On jobs for everyone
Difficult to understand the convoluted assaults on a narcissistic individual who only wants to provide everyone an equal opportunity to work and earn as much as their efforts and desires warrant. Sad that everyone is not gifted with equality of talent and education so that all can achieve glorious heights. Our creator gifted us differently without an explanation.
But gripers, complainers and do-gooders for others will not and should not elevate standards. What we all need is food, clothing, a place to call home, and a means of movement from one place to another. That is the American way, is it not?
Free handouts may be necessary for the disadvantaged health- and mentality-wise, but hey, $20 trillion in debt. Something has got to go. What's fair? Nobody seems to know except maybe those young talking heads who ramble on, interrupting each other, giving their retrospective views they think are solutions. Really?
What seems to be needed is a creator of jobs for everyone regardless of status. Everybody working, earning a buck. Yes, even the physically and mentally handicapped can learn some type of work that would produce an income. Does not everyone seek the thrill of earning and being somebody that they can look in the mirror and say "Hey, I helped build that building" or "I was a part of paving that road"?
Eunice Shriver set a goal to start the Special Olympics and it is worldwide now. Fantastic. What about a Eunice creator-of-jobs-type individual who could figure out jobs for everyone regardless of who they may be? But hey, what do I know?
I sound like one of those talking heads. God forbid.
GORDON SWAIM
North Little Rock
What's good for U.S.
I recently renewed my driver's license and took the opportunity to change my party designation to independent. I don't believe either party's extreme positions reflect who I am or what I believe is good for America.
To that point, I am amazed that after eight years of complaining about Obamacare, the Republicans have been unable to present a well-crafted, improved plan that really is good for American families. House Republicans passed a hurried mess that was so bad the Senate did not even deem it worthy of discussion.
The Senate decided they would develop a bill in "secret" and rush through a vote before people had time to realize it would be as bad as the House effort. Our senator, Tom Cotton, was a member of the all-male committee responsible for this wonderful proposal. When asked to comment, he said he needed to study the bill first. Really? You helped write it, you should understand every detail.
Tom Cotton and the Republicans have a problem--they swore they would "repeal and replace Obamacare." The problem is they have nothing better to offer. Recently this newspaper presented facts showing that one third of Arkansans are covered by Medicaid. Medicaid paid for half of the births in Arkansas. Medicaid paid $800 million toward nursing home care in Arkansas. Under all plans presented by the Republicans so far, Medicaid gets slashed, assuming the states will pick up the cost.
I'm sure Tom Cotton knows this is a bad plan, and that is why he hasn't really come out and endorsed it. John Boozman generally is a good GOP member, voting what is good for the party, not necessarily what is good for Arkansas.
This has always been about winning a political victory and destroying Obamacare. We need our senators to step up and do what is good for the American people, who have made it clear that they don't hate Obamacare. We need a bipartisan plan that builds on what is in place and makes it work for the most people.
JOHN K. GREEN
Eureka Springs
Hard times are ahead
Catherine Lamb couldn't have said it any better about being a Democrat. I am too. It seems every time Republicans are elected, we fall into hard times. This isn't the first time. I believe they only care for the rich and wealthy so they can get tax breaks.
I wrote Senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman, telling them not to vote on Donald Trump's health-care plan. They both told me they were going to support it. Just wasted my time. Birds of a feather flock together. When it comes up time for them to be re-elected, I say vote them out. See that Donald Trump doesn't get elected again.
DONALD PUTMAN
El Dorado
Turning a blind eye
Senator Cotton, I watched you make a mockery of the Senate Intelligence Committee in June when it seems you pretended to interrogate Jeff Sessions. Could you be any more obvious, Senator--cracking jokes and exchanging small talk about spy novels, all the while cozying up to your buddy, Mr. Sessions?
Let me share another story with you about a young man from Arkansas who rises to power quickly. He forgets that power is a gift largely due to the privilege of growing up in a great country, a privilege that afforded him essential opportunities denied to others. He is corrupted by his own insatiable greed and develops a close alliance with a malignantly narcissistic president while maintaining a blind eye and deaf ear to the rest of humanity. And all the while he pretends he is just a character in some outlandish story. He is disingenuous to his core and secretly votes to destroy health care for millions of people. Many suffer and thousands die. He goes down in history as a condemned traitor.
But hey, this is only fiction, right? We can laugh about it over Scotch and water, watching video clips of you alongside the megalomaniac president you are so fond of, no?
But I am not laughing, Tom. Neither are millions of others just like me. My life is a never-ending nightmare from which I never awaken, far removed from the fairy-tale existence of your own small life.
KATHY MARTONE
Eureka Springs
No free advertising!
Why do normal, intelligent people cover their license plate logos--i.e., state pride, military service, disability--with a cheap plastic dealer frame that covers your pride? Show your pride and take that free advertisement for the dealer off.
ANDREW NEDOROLIK
Lonoke
A change of address
The annual meeting for SWINE (Spectators Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything) was originally planned to be held at Williams Junction, but a late bid was put in by Seaton Dump that lost out in its bid to hold the G-20 summit to Hamburg. Since only a few of us (an elected official of Hazen, an agri representative from England and an international writer ... not myself, though) knew where Seaton Dump was, it was decided to postpone the meeting until after Congress fixes health care.
I feel sure SWINE was well represented at Hamburg, Germany.
DAVE STUFF
Sherwood
Of medical marijuana
I have a question about medical marijuana. If this stuff is such a great painkiller and healer, why hasn't the pharmaceutical industry glommed on to it, made it into little green pills, given it an unrecognizable name, quadrupled its price, advertised it on television, and put it on the market?
Or have they? This industry is not known to be bashful.
JACK McFARLIN
Little Rock
Editorial on 07/17/2017