Welcome to the jungle
After more than 100 days, President Trump has managed to "drain the swamp," but has created a jungle. It seems too many businessmen (not businesswomen) with personal agendas and baggage are trying to implement laws for their own monetary gain. Nepotism is rampant and unchecked. Too much Twitter and not enough transparency--a jungle.
Typically, Republicans push for a smaller government, but I see it getting more complicated with litigation and comments like "I'll see you in court." So much for a smaller government.
The jungle is getting denser, no pun intended ... well, maybe.
MARK A. WAGNER
Bentonville
Blatant power abuse
It is now known that the FBI was investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. President Trump has now fired--against American political and legal tradition--the man overall responsible for conducting that investigation.
I believe this is a blatant abuse of executive power that cannot be allowed. If we accept this, we have started down the slippery slope toward authoritarianism. Partisan investigations by Congress are insufficient. I call on Arkansas' congressional delegation to push for an independent prosecutor.
JOHN KAMINAR
Bryant
Not sustainable future
These days we face an unhappy conflict between capitalism and democracy. The ethos of capitalism is to create wealth in order to produce more wealth. The ethos of democracy is to channel wealth toward serving a common good. On rare occasions the two pursue similar ends, but generally they compete.
Once their competition for dominance was confined mostly within national boundaries. But globalization heightened competition between global entrepreneurs and forced those living in liberal states to strengthen market structures at the expense of democratic ones. The effort defines American politics since the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s; and society today takes on the character of an iron cage--a Hayekian "dictatorship of the market" as opposed to a Marxian "dictatorship of the proletariat." It's an existence defined by economic laws serving wealth rather than a habitat serving humankind.
In the new order, laborers are replaced by robotics. Unions providing labor an effective voice are decimated. Production and jobs are moved to countries with lower wages and taxes. The gap in wealth grows endlessly. The voices of the many are reduced by gerrymandering and voter suppression, while the voices of the few are enhanced by money and class politics. Public health is sacrificed to private gain. Science and other constraints on accumulation are repressed. And, of course, all this is disguised by disingenuous free market and nationalist ideologies.
This may be our future, but it's not a happy nor a sustainable one that we misconstrue as "making America great again."
DAVID SIXBEY
Flippin
Meh, it's just a theory
A recent column in this fine journal of enlightenment reports that in the 1970s scientists were telling us that the earth was cooling, and that now they're telling us it's heating up. These huckster climatologists can't keep their story straight.
And it's not just climate scientists who are untrustworthy. There were also articles back in the 1970s about how peptic ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle choices. Now we're told, in complete divergence from the earlier story, that most ulcers are caused not by stress or diet, but by a bacterium called H. pylori.
Bacterially induced ulcers? Yeah, sure. Just another fad flip-flop theory, like global warming.
CLEVE MAY
Little Rock
Call for investigation
Senators Cotton and Boozman and the Arkansas congressional delegation to D.C.: I implore you as a fellow veteran and patriot to call for a special prosecutor and counsel to investigate President Trump, and Russia's apparent attack on our elections last year. This is an attack on our sovereignty and democracy. What is Trump hiding?
I did not agree with how James Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, but I think Trump firing Comey now is worse than Nixonian Watergate territory. Stand up for your country. We need you to stand up now. Tell Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan to represent America, not give political cover to Trump!
PATRICK GRAY
Lonoke
No experiments here
Mike Masterson's recent column, "Science, not emotion," got me to thinking about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and the use of built-in wastewater treatment plants to convert raw liquid swine manure into treated waste. I imagine that proponents of this sort of technology for C&H Hog Farms see this as a solution to lessen the facility's adverse impacts to waters of the state and to the Buffalo River. Good enough.
However, industrial wastewater facilities are subject to our state's wastewater treatment facility regulations. I wonder if these proponents who push for a waste treatment plant for a CAFO in the Buffalo River Watershed will lobby for strict regulatory, compliance, and enforcement measures; after all, we're talking about waste treatment on a magnitude of scale.
What are the cost projections for this type of facility? Who will bear the costs? C&H? JBS? Farm Bureau? Taxpayers? Has this type of technology been scientifically proven to be superior and environmentally safe for large-scale industrialized CAFOs in karst environments?
As I pondered more on this subject, I realized that it doesn't make economic sense to site a plant for just one CAFO. Will this be a showcase facility? Might more CAFOs be allowed in the Buffalo River watershed? Is this what we want for our river?
The Buffalo River Watershed is not the place to experiment or conduct research on behalf of industrialized agriculture.
Now that's something to think about ...
DANE SCHUMACHER
Huntsville
Just a few questions
I have a few questions for President Trump:
Where are Mrs. Trump and your youngest son and where do they live? We haven't seen much of them since you spoke before Congress after the inauguration.
When you have visitors at your resort in Florida, do they stay at your resort and pay for their lodging, or are they your guests?
Do Secret Service agents stay at your resort, and does the government pay for their lodging?
Do you think the office of president of the United States is a 40-hour five-days-a-week job?
On a map of the U.S. without the names of the states printed on the map, can you point out the state of Arkansas?
Do you go to church and believe in a higher power? Or do you believe you are the higher power?
Just asking.
GRACE WATT
Springdale
Vengeance is mine ...
Regarding the legalized killings of Ledell Lee, Jack Jones, Marcel Williams and Kenneth Williams, I have this question for the Arkansas governor: Who died and made you God?
CONSTANCE DURKIN
Fort Smith
Editorial on 05/13/2017