Leaders must take the Constitution to heart
A letter from Nancy Pelosi informs me that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s one and only mission is to preserve and strengthen their majority. During the Obama administration, the Republican’s political arm had only one mission: to remove Obama from office. Members of Congress should advocate for the good of the country, not the good of the party. They shouldn’t be playing petty politics and blocking bills they think won’t increase their chances of re-election. They should be talking to people across the aisle and in their districts. They should be negotiating, compromising, and acting like educated, intelligent leaders, not acting like kindergarteners.
The RNC’s war chest has over $214.6 million while the DNC has “only” $82.5 million. That $297 million is being used to protect their places in Congress. That money, and all the money used to pay for political conventions and the endless campaign seasons we must endure, could be better utilized helping local businesses in danger of closing for good, supporting our veterans, and helping the disenfranchised get the services they need. Instead of filling a “war chest”, I will instead vote and will do everything in my power to see that anyone I know votes when the time comes. Every qualified voter is privileged to have an opportunity to exercise their right to elect leaders at all levels of government who want to protect their constituents, their planet and their democracy. Take advantage of that right and be glad it’s yours to exercise. Blind loyalty based on party politics accomplishes nothing but divisiveness. We are fortunate to live in the United States of America, built on a democratic form of government. It’s time our leaders and representatives took the Constitution to heart. It’s time to hold them accountable. Vote for them if their loyalty is to their constituents, to our country, to the Constitution, not to what’s best for their own ego or their chances for their own re-election.
Margy Burroughs,
Brunswick
Do we need extremism in The Times Record?
I was surprised to read, a guest column in The Times Record (“Cashing in on the coronavirus,” April 23), that read, “Credible claims are being raised that at some level, state and local governments may be manipulating the numbers to gain higher reimbursements under Medicare.” I realized this was an allusion to a blooming conspiracy theory that has been debunked.
Why is this person making questionable claims and politicizing the economics of Medicare in this terrible time? I jumped to the byline, to see that the author, Peter Roff, is a senior fellow at Frontiers of Freedom and a commentator on the One America News network.
Frontiers of Freedom is a right wing think tank that has taken large sums of money from Exxon Oil, and has advocated, among other things, for the privatization of social security. (Tie our Social Security to the stock market? Really? Talk about an economic disaster!)
One America News Network is a shameless, dangerous “news” outlet that claims Democrats are responsible for the nationwide shutdown in an attempt to “gain power.” One of their online hosts claims the pandemic is not real, saying “150,000 people die every day anyway in the world,” and that “we can unlock the economy right now, and the devastation would be unnoticeable.” Further, he stated “there’s not a shred of evidence that any of these the government-imposed orders to stay home and shut down the economy have had any effect whatsoever on the spread of this virus.” They have also claimed the virus was created in a North Carolina lab. There is much more craziness when you dig just a bit further.
OAN is gaining audiences as extreme right-wing organizations (such as ALEC, the Koch Brothers, and the Convention of States, whose members include billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, HUD secretary Ben Carson, and others) are stirring up discontent with the current quarantine. They don’t care that death rates will rise. They want their underpaid workers back on the job. Kind of similar to how President Trump is trying to “order” meat packers to keep operating, even though COVID-19 is sickening, and likely killing, workers at various plants.
With Trump and a large segment of his conservative base, it’s all about money. People without money do not realize they are being manipulated.
I hope The Times Record will cease publishing anything by OAN. They are dishonest, and corrupt, and dangerous. Please check on these organizations before you do damage printing their propaganda.
Lorry Fleming,
Bath
Wallace column off-base
Doc Wallace, conservative opinion contributor, makes a number of sensible points in his recent column (“Re-open to a new normal,” April 28) on re-opening Maine’s economy, but he also makes several off-base comments. Wallace claims that “many on the left” resist re-opening “purely” because of their dislike for President Trump. This is nonsense that serves only to inflame the deep polarization of our country. Whatever Wallace means by the “left,” I am quite certain that people across the political spectrum are anxious to have the country re-open as soon as reasonably possible.
Wallace attempts to excuse Trump’s slow response to the coronavirus by claiming that no one could have foreseen the pandemic. In 2015, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has spent a great deal of his fortune on public health projects, predicted just such a pandemic in a widely reported speech. President Obama established a pandemic task force to help the country prepare for such a possibility. President Trump dismantled that team after taking office. More recently, in the months before COVID-19 exploded in the US, national intelligence and public health officials warned Trump on several occasions that the pandemic could be disastrous for the U.S. Trump repeatedly ignored or dismissed these warnings and insisted that the virus would not be a problem.
Trump’s dithering caused the US to lose valuable time in making preparations for the pandemic, time that could have been spent in ramping up production of personal protective equipment and increasing the nation’s testing capacity. State and local governments, the pharmaceutical industry, and our universities all have important roles to play in tackling this crisis, but only the federal government has the capacity to coordinate a national effort. Even now, when we know that dramatically increasing our testing capacity is essential, the president keeps telling the states that finding enough tests is their problem. Trump’s failure to provide leadership at this critical time is a national tragedy.
Thomas H. Kelley,
Freeport
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
