National emergency?
President Trump's physical health is right smart good, according to his doctor, but in his recent mental speech about wall-building and a national emergency, he hardly made any sense t'all.
Even one of the right-wing writers, Ann Coulter, said this: "The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot."
WILLIAM KRAMER
Little Rock
That 'crisis' isn't real
President Trump's White House has become truth's killing field. El Paso, Texas, Trump's most recent victim, wasn't dangerous the 30 years I lived there nor is it dangerous today; it remains among our safest cities.
No malevolent invaders are attacking the U.S., as Trump pretends, not since Pancho Villa raided Columbus, N.M., in 1916, but Juarez has had its deadly times. Mexico's drug cartels and their bloody drug wars in Juarez, Cancun and throughout the Americas are fed by our ravenous thirst for meth, cocaine and whatever life-eroding poisons we ingest at a rate and volume to become a national crisis which enriches and arms the likes of El Chapo.
I drove the Border Highway to work for years and frequently slowed to give right-of-way to Mexican workers, some in their work uniforms, some carrying sack lunches, as they sprinted north across four lanes to catch buses to work.
If you stand on the University of Texas at El Paso's southern-most parking lot you will see past I-10 to the huddled poor living in depressing and meager cardboard shacks lining dirt roads climbing hills. You'll see women and children launder clothes they slap against stones and wrench dry alongside the Rio Grande, a trickle when dams are closed upstream, or rushing, dangerous waters let loose to irrigate farms on the U.S. and Mexican sides of the muddy river.
During the desert's monsoons, the cardboard houses are crushed, scattered and swallowed by mudslides that steal lives few deem worthy of a helping hand. These are the destitute families against whom Trump has spread his cruel xenophobic narrative in an attempt to give himself cover to declare his and his cowed Republican Party's fake national emergency.
BOB REYNOLDS
Conway
Record doesn't agree
While I certainly expect to see a conservative take on the editorial page, I don't expect to see facts ignored because anyone says something in particular. In your recent editorial, "La ley es la ley," you tell us that in a recent interview and in the State of the Union address, President Trump told us he wants increasing numbers of legal immigrants. You then dismiss critics who claim he is opposed to immigration.
President Trump may have called for increased immigration in the SOTU, and then doubled down later, but the record speaks differently, and he is still on record endorsing Tom Cotton's efforts to significantly reduce legal immigration. If anyone believes Trump's newfound change toward legal immigration is real, much less that it could survive the Ann Coulters, Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world, they are very likely incorrect.
I expect a pro-Trump view on the editorial page, but I don't expect you to ignore the facts and reality. I will believe Donald Trump has changed his mind and will follow through, and I would expect the editors should also, when concrete actions have taken place, and they have withstood the Fox News challenge.
I really expect pragmatism from the editorial page, whether I agree or not. Suggesting that this president has had some change of heart based on flippant comments in the SOTU that don't even appear to be scripted, and him doubling down later, is not a pragmatic view, but more importantly, it flies in the face of previous actions.
GREG ROUNTREE
Scott
Back flag legislation
I think House Bill 1487 filed Friday by House Minority Leader Charles Blake is an absolutely brilliant piece of legislation.
Blake's bill would change the designation of the lone star above the word Arkansas on our state flag from signifying that Arkansas belonged to the Confederacy. Yes, top billing in our state history goes to the Confederacy. The legislation would amend the Arkansas Code Annotated 1-4-101 to state the star "commemorates the heritage and contribution of the Quapaw, Osage and Caddo tribes and other Native American nations who inhabited Arkansas" prior to European contact.
I have written many letters asking for our flag to be changed. This legislation changes the designation of the star without costly redesign of the flag. I am 74 years old, but I would walk to Little Rock in support of this change.
For those of you who say we should not change history, I say this is just supporting more appropriate history. Those legislators who cannot support this legislation have their minds and hearts twisted in the wrong direction.
GARY W. JOHNSON
Springdale
See the big picture
Close your eyes and imagine it is 2025 and our borders were opened in 2019 to allow 20 million refugees from Central and South America to migrate to the U.S.
What do you see now?
MERLE CROUCH
Searcy
Editorial on 02/19/2019