Letters: KC readers discuss charity at Halloween, John Birch Society and Amy Coney Barrett
Turn it into help
In view of the fact that so many people need help to feed their families, and since health authorities are advising against trick-or-treating this year, why not donate money you normally would spend on candy to the Community Services League or other worthwhile charitable funds? Or, if you’ve already bought the candy, why not donate it to a food pantry?
- Barbara Young, Independence
No hate here
On Oct. 14, The Star published a story about Ammon Bundy’s activist network, People’s Rights, citing a report by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. (1A, “Far-right network spreads to Missouri, report says”) It quoted from the report: “Conspiracy theories from QAnon, the John Birch Society, Three Percenters and militia-types, Christian nationalists, and hardcore anti-Semites have circulated throughout the People’s Rights network.”
It doesn’t provide proof of the “conspiracy theories” from us that it’s referring to, but The John Birch Society can prove we don’t deal in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Our policy has been to deny membership to anyone who espouses hate and violence.
We have members of a variety of colors, ethnicities and backgrounds. This is fact, not only by virtue of basic observation, but even official investigations.
Our governing board has included Jewish members since its founding. Furthermore, the society not only excludes hate, but we’ve helped battle it. Working with the FBI, our Delmar Dennis infiltrated the most violent Ku Klux Klan in U.S. history and helped bring down some of its murderous members.
We invite readers to look into the society and make their own conclusions. And as always, we welcome anyone who values constitutional principles and freedom into the JBS fold.
- Paul Dragu, Communications Director, The John Birch Society, Appleton, Wisconsin
Sign of the times
We just witnessed the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court blatantly lie to the American public.
- Tom Witwer, Overland Park
Pack these courts
If Democrats control the House and presidency in 2021, they should pack the courts — the lower federal courts.
While the U.S. Supreme Court looms large in our political consciousness, in its October 2019 term, it issued but 63 opinions. The federal trial and intermediate courts of appeal do the real work of the federal judiciary.
Yet as of this October, the federal judiciary identified 38 “judicial emergencies” across the country because of understaffing of the lower federal courts. And no wonder. The federal judiciary reported 376,762 new cases filed in the trial courts in 2019, a 5% increase over 2018. To this task, Congress allocates but 671 federal trial court judges.
We escape total gridlock only through the extraordinary efforts of retiree judges and non-presidentially appointed magistrate judges. But this workaround does not constitute a strategic solution.
We require more lower court federal judges — not as a political imperative, but as a workload imperative.
A Republican-controlled Senate would never agree to legislation creating new judicial positions for a President Joe Biden to fill. Thus, if the Democrats have the House and White House in 2021, they should take this unique opportunity to pack the courts where there remains undeniable need — the lower federal courts.
- Lumen Mulligan, University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence
This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Letters: KC readers discuss charity at Halloween, John Birch Society and Amy Coney Barrett."