Letters to the Editor — Jan. 7, 2026
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Liars, conmen, grifters
I don’t need reminders about why to vote. Our ruptured representative democracy is screaming out for repair and needs our help.
While accumulating a summary of the atrocities just this year, here is a partial list:
The Trump administration has pursued reckless rollbacks on climate, public health and the environment. They have undermined clean air standards in favor of hazardous toxins in our air.
By my standards, they are demons. The “big beautiful bill” is going to close up to 742 hospitals and kick 18 million people off Medicaid. They did not extend the Obamacare subsidies which means healthcare insurance premiums will double, triple and quadruple.
They are destroying our country and killing people. They cut the National Weather Service which led to deaths, they cut Meals on Wheels, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the anti-scam police), cut the nuclear regulatory officials, cut the Department of Education, fired 83,000 veterans, closed 1/2 of the Social Security offices, cut food safety inspectors, fired 250,000 public workers, and cut air traffic controllers while planes fall out of the sky. They cut scientific and medical research, pediatric cancer research and US food aid where millions are going to die.
These people are liars, conmen, grifters. They are cutting every worthwhile program that government does and it doesn’t seem to bother them one tiny bit, except don’t let the pedophile protection program falter.
In 2026 I can’t believe these are the achievements we should celebrate on America’s 250th anniversary. Please remember to vote!
Bill Biery
Sequim
USPS late deliveries
Starting in April, many of us who receive our newspapers via USPS began complaining to our local post office regarding late deliveries. We weren’t receiving same-day delivery of the papers and in some cases, papers were arriving as much as a week late. It took months to determine the cause, and it’s not the fault of publishers, or the local USPS office, or our carriers: it’s USPS HQ, which decided to slash service to any area more than 50 miles from a Regional Processing and Distribution Center. This was pitched as a cost-saver.
However, as the Postal Regulatory Commission says, “The Postal Service understated the negative impact its proposed changes are likely to have on mail sent in rural communities. While the Postal Service says that service will improve for most mail, the majority of ZIP Codes are more than 50 miles from regional processing facilities. A higher percentage of rural areas are affected by mail slowdowns than non-rural areas.” See https://prc.gov/postal-service-implements-nationwide-changes-mail-service.
As for saving money, another important quote: “The Commission concluded that the Postal Service’s plan is unlikely to achieve its projected cost savings or improve the financial health of the Postal Service.”
According to a postal employees union website (https://www.npmhu.org/media/update/united-states-postal-service-delivering-for-america-plan), there are only 60 RPDCs in the entire country. Given that any city more than 50 miles from one of these centers has had service reduced, it’s no surprise to learn that another website says the change affected more than 24,000 locations, almost 75 percent of all post offices.
Unhappy? Guess what? It gets worse. There is no USPS HQ office that will receive complaints about this. If you go to the USPS’ online complaint website, all you can do is comment on a specific piece of mail, not the overall decline in service. Our only option is to contact our representatives in Congress, Emily Randall, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. You can find links to their contact information at https://whosmyrep.org/.
Linda Carlson
Sequim
