Kansas districts, secret factory and peace in Eastern Europe

That’s not patriotic

Thank you to The Star Editorial Board for Thursday’s strong editorial slamming the Kansas GOP’s shameless gerrymander power grab with its newly redrawn congressional district map. (9A, “Kansas GOP’s shameful, corrupt redistricting deal”)

Republicans who claim to be patriotic Americans need to take a good hard look at themselves in a mirror. Your party is seeking to destroy American democracy: the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol putsch; the Big Lie about the 2020 election; gerrymandering people out of a meaningful vote in Kansas; and on and on.

It is time to leave the Republican Party if you really care about democracy. Don’t talk to me about how patriotic you are. You are not.

- David Joseph Pack, Lenexa

Keep the oaths

During January 2021, Roger Marshall took two oaths. The first was at his swearing-in as a U.S. senator. He promised to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The second was to act as a juror and make an impartial judgment based on the evidence presented at the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

On Jan. 6, Marshall broke the first oath by accepting the Big Lie. Later in the month, he broke the second by stating before any evidence was presented that he would not vote to convict the former president.

Now Marshall has broken a third: the promise he made to “do no harm” to his patients when he presumably took the Hippocratic oath as a physician. By not supporting mask mandates and vaccine requirements, he is actively putting his constituents in danger.

Apparently, Marshall thinks that oaths are simply suggestions or guidelines. Any time he lays his hand on a Bible and says, “I promise,” I have to wonder if he isn’t silently adding “maybe.”

- Fran Abram, Overland Park

What we share

Every day, we all walk around in a life-giving, essential, miraculous sea of air. It carries within it oxygen, nitrogen and other gases, particulate matter, bacteria and, yes, viruses. It’s the main way, in fact, that the coronavirus is transmitted — it is airborne.

It goes without saying that we all share this sea of air. We cannot pick and choose what it is carried along with it — sometimes smoke, diesel odors, the smell of rain, bacteria and viruses. It’s an essential, communal part of life on this Earth. We all need air to live.

It may be “your body, your choice” for choosing to be vaccinated, but it’s not your air. The rest of us have no choice but to share it with you. If you can’t vaccinate for health reasons, then at least wear a mask to help keep the air we share clean.

Remember: When we share the air, show you care.

Wear a mask and get vaccinated. It really is that simple.

- Carole Carter, Olathe

Thumb on the scale

The Kansas Legislature is in the process of passing a $1 billion tax-incentive package for an unnamed company. (Jan. 29, 1A, “Senate OKs massive tax incentives for mystery company”) The company has the potential to build a $4 billion factory that could employ as many as 4,000 employees.

I recall learning that America is a capitalist country with a free market economy. But now we live in a country where the government selects winners and losers.

These incentives and abatements create not only unfair competition but unfair taxation. If a cut in the tax rate is good for one commercial business, shouldn’t all businesses benefit from a similar tax rate?

If the business project is such a good idea, why does it need the tax break, which is lower than other businesses have to pay? I understand that the Kansas Department of Commerce is competing with other states such as Oklahoma and has to offer incentives to lure the business.

It is time for federal legislation to stop these individually designed tax breaks. We have a government that is creating an unfair playing field, and some companies are just too big to fail.

Although 4,000 jobs is an exciting prospect, the way we have to beg for the business turns my stomach.

- Jeffery John Brandau, Lawrence

In the way

Being 88 years old, I’ve seen, heard and read just about everything. Democrats are now trying to reach across the aisle for a much-needed voting rights bill that would help all American voters. How can the two hold-out Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, sleep at night knowing they are standing in the way of protecting voter rights?

The disenfranchised voters they are affecting need this bill to protect their right to vote. The Republican state legislatures gerrymandering congressional districts in so many states right now help only Republican voters.

Sens. Manchin and Sinema, please do the Democratic Party a favor and switch parties. Give us a break already.

- Georgia Tutorino, Kansas City

Make peace

President John F. Kennedy in 1961 at the United Nations warned us nuclear weapons are a clear and present danger to all life, whether used by accident, miscalculations or madness. The imminence of war in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus should require Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Joe Biden and other key officials to meet inside the damaged Chernobyl reactor site to focus their minds on the possibility of great disaster.

A peaceful and just resolution of this crisis is possible.

We the people must demand this, and as a Lenten sign, we should wear ashen crosses on our foreheads, to remember we all could be dust.

- Henry M. Stoever, Co-chair, PeaceWorks, Kansas City