Readers react to lobbyists, physicians and Donald Trump

Lobbyists’ gifts

I am outraged at the thought of our elected officials in Missouri getting $900,000 in gifts from lobbyists. How can we feel confident they have our best interest at heart with such activity going on?

Our elected representatives are there supposedly for our best interest. I do not think they should take a piece of gum from a lobbyist, let alone a fancy dinner or a trip.

An elected representative caught accepting gifts should be impeached and/or prosecuted. No exceptions.

Campaign contributions should be limited to $35. Corporations should not be allowed to give anything to anyone.

Corky Lewis

Lee’s Summit

Trust in physicians

I have grave concerns about the honesty between doctors and patients these days.

A doctor from a local hospital told my wife that all was well with her pancreas, despite having the results of a scan in hand that said otherwise. He did not even follow protocol.

Two and a half months later, my wife has now found out she has inoperable pancreatic cancer. With pancreatic cancer, days matter when it comes to treatment. We lost 2 1/2 months of proper treatment for my wife — all because of the incompetence of a doctor’s misdiagnosis.

I would warn people that they might want to check the diagnosis and the word of their physicians. It just might save their lives.

Rev. Terry R. Green

Laurie, Mo.

Trump’s stand

I heard Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in an NBC interview say that he is being so outlandish so he can appear “different” from the other GOP presidential hopefuls but that he would act in a different manner if he were in the White House.

I suggest that he can be different from all the other candidates by behaving in a civil, kind, respectful manner, and he can also start discussing issues and solutions that are well thought out, based on what is possible in our form of government.

I still wouldn’t vote for him, but I wouldn’t be so angry listening to him.

Mary Anne White

Bonner Springs

Photo ID to vote

Missouri Republicans remain hell-bent on requiring people to present photo identification to vote.

The conviction that current ID cards are susceptible to fraud has merit. It does, however, conjure up a comical visual of a cabal of tricksters cavorting about the state, somehow remaining under the radar of authorities.

In any event, are photo IDs impervious to trickery? If taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for this transition, I suggest we elicit testimony from students verifying the failure rate of college hotspot bouncers.

Don Smith

Versailles, Mo.

Voting imperative

I have to wonder whether Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has any idea what communism is after he verbally attacked the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization whose sole purpose is to protect the Bill of Rights, and the League of Women Voters, a non-partisan organization whose primary goal is to educate the voting public. Yet Kobach called them communists.

Talk about red meat. The fact that they disagree with Kobach was his cause to attack them at a recent state Republican convention. It is, however, an election year, and Mr. Kobach is interested in running for governor someday, so that makes it not only acceptable but expected when talking to a conservative group from around the state.

This year especially, Republican-controlled states across this great country will be desperately trying to enact more restrictive voting laws to assure continued destruction of the middle class and the economy. Get out and vote while most of you still can.

Marty Birch

Olathe

Changing Kansas

Kansas’ Republican legislators and Gov. Sam Brownback are behaving like addicts, searching in family members’ purses, wallets, drawers and piggy banks, even pawning grandpa’s pocket watch, to find a few bucks to keep up the façade of “the sun is shining.”

Kansas citizens can provide an intervention — vote the Republican legislators out of office in November so we can restore adequate means to fund this once-great state. Please participate in this intervention.

June K. Groth

Shawnee

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to lobbyists, physicians and Donald Trump."