Don't impeach Trump
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, announced his intention to draft articles of impeachment against President Trump. What a terrible idea!
Don't get me wrong--I am thoroughly opposed to Donald Trump. There is no pejorative adjective I can think of which would not apply to Trump. To describe the extent of his incompetence exercises the limits of our language.
But Mike Pence is no bargain, either. Remember, he is a "Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third." I believe his first calling would be to establish a Christian oligarchy in place of a government. We would have the ethics of far-right Christianity infused into all parts of our society. Whole segments of our culture would be relegated to second-class status or disenfranchised altogether.
America's strength is our diversity--diversity of culture, religion, and thought. Separation of church and state is the bulwark of our many freedoms. Under Pence, church would become state--our bulwark would be gone. Diversity and equality of culture, religion, and thought would be gone.
I believe impeaching Trump is the worst possible strategy available to right this democratic republic. Leave him alone. He will destroy the Republican Party for at least a decade if left to his own devices. ("Devices" as used would also refer to his cell phone.) This country survived eight years of George W. Bush. It will survive four years of Donald Trump.
And it's not even four years. I believe that by midterm the Democrats will take the House and/or the Senate. Then for two years nothing will happen--and that is a good thing. After that, Democrats and right-thinking Republicans can set our house in order.
LARRY HARTSFIELD
Little Rock
Economic Darwinism
How 'bout that "Trump budget?"
I loved the way Mick Mulvaney, budget director, characterized the budget as perhaps the most "compassionate" budget ever. I watched Mulvaney proudly recite how his budget was tailor-made to fulfill Trump's campaign promises.
The ugly truth is that what I witnessed, with barely restrained horror, was selective euthanasia: economic Darwinism (at work) clearly articulated in Trump's budget priorities.
The weakest among us, poor children on the one end and helpless seniors clinging to the other, must go. The cost of keeping the poor alive, as Director Mulvaney so smugly asserted, is not producing satisfactory results.
He's right; most are still alive.
President Trump apparently views their existence as unworthy, even burdensome to those among us who are blessed with good health and a taxpaying job.
Trump's budget will fill the cracks beneath the feet of the living with the carcasses of the poor and defenseless.
Now throw in a health-care plan that is clumsily and speciously crafted to nail the coffin shut on seniors who somehow beat the system, and what have you got?
Come on, Arkansas. You voted overwhelmingly for this monster and look what you've done!
Really sad.
HARRY HERGET
Little Rock
Get the popcorn ready
It seems our present version of the presidency is like watching the movie Aviator about Howard Hughes. We're watching the president of our country come unglued in living color, and no one can tell him so.
Meanwhile, he has us on a bullet train to becoming an isolated Third World country, and apparently our Congress is going to let it happen.
Stay tuned for the next episode.
VIC JOHNSON
Mount Ida
Someone is confused
How can the president both claim that James Comey lied in his testimony Thursday and that he's been completely vindicated? Does he not understand that if he believes the testimony was a lie that it doesn't clear him?
Truth isn't a buffet; you can't just pick out the parts you like and call it true. Context and, let's see, facts must be considered.
Whether there was criminal misconduct is up to the special prosecutor, so no one has been cleared of anything just yet. Pull back on the celebration till then.
But I think I really want "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" on a coffee mug.
LML TERRELL
Dayton
Costs of health care
As the debate continues over the effort to repeal and replace the ACA, I can't help but wonder why this country stays so intently focused on the gorilla in the room, health insurance, while ignoring the elephant lumbering in the background: the high cost of health care itself.
First, there's the avarice of the pharmaceutical industry, which is attempting to make not just a profit but a killing off their products while still enjoying a competition-free ride under patent protection. No longer content to ply their wares just to practitioners, these companies are aggressively marketing their latest line of drugs to combat everything from indigestion to multiple sclerosis directly to consumers. In the meantime, lifesaving drugs like the epipen and anti-rejection medications for transplant patients cost hundreds to thousands of dollars a month.
And then there's the inflated cost of treatment. Hospitals evidently have taken their cue from the military-industrial complex, which could charge 1,000 percent markups on basic items with a perfectly straight face. The result is senior citizens who watch helplessly as their carefully constructed retirement nest-eggs are destroyed in a torrent of medical bills. Even worse is watching someone you love put off a visit to the doctor out of fear--not of the diagnosis, but of the cost for treatment.
While innovation may be encouraged by the money to be gained in a capitalist, consumer-driven society, at some point we must put reasonable limits on what these for-profit companies can charge. Unfortunately, the current president abhors regulatory oversight and insists, along with the Republican-led Congress, on saddling the poor with the onus of paying for decades of misguided and/or pork-barrel style spending by eliminating the safety net that keeps food on their tables and a roof over their heads. Ain't America great. Again.
KATHERINE TUCKER
Perryville
Help social workers
As a mandated reporter in my former life, the safety of children in either difficult home or foster environments was an ongoing concern. The social workers remained exhausted from both the job stress and the inability to provide proper care due to lack of state resources to address these dangerous and harmful situations.
In the past couple of years, Gov. Asa Hutchinson requested to set aside $1 million for 40 additional college-educated social workers for DHS. That computes to $25,000 a year for each position, including fixed charges, transportation, and supervision.
That won't go far in repaying college loans.
For all those who care, and for the many children of this state who are abused, help! The military battlefields aren't the only places where PTSD can occur.
KARIS ALDERSON
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 06/12/2017