Letters to the Editor: Aug. 30, 2024

Tunnel vision

I’m responding to Robert Long’s Aug. 23 post.

People have not stopped being good, Mr. Long. They just want a life with a home, family, friends and food on the table.

They don’t want to be judged for who they love. But you’re judging them through your tunnel vision lens, shared with Donald Trump.

Apparently you don’t believe that Mr. Trump had a hand in the insurrection on Jan 6. But I see he’s throwing a party Jan. 6 at his golf club for participants convicted of federal crimes and billing it as an “awards gala.”

Did you see his bathroom filled with boxes and boxes of classified information? In his bathroom, no less!

How about his 34 felonies, judged by his peers. And remember the sexual assault he was held accountable for by another jury of peers.

That’s not to mention many flights he took with friend Jeffrey Epstein, who had sex with underage girls. The scam faux Trump University causing students to lose all their money. His many bankruptcies and failed ventures into steaks, vodka, a university and a casino, just for starters.

Have you ever heard a kind word from him for anyone? I just see him spewing anger and hatred toward all who don’t agree.

Remember how he ridiculed a man with a disability? Boasted he can do whatever he wants to women because he’s famous? Said of John McCain, tortured during four years of captivity, that he doesn’t like people who get caught. And called veterans dying in war “losers” and “suckers.”

Mr. Long, your talking points are all misinformation cited by Trump, FOX, OAN and Truth Social, a con for project 2025. If you want to talk misinformation, do some fact checking!

Check out SNOPES. Go to www.factcheck.org, or www.politifact.com.

Get your eyes checked, Mr. Long.

Els Sandberg

McMinnville

Grounds for agreement

In a letter to the News-Register last week, concerned citizen Robert Long, citing de Tocqueville, complained America has stopped being great because it has stopped being good. He listed several reasons.

I am submitting my own list, modeled after his. To my surprise, we seem to agree on many points.

Abortion: The government in at least 18 states now decides when and whether women will bear children.

Gender-affirming care: The government in half the states dictates to parents how to care for their children’s medical needs.

Debt: In 2017, tax cuts for the wealthy added nearly $2 trillion dollars to our national debt without making life better for ordinary Americans.

Moral decay: Prominent political leaders lie, cheat, misinform and gaslight with impunity.

Crime and drugs: Politicians vilify immigrants, who actually commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, and refuse to acknowledge that crime in general, including the crime of murder, has gone down substantially.

Corruption: Elected leaders have attempted to misappropriate and subvert the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, IRS, military, election system and judiciary.

Misinformation: Social media platforms and news outlets deliberately (as found by at least one court) censor, misinform and disinform the public.

I suspect we may differ which leaders lie, cheat, misappropriate and subvert, and on which media outlets censor and misinform. Nonetheless, it seems we on the right and left can agree on many things after all!

Susan Watkins

McMinnville

Second fiddle?

The September issue of CRUSH, the monthly arts and culture publication produced by Visit McMinnville, features an article headlined, “McMinnville’s Art Alley,” accompanied by a series of photos. You can read the article here, https://visitmcminnville.com/crush, starting on Page 2.

The focus is a “greeting postcard-style mural for McMinnville.” According to the article, “Each letter in ‘McMinnville’ is filled with recognizable local images — the Spruce Goose, a UFO, farmworkers, the Mack Theater, a scene from the local Lunar New Year’s celebration, Serendipity Ice Cream, Buchanan Cellars and others.”

There was no mention of Linfield University. I wondered if “and others” included Linfield so went to the alley to investigate. The photos I shot are posted here: https://youtu.be/FXxmyV8pyMU?si=J7XnpAzqMxX1idNZ.

Spoiler alert: No Linfield.

In the old days, McMinnville was known for Linfield, walnuts, filberts (aka hazelnuts), Turkey Rama, McMinnville Industrial Promotions, the Linfield campus you drove by en route to the Oregon coast, the Rocket Café, Alf’s Ice Cream, the Blue Moon and others.

At two corners where Third Street intersects with Baker, aka 99W, signage features hands pointing to noteworthy places in McMinnville. Linfield used to be included, but not anymore.

If you’ve attended an orchestra concert, you know it takes many instruments — not to mention many musicians, a director and others — to make beautiful music.

In a sense, McMinnville is an orchestra. It takes many people, places and things to make it what it is.

Is Linfield playing second fiddle these days?

Tim Marsh

McMinnville

Republicans for the VP

Last week, a News-Register letter writer suggested America has stopped being good. He quoted 19th century French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville as saying, “America is great because America is good,” and concluded that since we are no longer “good,” we are no longer “great.”

I watched the Republican and Democratic national conventions. What a different picture of our country emerged!

I was depressed watching RNC speakers, highlighted by the former president, lament how terrible America has become and cheer the idea of herding 11 million of our neighbors into concentration camps pending deportation.

These were overwhelmingly old white folks, a demographic I also claim. The vitriol and hate for America made me depressed.

Thankfully, I also watched the DNC, and what a difference! Patriotism and pride of American exceptionalism were abundantly clear.

It seems Democrats have reclaimed patriotism and pride in America, and with a former prosecutor as their candidate, also reclaimed respect for the rule of law.

The best the MAGA Republicans can do is a 78-year-old man who failed us during the Covid pandemic; added trillions to our debt, thanks to tax breaks to wealthy donors; got convicted of business fraud in a criminal trial and sex abuse and defamation in a civil trial; and cavorted with a porn star model while his third wife was home nursing their son.

Their candidate has no moral compass. He only seeks to benefit himself and his friends.

To me, the choice is abundantly clear — more so than in any election in my lifetime.

I have voted in 13 presidential elections, almost exclusively for Republicans, because I felt they expressed pride in our country and respect for the rule of law. I will enthusiastically vote for the VP, the coach and other Democrats this November, and hope other former Republicans will join me.

Philip Forve

McMinnville