‘President Biden is one cool dude’ with infrastructure and jobs | Opinion

Presidential cool

President Joe Biden is one cool dude. Biden saved lives in the time of COVID-19. He sent billions in government relief money to every state during the pandemic for job losses, rent, food, childcare, and medical care, and no one got a bill for their hospitalizations with COVID.

Biden is now doing the “Forever talked about” infrastructure improvements - building roads, bridges, water and sewer lines, and getting cable services to communities with government money as well as creating the jobs to make it happen. Even U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came to Kentucky to have his picture taken with Biden by the Brent Spence Bridge which has needed repairs for 25 years on McConnell’s watch.

Biden has become the nation’s Godfather. Like the clever, old Godfather in the movie said, “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Biden is waiting for U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal.) and the GOP to come forward with their budget cuts.

Biden knows voters will show McCarthy and Company the love they showed Republican Supreme Court judges. The 2022 midterm was a Republican disaster. McConnell is 81. He didn’t get his job back, so he is playing nice. McConnell knows Biden, the nation’s Godfather, will be keeping his job in 2024.

Judy Rembacki, Georgetown

Republican response

The GOP choose a disciple of former President Donald Trump to respond to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. I thought the Republican Party was trying to distance itself from Trump. Apparently not. They have an orange orangutan on their back, and they can’t seem to give it up.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee’s speech was a page out of the Trump playbook. The Governor failed to respond to Biden’s speech but went on to attack the Democratic Party. She claims that the only choice we have is between “normal and crazy.” This is rich coming from the Party that attacked and seized its own Capitol under misinformation and election denial.

Gov. Huckabee claimed the left is attacking our freedoms. This is more deflection. Huckabee uses the word “woke” and weaponizes it as a means to minimalize and intimidate Democrats and minorities.

Governor Huckabee and her Republican-controlled state should be more concerned about their own house. The state of Arkansas is ranked 41st in education, 49th in healthcare, 47th in quality of life and 7th in poverty. You might want to ask yourself who has failed who. Does it remind you of another Republican-controlled state?

Stephen Stanley, Danville

Hard times

Once in a while comes two apparently unrelated stories which, when read in tandem, bring something more profound than either by itself might reveal. One starts with news of peoples all over the world killed, maimed, orphaned, displaced and bereft due to war crimes, genocide, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, drought and individual acts of violence; such suffering to take empathy to the edge of madness.

The other story; citizens of a geographically and materially blessed nation moaning over the price of gasoline and eggs, scoffing at the burden of masks and vaccinations, blaming scientists and political leaders as if these are responsible for viruses and natural disasters. Might as well blame meteorologists for bad weather!

Yes, we should strive to relieve hardship and the wealth gap. Nothing should blind us to the courage of those often risking their own lives in humanitarian service. And yet, regardless of consequences, millions will vote on the basis of personal inconvenience, grievance and hate fomented by false and incendiary rhetoric.

Our 18th century forebears clearing a wilderness, for better or worse, with muscle, grit and a mule; what would they think of me grousing over a delayed flight to Las Vegas?

Ernest Henninger, Harrodsburg

Living conditions

I opened up the Feb. 19 paper to find the front page quite striking. A mostly full-page photo of two tents currently used by a couple impacted by the Eastern Kentucky flooding from last July. The text spoke of folks currently living in both tents and storage sheds. It also said that even before the flooding there had been a housing crisis in that part of the state.

I began thinking of other housing crises in our world and the impact of human activity plus nature as the cause. I believe there is a question of strip mining making the Eastern Kentucky flooding worse.

There has been a huge earthquake in Turkey and Syria that has destroyed many homes. In Turkey, it is said that builders not going by the stringent building codes made it so much worse, whereas as in Syria there was already much damage from the ongoing Civil War. In Palestine-Israel, Israel is deliberately demolishing Palestinian homes as a part of their ongoing strategy of ethnic cleansing.

My point is that Mother Nature, especially with climate change, can do her part in destroying homes without humans making it all so much worse.

Anne Woodhead, Lexington

Not entitlements

Why do politicians keep calling Social Security and Medicare entitlements? They are a benefit. People working in the private sector have this deducted from their paycheck each pay period. Since we pay into it, and expect to get it when we retire, it is not an entitlement.

Terrie Pullen, Cold Spring

Teacher retention

If legislators really want to attract and retain teachers they could:

1. Use the COVID-19 pandemic relief money to pay back the money the state owes the teacher retirement fund. For the years, legislators took the State’s retirement contribution and put it towards corporate tax cuts and other expenses. If they repaid it, 60 percent of the debt would be paid off and teacher benefits wouldn’t continue to be cut.

2. Require that when legislators give themselves a raise, teachers get an equal raise.

3. Stop cutting school food programs and SNAP. 1 in 5 kids go hungry every day. Hungry kids are harder to teach. Additionally, there is psychological harm to teachers who have to watch four of their students slowly starve.

Education is the largest employer in most counties. When you don’t pay teachers, less money comes back into counties. Yet, legislators continue to bite the hand that is feeding their county’s economy. What legislators are offering are token attempts that won’t work. But they can say they tried and public education is just broken (Rah- Rah Charter Schools). For all the good their legislation will do, legislators may as well just declare a “Teacher Appreciation Month.”

Tacy Groves, Frankfort

Legislative malpractice

Trans persons were virtually unknown to my generation. Many people find the phenomenon unsettling. Capitalizing on such fear, SB 150 and HB 470 could institutionalize life-threatening discrimination against youth on a difficult journey of exploration.

For years, gay youth wrestled with the allure of suicide in response to agonizing rejection. It took decades and the courage of those who “came out” for us to realize valued persons were gay. Let’s not revive such pain for youth who find their deepest identity at odds with their physical gender. Options now exist to help those youth.

If House Bill 470 were in place when I was a practicing child psychologist, I could have lost my license. In 1978, I saw my first convincingly trans youth. Experts at Johns Hopkins University provided staff to guide me. Standards for trans treatment were cautious and thorough. Living for an extended period in the gender role the youth desired (name, pronouns, dress...) was not a final step but part of serious screening for a serious choice. HB 470 broadly criminalizes almost any assistance to trans youth prior to age 18 and is tantamount to legislative malpractice, a phenomenon for which there are truly no standards.

T. Kirby Neill, Ph. D., Lexington

Raising wages

I think an interesting article would be to write about how every politician pushes for increasing the minimum wage too quickly to $15. Quick increases scares businesses and gives the opposition a strong case for why they won’t vote for it and we are left with no change. If they did 50 cents a year until we got to $15 or get to $15 by 2035 most would be for that. At this rate in 2035 we will still be asking for $15 when if we just pushed for slower increases we would get it. It almost seems as if the people pushed for the change don’t really want it or don’t care what damage it will do to businesses.

Martin Ebbitt, Lexington

China ad

Kelly Craft, a Republican candidate for governor of Kentucky is airing a TV ad where she says on camera, “I will stop China in its tracks.” Presumably she is talking about the current threat to America from Beijing. Having watched TV political ads for decades, I think this is the most preposterous ad I have ever seen. Pray tell, how is the governor of Kentucky going to do what she claims to do? She doesn’t elaborate! It’s like her other TV ads, all generalities and no specifics. It’s totally ridiculous and laughably presumptive that her one term as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations equips her to deal with China from Frankfort. What Ms. Craft and her handlers are doing with her early TV ads is demonstrating clearly that she is not qualified to be our governor.

Jack Blanton, Lexington

Constitutional knowledge

I know it’s been a while since my paralegal classes, but didn’t Cooper vs. Aaron and Ableman vs. Booth hold that states do not have the power to nullify federal laws since the Constitution makes it clear that federal law overrides state law?

Once again, the taxpayers of Kentucky are having to deal with “Good ol’ boy” politicians who waste taxpayers’ money because they apparently wouldn’t know the Constitution from a cow pie.

I do hope that state senators pay attention to standing federal case law and vote against a seditionist law that would suggest that law enforcement can ignore laws that a certain political party and their donors don’t like.

I urge Gov. Andy Beshear, Ky. Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-23) and Ky. Rep. Stephanie Dietz (R-65) to pass a bill that would force Kentucky legislators to reimburse the Kentucky state treasury for time and manpower wasted putting forth bills that are patently unconstitutional. I am tired of legislators wasting our money because they are too lazy to learn what they can and cannot do.

Renee Thompson, Covington

Compiled by Liz Carey