Trump defends U.S. jobs

Letters to the Editor

Trump defends U.S. jobs

In 1993, President William Clinton went to Lexmark International in Lexington to promote his North American Free Trade Agreement initiative. Lexmark was a printer manufacturing and development plant spun off from IBM in 1991.

As a Lexmark employee, I was able to ask the president a question: Would NATFA include provisions to protect American intellectual property? The president answered that IP was critical to the future growth of American business and manufacturing. He was committed to protecting American IP.

In 2000, Lexmark moved its laser production from the Lexington plant to northern Mexico and southern China. In 2016, Lexmark was sold to a consortium led by Apex Technology of China and PAG Asia Capital.

President Donald Trump has made the protection of American manufacturing and intellectual property one of his highest priorities. Americans are proud that Trump fights for American jobs while also believing in free trade.

John Markle

Nicholasville

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Letters to the Editor

Cringe-o-rama: Mitch McConnell, lower standards for nursing home inspections, UK shoe fetish, us. Us?

By Herald-Leader readers

February 15, 2019 04:51 PM

Cringe-worthy McConnell

In opinion pieces in the Herald-Leader and on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell has opposed the Democratic Party’s legislation to reform the methods states use for electing members of Congress. He characterizes the bill as an unprecedented power grab by Democrats. He casts himself as a defender of the constitutional rights of state legislatures to prescribe the time, place and manner for holding elections for U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives. He pledges that he will not let such a bill come before the Senate for a vote (as an aside, how democratic is a system based on procedures that allow one person to block a bill from being considered by the full Senate?).

As a retired University of Kentucky law professor, I cringe that one of our graduates would make an argument that ignores a basic tenet of constitutional interpretation — read the whole sentence/clause. The Constitution, Article I, Section 4, states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations...”