If you care, get involved
Dear Editor,
I recently visited a retired career federal employee. He pointed out a few things with regards to Elon Musk’s efforts to reduce the Federal Workforce by 50 percent with upcoming Reductions In Force (RIF). This initial firing of probationary employees was illegal. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has no statutory authority over any federal employee other than the ones that work directly for the OPM. Employees received a form letter announcing their termination due to poor employee performance ratings. This is an obvious lie as it was a form letter and all employees my friend knows that were affected had a perfect rating.
Now, let’s take the news from an esoteric issue to a local one. In October, a small news item mentioned that the Forest Service had canceled all hiring of seasonal employees for 2025. These are the employees who work for about half a year and perform about 70 percent of all fieldwork for the agency. Next came the firing of the probationary employees.
Locally at the Leavenworth District, that amounted to 10 people on probationary firing and maybe 50 seasonal employees. Some examples of what that means on the ground are: there is one Wilderness Ranger left; zero trail maintenance people; zero campground people; zero receptionists and zero fish, wildlife, botany and timber field crews. Will closed campgrounds (littered with garbage and human feces), closed roads, closed and grown-over log-covered trails and a half dozen folks to put out fires, wake people up that there are real consequences to this action?
Realize that this is just one tiny office of one agency. And let’s not forget, these are real human beings we are talking about. They have to eat, pay rent, feed the kids. These are people willing to take these low-paying jobs because they care about the land and love the work they do. And then to get a slap in the face with no notice, no severance pay and a black mark of “bad” performance appraisals. This is just an insulting way to treat humans let alone public servants. By the way, if you are fired for bad performance, you might not be eligible for unemployment benefits. (Trivia: The federal government has to reimburse the States for unemployment payments to laid-off federal employees; big money savings, huh?)
Let’s swing from local to the big picture. Cutting the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other land management agencies is a long-held dream of conservatives. The theory is that Congress will turn over public lands to the States who can “better manage the lands because they are locals.” The States don’t have the funds to manage these lands, let alone extra funds to put out forest fires! So, the States will look to dispose of the lands to the highest private bidders like Bezos, Zuckerberg and other billionaires. With U.S. Representatives, like our Dan Newhouse just rubber stamping anything that the newly elected “King” and his Nazi sidekick want, it’s up to us to get involved and make our voices heard or we’re going to lose what is ours and not theirs to dispose of. Please don’t sit idly by complaining. Get involved in at least one thing that you’re passionate about. For me, it’s our public lands.
Monte “Dosch” Koreis
Oroville
Concerned about Real ID
Dear Editor,
Among my many concerns is one for 5/7/25 – 7/7/25 in re: Real I.D. Some of us have fought this for years and thought we’d won. The TSA is pushing hard to begin imposing this on us in two months and increasing the control by their target date two years later. Why am I concerned? If I was a communist, I’d move to China. This is nothing less than a social control system like theirs, bent on tightening the digital cage we’ve been watching come in like a flood. I am raising up a standard against it, inspired by a lady who’s been fighting it for 25 years.
Twila was on an audio, telling us the latest on Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom for 36 minutes. Some of the info was familiar and some not. The Real ID can be used for a vaccine passport with the potential to eventually lose our freedoms. It is not just a driver’s license as it seems to be. Some may already have it. If there is a star on your license, you have it. She recommends you take it in and trade it for a regular driver’s license without the star. If you need to travel, she recommends a regular passport.
The Real ID can be linked to a worldwide system you may not want. DHS likes it for surveillance. When it is fully imposed on your cell phone, “progressive enforcement and consequences” would occur during the two years until total kontrol is achieved. There are 32 pages of rules we’d have to master. TSA’s been more forceful lately at airports, often telling people they can’t fly unless they comply. That is false. They post signs telling you it is voluntary so far, but some are happy to try to impose it all before it becomes mandatory if we don’t act. Twenty-five states have passed laws against it. Some have told President Trump they don’t want this usurpation. Five states already require it.
In 2016, Obama told us we had to have it, but we fought. It’s unconstitutional under the 4th and 10th Amendments. It would amount to illegal searches and seizures. AMVA started with two percent of our driver’s licenses. IDEMIA is the electronic system used to scan palms, faces, etc. You can wear a mask over your face if they don’t accept your refusal; she says the technology won’t work. They say you’d get three strikes, then you are out. Law enforcement can tell who you are in your car if it’s in your phone. It can tell personal data, such as your shot record.
Contact President Trump, Vice President Vance, Senator Rand Paul, Representative Newhouse, Senators Murray and Cantwell with your comments. More info: refuserealid.com
Thanks,
Margo Thompson
Oroville
Need bulldozer reform
Dear Editor,
After reading: “The last Great American President” by William Nicholson the text from Judges 15:15 comes to mind, where Samson finds a fresh donkey jawbone and kills a1000 men with it. In one of Biden’s first speeches as the fresh Donkey jawbone, he took to the stage to slay 80 million people who did not vote for him, by labeling them domestic terrorist, insurrectionist, threats to democracy, NAZIs, Fascists, and basically the offscouring of all creation.
The setting for that speech was right out of the annals of a World War 2 scene with Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler. The only things missing were the mustaches and flags with Hammer and Sickle and Swastikas. As the nation watched the Donkey’s Jaw Bone frail with all the rage of the long-dead German Fuhrer, it was obvious that the speech was not his own, but by then half the nation had been slain and the Donkey Jaw Bone, evidently tired, wandered off stage. That speech was the nation’s introduction to the new Dictator in Chief and as a puppet Donkey Jaw Bone he served well in that position, when we could understand him.
About Zelensky and the Biden family, what is that Ukraine lawyer doing that was investigating Hunter Biden’s position on the Burisma oil company board of directors? Did Hunter get that position because of his nice haircut? After the “Big Guy” threatened to withhold foreign aid for Ukraine, that lawyer was deposed of in true dictator fashion. There is no need to “dig up dirt” on the Bidens, from the Hunter laptop, the FBI covered up for who knows how long, to Dad marrying the babysitter and showering with his own daughter, to the gun charge, tax evasion, self-medicating with cocaine, shaking down world leaders in exchange for political favors.
The Biden’s publish and wear their dirt proudly. The Democrat leadership finally had to disagree with the idea of Joe being the Last great American President, or they would’ve thrown him in the dumpster like an old shoe.
And the Ironwood Street project “Thank You Joe” signs can be gotten from Afghanistan, they have plenty of the blue “Thank You Joe” signs for all the Military equipment He left over there, just ask them for one. And the 40 things listed as Joe’s achievements are the reason government needs reformed, using a bulldozer.
Steve Lorz
Tonasket
