Readers share their views on Biden, Medicare and guns | The Kansas City Star

Biden-Warren race

I think we can all agree that both political parties in the country are in trouble.

The Republicans have Donald Trump leading the charge for that party’s 2016 presidential nomination, and the Democrats have Sen. Bernie Sanders (an avowed socialist) and Hillary Clinton (who seems to struggle with honesty) leading a very confused progressive party.

This is a perfect time for a mourning vice president to honor his son, Beau, and continue to serve his country. Where would Joe Biden get the support with all the money allocated to the Clintons, Bushes and Trumps?

It’s my humble opinion that if he could get Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run as his vice president, the disenchanted middle class, struggling families and racial minorities, the fastest-growing voting block, would swarm to a Biden-Warren ticket with financial and physical resources.

The Republicans have gone so far to the right that the late senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, wouldn’t know them, and the Democrats are sick of the soap opera known as the Clintons and Bernie Sanders.

I personally like Sanders, but his age would be a factor in his winning the White House. I truly believe Biden would be a great president, and a ticket with Sen. Warren would be unstoppable.

John Koehler

Kansas City

Man-made crisis

I am a state employee and as such think I can say, as did the expert Kansas House Speaker Ray Merrick, that our legislators produce nothing of value and therefore should be deemed non-essential.

Maybe if we can keep them out of Topeka we might be able to prevent them from further destroying the state. I just hope the voters of Kansas remember this man-made tax crisis during the next elections and reward them by sending them home.

Myra Hyatt

Leawood

Wrong conviction

On Nov. 12, 2013, Ryan Ferguson was released from prison after serving almost 10 years of an unjust sentence brought on by wrongful convictions.

Ryan suffered years of denied appeals in part of because the Missouri justice system’s lack of consideration of evidence, including DNA, fingerprints, shoe prints, corroborated alibis, recanted trial testimonies and an eyewitness account that could exonerate him and Charles Erickson.

Charles Erickson is languishing in prison, but he knows that the Missouri justice system has the evidence that proves he is innocent of murdering Kent Heitholt. Charles and Ryan were denied justice when they were wrongfully imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit.

Ryan, through a successful appeal that demonstrated the facts and reversed his conviction, has been released. Charles Erickson is equally innocent.

After years of studying the case files and reviewing Columbia Tribune archives, I’m confident that this murder case can be solved to result in justice for Erickson and Heitholt through identification of the real murderer(s). Until Charles is released, this case will likely remain closed.

The Boone County prosecutor and the state’s attorney general should work together to free this innocent man. The Heitholt murder investigation must be reopened.

Les Masters

Columbia, Mo.

Newspaper’s look

Congratulations on your new look. You’ve become USA Today. I had no idea that anyone was clamoring for a change.

Lynn Wilson

Kansas City

Robbing Medicare

Leadership in the U.S. Senate this year stooped lower than low by trying to take funds from Medicare to pay for highways rather than using the logical user fee known as the fuel tax.

Senators who aren’t smart enough to understand that fuel taxes are supposed to fund highways and that Medicare taxes are to fund Medicare shouldn’t be allowed to be around sharp objects.

Michael Trier

Unionville, Mo.

Oregon shooting

The front-page story (10-3, A1, “Lament after rampage: ‘Here we go again’ ”) said in a sub-headline, “Mass shootings at public settings average just four a year, but the rate has increased 26 percent in the last decade.”

Just four a year? I despair of what is happening in our country when we say that there is an average of only four mass killings a year.

T.J. Snyder

Mission Hills