Letters to the Editor: Defending coal executive; questioning statue’s home
Booth aided Martin
Because of his success, Jim Booth, a coal companies owner and former University of Kentucky trustee, is an easy target for a few in Martin County. What has been lost in reporting on his tax situation is that without Mr. Booth’s dedication to Martin County it wouldn’t be far removed from the 1960s as a centerpiece in the “War on Poverty.”
In the recent Herald-Leader article, Martin County Magistrate Jared Goforth acknowledges that Mr. Booth has employed thousands in the area. I am sure the county likes the taxes they get from those workers. In knowing Mr. Booth for years I know he does all he can to keep people working. He has almost single-handedly built Inez into a nice mountain town with amenities never there before. I am also sure Mr. Booth pays his personal taxes on time or else Martin County would probably have to lay off some people. The negative publicity he has received is unwarranted and not complete with the whole story. Martin County had better hope Jim Booth never moves out and appreciate that while he certainly has the means, he has never left his home and the people he has helped time and again.
Reginald Rice, Eastern
Wrong place for statue
Drove by the Secretariat statue in the middle of the roundabout at Alexandria Drive/Old Frankfort Pike. Terrible location. I hope the allocated monies of $754,000 for “viewing and parking” includes a skybridge. Secretariat belongs at the Kentucky Horse Park and not on the backside of a heavily traveled country road.
Tom Dixon, Lexington
Help the hungry
With the political world centered on the presidential candidates and the drama involving President Donald Trump and his staff, it’s understandable that many issues are overlooked. People have strong opinions about what is going on, and I could not tell you whether either side -- Democratic or Republican -- is right. What I do know is that the citizens of Kentucky are suffering from an epidemic far worse than political divisiveness.
Hunger.
One in six Kentucky citizens don’t know when they will have their next meal. To put it in perspective, over 247,000 residents (including children) of Kentucky are suffering in our world of plenty. Luckily, there are already organizations working towards ending this permanently. God’s Pantry has 400 pantries and meal programs. They have distributed over 13 million pounds of food, and this isn’t even close to their goal of 38 million pounds for 2020.
I started volunteering there and was awed at how little it took to make such a big impact on the community. Working there meant another family wouldn’t starve. This letter isn’t meant to shame those who haven’t volunteered. It’s meant to inspire those who haven’t to volunteer at any local food bank.
Share a little of your time to save a life.
Zaynab Khan, Lexington
Bring back the middle class
It’s important to remember that most Americans didn’t vote for President Donald Trump. The popular vote went to the Democrat. The same was true with President George W. Bush’s election.
It is important to remember, too, that Democrats were also bought and paid for by big money. President Bill Clinton sold the airwaves, allowing the creation of Internet billionaires; he helped to toss bank regulations that had worked well.
It was President Ronald Reagan who began the push for hedge funds. From the 1980s, takeovers decimated companies and their employees. With work harder to find, doing two jobs became normal. This was “trickle-down.”
As taxes diminished, regulation suffered. Opioid addiction soared. Pharmaceutical companies were allowed to promote their products unfettered. Banks can charge outrageous fees, to ignore safeguards. Wage/hour regulations are bypassed by offering part-time employment. The minimum hourly wage in Australia is now $18.93 and was adjusted recently; we haven’t moved from $7.25 for years. Republicans give us recession and a shrinking middle class.
There is hope; not from all Democrats but from progressive Democrats who will fight government corruption. Fascism didn’t stand a chance, and neither did communism, when we had a strong middle class. Let’s get it back.
Sara Porter, Midway
Is a judge worth it?
Do Kentuckians really mean to stay the course with President Donald J. Trump? Most Kentuckians, especially those in uniform, prize the word valor and would rather risk their own lives than abandon a buddy on the battlefield.
Not our commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, a self-styled military genius who knows more than the generals. Without thought, he left our Kurdish allies, who fought and bled with us against ISIS, to the tender mercies of the Turks.
He offers care and protection for Americans killed and wounded in the fight against ISIS. He gives the Kurds a cold shoulder.
Let the Armenian Turks tell the Kurds what Trump’s cold shoulder really means. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians, Turkish citizens, were slaughtered when the Turks turned against them during World War I.
Let Trump show what a leader in the land of the free and the home of the brave really is. It’s a leader free of any loyalty except to himself and brave enough to lead safely from behind, except in retreat.
Shouldn’t we Kentuckians, many of us who fought besides these same Kurds, be asking ourselves: Is one more sympathetic judge on the Supreme Court worth such a dishonor; is betrayal of one’s comrades what really makes us great?”
Will Sutter, Lexington
Power for wrong reasons
President Donald Trump is not loyal to party or country. He has turned on his and U.S. allies who have failed to show fealty to him. Worst, he has embraced foreign leaders who praise or support him, regardless of whether those leaders work for or against U.S. interests.
Trump views power as a right to do whatever he wants, and there’s the rub. Power is either just a means to an end, where greater power merely reflects a greater ability to do whatever you want. Or, power is tied to responsibility and obligations that restricts its use, so it only serves the interests of those granting it.
When power is freed from the shackles linking it with responsibility and obligation there is no longer anything to prevent power from serving dark/selfish goals instead of shared ones. Individuals so freed no longer need worry about distinguishing between right and wrong or if their actions serve the greater good, or just their own. Protecting the abuse of power may serve the interests of a political party, but voters shouldn’t be fooled into believing it serves the longer-term interests of this country.
Peter Wedlund, Lexington
Trump can’t be believed
President Donald Trump is losing it. The statement he made, “We have gotten everything we have ever dreamed of”, is beyond insane. We — the United States — have betrayed our best allies, the Kurds. Syria and Russia have moved into Northern Syria which the Kurds had formerly occupied. And thousands of ISIS captives — almost a hundred of them “high value” captives — have escaped to rape, loot, and murder as they attempt to reconstitute their caliphate. Iran is emboldened to perpetrate mischief and violence. The Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad is now riding high, having moved into the area of Syria he was formerly shut out of. And Turkey, using terrorist Arab militias, has murdered hundreds of Kurds and their families. Northern Syria, which was already a mess, is now chaotic beyond belief. Russia is in the driver’s seat. And yet the so-called president lies, chatters, and spouts nonsense like a whirling dervish. Nothing he says — nothing — can be believed. Nothing he advocates can be depended on as he changes his mind from hour to hour. The man is either crazy or a total and complete idiot or both.
Jim Porter, Danville
Gutter overflowing
President Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote in 2016 by almost three million votes, said he would clean out the gutter in politics but instead has taken about 40 percent of Republican voters deeper and deeper into the gutter because no matter how crazy his ideas are, they still support him.
What I just can’t understand is how the Evangelicals who claim to be Christians can support a pathological liar and an adulterer who has filed for bankruptcy multiple times and has been sued many times by contractors who have done work for him that he won’t pay for. If those things are believed by people claiming to be Christians, I’ve been reading a different Bible for many years — the one I read is against everything Donald Trump is supposed to stand for. And I resent Trump calling me, a World War II veteran, scum. I didn’t try to claim to have bone spurs on my feet.
Joe Burchard, Paducah