[Vision2020] Address these issues

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (June 13, 2014) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with special thanks to Nancy Chaney.

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Letter: Address these issues
The June 12 Daily News weather report forecast stormy conditions, dark clouds and lightning, coinciding with the Idaho GOP convention in Moscow today. By Thursday, the paper was already dripping with irony.
The headline "State GOP converges on Moscow" evoked an image of a swat team or that gun-toting group that marched in front of the University Inn during another GOP event there. Another article described the arrival of 200 teenagers on a campus that GOP legislators dictated shall allow firearms, despite protestations by academics, administrators and law enforcement. Then there was the story about a $16.3 million federal grant to expand biomedical research through the University of Idaho, augmenting previous grants that leveraged a 10-fold return on investment. Not bad in a state whose Republican leadership only recently realized that to attract jobs, grow the economy and solve vexing problems, we'd better invest in education. Still, Idaho is near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to school funding. Perversely, the GOP seems loath to endorse accepting federal dollars, presumably even $16.3 million of them at the UI. Another article described an influx of youngsters to pull weeds, build trails and clean Laird Park, when parks budgets have been slashed to the bone, and GOP efforts persist to privatize public lands frequented by local families, or trade them away in behind-closed-doors dealings, as with the proposed Upper Lochsa exchange.
Thursday's paper described the political defeat of the U.S. House majority leader for not being conservative enough, strains over the minimum wage, women's rights, FDA food safety violations, religious clashes, health care, gun violence, immigration, climate change, international diplomacy and other pressing issues that warrant thoughtful bipartisan collaboration. I urge Idaho Republicans to address those issues in their platform and pledge to work constructively across the aisle.
Nancy Chaney, Moscow

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A suggestion for the Idaho GOP . . . GIVE A DAMN !

Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"There's room at the top they are telling you still.
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill."

- John Lennon
  
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