Misplaced faith
Now that the clear accusations in the whistleblower transcript have been verified by several witnesses who heard President Trump’s call to Ukraine first hand (including diplomat Gordon Sondland and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman), it’s clear that Trump tried to solicit illicit election assistance from a foreign government — he wanted Ukraine to attack one of his political opponents to help sway the 2020 election his way. The only real question left is whether this violation of American tradition, democratic norms and the U.S. Constitution is worthy of impeachment.
Yes. Yes, it is.
It might be excusable for a president who made an error, realized his mistake and asked the American public for forgiveness. That won’t be Trump. He denies any wrongdoing and, in fact, claims that those who pointed out his sordid act are committing treason.
If America overlooks this act and refuses to hold Trump responsible, we’ll be telling him and future presidents — including Democrats — that it’s OK for them to use their office to promote their personal political goals. The office will be forever marred by corruption. We’ll be no better than Russia.
I realize there’s a segment of the population that has put its faith in Trump. It’s about time for them to realize that their faith was misplaced.
When you’re going down the wrong road, it’s better to stop and go back than to keep going.
Larry Host
Winston-Salem
The socialism solution
The writer of Nov. 11 letter “The Democratic candidates” declares that she will be voting for whomever the Democrats nominate for president because their candidates all promise to resolve the myriad alleged problems of climate, health care, guns, and presumably whatever else may raise its ugly head, while also concurrently eliminating the budget deficit that she believes to be the only result of President Trump’s tax cuts. This, of course, all will take huge sums of new tax money to be able to successfully accomplish these competing goals, but she conveniently ignores the question of where it all will come from — an example of the dream of socialism at its make-believe finest.
The estimated costs of the proposed new spending programs to supposedly solve all the problems that the Democrats say are facing the country run into trillions of dollars a year, and “tax the rich” is their uniform political platform answer for the bottomless source to finance all new government spending.
The problem with this alleged source of money is two-fold. First, it has been well documented that there is actually not enough wealth available in the upper echelons of our country’s “well-off” to provide the required additional tax receipts, so the middle class also will end up with a substantial tax increase. And second, the required increased taxation of both individuals and businesses will quickly devastate our nation’s presently robust economy, with an attendant return to the high unemployment levels experienced before Trump took office.
Richard Chase
Pfafftown
Opinions vary
Opinions vary, of course, and some may think that President Trump’s attempt to enlist foreign assistance to sway the 2020 election his way just isn’t that big a deal. It’s wrong, some Republicans are already saying, but it’s not worth impeachment.
How about the rest, though? How about Trump’s initial attempt to hide his “quid pro quo” effort by having the transcript of his Ukraine call placed in a server where it might be overlooked? How about his attempts to obstruct justice by preventing figures in his administration from testifying? How about his efforts to have the identity of the first whistleblower revealed, apparently to cause him harm or intimidate other possible whistleblowers? How about his efforts to run a secret “shadow” state department, headed not by state officials or diplomats, but by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani? How about the way he ordered Giuliani to undermine official U.S. policy by lying about Ukraine diplomat Marie Yovanovich? How about the harm he did to Ukraine by withholding resources the country needed? How about the harm he did to America’s reputation by making it look “quid pro quo” corrupt? Is none of that worthy of impeachment?
No? If only we could catch him lying about a consensual sexual episode. Oh, wait.
Hank Boles
Winston-Salem
Please submit letters online, with full name, address and telephone number, to Letters@wsjournal.com or mail letters to: The Readers’ Forum, 418 N. Marshall St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101. Letters are subject to editing and are limited to 250 words. For more guidelines and advice on writing letters, go to journalnow.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/
Post a comment as
Report
Watch this discussion.
(26) comments
Happy Birthday Sophie, be sure to wear your coat when you go outside.
[thumbup]
Hapoy Birthday Sophie.woof,woof
[thumbup]
Mr. Burwell, The most dangerous Quid pro Quo uttered by an elected official is vote for me and I will reduce the deficit. If bold faced lying is a high crime and misdemeanor then every candidate regardless of party affiliation should be convicted and sent on their way.
And our current President not only promised to cut the deficit but to eliminate the national debt in 8 years. Actually there has only been one time in history when the United States had no national debt. On January 1st, 1835, President Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt, but by 1836 the debt had risen again.
Mr. Walker, Pocohantas also fails to mention the immediate demise of all the health care insurers stock which totals almost 2 trillion dollars in marker cap. All of us probably have these stocks in our retirement portfolios somewhere and this investment will disappear completely along with the thousands of jobs they provide. I would imagine that these companies also pay billions of dollars in taxes and occupy hundreds of thousands of taxable office space that will also disappear from federal and local coffers. She is a much more dangerous Native American than Sitting bull or Cochise. Although on second thought she should be known as Talking Bull....
I agree with your observations, except I would say the name should be Sh*****g Bull.
Also Mr. Benfield please define and explain “American Socialism “ for those of us who only have a public school education. Is it different from Chinese socialism or Cuban socialism?
Mr. Benfield, please give us one success story where Socialism not only addressed but solved the plight of the uninsured, income inequality or poverty. I am afraid you will have to exclude, USSR, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, old East Germany and anywhere else this failed economy has been tried.
For all those who live eat & breathe climate change I ask this question
Please explain how climate change physically caused the Jetstream to shift as it has to cause the snow and cold air ( from the northeast) ? How does climate change physically cause the best stream to move or shift ?
Anybody ?
When you add energy in the form of heat to a chaotic system it creates more chaos. Adding heat causes faster vibration/movement of the gas molecules and expansion of gases. Try this, water and gases have some similar characteristics when heated. Put a pot of water on the stove and turn on the heat. Watch what happens as the water heats up. You will first notice water which was still begin to swirl. The atmosphere "swirls" too. Add heat and you add additional swirling. That is my best unscientific lay explanation. but Mike is a scientist, I am sure he could explain it better.
Ok we got hot water for tea,coffee & Coco & hot air to cook French fries .. thanks ...😎 Stay warm please
[smile] I got Sophie. She keeps me warm. Today's her 2nd birthday. She's like a little four-legged furry heating pad that curls up on my left shoulder, puts her head next to mine and snores.
If you continue to add energy, you end up with an essentially smooth, if busy, system. Remove the energy, and the system becomes less orderly, with more variation. In the Beginning, the Universe was homogeneous, and hot beyond all imagination. As it expanded and cooled, various forces "froze out," with the cosmos becoming the varied place it is today. In untold trillions and trillions of years, the Universe will die what scientists call heat death. But, your explanation is correct as far as it goes: keep heating anything, and the molecules will fly about ever faster. The heated material will finally undergo a phase change, water to steam, for example, with the molecules flying ever faster. More phase changes await as more energy is applied.
The were two phase changes overnight and this AM, as standing water outside froze and later melted. The air molecules still aren't buzzing about very quickly, but I like cold weather.
[happybirthday] Sophie!
[thumbup]
For those who are embracing socialism they need to go and look what " state capitalism" looks like,who runs it & how democratic those running really are.
I wonder what folks like Larry Host will think & feel ( not that I really care politically speaking) when even this bite of the apple fails & Trump is NOT removed from office & is re-elected and continues to try ( without congressional help or assist) to get & keep America on the fiscal path it is now on After all does Larry or Anyone here really think Trump gives a ratts booty if he like Bill Clinton has an asterisk by his name denoting a besmurchment on his term in office ? Do you really think he or his base really Truely care at this very moment ?
Keep America on it's fiscal path?? What are you? nuts?? We are on a worse path now than when he took office, this year's GDP growth probably going to be a little over 2 %, nexts years projection is less than 2%, and those numbers are bolstered by the increase in government spending (as was Obama's and Bush's) Trump's promise that tax cuts and reduced regulations would lead to record growth of 4,5,or even 6% have been proven blatantly false bit never acknowledged by his supporters on here, Same with Trade,last year was our largest trade deficit ever, with no signs of real improvement, last year was also the largest loss of jobs to outsourcing since it's been tracked,
No, the only significant change of his economic policies is a rapidly growing deficit, that's going to continue to grow until the interest on it is the single largest cost on the annual federal budget
The next president is going to have a real mess on his hands fixing this mess, and will be portrayed as the bad guy for doing it
Yes the current fiscal path that has helped get & keep the stock market & many other financials steadily growing,more jobs being created than qualified American workers can currently fill type of path. ..
And as I have shared before I would love to see federal spending in 90% of the total federal government cut back to 1998/2000 limits with No baseline
Budgeting either. That will help reduce the debt so & if China gets ugly on trade & the pain will be no where near as painful as the fiscal pain felt in 2008/2009 when AIGwas bailed out & leman brothers got raked over the fiscal coals & died a painful death
Seriously, Steve a path of trillion dollar plus deficits each year?? That's the path we are on. Explain that one. Trump cares, his base has proven it care about much. You don't understand climate change or Trump.
LTR#2. The socialism solution. American socialism is not a replacement for capitalism but is used to ameliorate its excesses. When quoting the costs to implement “socialist solutions” many forget the staggering costs inflicted on our society by predatory capitalism and it’s unpredictable cycles of “bust and boom”. Capitalism has not produced a solution to the crisis of the uninsured, income inequality or poverty dispute our current “boom” economy. Socialism directly addresses these problems. Capitalism only provides profits not solutions.
L2: Oh no, no tax on the middle class, Liz assures us. She’ll pay for her multi-trillion dollar list of freebies by taxing the left’s current whipping boys, billionaires . . . and by taxing business. This increases prices, which middle- and low-income consumers pay, thus a hidden tax, and thus Liz is a liar. Those taxes also affect dividend payouts, which reduces retirement income, as retirement plans depend on dividends and other business income to fund pensions, annuities, IRA’s, etc. Businesses, including corporations, do not pay taxes; they collect them. And cynical pols know this, and let business take the blame for the adverse effects of their sneaky hidden taxes.
[thumbup][thumbup][thumbup]
If Warren were to get elected, and I don't think she will, I doubt few if any of her signature campaign platforms would have any chance of being passed and I couldn't see any for her to go around congress as our current president is attempting
Reassuring comments, Curt. Unfortunately, she is not the only candidate blathering about multi-trillion dollar freebies paid for by the left's chimera.
[thumbup]
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.