Letters to the editor on D.C. plane crash, Trump response
Trump echoes McCarthy
I watched the special newscast about the plane from Wichita crashing in Washington, DC.
It put a knot in my throat, which turned to anger, when President Donald Trump assailed a former President Joe Biden appointee and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) for the crash.
As a history buff, it made me think of the late Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, who in a hearing claimed the Army was full of communists.
It was lies of course, and then he said the attorney for the army had an aide who a communist.
The army attorney said to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
Millions of Trump followers are bigots, and their feelings are much like the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s — Proud Boy and Oath Keeper felons for instance.
What’s next, eugenics measuring heads like the Nazis to determine who is a citizen?
I have been around more than most into my ninth decade. Not a hero but I never feared a Jew, an LGBTQ person or person of a different race. Some I liked and some I did not.
The haters are the problem. Their hate and ignorance should end.
Marshall right on transponders
The unassailable logic of Sen. Roger Marshall’s “radical” suggestion that military aircraft should have activated transponders when flying in the continental United States is further evidence that we need to get politicians out of the U.S. Congress.
Term Limits are essential for the good of the nation. Limitations on prior involvement in politics should be implemented as well.
Congress should be dealing with the real world and should have members with real world experience, not be steeped in the world of politics.
Trump unhinged
At a Thursday press conference President Donald Trump, without any evidence, blamed former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Democrats and diversity, equity and inclusion, for Wednesday’s tragic plane crash in Washington, D.C.
To make matters worse, the assertion about DEI is about one’s identity and a pejorative assertion at that.
It’s not merely a political ploy; rather, the president is indicting a large part of the population as both guilty and inadequate/inferior—an ad hominem attack that seeks to perpetuate an institutional and embedded racism and xenophobia.
He also got out ahead of the investigation, blaming the FAA, making their job more difficult.
Not only can Trump’s assertions not be proven but some aviation experts already have questioned and cast doubt about them.
When pushed by White House reporters, Trump made the absurd claim that what he knows about the reasons for the crash is based on “common sense.”
Really! How stupid and gullible must we — including Trump supporters — be to accept this?
Moreover, let us not forget that last week Trump fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard, and disbanded the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.
Might that not have something to do with the crash?
Trump is using the crash for purely selfish political purposes — at a time when so many passengers have died, and their loved ones are grieving. This is shameful, unprofessional, inconsiderate and disgusting.
When will people, including Republican leaders, denounce the president’s unhinged behavior?
What worries me is that this pattern of blaming is orchestrated and will continue.
It should be noted, after all, that Trump read his comments; this suggests that his team prepared the remarks and that this narrative is part of a larger rhetorical strategy to create chaos and confusion — something that will make it harder for those who resist and who want to prevent the implementation of dangerous Trump policies.