Looking for fodder
Your colors are showing, Marty Trillhaase.
In your Sunday Opinion editorial of Dec. 29, you could put Nancy Pelosi’s, Hakeem Jefferies’ or Chuck Schumer’s name in for Donald Trump’s name and write the article.
Of course, when they threatened one of their members for not voting the way they wanted it was OK, because they were toeing the Democratic line.
I would not have voted for the continuing resolution either, but I would have expected any repercussions that came. Apparently when a Republican challenges another Republican, you try to make fodder out of it.
Ron Calhoun
Juliaetta
Missing Jimmy Carter
Twenty years ago, the winter issue of Fine Woodworking magazine contained an article by Jimmy Carter. He described his early woodworking projects as being born of necessity, furnishing his and Rosalynn’s apartment while earning $300 a month as a young naval officer.
After his presidency, he built pieces that were auctioned off to raise money for the Carter Center, the human rights organization they started in 1982. These projects included cedar chests and four-poster beds, and once he even carved a chess set ... . He wrote that the bidding was brisk, and the final prices were high, ranging from $51,000 up to $200,000.
He said the Carter Center used these funds to help “eradicate diseases in Africa and Latin America, and help finance our efforts to improve health, increase food production, monitor elections and negotiate peace agreements in about 65 of the poorest nations.”
I ask you to contrast this to the now-defunct Trump Foundation. Donald Trump admitted, in settlement of a civil suit in 2017, he misused foundation funds to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts. He was ordered to pay $2 million to eight charities and to liquidate the foundation.
Can anyone imagine Donald Trump showing up in jeans to help build a house for a less fortunate family? Me neither.
The contrast of the character of these two men could not be more apparent. One hawked Bibles for personal profit. The other lived the Bible every day.
We will miss you, Jimmy Carter.
Cope Gale
Moscow
Losing world’s trust?
Just as Republican politicians have now taken credit for Joe Biden-Kamala Harris projects that are already in place in their districts, Donald Trump will declare that he is responsible for the Biden-Harris manufacturing that is now in the pipeline.
Trump has been convicted by New York state for lying about the value of his properties. (They were not just “bookkeeping errors.”) If he goes ahead with excessive tax cuts and tariffs, what is to prevent him and his GOP allies from manipulating economic data to cover up the disaster?
The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell writes that disgraced trade representative Peter Navarro was notorious “for bullying career statisticians to cook the books in the former president’s favor.” Trump cronies, she says, have a “habit of torturing the data until it confesses.” The result will be the absence of valid numbers that businesses rely on to make decisions,” as well as, I will add, reliable data that Congress needs to set budgets.
Back in 2013, Argentina lost credibility in world financial markets and the International Monetary Fund reprimanded its government for its failure to make “sufficient progress in improving the accuracy of its economic data.”
The following year, The Economist refused to publish Argentina’s false data, and its editors accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of replacing “independent-minded staff” with her own people. This is exactly what Trump is already doing now.
This does not at all bode well for America’s once-trusted role in world affairs.
Nick Gier
Moscow
