Readers write: No Kings, Bradford Pears, Roger Marshall, doctor pay | Opinion

Protesters love America

Dear U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson: No, I don’t hate America. No, I am not pro-HAMAS. No, I am not a radical left terrorist. No, I was not paid to join the No Kings Protest.

While 300 protested in Cowley County, others of us from Winfield joined the 6,000 Americans at Wichita’s No Kings protest.

Everyone I spoke to was unpaid: people of all ages simply there because they love America, but are deeply concerned about current policies like:

• Using masked bullies in unmarked cars to snatch people who “look suspicious.”

• Imposing arbitrary tariffs that create major market disruptions, hurting ordinary Americans like Kansas farmers and grocery shoppers.

• Ignoring constitutional rights to free speech and due process and disrespecting the rule of law.

• Imposing arbitrary tariffs that create major market disruptions, hurting ordinary Americans like Kansas farmers and grocery shoppers.

• Drastically cutting cancer research funding while cutting billionaires’ taxes.

The crowd of peaceful protesters included Democrats but also non-MAGA Republicans and independents like me, all concerned that we live up to Thomas Paine’s 1776 words that I copied onto my own poster: “In America the law is king and there can be no other.”

King is merely shorthand for an authoritarian, tyrannical wannabe dictator.

— Gary Brewer, Winfield

City’s Bradford Pear a menace

About 30 years ago, the city of Wichita planted thousands of Bradford Pear trees along the curbing throughout Wichita, mainly to replace the old Dutch Elms that were dying out.

When they did this they assured residents that these were “non-fruit bearing.“

What a disaster.

Those trees have done untold damage to lawns, sidewalks and homes over the years and have cost countless households — like mine — terrible amounts of money and time lost cleaning up their annual autumn showering of small fruits.

Every year I spend about 30 to 35 hours cleaning up the mess. If I don’t, it stains everything it touches — everything.

In the past three decades this has cost me more time and money to keep under control than I care to calculate.

Who do I contact with the city of Wichita to request my back pay for the last 30 years?

— Douglas Simpson, Wichita

Roger Marshall needs to go

U.S. senators are the most powerful elected representatives of the people.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall shows repeatedly he does not represent the people of Kansas.

He has refused invitations to hold legitimate town halls. The only town hall he has held in the last year, he walked out of because he did not like the content of the questions his constituents were presenting.

In numerous instances he has made declarations about how “the big, beautiful bill” was in the best interest of Kansas, contrary to documented public comment.

Just prior to the recent No Kings 2 events, he publicly claimed that those events would be filled with outside, paid agitators, although he provided no evidence.

He predicted that the National Guard would be needed to quell the violence. There were nearly no arrests made nationwide as a result of the protests.

The man has shown he makes no true effort to connect with his constituency. He is not a Kansas, as he resides in Florida.

Kansas needs representation and Roger Marshall does not fill that need.

— Ron Neagle, Wichita

A quandary for physicians

In his article titled “Are doctors funding their own extinction?” (in the Oct. 22 Wichita Eagle), Dr. (Alex) Ammar poses the question “Who would accept this?”

I offer the correct answer: no longer the best and brightest.

I retired when my practice manager’s data analyses showed crossing of the cost-of-applying-care and physician reimbursement curves in only a few years.

My payor mix was more than 80% Medicare at the time.

Deep cuts were assumed year after year despite mounting demands for complex and often chronic care.

— Dr. C.J. Beck, Benton