Â鶹´«Ã½ speaks up: Letters to the editor for the week of Oct. 25, 2024
- Updated
Our weekly round-up of letters published in the Â鶹´«Ã½ News Herald.
Candidate for President Donald Trump believes the soldiers buried in military cemeteries are “losers and suckers.†Atlantic Magazine reported President Trump disparaged fallen soldiers in several military cemeteries.
An article in the September 3, 2020, issue outlines President Trump's opinion of soldiers buried in two American cemeteries. He made these comments to his Chief of Staff, retired USMC Gen. John Kelly. Senior defense department officials, there at the time, confirmed some of the remarks but were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The comments have been corroborated by fact checkers at the New York Times and Gen. Kelly.
On Memorial Day in 2017, President Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery with Gen. John Kelly to visit the grave of Robert Kelly, the general’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. After looking around at all the graves Trump remarked, “I don’t get it, what was in it for them?â€
The next year at the big military parade Trump did not want military amputees visible because it would make spectators “uncomfortable†and their presence “doesn’t look good for me.â€
In November 2018, Trump went to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The ceremonies were to include a visit on November 11, 2018, to the military cemetery at Aisne-Marne. In this cemetery lay 2,289 American soldiers, mostly casualties of the battle of Belleau Wood. But the President did not attend the ceremony. He claimed, at the time, the Secret Service canceled his visit due to “poor weather.†No, the Secret Service did not stop him from going, they just stopped him from flying. However, they have cars in France, which is how other attendees arrived at the cemetery.
Trump refused to visit the American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne because the cemetery, as he told John Kelly, is “filled with losers.†Later, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines killed at Belleau Wood as “suckers†for getting killed.
Trump and his campaign staff deny he said these things. Of course they do. But who to believe?
Trump did not pay his respect to the fallen soldiers there because he does not get it! Such a visit has nothing to do with him or his presidency. Going out in the rain does not help him raise money to pay all his lawyers to defend him against all the indictments or judgments he currently faces.
By canceling that cemetery visit, insulting Sen. John McCain, and all POWs by saying “I like guys who weren’t captured,†referring to fallen soldiers in a military cemetery as “losers and suckers,†and restricting amputees from attending White House events, Trump certainly does not get it.
He shows he has no sense of history, service, or sacrifice. In fact, he has no honor and commands no respect or a vote from me. His stated opinion of our fallen veterans and POWs renders him “unfit for service†as commander and chief.
David Walker
Â鶹´«Ã½
In 2018, because a new job had me in the area, I frequented and fell in love with Â鶹´«Ã½.
The pocket of progressive attitudes and economic innovation surprised me for a smaller municipality in the foothills of rural North Carolina.
When I say “progressive," I do not mean left-of-center politics necessarily.
I mean the idea that moving into the future, with better opportunities for a community, is good.
Â鶹´«Ã½ had an active, business-plentiful urban core, breweries and social (including outdoor) attractions within walking distance, a new bus transit system, an economic ecosystem based on stable public sector jobs, and a hospital associated with a top-tier healthcare company.
But as with any community, it was the people who were the stars. I was impressed that the town had the level of care it did for its neighbors — the human service and nonprofit scene punched well above its weight for a small town and there were philanthropic efforts like the ones associated with the Community Foundation of Burke County that helped thousands.
Despite my relocating to the D.C. metro area in 2022, I keep up with the Â鶹´«Ã½ metro and the community keeps me hopeful. There is now a citizens advocacy group petitioning federal and state authorities for bringing back passenger rail to all of western North Carolina, including Â鶹´«Ã½ and Burke.
Again, not every community, big or small, has the progressive social attitude and activism that seem to happen in Â鶹´«Ã½.
I continue to revel in its progress into the future and beyond!
Aaron Kohrs
Alexandria, Virginia
- Updated
Over the past nine years, we've become immune to Mr. Trump's behavior, to the point where some have stopped paying attention. So here is a refresher from just the last couple weeks.
He has repeatedly said the only way he can lose is if the Democrats cheat, undermining faith in our electoral process with no credible evidence.
He has said that undocumented migrants are genetically predisposed to crime.
He has spread disinformation about the FEMA response which has deepened distrust in the federal government and hampered recovery efforts.
He has not been accepting daily intelligence briefings to which he is entitled, and despite lacking the overall international picture and our own government's efforts, advised Israel to bomb Iran.
Lastly, it has been revealed that during his presidency, he made several private, undocumented phone calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin and sent him Covid testing equipment while downplaying the need for testing in our own country.
Do we really want four more years of this?
Mark Selm
Â鶹´«Ã½
As I study our choices for this election, I continue to learn a great deal which I want to share with my friends and neighbors to help them to be as informed as possible.
I have been reading up on the Superintendent of Public Instruction race that's Morrow vs. Green. Republican Michelle Morrow’s experience includes nursing, micro-schooling and homeschooling. It is interesting to have a candidate who doesn’t have a connection with the public schools within the state, who wants to hold such an important office.
Her platforms are without an understanding of the broader needs for students nor teachers. Additionally, she has called for the execution of key Democrats! Is this a model for safety for our youth? Is this what we want to teach our youth about democracy? About varying views?
On the other hand, Democrat, Mo Green, was a superintendent of Guilford County Schools for seven-plus years, executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (which offers educational grants), and school board attorney (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools). Green’s pillars for our educational system include revering public school educators, celebrating good public education, ensuring a safe and secure learning environment, enhancing parent and community support, preparing each student for their next phase in life and investing fully in public education.
Green is endorsed by the NC Association of Educators, “NCAE and its members know Mo Green's willingness to listen to constituents, his creative problem solving, and his educator-and-student-centered approach to leadership.”
The Superintendent of Public Instruction is a four-year executive position in the state, whose role it is to administrate the State Board of Education. They are in charge of implementing the state’s public-school laws for pre-K through grade 12. There are 115 school districts in North Carolina.
Let’s vote for someone with a record that shows they know the intricacies of working with public educators and the community. Vote Mo Green.
Lori Greenberg
Â鶹´«Ã½
- Updated
Our country, state, and local communities have seen and endured a lot in the past few years.
We have faced a global pandemic, an ensuing economic downturn, and a soaring cost of living unseen in several decades. However, I am confident that we, Americans and North Carolinians, can get back on the right path to ensuring a much brighter future for future generations.
There are a few paths that have been carved out for Americans to choose from: one path that leads to an ever-growing, power-hungry, bloated government and the other, a path that will provide the opportunity to advance the ideals of individual liberty and freedom.
It is clear that the Democratic Party continues to flirt with tired, worn-out ideas that have such a strong track record of abject failure that only those who haven’t a clue about history would be able to endorse them. Some of the most recent recommendations given by their candidates at the top of the ticket, who conveniently, were installed by their party without a single vote being cast, are that of price controls and increased budget deficits with the promise of “growing from the outside in."
Such political folly dates back to 301 A.D. when Roman Emperor Diocletian mandated price fixing on various commodities and wages, which led to a sustained increase in prices on those same goods and services, leading to numerous bouts of violence where the edict was eventually rescinded.
The same can be said for the price ceilings mandated by the Nixon administration and then exacerbated by the Carter administration throughout the 1970s where inflation produced interest rates of over 18%!
We need sound policies that will help to lift up all American families, not just elite celebrities, liberal lobbyists, and affluent political activists. The greatest experiment on the face of the Earth, the United States, is begging for the shackles placed on it by an oppressive regulatory nanny state to be broken.
The politics of complacency and appeasement might be preferred by some. Let’s reject those voices and unleash our country’s potential once again.
Colby Carr
Â鶹´«Ã½
- Updated
Ben Franklin said we have a democracy as long as we can keep it. He knew there would be a time when a president would put staying in power above the Constitution and above the will of the people. Trump has told us over and over his calculus is “heads I win, tails its rigged."
That means it really does not matter what the will of the people is, unless he wins. Trump’s presidency ended with our Capitol under siege, windows and doors smashed, hundreds of police injured, six people ultimately dead, every member of the legislative branch of government running for their lives. It ended with his vice president hiding amid cries of hang Mike Pence.
Trump has promised to fire all government employees not loyal to him. He has promised to set the Constitution aside if necessary to stay in power. Trump has idolized Vladimir Putin and threatened our participation in NATO as though the US can stay safe without allies around the world. He says climate change is a hoax.
Trump lied to America after the 2020 election, pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to conjure up over 11,000 votes he did not get, and pressured his attorney general to lie and send a letter saying there were irregularities in the election. He pressured state legislators to deny their certified results and came up with fake electors in swing states.
This election is far beyond whose policies are best whether it’s dealing with the economy, foreign policies, who can manage the boarder better, crime, etc.
This election is about who the person is who becomes president.
Donald Trump brings, lies, fear, hatred, chaos, and an obsession with power. I can only hope we as a nation refuse the darkness, lies, and filth Trump brings with him.
John S. Flood, Jr.
Â鶹´«Ã½
More like this...
Candidate for President Donald Trump believes the soldiers buried in military cemeteries are “losers and suckers.†Atlantic Magazine reported President Trump disparaged fallen soldiers in several military cemeteries.
An article in the September 3, 2020, issue outlines President Trump's opinion of soldiers buried in two American cemeteries. He made these comments to his Chief of Staff, retired USMC Gen. John Kelly. Senior defense department officials, there at the time, confirmed some of the remarks but were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The comments have been corroborated by fact checkers at the New York Times and Gen. Kelly.
On Memorial Day in 2017, President Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery with Gen. John Kelly to visit the grave of Robert Kelly, the general’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. After looking around at all the graves Trump remarked, “I don’t get it, what was in it for them?â€
The next year at the big military parade Trump did not want military amputees visible because it would make spectators “uncomfortable†and their presence “doesn’t look good for me.â€
In November 2018, Trump went to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The ceremonies were to include a visit on November 11, 2018, to the military cemetery at Aisne-Marne. In this cemetery lay 2,289 American soldiers, mostly casualties of the battle of Belleau Wood. But the President did not attend the ceremony. He claimed, at the time, the Secret Service canceled his visit due to “poor weather.†No, the Secret Service did not stop him from going, they just stopped him from flying. However, they have cars in France, which is how other attendees arrived at the cemetery.
Trump refused to visit the American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne because the cemetery, as he told John Kelly, is “filled with losers.†Later, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines killed at Belleau Wood as “suckers†for getting killed.
Trump and his campaign staff deny he said these things. Of course they do. But who to believe?
Trump did not pay his respect to the fallen soldiers there because he does not get it! Such a visit has nothing to do with him or his presidency. Going out in the rain does not help him raise money to pay all his lawyers to defend him against all the indictments or judgments he currently faces.
By canceling that cemetery visit, insulting Sen. John McCain, and all POWs by saying “I like guys who weren’t captured,†referring to fallen soldiers in a military cemetery as “losers and suckers,†and restricting amputees from attending White House events, Trump certainly does not get it.
He shows he has no sense of history, service, or sacrifice. In fact, he has no honor and commands no respect or a vote from me. His stated opinion of our fallen veterans and POWs renders him “unfit for service†as commander and chief.
David Walker
Â鶹´«Ã½
In 2018, because a new job had me in the area, I frequented and fell in love with Â鶹´«Ã½.
The pocket of progressive attitudes and economic innovation surprised me for a smaller municipality in the foothills of rural North Carolina.
When I say “progressive," I do not mean left-of-center politics necessarily.
I mean the idea that moving into the future, with better opportunities for a community, is good.
Â鶹´«Ã½ had an active, business-plentiful urban core, breweries and social (including outdoor) attractions within walking distance, a new bus transit system, an economic ecosystem based on stable public sector jobs, and a hospital associated with a top-tier healthcare company.
But as with any community, it was the people who were the stars. I was impressed that the town had the level of care it did for its neighbors — the human service and nonprofit scene punched well above its weight for a small town and there were philanthropic efforts like the ones associated with the Community Foundation of Burke County that helped thousands.
Despite my relocating to the D.C. metro area in 2022, I keep up with the Â鶹´«Ã½ metro and the community keeps me hopeful. There is now a citizens advocacy group petitioning federal and state authorities for bringing back passenger rail to all of western North Carolina, including Â鶹´«Ã½ and Burke.
Again, not every community, big or small, has the progressive social attitude and activism that seem to happen in Â鶹´«Ã½.
I continue to revel in its progress into the future and beyond!
Aaron Kohrs
Alexandria, Virginia
Over the past nine years, we've become immune to Mr. Trump's behavior, to the point where some have stopped paying attention. So here is a refresher from just the last couple weeks.
He has repeatedly said the only way he can lose is if the Democrats cheat, undermining faith in our electoral process with no credible evidence.
He has said that undocumented migrants are genetically predisposed to crime.
He has spread disinformation about the FEMA response which has deepened distrust in the federal government and hampered recovery efforts.
He has not been accepting daily intelligence briefings to which he is entitled, and despite lacking the overall international picture and our own government's efforts, advised Israel to bomb Iran.
Lastly, it has been revealed that during his presidency, he made several private, undocumented phone calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin and sent him Covid testing equipment while downplaying the need for testing in our own country.
Do we really want four more years of this?
Mark Selm
Â鶹´«Ã½
As I study our choices for this election, I continue to learn a great deal which I want to share with my friends and neighbors to help them to be as informed as possible.
I have been reading up on the Superintendent of Public Instruction race that's Morrow vs. Green. Republican Michelle Morrow’s experience includes nursing, micro-schooling and homeschooling. It is interesting to have a candidate who doesn’t have a connection with the public schools within the state, who wants to hold such an important office.
Her platforms are without an understanding of the broader needs for students nor teachers. Additionally, she has called for the execution of key Democrats! Is this a model for safety for our youth? Is this what we want to teach our youth about democracy? About varying views?
On the other hand, Democrat, Mo Green, was a superintendent of Guilford County Schools for seven-plus years, executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (which offers educational grants), and school board attorney (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools). Green’s pillars for our educational system include revering public school educators, celebrating good public education, ensuring a safe and secure learning environment, enhancing parent and community support, preparing each student for their next phase in life and investing fully in public education.
Green is endorsed by the NC Association of Educators, “NCAE and its members know Mo Green's willingness to listen to constituents, his creative problem solving, and his educator-and-student-centered approach to leadership.”
The Superintendent of Public Instruction is a four-year executive position in the state, whose role it is to administrate the State Board of Education. They are in charge of implementing the state’s public-school laws for pre-K through grade 12. There are 115 school districts in North Carolina.
Let’s vote for someone with a record that shows they know the intricacies of working with public educators and the community. Vote Mo Green.
Lori Greenberg
Â鶹´«Ã½
Our country, state, and local communities have seen and endured a lot in the past few years.
We have faced a global pandemic, an ensuing economic downturn, and a soaring cost of living unseen in several decades. However, I am confident that we, Americans and North Carolinians, can get back on the right path to ensuring a much brighter future for future generations.
There are a few paths that have been carved out for Americans to choose from: one path that leads to an ever-growing, power-hungry, bloated government and the other, a path that will provide the opportunity to advance the ideals of individual liberty and freedom.
It is clear that the Democratic Party continues to flirt with tired, worn-out ideas that have such a strong track record of abject failure that only those who haven’t a clue about history would be able to endorse them. Some of the most recent recommendations given by their candidates at the top of the ticket, who conveniently, were installed by their party without a single vote being cast, are that of price controls and increased budget deficits with the promise of “growing from the outside in."
Such political folly dates back to 301 A.D. when Roman Emperor Diocletian mandated price fixing on various commodities and wages, which led to a sustained increase in prices on those same goods and services, leading to numerous bouts of violence where the edict was eventually rescinded.
The same can be said for the price ceilings mandated by the Nixon administration and then exacerbated by the Carter administration throughout the 1970s where inflation produced interest rates of over 18%!
We need sound policies that will help to lift up all American families, not just elite celebrities, liberal lobbyists, and affluent political activists. The greatest experiment on the face of the Earth, the United States, is begging for the shackles placed on it by an oppressive regulatory nanny state to be broken.
The politics of complacency and appeasement might be preferred by some. Let’s reject those voices and unleash our country’s potential once again.
Colby Carr
Â鶹´«Ã½
Ben Franklin said we have a democracy as long as we can keep it. He knew there would be a time when a president would put staying in power above the Constitution and above the will of the people. Trump has told us over and over his calculus is “heads I win, tails its rigged."
That means it really does not matter what the will of the people is, unless he wins. Trump’s presidency ended with our Capitol under siege, windows and doors smashed, hundreds of police injured, six people ultimately dead, every member of the legislative branch of government running for their lives. It ended with his vice president hiding amid cries of hang Mike Pence.
Trump has promised to fire all government employees not loyal to him. He has promised to set the Constitution aside if necessary to stay in power. Trump has idolized Vladimir Putin and threatened our participation in NATO as though the US can stay safe without allies around the world. He says climate change is a hoax.
Trump lied to America after the 2020 election, pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to conjure up over 11,000 votes he did not get, and pressured his attorney general to lie and send a letter saying there were irregularities in the election. He pressured state legislators to deny their certified results and came up with fake electors in swing states.
This election is far beyond whose policies are best whether it’s dealing with the economy, foreign policies, who can manage the boarder better, crime, etc.
This election is about who the person is who becomes president.
Donald Trump brings, lies, fear, hatred, chaos, and an obsession with power. I can only hope we as a nation refuse the darkness, lies, and filth Trump brings with him.
John S. Flood, Jr.
Â鶹´«Ã½
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