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Fact-check, please
Re: “For success, Texas must elevate education,” Greg Abbott, Other Views, Feb. 7:
Would you please fact-check Gov. Abbott’s article? I have been unable to find evidence that Texas has superior education.
Thank you.
Daniel Scroggins
Widening the divide
Re: “A dis to the office,” Your Turn, Feb. 4:
The letter writer declares Democrats showed disrespect by boycotting the inauguration.
Republicans showed disrespect to the office when the Senate refused for nearly a year to hold even a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, for the Supreme Court.
This wound goes very deep, especially with the almost 3 million more voters who voted against Donald Trump. The president has proffered nothing to help heal, only divide.
Pamela Wessel
Solomonesque
I wish somebody in Washington would call me; I’ve got the answer to the logjam about Supreme Court appointments:
All parties agree to the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, an acknowledged conservative with impeccable credentials. At the same time, an ironclad agreement is established that when and if the next vacancy occurs, the tweeter in chief nominates Barack Obama’s choice, Merrick Garland, a centrist with equally impeccable credentials.
Everybody’s happy. One Trump appointee, one Obama appointee. No leaning too far in either direction, no nuclear option to confound future debates. (The one for lower court judges should be abolished.)
Get on with it!
Al Ely
Art and politics
Re: “How art influenced the election,” Gene Elder, Another View, Feb. 6:
I fear Mr. Elder’s imagination is working overtime; he believes the voters were subliminally influenced by Hollywood.
He finds the shows “House of Cards” and “The Walking Dead” particularly influential. I watch both shows, and I don’t believe I received any subliminal messages about how “devious, controlling and self-serving” the Democrats are. Unlike Mr. Elder, I do not identify the Harwoods, the truly evil characters on “House of Cards,” as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Does Mr. Elder view everything through the lens of his own personal political biases? I think it is far more likely that more than 50 percent of Americans saw very clearly how “devious, controlling and self-serving” Donald Trump is in real life, not through a make-believe series, hence his loss of the popular vote.
President Trump is very lucky we have the Electoral College. The American people, not so much.
Debbie Brigham
Beware, bear friend
I am writing out of concern for the safety of my friend, Ben. He has dark brown fur, with tinges of gray (he is quite old) and weighs about 1,500 pounds (he’s also overweight). You see, he’s been missing for a few days now (he’s also partially blind).
It’s just that I’ve heard that Betsy DeVos has threatened to shoot any grizzly entering any classroom she’s in.
Please, Ms. DeVos, hold your fire, if an overweight grizzly enters a classroom. He will be wearing a collar with his name on it, and he’s really very gentle. I may have no need to be alarmed, since you’ve never been in a classroom. But I’d rather be safe than sorry because I really love the big guy!
Carl Lloyd
Buck? What buck?
President Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” President Donald Trump seems to be saying “If anything happens, it’ll be somebody else’s fault.”
How times have changed.
Lou Houck, Boerne
Better tax plan
Re: “GOP border adjustment tax could get strange,” Michael Taylor, Business, Feb. 5:
This column was well written but incomprehensible. How could anyone understand what it was about? He mentioned a proposal by Speaker Paul Ryan about a “destination-based cash flow tax with border adjustment.”
What? Repeat that. What we need now is a tax code even more strange (as if anyone would know it)?
The emphasis by our leaders today is to simplify the tax code. That is a contradiction in terms. There is no way to simplify the income tax. When it comes to collecting federal revenue, there is a better way. A national retail consumption tax on only new goods and services, more specifically, the Fair Tax Act of 2017. This would replace the income tax, payroll tax, corporation tax, estate and gift taxes, and the IRS as we currently know it.
Try it, you’ll like it.
Howard Monroe, Garden Ridge
Bon voyage
Whatever happened to all those people who consider themselves celebrities? They said they would leave the United States if Donald Trump won the presidency. I have bouquets of flowers for them and a farewell sign.
Michael B. White
Raising the banner
I hear the Slander Machine cranking up again and aiming its mud at Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. She was silenced and rebuked for just “trying” to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King at the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions.
This goes beyond the typical Trumpian and Republican ploy to squelch any dissent. I fear for the future of the First Amendment under Donald Trump and his henchmen.
The next day, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., was allowed to read the same letter at the hearing. He was asked, “What do you have that Sen. Warren does not?” The senator graciously said it was a case of “selective enforcement.”
Without being flip and stating the obvious, could it not also be gender bias? We know how deep misogyny runs in the Republican Party and the Trump administration.
I can see many more fights and slights to Sen. Warren, a la Hillary Clinton, in an effort to marginalize her as a potential presidential Democratic nominee should she decide to run. I can also see her valiantly picking up the banner and relishing the challenge!
Jo-Ann D. Elmo
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