We need to hear truth
OK, Republicans and Democrats, forget the political differences. We need President Donald Trump to stop lying! I have wanted this for at least three years. We especially need it now with the covid-19 pandemic. He needs to let the specialists speak, not him. He wants to talk since he can't have rallies. He wants to hold a rally at the covid-19 meetings.
The American public needs to listen to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and follow their scientific advice and the social-distancing instructions that they provide.
On the one hand, President Trump tells us he is the U.S. cheerleader and then turns around and chews out a journalist that has quoted him and he calls it fake news. He says farm workers are essential and then turns around and says we need to cut their pay. These are already low-paid workers putting their lives on the line so we can all eat.
Please, President Trump, stop making this all about you. Make it about the science, flattening the curve and saving lives. The worst thing that can happen is if you don't listen to them and you tell everyone to go back to work. If this virus is anything like the 1918 influenza, there will be multiple waves. Singapore is already having a second wave.
We need a president that speaks the truth, clearly and consistently.
JOHN MILLS
Little Rock
Where credit is due
I wasn't born in Arkansas, but moved here as a young adult in the early '70s. During this current pandemic, I have been delighted, even amazed, at how fortunate I am to have made Little Rock my home of choice.
So I want to give loud credit to those who deserve it. First, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, for consistently being the grownup in the room. He has led with compassion, thoughtfulness, honesty and pragmatism. And I couldn't be more impressed with members of his staff who have all followed his lead, particularly Nate Smith, secretary of the state Department of Health.
Second, to city and county staff and governing boards, both current and former, who have provided such a beautiful and livable city. To stay upbeat, I've been taking a walkabout every day, and I've gained a newfound appreciation for our community. We've got bridges (Big Dam and Clinton Library), parks, sculpture, trails and sidewalks accessible to walkers, bikers, baby strollers, and wheelchairs.
I'm very grateful to all our smart and visionary leaders, to the staff members who maintain our city, and to the many generous donors who have supported these projects. Thank you very much!
RUTH D. SHEPHERD
Little Rock
Why it wouldn't work
Re "Paycheck to paycheck" letter: The hypothetical scenario that the working class might have some more savings to combat the pandemic if the minimum-wage or lower-earnings jobs did pay $25 an hour is nonsense because the fact remains that the decision makers, by design, will keep the markets just inside the affordability parameters no matter how much money is earned. By design.
JUSTIN EUBANKS
Beebe
Voter participation
Several items have run recently addressing the issue of mail-in ballots in general, and the Wisconsin primary fiasco in particular. Combined with Donald Trump saying out loud what many in his party have thought for years--that if mail-in voting is allowed, "You'd never have a Republican elected in this country again"--we have an interesting situation.
The reality is, voter fraud in the United States is vanishingly small at the ballot box. Loyola law professor Justin Levitt investigated elections going back to 2000, finding 31 credible incidents of voter fraud out of over a billion votes cast. This is hardly a problem, since the effect is not even minimal. Mail-in voting has been done in Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, and several other states for years, with few problems.
More pernicious is voter suppression, which happens in ways that are not always apparent to the observer. Republicans have made this into a cottage industry with approaches such as requiring voter ID, difficult for some to get, and uneven in application. Gerrymandering is also a popular approach, by making districts safe for certain parties by cutting up the vote. In North Carolina, when changes to that state's voting rules were challenged, the judge in the case said, in throwing out the most egregious aspects of the law, that "Republicans targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision." In Georgia, during the last gubernatorial election, many polling places were closed, most of them in areas of large minority populations.
Every eligible American citizen should be allowed every opportunity to cast a ballot, and doing so should be made as simple as possible, without impediment. There's no reason mail-in ballots cannot be used to advance this cause. For Republicans to go to great effort to suppress voter participation in the hope of gaining advantage is not only unpatriotic, it is reprehensible. Apparently, they feel they have to game the system since they can't win on their ideas and message.
THOMAS BECKETT
Siloam Springs
Seen while shopping
Recently I was in two grocery stores in North Little Rock, and when I got to the checkout, they made a big deal out of me staying behind the plexiglass shield at the counter, and all of the cashiers and baggers were masked and gloved, as was I. However, throughout the store, managers, stockers and those doing the call-in shopping were neither masked nor gloved. And some customers were not covered either. At a second store, the same about the employees, and in that store, I saw a family of four--mom, dad and two teenagers--all unmasked and ungloved.
I would suggest that you give stores the right to deny admittance to entire families and to require workers in the stores to be masked and, I would hope, gloved, but I will leave that to the others to decide.
MARK WEATHERTON
North Little Rock
Editorial on 04/23/2020