How do we see this ending?

Yesterday, August 29, 2023, two dear friends phoned, traumatized, in tears, tears of terror.

One, held captive with her entire family, by any news of her grandson, a newly arrived freshman at University of North Carolina, trapped in an adjoining building while a murderer killed a faculty member with a weapon meant for the battlefields.

Lock down. Terror. An endless cycle of gun violence at our universities. How do we see this ending?

The second, terrified every single day by the menace of an elderly relative with a cache of unsecured, deadly weapons and ammunition in her home. Her weeping protests for her young child’s safety are met with a rageful, uneducated lecture on the Second Amendment. How do we see this ending?

Young people increasingly choosing any profession rather than law enforcement as they would stand in the line of fire of any one of the 400 million firearms in this once safe Nation. Google Law Enforcement Shortage. How do we see this ending?

The United States is hemorrhaging educators, literally. The determination to dismantle the public education system, to raise a generation of indoctrinated, terrorized children and their teachers, where daily drills to protect against the inevitability of their school becoming a war zone is REAL. Our little children and our children doing their very best to “adult,” can’t even go to school, to church, to the movies, or the mall without the vulnerability of terror and the very real possibility of being murdered. Even students coming from other nations to be educated here are in danger and have been assassinated. How do we see this ending?

In a nation where all of our citizens are trapped in a web of ideology, supported by 400 Million weapons, an ever enriched munitions industry, a deadly force of legislators bribed by lobbyists, how do we see this ending? Citizens United and the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine have insured unlimited power to those who would destroy our “One Nation Under God.” How do we see this ending?

Are you concerned? What will you do to save this country from internal terrorism?

A Deeply Concerned American Citizen, Lewellen Daniel Padgett

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A Response to “Lawfare” column of August 31

The author of the column “Lawfare” asks may questions in his article; however, he never gives any answers, in fact, he makes several accusations without giving supporting documents or thought. For instance, he writes, “What has the former president done? It’s not like he bribed Ukrainian authorities with one billion taxpayer dollars to protect his son from prosecution in Ukraine, is it?” The writer asks the unfounded question which is full of innuendo about President Biden bribing folks to enable his son Hunter. Representative James Comer (R-TN) and his ilk have been investigating Hunter Biden for more than four years and little concerning this private citizen’s illegal activities has been proven. We all know what an enormously disappointing son Hunter Biden is and thanks to MTG [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-GA], we have seen his photos of poor taste. But does any of this prove that his father has done anything illegal? Nothing yet, but if so, then bring the charges, not the silly questions that only infer.

Concerning January 06, the author writes, “… the majority Democratic House appointed a January 6 committee to investigate what happened. What happened? We don’t know.” I suggest the writer view the abundant footage of the insurrection and then decide what he knows or does not know. If he can watch that footage and not know that our country was under assault, then he knows or understands very little or he denies what he sees. He should not try and cheapen the act of the traitors by placing insurrection in quotation marks. It was an attack on our democracy, led by one man, and one should ask Officers Farrone and Goodman about the attacking traitors not being armed. A gallows is a weapon, as is a flagpole, bear spray, and zip ties. These are a few of the facts of January 06.

The writer reveals himself best when he quotes President Trump: “As the former president has said: ‘They are not coming after me, they’re coming after you. I just happen to be standing in their way.’ ” If one believes that a man who owns Trump Towers and several golf courses but begs for donations to pay his attorney fees will put another person’s welfare before his own, I must doubt anything that person thinks or writes. President Trump is a proven loser with only self-interest: Trump University, affairs with well-known females, his way of “grabbing” a woman’s vagina because he is famous, an inheritance of over roughly $400 million wasted, and his lies concerning the 2020 election are proof of Trump’s poor judgement and dishonesty.

Now, just two last examples of the writer’s hyperbole. He writes concerning the southern border that President Biden’s policy had admitted illegals, “including terrorists on watch lists.” But once again, he makes the accusation without supporting facts. And if one thinks the woke media is so wrong and evil, I question why he refers to himself as a journalist. Why use an institution that one thinks so wrong?

Our press is not perfect, but without it we would live under Authoritarian Rule. “Fake news” does exist, but only in the writer’s world.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Many folks are, I fear, much like the author in that they will form an opinion while ignoring facts. For instance, after watching President Trump speaking at the planned rally on the Eclipse on January 06, any person who denies that he did not rally “his people” to march to the Capitol and disrupt the official counting of ballots, denies the truth. Trump lied to the crowd and even his lawyers have testified that they told him he had lost the fair election. Yet, all these days later he still lies about the election.

The author of “Lawfare” and his ilk are free. Free in this great country to believe in anything or anyone they wish.
They are even, as the writer has done, free to write articles concerning those beliefs. However, he and any like him need to give supporting facts, not hyperbolic questions that only throw gas on a flame.

Our country and its majority of citizens want more than a buffoon who lies and denies responsibility for
his acts.

— Roger Barbee

formerly of Rowan County, lately of Virginia