Letters: Readers discuss Chiefs’ highs, Trump’s apology and independents in the Senate
Did I do good?
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s homework assignment from the president after his plane ride earlier this week seems to be the price Rosenstein must pay to hang on to his job a little longer. (Oct. 10, 19A, “Trump’s violent crime fight is showing results”)
Fran Rice
Leawood
Got the stuff
On Sunday, the 4-0 Kansas City Chiefs’ high-powered offense was supposed to hit a brick wall called the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Now the 5-0 Chiefs are 3 1/2-point underdogs against the New England Patriots. The AFC championship goes through Foxborough, Mass., apparently.
We don’t get any respect. How many teams do we need to dismantle before we are considered legit?
Brian Brooker
Leawood
Definitely not sorry
President Donald Trump went on national TV and apologized to Justice Brett Kavanaugh on behalf of the nation for how he was treated during his confirmation hearings. (Oct. 8, KansasCity.com, “Trump apologizes to Kavanaugh during swearing-in ceremony”)
Trump does not speak for me. (I don’t consider him my president.)
I believe Christine Blasey Ford, not Kavanaugh, who shed tears because he was scared he wasn’t going to be believable and would lose the Supreme Court nomination.
Well, you fooled some people, but not me. So, Justice Kavanaugh, go sit with Justice Clarence Thomas. I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about. And Trump, I don’t apologize.
Loretta Russell
Kansas City, Kan.
One sexual predator apologizing to another on behalf of the country is truly obscene. President Donald Trump does not speak for me.
Instead of the usual weak statements of one side versus the other, The Star should at least have made it clear that now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh was not proved innocent by the so-called FBI investigation using only a few witnesses handpicked by the White House and barring 40 witnesses who had something to say — one of whom was actually present at the assault.
Blatant lying needs to be called what it is — lying, for Pete’s sake.
June Ford
Archie, Mo.
Editorial omissions
I suggest that The Star’s Oct. 4 editorial, “If the truth mattered, our senators would vote no on Kavanaugh” (12A) is a mere compilation of insinuations and assertions with restricted sources of information and without supporting evidence. I point out but two examples.
Saying Senate Republicans pretend “to have a kind of condescending respect for Ford and never even (intimate) that they don’t believe her” is evidence of selective news gathering. I’ve heard any number of senators (including, of course, Sen. Susan Collins) indicate that they believe Christine Blasey Ford suffered some kind of terrible experience in high school. But absent corroborating evidence (a truth left out of the editorial), they could not be persuaded by Ford’s credible demeanor that Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the person guilty of attempted rape.
The editorial tries to dismiss Sen. Pat Roberts’ demand for irrefutable evidence as identical to “not caring what Kavanaugh did or didn’t do.” Really? Might there not be many possible inferences about this demand, not the least of which is that the senator could have been using the term loosely and meant evidence that is overwhelming in its factual basis?
Joseph A. Cirincione
Lenexa
2 percent solution
When is 2 percent a big deal? Anyone who has run a successful business knows if you increase revenues by 2 percent, a portion of that should flow through to the bottom line. Train personnel, and they become more efficient, producing more with less effort.
But the real impact occurs if one can reduce costs by eliminating inefficiencies that prohibit progress. One hundred percent of that savings drops to the bottom line — not a portion of it, but all of it.
This November, voters will have a chance to be part of the independent 2 percent solution for a dysfunctional U.S. Senate with candidates Craig O’Dear of Missouri and Neal Simon of Maryland.
Two senators of 100 would create space desperately needed for other independent thinkers. There are many examples of great work in a handful of states with independent streaks in their governing bodies, but they don’t make sensational headlines. You must seek them out for yourself.
At the next negative ad, search out an idea to change government — Unite America, a group I am in, for example.
Modify or expand your thinking, not your core beliefs. If you can’t or won’t, we will endure more of the same.
Mark Kalin
Smithville