2nd Amendment humor

My wife was giving me grief about wearing short-sleeved shirts all winter when I have a closet full of long-sleeved shirts.

I told her that wearing short sleeved-shirts was a right guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Second Amendment — the right to bare arms.

Bill Coffman

Lee’s Summit

Workplace predators

The GOP-dominated Missouri Legislature has offered a bill that weakens Missouri’s employment laws and, worse yet, allows anonymity for workplace sexual predators by removing individual liability for managers.

Under the proposed changes to the Missouri Human Rights Act sponsored by Rep. Gary Cross of Lee’s Summit, individuals who engaged in acts of sexual harassment in a workplace would be immune from individual liability.

This means a boss who tells a female employee that the best way to get a raise or get more hours is to have a relationship with him also would be completely off the hook.

Removing individual liability for sexual harassers not only increases the danger to women in the workplace by removing an important deterrent, it also contradicts the idea of taking responsibility for our own actions, which conservatives have been preaching.

The public has seen the horrors when sexually abusive teachers and clergy have been allowed to remain hidden from public exposure.

Any female victim who brings a suit for sexual harassment has her name published on the Missouri courts’ website.

This new law not only would give the lecherous boss anonymity to job hop, it would give him a complete pass as well.

Kevin Baldwin

Liberty

Covering UMKC sports

I know that the University of Missouri-Kansas City basketball team is not a member of a major conference, but I would think that the hometown paper would have provided more coverage of the games. The Star should support our hometown team.

I am disappointed with the effort shown to date.

Colin Kelly

Leawood

Overland Park address

The Star’s Dec. 20 editorial assessing Overland Park Mayor Carl Gerlach’s State of the City speech, “Sure, be upbeat but also realistic,” showed The Star’s Kansas City bias. The whole editorial was so negative.

It could best be described as “yes, but.”

Mayor Gerlach’s talk described the positive things that are benefiting the metro area. Johnson County is the economic engine of Kansas.

This is advantageous for all of us, no matter which side of the state line one lives on. Overland Park and other suburbs are so vital to the health of Kansas City.

The Star should do everything possible to further the well-being of the entire metropolitan area. You might even sell more newspapers.

Phil R. Acuff

Leawood

Ban trap-neuter-release

As a longtime animal activist, I oppose trap-neuter-release, or TNR, programs.

Cats suffer in snow and sub-zero temperatures and in 100-degree heat without water. Kansas City and other cities wisely require people harboring animals to take responsibility for providing adequate care for them.

Because every cat isn’t regularly given veterinary care, TNR-managed colonies spread diseases such as ringworm, toxoplasmosis, cat scratch fever and rabies.

Every cat I’ve rescued has been full of roundworms, which can cause blindness in humans, mostly children who ingest larvae-infested dirt while playing outside.

TNR programs cause terrible suffering and death of increasingly rare song birds and other wildlife.

Operation Wildlife, our local wildlife rehabilitation organization, distributes pamphlets noting that cats kill an estimated million songbirds a day in the United States, and the toll on other native wildlife, such as small mammals, is far higher.

TNR is a halfway measure, not a solution. Because colonies serve as dumping grounds for unwanted, unneutered cats, they continue to expand. Just as it’s considered a kindness to put your beloved cat to sleep when it’s suffering from a fatal disease, it’s more humane to euthanize feral cats that can never be placed in loving homes.

Ann Martin-Gonnerman

Prairie Village

Keep Medicaid dollars

When you pay income tax to the federal government, it is used to make the United States a better place to live. Some of this money has been offered to each state for the purpose of expanding Medicaid.

Yet some of our Missouri legislators have told the federal government we don’t want it. In other words, they have decided that billions of dollars of our taxes should not be used in Missouri.

Instead, the federal government should spend it somewhere else. Maybe officials think it should be used to build more bridges in Alaska?

Contact your legislators today and tell them we want to keep our hard-earned money in Missouri for the expansion of Medicaid.

To find out who your legislators are and how to reach them, call the League of Women Voters at 314-961-6869 or visit the General Assembly’s website, http://www.moga.mo.gov.

Rep. Rick Stream is chairman of the House budget committee and a very important person to reach out to.

We can keep rural Missouri hospitals from closing and save Missouri jobs and promote billions of dollars in economic growth for our state.

Ellen Wentz

Kirkwood

Obamacare benefits

We Americans like to think that we advocate for fairness and justice. Yet, we often ignore those who find themselves lost in the web of capitalism.

Many of our citizens view social programs that benefit our poor as anathemas. One such program is the Affordable Care Act, which has been demonized by the far right as Obamacare.

Make no mistake, additional tweaking of the Affordable Care Act will be necessary, just as Medicare has been tweaked through the years.

However, the initial intent of the Affordable Care Act was to make health care more accessible for our poor. Let’s not lose sight of that.

The Republican-dominated Missouri legislature must choose to opt-in to the expansion of Medicaid as defined in the Affordable Care Act. Not only is this the fair and humane thing to do, it will also bring more federal dollars into our state, resulting in more jobs, sustaining rural health-care systems and enhancing the care of our poor.

Robert Stuber, M.D.

St. Joseph

Spend tax dollars wisely

Show-Me Hunger says $1 can buy seven meals.

According to Brown University, the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2003 to 2010 was at least $3.2 trillion to $4 trillion. Divide $4 trillion by seven and see how many meals from not having war can buy for the hungry.

China may manipulate its currency to benefit that country. We Americans together can manipulate peace worldwide.

As taxpayers, it is your money that is being spent unwisely and you have the absolute power to influence the spender-in-chief, and certainly you have the option to pick and choose.

We can stop borrowing from China, spend wisely, use the war fund to feed the poor and hungry, establish global peace and lead the world.

Sam Hossain

Kansas City

Lee Judge cartoons

Lee Judge is just a blind gun hater, and his editorial cartoons make no sense and are unfounded and getting old.

Can you find another cartoonist? Preferably someone who does some research and knows his subject matter?

Duane Loomis

Wood Heights, Mo.

Weakening Kansas

Gov. Sam Brownback has an agenda in Kansas, and he is trying to accomplish that agenda through changes to the state Constitution and rules to limit the ability of teachers to speak out about your children in an organized way.

Among other things, he wants to deny teachers the right to have their association dues payroll-deducted if a single penny is spent on anything political through those dues.

He would have us believe he is protecting the “right to work.” He is not.

It is not a right-to-work issue. His plans merely abridge the right of an employee to direct how his/her money is collected and spent.

I expect my elected representatives to vote “no” on HB 2023 and SB 31 and to oppose the constitutional changes Mr. Brownback wants.

His plans will weaken the state both economically and educationally, and they need to be stopped cold.

Kathryn Moore

Manhattan, Kan.

Brownback’s Kansas

Gov. Sam Brownback’s next legislative surprise is to rename Kansas to “Koch-ansas.” The state motto will be “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” the state symbol will be a straitjacket and the University of Kansas will now become “Kansas, We’re for Sale.”

Paul Comerford

Blue Springs