Fiction is the new normal. Truth, honesty, integrity are all if not dead are severely wounded. I am so ashamed, There is no consequence for distortion, cheating, lying, sexual indiscretions, and character assassination. The presidency, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the FBI are all casualties. Winning at any cost is the new normal and is a disgusting state of affairs. There will always be doubt about any future FBI investigations if they can be limited in scope to predetermine the outcome.
I do not feel at all optimistic about the future of our country if the political situation continues on its present course. The myth of working across the aisle has been exposed as a sham. Congress is not running the country, the Federalist Society, the NRA, lobbyists, the religious right, and large corporations are all pulling the strings that control our lives. Politics has always been a rotten business and will probably always be but my sense is that it has hit all time low. With the current occupant of the White House I see no hope of it getting better. Investigations should be impartial without the interference of entities that have a vested interest.
An example of how the behavior of prominent individuals can influence and corrupt future generations. I recently had a request from a young man for a letter of recommendation for the National Honor Society. In a text message he suggested that I lie about certain beliefs that are contrary to what I actually believe. He also asked me to to inflate his activities that would make his chances being accepted better. This young man attends a parochial school which certainly calls into question the education he is receiving. In spite of his religious education he sees nothing wrong with fudging the truth (lying) to achieve this goal.
It is time for individual re-evaluation of our positions on our hard rock opinions that we have. In our present situation I don’t have much hope of that happening any time soon. With each passing day it becomes more difficult to have reasonable, thoughtful discussions about problems facing us. The world is watching.
James M. Gorman, Dixon, Ill.
A local paper in my area, called “Greenfuse” (Greenfuse.work) recently printed excerpts from a piece about Mike Pence, by Michael Stone at Patheos.com.
During the 1990s Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Pence was hosting a radio show and running for Congress. He wrote columns online for both.
“Why Clinton Must Resign or Be Impeached” was posted on his congressional campaign website. In it, Pence stated “… the President’s repeated lies to the American people in this matter compound the case … [and] demonstrate his failure to protect the institution of the presidency as the inspiring supreme symbol of all that is highest in our American ideals. Leaders affect the lives of families far beyond their own ‘private life.’”
After referencing the Biblical story of Esther, Pence opined that “… America needs to be able to look to her First Family as role models of all that we have been and can be again.”
In “Two Schools of Thought on Clinton,” on the radio station website, Pence wrote about bad moral habits. “If you and I fall into bad moral habits, we can harm our families, our employers and our friends. The President of the United States can incinerate the planet.” After expounding on the dangers of failing to hold the president to “high moral demands,” he went on to state, “Throughout our history, we have seen the presidency as the repository of all of our highest hopes and ideals and values. To demand less is to do an injustice to the blood that bought our freedoms.”
Amen.
Betty Crowder, Honeydew, Calif.
The regime of Saudi Arabia is rightly and understandably receiving worldwide condemnation for their apparent pre-meditated butchering of a Saudi-born journalist in a Turkish embassy. A cursory review of the details outlines the level of ugliness and criminality the Saudis will resort to in silencing dissent. The horror and ugliness inherent in a story where a decent man is lured into an embassy to process marriage papers while a chosen hit team waits inside to dismember him cannot be quantified.
However this tale of evil is nothing but a nursery rhyme when contrasted with what the Saudis-and, yes, the United States-are doing to the country of Yemen, a small country of 29 million that is facing what can only be called a genocidal starvation orchestrated by the Saudis with full support and complicity from the US.
Approximately 13 million people are facing starvation in Yemen. This is one of the greatest human rights crimes in world history and it has scarcely drawn attention at all. We need to, as a nation, come to terms with what our endless arm sales and give-aways to the Saudis means in terms of human suffering, terrorism, torture, and murder.
The evidence and brutality of the Saudis’ human rights record is there on full display if one simply looks. Torture, public beheadings, floggings, mutilation, repressing women to a medieval degree, jailing and torturing any and all kind of dissent. These are the normal Saudi practices. Their unspeakable brutality is business as usual. And with Yemen they are without qualm or hesitation or regret about to embark on a mission of famine and starvation that may leave 13 million dead.
And this is a nation that our political leadership respects and reveres and honors without hesitation. This is not just a damning indictment of the Saudis government. It is also an indictment of we the people. The Saudis could not lay ruin to surrounding lands and engage in unspeakable human rights atrocities without both our tacit approval and endless military aid. We are talking arm sales in the billions and human suffering that again cannot be measured. We owe it to ourselves and the world and, yes, the people of Yemen to say enough is enough. We the people may be the only chance the people in Yemen have of avoiding a level of mass starvation that is unrivaled. We need to make our voices heard.
Jim Sawyer, Edmonds, Wash.
No one is denying, I’m sure, that the majority of male pedophiles are married, and that those men are more numerous than pedophile priests.
It’s simple logic: In all societies, married men greatly outnumber Catholic priests. Yet, Fr. Kirchner, in “Rising Above the Clergy Scandal” [10/15/18 TPP] clings to the notion that celibacy in itself is not the cause of pedophilia among priests.
At any rate, the Church has within its power the ability to lessen the curse of pedophilia among its clergy — if only it would abolish celibacy as a condition for the priesthood.
By his own admission, in Genesis 2:18, God declared that celibacy is not a good way to live: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’”
How I wish the Catholic Church would finally accept what Judaism has always taught – that a healthy sexuality is not an obstacle to their ministers’ performance of their religious duties.
Judaism teaches that God has already given mankind much suffering and placed obstacles in their path which they must overcome in their quest to reach righteousness. Why, then, Judaism asks, must man burden himself with asceticism and deny himself the pleasures and comforts which God has given him?
David Quintero, Monrovia, Calif.
I want to make sure that I understand the following about the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearings: nn1. A woman gave credible testimony that two drunken punks tried to rape her, but somehow it is all the fault of the Democrats in the Senate.
2. Kavanaugh would have never committed such an act, because all of his politically connected friends say so and because he coaches his daughter’s basketball team. Oh! Remember Dennis Hastert, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives? No one could believe that he molested young boys when he was a wrestling coach in Yorkville, Ill. The only mistake he made was not hiring Donald Trump’s attorney to handle the payoff money.
3. Kavanaugh is so upset about his name being sullied, but did not think such action was a problem when he was a member of Kenneth Starr’s lynch mob who smeared President Clinton about whether he lied about having consensual sex with an adult.
4. There was no corroborating evidence against Kavanaugh. Do you believe that Mark Judge, an alleged accomplice in the criminal act, would admit to his involvement in the incident?
My observations should be used to embarrass the Republicans, but one cannot shame the shameless! They lie as easily as that breathe.
Stephen Landuyt, Quincy, Ill.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is our Joan of Arc.
Freda M. Alverson, Honea Path, S.C.
I seem to find myself in the minority in today’s national Democratic Party. nnI disagree with the tendency of most Democrats (including political candidates for Congress and those in the news media) to constantly bash Donald Trump over his obnoxious personality and his divisive comments.
As very-conservative “Morning Joe” Scarborough has said on his MSNBC show, when Democrats talk negatively about Trump, it just makes his supporters angrier and more protective of him, while corroborating their paranoid belief that the Democrats and the liberal part of the media are out to get Trump. Rather, as Joe suggests, Democrats need to focus on telling the people what their values are and on telling the people that the federal government can be a positive force for a lot of good in our country and on how the federal government can make life better for all Americans.
They don’t seem to realize that most Americans agree with them that we need to protect the safety-net programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, College Student Loans, and Unemployment Insurance Benefits.
These are winning issues that we should be constantly talking about, not trashing Trump.
Stewart B. Epstein, Rochester, N.Y.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2018
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