Letters to the Editor (Aug. 19)

Ganging up on the president

I read the Thursday editorial page that included the simplistic and pathetic hit piece, “President Trump, end your war on our free press.”

I can't think of one instance in the last 10 years where the press has honestly and objectively reported anything outside of their corporate owners’ positions. CNN’s Jim Acosta is a provocateur with his own agenda, and it isn't news.

The fact that the media is now owned by six major corporations is news. Not that the six corporations are unhappy about being labeled for what they are: fake news. I find your editorials specious and an insult to the average American’s intelligence.

Meet the president halfway

I picked up my Thursday paper hoping before I opened it that it would not join the threatened nationwide editorial against our president. Upon opening the copy, all hope of that was lost.

The editorial mentioned that nearly all of McClatchy’s 30 daily papers are speaking with one voice, against the president. McClatchy, have you paused to consider why the president is on the attack? With the possible exception of the touted “everything that is fit to print” publication, the broadcast media is probably more to blame than the newspapers. The blame does lie with both, however.

What would it be like if the press reported just 40-percent favorably about President Trump? It seems that they grab the latest dissatisfaction and run it to death until the next one comes along. It is to our advantage that Trump lets us know where he stands and he lashes back when lashes are dispensed. Most citizens cannot list Trump’s many accomplishments because the press seldom mentions them.

I believe in freedom of the press, but that freedom is accompanied by responsibility. Please become adults and meet our president halfway.

Anthem audacity

The writer of “A Protest’s Timing” (Aug. 15 Letters to the Editor) describes a stadium filled with “escape from reality” fans looking to have a good time, watching a sport, ogling the cheerleaders with patriotic planes swooping over the playing field while our national anthem is loudly sung to adoring fans with hands over hearts.

Cutting through all that fun, a few players have the audacity to disturb his “escapism” by kneeling through the anthem with a dose of reality. The writer is disturbed, because the “90-second” anthem kneelers are being rudely unpatriotic and should choose another time and place.

Where and When? Maybe the NFL should wait until halftime to play the anthem, those 15 minutes when 80,000 people are relieving themselves, or shoving each other in line, cursing, because someone else got a hot dog, before they did.

Yeah, put that into the NFL suggestion box. Then you wouldn’t have to put yourself out for 90 seconds, take off your cap, hand over heart and fake your own patriotism.

Governmental hiring practices

News from the past few days point to some very simple facts.

▪ Those put in charge of making military decisions need to have a lot of battlefield experience so as to avoid a situation where we aren’t prepared for a battle here, on this planet, because we have invested all our military spending on “Space Force ray guns.”

▪ Anyone in charge of making decisions for our veterans should be a decorated veteran, able to use their wartime experiences to benefit their fellow veterans. Not someone making decisions because they had a good round at Mar-a-Lago.

▪ These ideas could be used in putting anyone in charge of any government agency: Only hire and appoint people who have a great deal of experience in the area they will be running. If you have no experience, or all of your past efforts have been to destroy that agency, you do not qualify.