Letters: KC readers discuss buried Senate report news, brave teachers and vital USPS
Huge news buried
Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chief executive officer and top White House strategist, is now in federal custody on felony fraud charges. I hope the edition of The Star this letter appears in also carries this story on Page 1A and the newspaper doesn’t sweep it under the rug, as editors did with the recent Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee report on cooperation between Trump campaign figures and Russia.
By burying the news of that report on Page 11A, only in a commentary by Timothy O’Brien, you do a great disservice to the public. (Aug. 20, “The Senate report on Trump and Russia is a triumph for truth”)
For those who don’t know, the report states that Trump 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort was a grave counterintelligence threat. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Roger Stone are also heavily criticized in the report for possible illegal activities.
All this news is about the Trump White House and is coming from the GOP-led Senate committee. It should be front-page news.
If our democracy and way of life are to survive, it is up to journalistic organizations such as yours to keep the public informed of pertinent news as it occurs. This should not have been covered only as a column in the opinion section.
- Paulette Anderson, Blue Springs
Serious concern
I have to respond to the Wednesday letter berating teachers who do not wish to return to the classroom. (10A) Yes, teachers are essential workers, vital to the education and well-being of our children and to our country’s future.
Teachers may decide that because of health issues or age factors, their physical presence in the classroom would put them or their loved ones at substantial risk.
When children might not be required to wear masks at all times, or when school boards make their own COVID-19 risk assessments despite Johnson County Health Department recommendations, the fear is real.
Just like nurses, doctors and many other workers, teachers could be putting their lives on the line. Why shouldn’t they be able to choose what is best for them without such derision?
- Cynthia Kunz, Overland Park
Signed up for this?
It is with much dismay that I read a Wednesday letter to the editor criticizing teachers afraid to return to their classrooms in person. How disconnected is this writer and many others who have similar views?
To compare teachers to doctors and nurses is ludicrous. Those in the medical profession pursue careers fully aware of their professional expectations, and they are well prepared and compensated for it.
Teachers pursue their career choice because they have a passion for children. Becoming financially affluent is simply not in the cards. But that is OK — sometimes they follow their hearts and not their minds. As teachers, they come to realize that they are not only teachers, but also social workers, nurses and caregivers.
School safety procedures used to consist of fire and tornado drills but today include terms such as lockdown, evacuation, duck-cover-hold and shelter in place. And now teachers are expected to go back to school during a pandemic. Those who don’t want to return to the classroom are mostly at-risk or live with someone who is.
The writer is correct that teachers are always trying to emphasize how essential they are, and have for years. It just hasn’t worked. They are just seen as selfish. Does this letter writer want to be a school volunteer?
- Toby McCullough, Rossville, Kansas
No comparison
Both the U. S. Postal Service and the Senate were created in the Constitution. The Postal Service delivers mail six days a week, 52 weeks a year except federal holidays. The Senate meets about 170 days most years.
Neither the post office nor the Senate is required by the Constitution to earn a profit. Until the Republican requirement that the Postal Service prefund its pensions for 75 years, the post office was actually making a profit.
I know my local postal employees by name. They are polite and friendly and happily answer all my questions. When I contact Sen. Pat Roberts’ office by phone or email about the Postal Service, I get no response. Sen. Jerry Moran’s office says he supports the post office based on the opinion piece he wrote in the Salina, Kansas, newspaper and the bill he is going to cosponsor after he returns from the current Senate vacation.
I’m beginning to think the government employees in the Senate aren’t backing the Postal Service because they are ashamed to be compared with the hard-working government employees in the post office.
The Constitution used to matter. What happened, senators?
- William Vaughn, Wellsville, Kansas