To the editor,

As a clarification to my recent two letters to the Dayton Chronicle regarding the Betsy Ross Flag, I identified myself as a member of the Dayton Task Force. I would like to clarify that I was not speaking on behalf of the Task Force, but expressing my personal opinions. I did not, nor did I intend to, identify any person or official group that might have been associated with resistance to the flag. I hope that our community will respect differences in opinion and debate issues based upon facts, not hearsay nor personalities.

Marcene Hendrickson

Dayton, Wash.

To the editor,

Cathy McMorris Rodgers is a top recipient of NRA donations. During seventeen years in office, she has consistently voted against control of guns, in any form.

Nineteen days after the Uvalde massacre of seventeen children, McMorris Rodgers voted NO to the Protecting Our Kids Act.

She says it’s all about mental health, not guns. Fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger answered her best: “What you are seeing right now is all these politicians that are scared to talk about the gun issue. They know that this is an issue, but they’re scared to talk about it, so they launch into this thing about mental health.”

Being a top recipient of NRA donations, Cathy spins the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. Most of us agree that our founding fathers never intended the use of assault weapons to slaughter our children, and each other, at will.

Senate Democrats and Republicans just passed the Bipartisan Community Safety Act, and when it came to the house, McMorris Rodger’s vote was…NO.

On spite of her no vote, the Bipartisan Community Safety Act passed the House and went to President Biden to be signed into law.

After seventeen years of voting against gun reform, even after seventeen children’s bodies were blown apart by an AR-15, we can assume that gun control legislation will continue to be a NO vote for McMorris Rodgers.

Cathy McMorris Rodger’s staying in Congress and the over million dollars she now has are very important to her. We must decide if her political life is more important to us than our children’s lives and the proliferation of mass shootings.

We have the power to vote her out November 8.

Pat Bates

Clarkston, Wash.