal anyway.

Apparently if voters of the district provide enough signatures to get the recall on the ballot and then vote to recall, it would be analogous to a jury finding that the three had not acted in good faith and so are not entitled to have their legal expenses paid for. Recall failure would mean voters acquiesced.

It would be beyond frustrating after the chaos caused by Byrd, Bird, and Williams if they remained on the board and their lawyer received tens of thousands of dollars of RSD money for his efforts on their behalf. Go to rsb.recall@gmail.com.

Greg Carl, Richland