Hawley and Marshall dishonored Missouri and Kansas by snubbing Zelenskyy’s speech

Politics first

I watched Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. I saw the bipartisan support there in the House chamber and was uplifted by the unity displayed.

But then I saw interviews with Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, neither of whom attended. Marshall nonsensically said the speech was “disrespectful to the Border Patrol.” Hawley seemed proud to have skipped it, saying he “didn’t want to be part of a photo op.” It didn’t seem to bother him to have his famous photo op with a fist raised to encourage the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrectionists.

I wonder if either senator would be brave enough to put themselves on the front lines for our country. How would they feel seeing their family and friends die or lose everything they had worked for, including their freedom?

Both make me ashamed for our states. What I want to call them is not fit to print, and they are not fit to serve.

- Diana Garcia, Raymore

Unto others …

Congress has decided to release the income tax filings of a former president. Fine — now, it is only fair that every member of Congress do the same. Every U.S. senator and representative should immediately release all income tax filings for the previous three years

- James E. Cox, Louisburg, Kansas

Not listening

The City Council turned a deaf ear to matters addressed in a recent so-called “listening” session at the Roanoke Community Center, palmed off real concerns and delivered a lump of coal for Christmas over short-term rental regulation.

The city says it will work on compliance by short-term rentals, “maintaining annual inspections,” “mitigating complaints,” “enforcement of nuisance and property maintenance violations” and “registration enforcement,” and will encourage those who have broken the law — openly defying city code — to behave better. Those criminals will have 60 to 90 days to continue their crimes while Neighborhood Services’ community engagement specialists get organized.

Scofflaws just need to reform after months or years of breaking the law, register and pay a fine or two. People in their homes should be relieved because the short-term rentals around them will still be there but, hallelujah, now they will have licenses.

The city’s lax response to urgent needs to save our residential neighborhoods from commercial enterprises, to preserve affordable housing stock, to deter increases in long-term rents and property taxes as corporate investors spend freely spend in pursuit of profit and to enforce traditional zoning — all amount to a dereliction of duty.

- Anne Johnston, Kansas City

Ike’s foresight

On Dec. 8, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the National Defense Authorization Act, authorizing $858 billion in military spending for the Department of Defense in the 2023 fiscal year.

Can you grasp $858 billion? That number is 858 with nine zeroes after it. The U.S. population is about 330 million. If you divide the spending by the population, you find military spending comes to $2,600 per person.

Is your household paying enough U.S. income tax to cover $2,600 times the number of occupants? Probably not.

Authorizing $858 billion in military spending is:

▪ An obscene $80 billion increase over 2022.

▪ More than the combined military spending of the next nine highest military spending countries.

▪ A denial of clear security threats we face from climate change and a pandemic.

▪ A sin in God’s eyes.

We have what President Dwight Eisenhower warned us against years ago: a military-industrial complex. Will you speak out against it?

- David Joseph Pack, Lenexa

Ike’s insight

Then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower was intimately involved in the history of the world in the 1940s and 1950s. He was the Supreme Allied Commander when several concentration camps in Germany were liberated at the end of World War II.

Ike had the foresight to know there would be weak-minded individuals who wouldn’t believe the Holocaust actually occurred. He had journalists go into the camps and document, including photographs and film, the gruesome horror they found, from the stacks of dead bodies to the living human skeletons.

Despite this effort, doubters remain in today’s world. After the war, Ike and others believed that German schoolchildren not could be, not should be, but must be taught about the Holocaust to help prevent a recurrence.

Today, the governor of Florida and many lawmakers here in Kansas and Missouri believe that American children should be taught lies about the impact of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation in our U.S. history. They also want to lie about the way our forefathers treated the indigenous peoples of America.

When it comes to history, I like Ike.

- Jerry R. Cash, Overland Park

Sticky fingers

Does the state of Kansas ever try to pilfer the signature corporate entities of Colorado, Oklahoma or Nebraska ? They also border the Sunflower State. Why not try to entice the Denver Broncos? The Oklahoma City Thunder? That Nebraska thing.

The Kansas Kleptomaniacs — that name fits. Mizzou Coach Eliah Drinkwitz was right!

- Paul G. Comerford, Blue Springs