Letters

Who to blame today

President Trump's blaming all those evil journalists and now even the intelligence community for the woes brought down upon his punkin head is the same as blaming the X-ray technician for a broken leg.

How sad it is that we are currently afflicted with such a head case. Stop trying to sell us your fantasies about the newsies and the spooks, OK? It isn't manly to whine.

ELIZABETH K. HARRIS

Cherokee Village

Media disrespectful

I had thought the national media would learn their lesson after the debacle of a job they did "reporting" on the presidential campaign, but no, they have not relented on President Trump. Maybe for a week the media took a breather and were sheepish as they should be, then they have been right back at their hateful, rude and disrespectful slant on President Trump. Never have I seen a sitting president treated so disdainfully and even outright calling him a liar.

Case in point is the Feb. 16 news conference. President Trump needs no one to take up for him or defend him; he does that very well on his own! Thankfully, he let the national media know where they stand and how he will "deal" with them. I would have bet the farm that the main "news" the media would lead with would be President Trump's attack on the media, and sure enough, that was their take on it. No one cares what the media thinks about being "attacked" nor, sad to say, what they think. The media are so full of themselves and so out of step with reality.

President Trump hit the nail on the head and described the media's attitude and reporting on him very accurately. He said he could not believe the anger and hatred displayed, and noted, "The public doesn't believe you people anymore." How true. Our forefathers are turning in their graves as they see what freedom of the press has come to mean. Trump added, "I see [the] tone" of the reporting, and that, too, is exactly correct. We all see the unfairness.

My advice to those bigwig media of CNN, the Washington Post, New York Times, et al.: Grow up. Start acting like the professionals we used to know. You screwed up on your reporting on the campaign. Do your job. Treat this administration fairly. Give it a chance. Don't keep beating your dead horse. Display some American pride and hope. Don't keep trying to tear us down. We have had enough politicians in recent years doing this.

SHERRY SNOW

Pangburn

About the protesters

Now we have the president of the USA calling those of us who protest, or plan to protest, thugs, paid protesters and even professional anarchists.

Let me tell you who I am. I am a retired registered nurse who spent 41 years in the health-care field with top medical professionals who always put the patient first regardless of ethnicity, color, religion, or sexual preference. Never once was a patient refused our services, and it was delivered with respect every time.

How can we even justify the use of crude, demeaning, offensive language coming from Mr. Trump? Certainly my family does not consider me to be any of the above vile names. Attitude reflects leadership, and I don't see any coming out of the White House. It is more like mean girls/boys club, if you will. We teach the younger generation to tell the truth and to be role models to children. Tyranny and fascism are when one person controls everyone else. Do we Americans want to live under a regime and sweep freedom away?

KATHY KEATON

Jordan

Gitz getting my goat

In his Feb. 6 column "Posing for history," Bradley Gitz dismissed President Trump's immigrant ban as "clumsy but ultimately trivial." Certainly it is not a trivial matter for many of the state's colleges and universities, but apparently it is their fault for being "on the leftward arc of history."

Real history is another matter. In the spring of 1939, Joe Strecker, the Hot Springs owner of the Family Circle Café, faced deportation for having attended a political speech in the 1932 presidential race and giving 60 cents to the Communist Party. His case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court that spring even as Martin Dies, founder of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Republicans began impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins for letting the Supreme Court hear his case.

Meanwhile, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall, Congressman Hamilton Fish denounced President Franklin Roosevelt for not sending Adolf Hitler birthday greetings, and the German liner St. Louis with its mostly Jewish children passengers was forced to return to Germany with predictable results documented in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The DAR and the American Legion targeted these Jewish children to almost universal approval, and FDR refused to act. Joe won this round, but only the outbreak of World War II prevented his deportation.

Were these events also posing?

MICHAEL B. DOUGAN

Jonesboro

Keep Medicare safe

Calls in Congress to cut back Medicare into some kind of voucher system should alarm anyone concerned about people's ability to pay for health care. Such a radical change is unnecessary and unwarranted. If the voucher proposal goes through, the 565,000 Medicare enrollees in Arkansas face the prospect of rising health-care bills as traditional guarantees of Medicare wither.

Vouchers would dramatically increase out-of-pocket costs for current and future retirees when they can least afford it. The voucher, or premium support system as some call it, would force growing numbers to choose between paying for health care and other necessities. That is fundamentally wrong. It is a broken promise to those who have paid into the program their entire working lives. Getting sick is risky enough without weakening the promise of Medicare.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged to protect Medicare from changes like this. We are counting on Congress and him to stand by his promise and to oppose voucher proposals.

Congress should commit to protecting Medicare and instead find other ways to target rising health-care costs, such as by lowering drug costs through the market forces Medicare creates rather than artificial pricing the pharmaceutical industry sets for Medicare users.

JOHN B. ZIMPEL

Mabelvale

Editorial on 02/20/2017

Upcoming Events