Beginning in the months before Donald Trump took office, and extending well into his presidency, the media and political world took a set of vague but serious accusations of wrongdoing involving the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia and created a 24/7 frenzy of talk about secret evidence, potential criminal charges and allegedly grave damage to national security.
Hello again, dear readers, and welcome back to our monthly letters column.
DEAR HARRIETTE: A good friend of mine passed away recently.
That Kansas voted to protect abortion rights guaranteed in its state constitution didn’t surprise me, although I certainly never expected a landslide. The original Jayhawkers, after all, waged a gurrilla war to prevent Missourians from bringing slavery into the Kansas territory -- a violent dress rehearsal for the Civil War. A good deal of the state’s well known conservatism is grounded in stiff-necked independence.
• Here are a few reasons from the animal kingdom to avoid setting off fireworks for special events. In addition to making companion animals like dogs anxious and causing panic attacks, they can affect other types of wildlife as well. Bees get disoriented by the loud noise of fireworks and can't make it back to their hives. This often causes them to die. And birds have panic attacks as well, which can cause extreme distress to the point of large clusters of death.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I'm having trouble communicating with one of my co-workers. It seems as though we bump heads about the smallest issues. I try to see his point of view on things, but most times his logic just doesn't make sense to me. How can I be more open to understanding his way of doing things? – Co-Worker Issues
Make way for turkeys. No, that’s no error. One morning in Maine – many of you parents out there will recognize that as a title of a well-loved 1952 children’s book by Robert McCloskey – we did just that, made way for turkeys. There was the lead turkey, and then eight others. We don’t know their names, but in McCloskey’s classic “Make Way for Ducklings,” which won the 1942 Caldecott Medal for illustration in children’s literature, the little ducks were called Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack.
The candidate said, “My opponent and those who endorse him continue to focus on the extreme and unconstitutional notion that we can overturn the 2020 election.”
CLINTON DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL
You’ve probably heard Republicans say the Inflation Reduction Act – the massive spending bill just passed by Senate Democrats – includes provisions to hire 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service agents. The number seems too big to believe. The IRS has just 93,654 employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Why would Congress, in one bill, increase the IRS workforce by something like 92%? It doesn’t seem possible. It certainly doesn’t seem wise.