Food for thought

Readers assess President Trump’s first State of the Union address and reactions to it

Addicted babies need health system

IT WAS WONDERFUL to read in the Journal about APD officer Ryan Holets who adopted the baby of a homeless heroin-addicted birth mother.

It was also great that (President) Trump invited him and his wife and baby to attend the State of the Union address, but what about the thousands of parents and their families who have adopted children of addicted parents?

I’m talking about those folks who even now sit day and night in the ICU suites of these kids, tubes everywhere, monitors and lights blinking, these kids whose bodies and lives bear the scars of their birth parents’ addictions? They face a wrecked health care system devastated by the same president who has funded addiction treatment to the tune of a paltry several thousand dollars.

But it’s not the bitter irony of politics I’m thinking of now. It’s those parents and their kids, their invisible suffering, their silent financial wreckage and their good hearts. What about them?

JAMES BURBANK Albuquerque

Trump address offers hope

PRESIDENT DONALD Trump delivered an excellent speech at (Jan. 30)’s State of the Union. Full of hope, offering important compromises — very presidential — and very well received! That, while Nancy (Pelosi) sucked on her lemons. The Democrats in our congressional delegation issued hateful diatribes — raising the question of whether they were written before the State of the Union. Very possibly, since it’s hard to write when you’re sitting on your hands!

BURKE NELSON Albuquerque

Where was Democratic applause?

WAS I AND NM’s Democrat representatives in Washington listening to the same speech on Tuesday night? Maybe they weren’t listening at all because they didn’t stand or even applaud the remarkable things that are happening in our country. Wouldn’t you applaud 2.4 million jobs created, unemployment claims at a 50-year low with unemployment rates of African Americans and Hispanic Americans at the lowest ever, the market way up with millions of workers receiving tax cut bonuses and companies like Apple, Chrysler, Toyota/Mazda putting money, jobs and plants in the US? The Democrats didn’t.

Wouldn’t you applaud the mention of our historic heroes who struggled to form our nation? Evidently they aren’t revered by the Democrats — no applause. Maybe they felt President Trump was being hateful or discriminatory when he reported that many members of the murderous M-13 gang have been either imprisoned or deported. I bet those families who have lost loved ones to these cold-blooded killers applauded. I would think they would have applauded when President Trump offered a road to citizenship for three times as many Dreamers as our last president asked for. Nope, no applause.

Maybe it offended the Democrats that the president called Americans dreamers too. Well, I can speak for myself. I am a dreamer. I dream of an America where our politicians care more about our country than their political party, a country where we can celebrate good happenings for our citizens without worrying about who will get the credit.

MARY A. LOMBARDO Albuquerque

Democrats act like spoiled teens

FROM THEIR comments in the Journal after the State of the Union address — (U.S.) Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall and Rep. Ben Ray Luján — one would think they were part of the Democrat rebuttal and were not in the Capitol when they heard divisiveness, hateful rhetoric, demonization and scandals.

What I heard was low black and Hispanic unemployment, bonuses for employees, 2.4 million jobs created, American flag, In God we Trust, national anthem, fully secured border, merit-based immigration, fighting opioid abuse, elimination of MS-13 gang members, praise for our military men and woman, amongst other good things.

The Democrats that were in the capital building did not stand for any of these things. They all looked like teenagers that just had their cell phones taken away.

JOE GONZALES Rio Rancho

You can oppose and show decency

AS I WATCHED and listened to the State of the Union speech by President Trump, I got the feeling that one side of the audience was full of people from another country but soon realized that they were the elected members of Congress of a different party.

As the health and welfare of the American veterans were being addressed, this set of our elected congressional members did not have the decency to even clap. When the president mentioned making America great they, as a coalition, failed to feel that we, the citizens, are capable or even deserved to have that title. This same action of snobbery followed almost every statement made by the president.

There were certainly no signs of cooperation. Maybe they were tired of all the lowly, American citizens whom the president brought to the attention of the audience in his speech, for their part in making this country great.

It was an embarrassment to watch. We need to be a people joined together for the citizens of this country and those hoping to become citizens, not a people whose idealistic opinions are more important to them than the people.

I didn’t agree with all the president said, but I gave him the courtesy to listen and weigh what he had to say.

RAY CLARK Albuquerque

Journal usually liberal fish wrap

MICHAEL K. DANIELS’ letter to the editor of Jan. 30 is laughable and patently absurd. He writes, “I have long known that the Journal was a Republican rag, how can anyone miss it.” Well, it’s obvious (he has). I have been reading the Journal for over 50 years; the Journal always has and always will be liberal fish wrap. For once, or at least in a long, long time, the Journal published an article placing blame where it firmly belongs, on the Democrats, for the government shutdown, which royally backfired on the Chucky and Nancy show.

JOHN J. KRAPCHA Albuquerque

Democrats to blame for shutdown

KUDOS TO THE Journal for the editorial on Jan. 22, which exposed the truth about which party is responsible for the shutdown. Way to go Albuquerque Journal! We’ll be keeping our subscription! Too bad the N.M. Democrats don’t see it the way it is.

VICKI BLISS WELLBORN Albuquerque

DACA was a Dem setup for GOP

THIS MORNING I read — with much disgust — the article published in the Albuquerque Journal about (U.S. Rep.) Michelle Lujan-Grisham blaming President Trump for the stalemate about the illegal DACA(s) who are in the U.S. Whether she likes it or not, these people are here illegally whether they were brought here by their parents or entered on their own — and many of them did.

DACA was created by the Obama administration with Michelle’s, (U.S. Sen. Martin) Heinrich and (U.S. Sen. Tom) Udall’s help and was created for a period of two years with full knowledge that when the two years expired, Obama would be out of office and not responsible for their fate and making the next president the scapegoat. When DACA was created, Obama could have made its creation permanent instead of two years, and Michelle knows this full well since she helped create it.

This whole fiasco appears to me to have been a setup for the next president should he be a Republican. If the next president was a Democrat, DACA would have been made permanent a year ago. But now Michelle has made it known that she along with all the Democrats — including Udall, Heinrich and (U.S. Rep.) Ben Ray Luján — don’t give a darn about America and (will) shut down the government, making it very difficult for the military, federal law enforcement, etc. I know first-hand what the military suffers during a government shutdown. I spent 25 years in the military defending my country. Ask the wives who have to live through it. They have bills to pay ,and the lenders don’t want to hear crying. They want their money now.

I find it very difficult to comprehend how any American can go to the polls and cast a vote for these people. God help New Mexicans if Michelle gets elected governor.

WILL SALAZAR Albuquerque