I am done with all the name-calling

Last Monday, former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock asserted that, as a woman, she was the best candidate to challenge “three witches that are right now ruling our state.”  

That got my attention. Why would a woman vying for a leadership position in our state politics disparage other women? And disparage them in a way that is particularly masculine. (If you don’t see my point, ask yourself what rhymes with “witch.”). She went on to assert that state Democrats were communists.

I am done with this. I am done with people who think that name-calling is effective or appropriate political speech. Get off the stage, Meshawn. Make room for someone else — anyone else — who can take a serious, policy-driven approach to running for office. 

Barbara Mezeske
Holland

Logorrhea

Donald Trump’s riff last Tuesday on the U.S. taking a “permanent ownership position” in Gaza was just the latest evidence that he suffers from logorrhea.

What’s that, you ask? Just as diarrhea is an uncontrollable running of the bowels, logorrhea is an uncontrollable running of the mouth. While the term can be used to describe an actual communication disorder, it’s also used in general speech to describe someone who speaks excessively, without forethought and often without coherency.

Trump may not have been clinically diagnosed with the communication disorder, but the evidence is overwhelming that he “runs at the mouth,” with little to no forethought.

That bout of logorrhea saw Trump’s enablers once again scurrying around behind him, trying to clean up the mess. They implied his remarks were the result of a benevolent impulse; or a ploy to get other countries to help out. They said he did not commit (though he certainly implied) to sending American troops there; that he did not mean (though that’s what he said) that the 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza there would be relocated permanently to other locations.

Trump should be expected to clean up his own messes. Yet despite being given multiple opportunities during the press conference, he failed to do so. And that wasn’t his only failure on display.

Also evident was his failure of imagination and lack of empathy.

It’s clear Trump struggles to think outside the one area he knows well — real estate development — or to imagine how anyone can think — or feel — differently than he does. Imagine: He claimed the Palestinians would love being deported from their own land. 

In the same news conference, Trump made clear he thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Hmm. … Peace through ethnic cleansing. Now there’s a novel — not Nobel — notion.

James Dana
Grand Haven

Biden did what Trump didn't to save the economy

To move wisely into the future, we need to understand the past.

I am writing to call out the Biden/Harris Administration for a monumental failure, a clear case of political malpractice. The primary attack against them was that they caused inflation, but they didn’t, not most of it. It’s clear the pandemic caused the initial and uncontrollable seismic shock of inflation through market disruptions and by causing a very large wave of early retirements among those who had that option, including myself.

That left the president with clear choices. Choices Trump ignored.

One choice was to allow massive layoffs to tame inflation, forcing a very few to shoulder the burden of the calamity, or to invest heavily in our country and our future, triggering additional inflation to backfill the shock and bring the economy down to a controllable balance where all would be burdened, across the board. The inflation you are experiencing keeps others from falling into poverty. They rightly chose a shared burden and removed the risk of a worldwide depression, as happened after the last pandemic, but they failed to explicitly tell the country that they had made that choice. 

Biden made the right choice, but just as he and the Federal Reserve achieved a rarity in the management of a national and world-leading economy, a soft landing, the presidential campaign of his successor failed to tell the world of the choice they had made. They failed to explain that the inflation we are experiencing saved the entire world economy and without pushing millions of our fellow citizens and maybe you into poverty and/or bankruptcy. Only to let the country fall into the hands of Trump. 

We need to understand the good choice he made in governing but failed to explain.

David Barnosky
Port Sheldon Twp.

With Elon, MUSKeteer, it is all for one and none for all

How sadistic that the richest man in the world is heartlessly cutting life-sustaining healthcare, nourishment and stability for the poorest men and women of the world.

Elon Musk, unelected henchman for Donald Trump’s DOGE division, has erased essential funding for USAID abroad with the stroke of his red pen. Devoid of compassion for others, Musk has chopped funding, which has meant life to millions struggling with malnutrition, disease and political conflict or war.

Two of the largest non-government recipients of USAID are Catholic Relief Services and World Vision. Globally, both serve millions of suffering families by providing clean water, food and emergency health care. Diseases are treated to prevent worldwide outbreaks. Without their diligent watch, will bird flu, measles, ebola, tuberculosis and Mpox spread?

The Vatican’s global charity Caritas has warned that millions of men, women and children will die as a result of this “ruthless U.S. decision to stop USAID funding and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to dehumanizing poverty.”

Why would Musk erase indispensable funding that saves lives? Slashing USAID from the budget and other critical programs makes extending the huge Trump tax cuts (estimated to cost over $4 trillion over the next decade) to the richest Americans more palatable. How many billions of dollars are enough? Eliminating essential funding to dirt-poor families means a heftier tax cut for Elon Musk.
What bed brings peaceful sleep to Musk while millions die from his cruel actions?

With Elon, MUSKeteer, it is all for one and none for all.

Jo Bird
Holland

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