Letters to the editor: Trump’s war, Trump’s ballroom, healthcare concerns

Trump’s war talk

When President Donald Trump was in Kentucky on March 11, he declared victory in his ill-advised war with Iran: “Let me tell you, we’ve won.”

Yet two months later, the war wages on as the costs continue to mount in terms of lives lost, catastrophic global economic consequences, fractured international relationships, and industries and livelihoods decimated by shortages of fuel, fertilizer and other materials unavailable due to the supply chain shut down.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans, including most of Kentucky’s delegation, have failed to pass a war powers resolution to challenge or provide oversight of combat operations that seem to have no end in sight. Only Kentucky delegates U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky; and U.S. Sen Rand Paul, R-Ky. have supported Democrat’s efforts to check Trump’s war powers. The remainder of our delegation (U.S. Reps. Andy Barr, Brett Guthrie, James Comer and Hal Rogers, all Republicans) are giving Trump free rein to wage wars, place our soldiers in harm’s way, and rack up enormous national debt.

Trump said that government can’t fund Medicare, Medicaid, etc. because “we have to fund one thing: military protection.” We are spending about $2 billion per day on this war, yet the nuclear threat has been elevated rather than eliminated.

Congress, protect us and the social safety net we fund! End this war!

Terry Faragher, Versailles

Trump’s War

On April 16, President Donald Trump said that gas prices really “aren’t very high.”

Well today at the Shell station here in Danville I paid $4.199 per gallon. Six weeks ago, the price was $2.448 per gallon. That’s an increase of $1.75 per gallon, or 71 percent! Trump claims that “that’s nothing because he prevented Iran getting a nuclear weapon.”

But wait! Think about this for a second… Just nine months ago Trump claimed that he had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability!” He proclaimed that the joint U.S./Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “obliterated” their nuclear program, and God help anyone who denied it and refused to use the word “obliterated.”

Here is the definition of obliterated: “to be completely destroyed, wiped out, or erased, leaving no trace behind. It is used to describe total destruction of objects. Common synonyms include demolished, annihilated, eradicated, or erased.” If Trump was telling the truth, then it is literally impossible for Iran to reconstitute a nuclear program that was “obliterated” just a few months earlier.

Hey President Trump - you can’t take credit for both “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear capability while at the same time protecting us from the nuclear capability that you obliterated. Reality just doesn’t work that way!

Jim Porter, Danville

Naive or Visionary?

Why are pundits so quick to label candidates who want healthcare for all naive?

To be naive is to be impractical or unrealistically optimistic. Candidates who say all of us should have access to affordable health care are telling us what they are willing to work for on our behalf. If elected, will they be able to accomplish this goal immediately? Of course not! Until more officeholders share their view, they won’t make much progress.

Quite likely, people who advocated for women’s right to vote or for 40-hour work weeks were also labeled naive, but eventually we voters elected enough officeholders who believed those achievements were possible. Then, change happened.

Unless we elect people who can imagine the day when we all have access to health care, that day will never arrive. Let’s stop labeling candidates who imagine a better future naïve. Instead, let’s call them visionary. And more importantly, let’s support them with our votes.

Mary Hamilton, Frankfort

Protect dialysis patients

I was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2006. I started dialysis immediately and received my first kidney transplant just 18 months later. That kidney gave me 13 years – years I spent working, living fully, and maintaining my health. Then, in 2020, my kidney failed. I returned to dialysis for five and a half years before receiving my second transplant this past February.

Throughout my second period on dialysis, I continued working and maintained private insurance through my employer. However, a recent Supreme Court decision made it possible for insurers to push dialysis patients off their private coverage prematurely, causing other patients to be less fortunate. No one should be forced into that chaos simply because they became sick.

That’s why I’m urging U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., and U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both Republicans, to support the Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act. This bipartisan bill would protect new dialysis patients’ private insurance for the full 30 months before transitioning to Medicare.

Dialysis is already draining. Congress has the power to remove one more burden, and I hope they choose to do so.

Alex Berrios, Louisville

Paul’s ballroom support

How disappointing that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul would introduce a bill to fund President Donald Trump’s fantasy ballroom after he ruthlessly destroyed our White House East Wing historic landmark. If Paul can raise private donations for a monstrosity ballroom to “protect” Trump, why hasn’t Paul acted to protect our school children from gun violence? Why the elite panic when our president does not care about the safety of ANYONE on this planet but himself?

Trump is a convicted felon, rapist, and fraud. He is a grossly corrupt, Hitler-idolizing, Putin-pleasing, warmongering, democracy-destroying fiend. He is diminishing U.S. national security and alienating our allies. Why doesn’t Trump’s crime and corruption matter more to Paul and his Congress colleagues than a posh party fortress?

The American people are sick and tired of irresponsible, immoral, cowardly Congress members who would rather kiss Trump’s feet than ensure the well-being of our country. Excusing, denying, defending, and ignoring Trump’s frivolous obsessions and other abominable acts could not be more heinous.

Beverly C. Johnson-Miller, Lexington