Cock-a-doodle-don't
I knew it was too good to be true. We got back from a long vacation and nothing was in the paper about the senator from Bigelow. But our relief has been shattered when I discovered that Brother Jason Rapert has once again decided to inform folks of this state who he thinks is holy and who he thinks is not holy.
Of course, he is in the former camp. Those that disagree with him are in the latter.
Hearing about his pompous pronouncements reminded me of something my Daddy said long ago: He's a puffed-up rooster who takes credit for the sunrise.
JAKE TIDMORE
Little Rock
Huckabee's support
Recently in Paraguay, a 10-year-old girl was raped and fell pregnant. Paraguayan law prohibits abortion unless the pregnancy threatens the mother's life, so at 11 the girl was forced to deliver the baby via C-section.
Mike Huckabee appeared on CNN and supported Paraguay's decision, saying something we can all agree with: "every life matters." I suppose that doesn't apply to the children the girl may not be able to have later on due to complications from facing this surgery at such a young age, but I'm no preacher.
Mike Huckabee's net worth is believed to be in the area of $5 million-$7 million, stemming from a $500,000-$650,000 yearly average income. This is more than 10 times what the average Arkansan household brings in.
According to a 2007 United States Department of Labor report, 7.7 percent of Paraguayan girls age 10-14 work, mostly as domestic servants. They are unpaid, save for food and board, and are often subject to sexual assault--not an ideal job for someone raising a newborn.
Mike Huckabee is a wealthy man whose children are out of the house. He makes much more than what the average Arkansan makes. Do you remember how, rather than simply bleating out his opinion on this matter on TV to score political points, Mike Huckabee took action and offered to adopt both mother and child, or at least contribute some of his wealth toward providing them with safety and security?
Yeah, me neither.
ROY BRYAN BISHOP
Mountain View
Insert tongue in cheek
Thank you very much for publishing the anti-union column from James Sherk, a member of Heritage Foundation. It was almost as fair as Fox News broadcasts.
Hopefully you could publish an article telling us how lazy, poor workers should pull themselves up out of poverty, or even a piece from David Duke soon.
BILL FRITZ
Hot Springs Village
The rising oligarchy
Today if someone wants to run for office in government, he needs lots of money. It's a battle of who can raise the most. What promises are made in return?
This is not a democracy when money means you have more than my one vote to cast in your puppet-scripted election process. Pay the piper or the oligarch. Enough is enough.
STEPHEN MICHAEL FARAR
Fox
In state's best interest
If Planned Parenthood "does not represent the values of our state," then Arkansans do not value birth control, cancer screening, STD tests, and other women's health care. The Arkansas values card is blatantly played by politicians who use such tricks to play psychological games with the populace. The term has been so misused that it has no clear common meaning.
The decision to terminate the state Department of Human Services agreements with Planned Parenthood is based on edited videos from an anti-abortion organization calling itself the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). The group has been faulted for using possibly illegal and false accusations to promote its agenda. Valid investigative reporting has exposed the CMP as having no associated medical personnel and using a mail-drop location as its official address. It seems truth, accuracy and authenticity are not the trademarks of CMP; it uses unprincipled tactics to advance its extremist propaganda. And yet the governor says that the CMP story "seems to be authentic, about the Planned Parenthood and the negotiation for the selling of unborn fetuses." The governor has politically shielded himself by dropping the responsibility of his termination order into the lap of the Republican legislators.
And then there are the federal warnings that ending Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood would be a violation of federal law. On this issue, law professor John DiPippa is a more knowledgeable source on federal law than a governor's spokesman.
I believe the termination order is a Republican ploy to attack women's health care while hiding behind the "in the best interest of Arkansas" rhetoric.
ED ROGERS
Little Rock
Civility and barbarism
It has been said there is a fine line separating civility and barbarism. That line is the value placed upon human life. Dare I write, we, as a nation, have crossed that line in the guise of freedom and acts of selfishness, all decided from a distorted sense of morals and absolute truths.
History has proven time after time when people, organizations and/or nations have no standard measurement of morality and truth, conflict and chaos prevail with the demise certainly to come.
With the current sad state of leadership in our national and state capitols, we are traveling a hundred miles per hour in the wrong direction to prevent such from coming to be.
"For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil act." Care to deny that truth?
May God have mercy on us.
ROBERT McNEAL
Walnut Ridge
A little hair of the dog
What is it with these Clintons? Readers should remember later-impeached Bill slowing down and halting airline traffic for a haircut. Cheers!
T.C. HOOD
Little Rock
Editorial on 08/18/2015