Editor’s note: One of The Daily Signal’s new year’s resolutions is to inspire you to write us about our coverage and what’s on your minds. So drop a line to letters@dailysignal.com.—Ken McIntyre
Dear Daily Signal: Daniel Davis’s podcast interview with charter schools advocate Charles Mitchell (“In Pennsylvania, a War on Charter Schools”) also reflects, although to a lesser extent perhaps, a war for many Arizonans too. This is especially so for those in the big cities such as Phoenix, but even in some smaller towns in the state.
Parents in Arizona are not happy with:
—What their kids aren’t learning in public schools. Computers seem to do a lot of the teaching in some schools these days.
—What their kids are learning, like “America was never as great as it claims to have been” and ditto its Founding Fathers.
—Sensing that their kids are not safe in some schools, where bullying and threats from other students are major problems, especially if the kids are from homes of churchgoing families and/or the school is in a rough neighborhood. And now we have school shootings added to the mix.
As a result, many parents are putting their kids in church schools or charter schools, and even doing homeschooling (doing a good job of it, too, in many instances).
Public schools want the charter schools closed because they get funds from the state (based on the number of students served) that the public schools think they should be getting.
When I was a kid in the Great Depression, I went through four different kinds of schools: a Catholic school (I’m not Catholic, but it was just a block from our apartment) and a public school in a small New Mexico town; a two-teacher country school and a high school in a Mormon community in Arizona.
I learned a lot from each one of them and not a one of those really, really underpaid teachers in underfunded schools ever told me America was never as great as it claims to have been.
They taught us this country was a great place to be, and it would be up to us to keep it that way when we grew up. We haven’t exactly lived up to their expectations, have we?—Peggy Williams, Arizona
Trade With Canada and Mexico
Dear Daily Signal: I wonder why you and others did not report to your readers, viewers, and subscribers the cause(s) of the House’s long failure to vote on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2019 (“House Votes Overwhelmingly to Pass US-Mexico-Canada Trade Deal”)?
Where was the bill stuck in the House? What were the objections to the trade agreement? Who was making an effort to compromise and to move the bill along?
Was AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka the problem? Was Speaker Nancy Pelosi really blocking it?
Why not support those in Congress who wanted to vote to pass the USMCA, by providing your audience with information that we ought to have to help build a popular call for Congress to ‘”get on with our business”?
In many recent days, you covered too much about the Democrats and impeachment, and not enough about what matters to people trying to make a living—which is all of us, including yourselves. Thanks for your attention to my note.—George Gramelspacher, Indiana
Impeachment as the Swamp’s Revenge
Dear Daily Signal: There is an old saying: Play with fire, and you will get burned.
This is what’s happening to the president. He has dared to attack, in these past three years, the Washington/Capitol Hill political aristocracy and its swamp.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle, lobbyists, special interest groups, bureaucrats who control the constitutional process, biased mainstream media, various FBI and CIA types all have a hand in this corruption game. They will never surrender what they think is rightfully theirs.
As it now stands, things have gone beyond the point of no return. Notwithstanding whatever this president does to fight the swamp, the swamp indeed continues to control Washington. And it will continue to wield and brandish its power in an unabashed fashion for the painfully long-term foreseeable future.
The president, who mostly stands alone in this fight, has lost the battle. The Pelosis and Schiffs of this world have won the Trump-Swamp War. But pathetically, the average American hasn’t had a clue of what’s happening.
The sad thing about this whole affair is that Donald Trump, as an outsider to the Georgetown political cocktail party class, earnestly and in good faith attempted to clean up this cesspool.
But the task has been just too herculean even for him, as president, to forge such a victory. So, get ready. America’s ship of state is on the verge of sailing into the perilous waters of socialism.—Earl Beal, Terre Haute, Ind.
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I didn’t believe that you can get so many liberal airheads into one room, but it sure came to light when five of these airheads were asked in a House hearing just what was so damaging about President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader.
They looked at each other, bewildered. This witch hunt should have been stopped right there, so the president could get on with running the country.—Roy Kappel, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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Thanks for Fred Lucas’s great feature, “When the House First Tried to Impeach a President, It Failed.”
Sounds like Congress didn’t get along very well even in the 1800s. LOL—Allen Muench
This and That
Dear Daily Signal: I wanted to thank you for your daily Morning Bell updates and for making them accessible to a screen reader, as I am a totally blind individual.
I also want to thank Daniel Davis for his list of 29 books (“29 Books That Would Make an Excellent Christmas Gift”). I was able to find many of them on a site where a group puts books into formats so that blind and visually impaired readers are able to read them with either braille or audio.
I look forward to reading many more updates from you.— Betsy Grenevitch, Loganville, Ga.
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Here in California, we probably had a million fraudulent votes in Los Angeles County (“More Proof That Voter Fraud Is Real, and Bipartisan”).
In Orange County, a few races actually won by Republicans were lost when so-called advisers brought in harvested votes after the polls closed.
Judicial Watch got some measure of confession by Los Angeles County, but it seems that no cleanup has been done.—Mars Ramage
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Please stop bashing Chick-fil-A on your podcasts, as occurs in Rachel del Guidice’s interview of author and commentator David Limbaugh (“David Limbaugh on New Far Left: Americans Must Resist ‘Tyrannical Bullying’”).
Their decision to reevaluate their giving policies is their decision. If it is bad, it will hurt their business. But you are supposing that you can read the minds and hearts of the corporate decision-makers. You cannot.
The far-left headlines trumpeted the far-left narrative and you jumped on board with them. You must know that this is very wrong.
If you join other media outlets in hanging your success on created, attention-grabbing headlines, I’m done with The Daily Signal. I’m praying for a turnaround.—Bob Fuller, Bella Vista, Ariz.
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Regarding the commentary by Robert Moffit: The flaw with President Trump’s policy on hospital pricing is that it can do nothing to help people who are locked into a hospital by their HMOs (“How Trump’s Sunshine Rules Will Boost Transparency in Health Care Prices”).
The HMOs always make you use a hospital a lot farther than where you live. But HMO users have no choice.
In an emergency, you can be transported to the nearest hospital. But if you need a “procedure,” they transfer you to a hospital 20 miles away or even more. This makes for a family hardship in many ways. Like the veterans, we need hospital choice.—Carol Ulery
How Are We Doing?
Dear Daily Signal: I often check in with The Daily Signal to “see what condition my condition is in,” a la Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The 1960s were wild and crazy, often confusing times, but people did “out” an insane and useless Vietnam War.
Turn on the electronic newspapers today and more people are aware of other people’s bizarre behavior, actions, and motivations through and by only a handful of nonalphabet news sources. Thank God for Ben, Michelle, Dennis, Larry—just a few of the voices of conservative thought. Also thank God for Donald Trump.
This from an ex-hippie author and philosopher of the ’60s, now a naturopathic NMD and Six Sigma Black Belt. Stay classy, real peace people!—Don Hall
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I recently got mail confirming my membership with The Heritage Foundation. I like The Daily Signal’s Morning Bell e-mails. So far, so good! Keep up the good work.—Davis Roenisch
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We need conservatives to stay focused and defeat liberal policies.—Tom Sprenger
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I am forever grateful for The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation. Cheers!—Oscar Manful, Ghana, West Africa
