Not parroting Trump
Lest you believe every Republican in Arkansas is parroting the Trump brigade, there is one Republican in Arkansas left out.
That Republican was chairman of the Benton County Republican Party in the '60s; chairman of the Arkansas Young Republicans in the '70s; legal aide and adviser on prison affairs then commissioner of Revenue for the Honorable Winthrop Rockefeller, the first Republican elected governor (in the '60s/'70s) since Reconstruction; chairman of the Pulaski County Republican Party in the '70s/'80s; registered Republican since 1952, voting almost a straight Republican ballot through 2000; was probably the first in the nation to recognize the famous "16 words" in the 2003 State of the Union were in fact a lie: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"; again splitting the ticket and voting for John Kerry in 2004; became so thoroughly disgusted with the party's leadership and voted a first-time-ever straight Democratic ticket in 2006, continuing that aberration every election since and will continue until some degree of sanity returns to the party leadership.
That Republican was and is me.
BOB SCOTT
Rogers
Two election concerns
I want to see Donald Trump's tax returns.
Considering the age of our two candidates, I'd like to be reassured that neither has been diagnosed with early signs of Alzheimer's.
BETTY HUNT
North Little Rock
Trumpeter once more
So it seems the bloviated blowhard Donald Trump is drooling to become commandeerer-in-chief. The RNC has very sheepishly fallen in behind him, his best angle. He has flipped and flopped on issues such as a woman's right to choose (for it when he professed to be a Democrat but perish the thought now) so much he resembles a fish gasping for the polluted ocean water outside his bankrupt casinos.
According to Chris Lehmann's recent article "Donald Trump's fingers were always short," from In These Times magazine: "Trump's casino-and-hotel complex in Atlantic City was drowning in red ink and drastically devalued junk bonds. To extricate his empire from bankruptcy, he gave up assets and titles ... and saddled his creditors with between $600 million and $800 million in bad paper. ... as he sizes up the deal to refinance the flailing Trump Castle project ... [Trump and Me writer Mark Singer] abruptly realizes the refinancing deal was actually just a further expansion of the facility's debt leverage--'less an investment than a loan.'" The deal collapsed when Trump's partner, Colony Capital, walked away.
He'll bully his way to the bully pulpit, but he's already given most indications he'll leverage himself into another partnership, the RNC, and is fully prepared to stroll away and declare himself the winner once this disastrous misallocation of political capital is converted into more bad paper. Poor ol' GOP (Grossly Outraged Party) and the folks who've bought into this Trumpet's delusions, for disappointment shall be theirs, and ours if Trump is elected to his Whitewash House. Every trumpet has a mouthpiece, and having heard Donald's cacophonous railing and flailing for a year, I find he's not just playing his mouthpiece flat, he has no notion as to what concerts the modern world is playing.
CONSTANCE P. DURKIN
Fort Smith
Start herding them up
Pokemon Go: Is there any more proof needed that humans are sheep?
BRYAN BEDGOOD
Sherwood
Grudges and prophets
Speaking of holding grudges (re Brenda Looper's column last week) I have long harbored a grudge against the month of August. It is usually the hottest month of the year and there is little that's safe to do except find a cool spot and sip iced tea. Recently though, I have made peace with the old boy. As I have said before, two good things happen in August. The kiddos go back to school and football practice starts.
But this year August brings us one month closer to that dreaded day in November. The year 2016 may well go down in history as the year Americans hated to go to the polls. Unfortunately, many may think the patriotic thing to do would be just stay home. I'll leave the merits of that (or lack thereof) for others to ponder.
I would like to share, however, some words that have given me a measure of solace in elections past: a passage from Carl Sandburg's long poem "The People, Yes." It goes like this: "The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold and go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds ..."
The key thought being that we the people will survive in spite of being fooled again and again and I think one of the "rootholds" (an unusual word) would be the Bible with its words of comfort in times of trouble.
I only hope Mr. Sandburg was a prophet as well as a poet.
JOHN McPHERSON
Searcy
America's fallen away
I am worried that there are so many Americans who have fallen away from God, his Bible and his church, and they live their lives as though there is no God. Are they more intelligent than God or his holy teaching?
On my street, we are the only family that goes to church on Sunday. God help us if this is an indication of the state of religion in the United States. I'm afraid it is true.
I hope and pray that the Christian leaders will get out of their easy chairs and wake up our nation. I hope that they explain how we can know God and obey his Ten Commandments. God help the citizens of the United States if they fail.
We will get what we deserve if we and they fail. Pray to God that we don't get the destruction that we deserve if we fail to follow his Ten Holy Commandments.
Let us all pray.
LAMBERT G. SMITH
Pocahontas
Editorial on 07/20/2016