Letters: Readers discuss Israel policy, Steve Bannon, the Catholic Church and the fiduciary rule | The Kansas City Star

Fiduciary rule

My experience with retirement investment advisers indicates that we need the protection no matter how much we trust the adviser. I am 71 and recently retired from teaching after nearly 50 years. Back in the early ’80s, I began investing monthly in a retirement fund. During my years with the fund, I noticed that my returns were not doing as well as I was told they would. But my adviser, who changed as the years went on, always reassured me that they would improve as the economy improved.

Here I am 30 years later with the Dow Jones Average at its highest ever. I am retiring and want my money. I find out that I will have less money than what I saved. In other words, I would have been better off putting my money in a can and burying it in my yard.

Where’s the money? The answer? Expenses.

Stop Trump.

Richard Tatro

Kansas City, Kan.

Israel ambassador

I urge opposition to President Donald Trump’s selection of David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman opposes an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution that would lead to peace.

Friedman supports a one-state solution, reducing Palestinians to second-class citizens, and asserts Israel should reclaim Jerusalem as its capital. These views violate a decades-old United Nations resolution.

If there is no two-state solution, Israel will eventually cease to be a Jewish state. The Palestinian population grows much faster than Israeli Jews’. If a one-state solution is adopted, how will a Jewish minority be capable of controlling an apartheid-type system with Palestinians?

Friedman has worked to raise millions of dollars for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. An individual who has been involved in financial support of settlements is not qualified to be the ambassador to Israel.

Ambassadorships require Senate hearings and approval. Friedman’s hearing is Thursday.

Please contact your senators by telephone. Ask them to reject the appointment of David Friedman.

Ron Einbender

Kansas City

Bannon, Burke

Your article “Bannon carries battles to another hub: The Vatican” (Feb. 8, 6A) makes me wonder if Steve Bannon considers Christ to be a socialist.

Mike Cunningham

Kansas City

As a lifelong Catholic, I am troubled by the cozy relationship between alt-right White House adviser Steve Bannon and U.S. Catholic leadership (including Cardinal Raymond Burke) and their open discord with Pope Francis, a breath of fresh air in the Vatican.

The recent article in The Star shined a light on the slow-motion fracture occurring within the church, with one faction looking to regress, the other looking to progress. There is concern that Cardinal Burke’s faith message and that of Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan., in recent articles in The Leaven newspaper are a Trojan horse for other less-Christian perspectives harbored within the church, namely being against immigrants, Muslims, Jews, the environment and women’s rights (among others).

As Pope Francis recently stated, the Catholic Church is obsessed with abortion, homosexuality and contraception but should spend more attention to serving Christ by serving the needs of the poor and oppressed.

I pray that Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Naumann and other U.S. Catholic leaders embrace Pope Francis’ message of faith.

Mark Hannifan

Leawood

Christian terrorists

He and those who speak on his behalf have repeatedly used the words “radical Islamic terrorism” or “radical Islamic terrorists.” Every time he and his spokespersons use the word “Islamic” when talking about terrorist acts, they demean the Islamic faith.

News flash, Mr. President. You are now the leader of a country in which people terrorize people of color and others in the name of being white and Christian. They are sometimes called white supremacists.

Jeffery R. Dysart

Overland Park