Do Trump’s still loyal followers really think it’s ok to suspend the Constitution?

Following Trump

According to the alleged leader of the Republican party (former President Donald Trump), the 2020 election results should be ignored and all the rules, regulations, and articles found in the Constitution should be terminated based on the leader’s vivid imagination. We should have no more Constitution in the USA. Given that so many of the Kentucky delegation in Frankfort and Washington almost worship the ground upon which the alleged leader of the Republican party walks, do they also agree that the Constitution be nullified and ignored? What say you, Republican leader follower-loyalists? Are we free at last to do whatever sounds and feels good?

Gene Lockhart, Lexington

Upholding the Constitution

Upon entry into the military, all service members swear a solemn oath, not to a particular leader, nor to the flag, but to the Constitution. “…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” Former President Donald Trump instigated a violent insurrection, in an attempt overthrow a constitutionally elected government. On Dec. 3, Mr. Trump openly declared himself an enemy of the Constitution, calling for its “termination”.

So, is a service member who continues to support Trump a betrayer of his oath and a traitor to the Republic? I can only speak for myself, as a 20-year veteran, who took this oath multiple times, and meant it when I say “Yes.”

Chris Flaherty, Lexington

Stuttering help

The article “Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is back in the Blue Grass. His new mission goes beyond basketball” highlighted the children in need of attention to their stuttering and how it affects their lives. Kudos to Mr. Kidd-Gilchrist for all the sacrifices he is making for young people who stutter and who do not have access to speech therapy.

Another community that is in need of intervention is the Hispanic community. The Stuttering Foundation has a Spanish-language version of their website at www.tartamudez.org. In addition, the public should be better informed to the little-known fact that every young person in the U.S. with a speech deficit of any kind has the right to FREE speech therapy, as is part of federal legislation 50 years ago. The Stuttering Foundation website (www.stutteringhelp.org) offers a brochure called “Special Education Law and Children Who Stutter” that explains this right to free therapy.

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s work will no doubt transform the lives of so many children who stutter.

Juan Gardea, South Bend, IN

Protection orders

Domestic violence is back in the news as reflected by Linda Blackford’s recent editorial. A piece of paper does not prevent violence and those who rely on the ex parte (one-sided) emergency protective orders are foolish to think it will. How many recipients of the emergency protective orders resent the fact that they are ordered out of their own house without the chance (until later) to defend themselves? And attempts to defend oneself are largely ignored by many judges. The standard is extremely low, including the belief that the other person “may” injure them at some future date. Unfortunately, the current domestic violence order process fails to acknowledge the need of some “victims” to separate love from punishment, and until they do, they will continue to seek these warped relationships. These are people who absorbed at an early age the life lesson that those who love you will necessarily hurt you. It’s called corporal punishment and it is the heart of why domestic violence will always be with a society that advocates hitting and hurting your children--courts, law enforcement and advocates be damned.

Sally Wasielewski, Lexington

Race issue

In a time when efforts on practically all fronts have been made and continue to be made to eliminate those things that are racially divisive, the Lexington Herald-Leader publishes an article about church parking by identifying the race of congregants. Was that necessary? Why mention race at all unless it suggests that the parking problem got attention from the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council because of race? Surely that is not true. Should the church in question have been historic and attended by a mostly white congregation, would the story title have been “Historic White Church”? Hard to believe that the title was intentionally done to inflame, but it certainly infers that race is somehow pertinent enough to mention, when the LFUCC made the accommodation for parking spaces to replace those removed by the expansion of the Civic Center. The action is well-deserved and long overdue, regardless of the race of congregants.

Ted Tudor, Lexington

Wannabe dictator

You see what happens when people choose evil over good for their own personal reasons? Republicans darn near lost EVERYTHING! Let this be a lesson for future wannabe dictators. America will always stand for democracy. If people want somebody like a dictator to run their country then they need to go across the pond to live.

Yolanda Averette, Lexington

Added taxes

Let’s see: work hard and contribute to your IRA or 401k so you can retire. Then retire and manage your investments. Well, 2020 was a very good year for your investments. If you are into your 70s, the government wants part of your success. They call it Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) for 2021 based on your end of year 2020 retirement fund value. You have to take 4% to 5% of the 2020 value, as 2021 income. Then you are taxed on this forced distribution.

If that is not bad enough, there is another “got-ya” tax lurking! For 2023, your 2021 income, including your forced RMD, determines how much additional “tax” you have to pay extra for Medicare, called Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA).

Never mind the TV promos to “get money added back to your Social Security payments.” That applies to probably one in one hundred zip codes (very low-income areas). In our case, we got the advertised 8.7 percent “Cost of Living” adjustment for 2023, but the sneaky IRS taxes (yes, two more taxes), results in the reduction of 2023 Social Security payments of $40/month. Yes, the Cost-of-Living increase less the new IRMAA taxes means we get $500 less nest year. So much for inflation protection!

Thanks, Congress and Mr. President for all your spending. We, taxpayers are losing more money every year with your policies – less money in our pockets and rising costs.

Don Dziubakowski, Georgetown

(Editor’s Note: The RMD was passed in 2018 and signed into law by President Donald Trump, and the IRMAA was passed by Congress in 2011 and signed into law by President Barack Obama, and only applies to beneficiaries making more than $97,000 a year.)

McConnell snub

The family of fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sick nick and many of the Capitol Police refused to shake hands with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony honoring the heroes who protected the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

Ken Sicknick, a lifelong Republican, told CBS that he refused to shake McConnell’s hand because McConnell and Republicans, “won’t admit to wrongdoing of Trump, of the rioters...unlike Liz Cheney they have no idea of what integrity is. They can’t stand for what is right and wrong; for them it’s party first.”

But Mitch doesn’t care about the snub. This is a guy that withheld food aid for starving children as leverage to get Democrats to pass a bill that included tax-write offs for corporate three martini lunches, refused to give miners existing funds the government specifically set aside for their pensions, refused for years to fund the country’s promise to pay for 9-11 First Responder’s healthcare. Mitch doesn’t care about the Sicknick family’s snub; he only cares that it was caught on camera.

Margaret Groves, Frankfort