Seeing eye-to-eye

Readers sound off on the impeachment inquiry and the current combative political atmosphere

Pardoning Navy SEAL outrageous

HAVING HAD A brother in the Navy and having been a Navy chaplain — Reserves — during the Vietnam era, I am blown away with Trump’s granting a pardon to (someone many consider) a war criminal: Eddie Gallagher. Trump’s going on to fire Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer and justifying such an action is totally outrageous.

Trump simply thinks soldiers are trained to be killers — setting aside the legal restrictions which SEALs and all others are trained with leads one to reasonably conclude that this country needs to impeach and remove the White House occupant and unfit POTUSA.

How can a soldier such as Gallagher justify going to the media and critiquing his superior? ...

Trump and his bone spurs excuse — (allegedly) via his dad’s intervention with a (doctor) to keep Trump out of Vietnam — certainly disallows him from knowing anything about the rules and regulations of military behavior, whether he is the commander in chief or not.

REV. GLEN THAMERT Jemez Springs

Inquiry shows deep state does exist

ALL THIS IMPEACHMENT inquiry proved/ divulged was the actual existence of an anti-Trump deep state. They just outed themselves without realizing it, after the fake news media denied the existence of one while calling Trump crazy for saying there was one.

JOHN KRAPCHA Albuquerque

Trump staff prohibited from talking

IN RICH LOWRY’S column (“GOP’s high impeachment ground? Nothing happened,” Nov. 25), he incredulously asked, “Why should they (Democrats) be content to hear from the current batch of witnesses ...? … If they wanted to lock down their case … They’d … get the testimony of Rudy Giuliani, Mick Melvaney and Mike Pompeo, among others.”

Ahem, is Lowry the only one unaware the president has “locked down” staff not to cooperate, not to provide any documents, and to ignore subpoenas?

MICHAEL BARON Corrales

Bidens should be investigated

IF YOU BRUSH your teeth, I’ll read you a bedtime story. Quid quo pro? That would be a crime — child abuse under current thinking.

Rather than throwing around the term “political rival” in regard to Joe Biden, which is true, the real question is how does it relate to corruption? That’s an issue that should be investigated, irrelevant of politics. The public has a right to know if our foreign policy is corrupt under the Bidens. Leveraging it with reservations gets attention.

Roosevelt held back aid to England in the wake of failed prime ministers before America entered the war. He wanted Churchill to prove his mettle before he extended aid. It was Joe Kennedy who was not on board as ambassador and was fired. Ultimately the aid was known as “lend lease.” Not a bad idea.

Today, value relativism is the mighty weapon. It makes us all equal and loving. It is unquestioning. Value relativism has become a religious sect. Hillary Clinton is its queen. Anyone like Trump upsets its narrative. He is the enemy because he questions this cozy deal that’s running off the rails — no accountability to an uncorrupt authority and skimming fortunes, Biden-style. Trump would be failing his duty like Obama if he didn’t at least ask (what was going on). FRED STEWART GRAND JUNCTION, COLO.

Stop harassing Rep. Torres Small

I AM TIRED of seeing the television harassment of U.S. Rep. (Xochitl) Torres Small taking place multiple times every day sponsored by a group named the American Action Network. This is a right-ofcenter group known for pouring money mostly into opposition of ideas and candidates in favor of moderate to progressive ideas. Organizations that lobby for ideas right, center or left is one thing, but the hateful rhetoric used against Torres Small a year out from the election is something else.

First of all, this lobbying group does not have to disclose its donors list as a 501 organization. That seems un-American to me if not downright subversive, but it is the new American way since the Citizens United ruling.

More troubling, the effort of this ad is to smear Torres Small for voting to endorse the impeachment inquiry into the actions of Donald Trump in his apparent attempt — according to the transcript of his call to the Ukrainian president released by the White House — (allegedly) to use congressionally appropriated funds to get a foreign government to investigate a political rival. Testimony by Foreign Service officers the past two weeks, in the inquiry that the representative voted for, seem to indicate that this is indeed what happened.

What’s more, the defense of not holding an impeachment inquiry seems to be that Russians didn’t hack the election in 2016, rather it was the Ukrainians, an explanation (reportedly) inspired by the Russians to cover up Russian illegalities and disputed by all U.S. intelligence agencies. So, in effect, the group pushing to stop Torres Small from wanting an investigation into Trump’s actions are seriously doing the work of the GRU and other subversive Russian agencies.

Rep. Torres Small is in a tough position trying to balance the interests of America as a Democrat in a red district that she surprisingly won in part because of concern about some of Trump’s actions leading up to the 2018 mid-term elections. She is now being unfairly attacked by an outside lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., which is acting like a Russian asset in an attempt to stop an investigation that ultimately could help us derail foreign election interference in 2020.

Torres Small should be praised for her vote rather than condemned.

RON SCHWARTZ Albuquerque

GOP shouldn’t be enabling Trump

THE RECENT impeachment inquiry has made it painfully clear that the Republican Party has become nothing more than an enabler of Donald Trump. (Its) pitiful attempts to discredit, ridicule and deflect the facts presented wandered between fanciful, embarrassing, laughable and cringe-worthy. The contrast between the professionalism and integrity shown by long-time public servants and the Republican members of the committee was stark.

Are there any Republicans left who have the courage and sense of duty to stand up against the despot who now seems to absolutely terrify every member of their party? Where are the patriots who value country over political gain? Do any of them have a shred of dignity and a moral backbone? From what I saw, the answer is no.

When the history of this time is written, will it report that a tyrant came to power who so cowed members of his own party that he remained in office, continuing to do further damage to the fabric of American society and further weakening democracy?

Or will the party of Lincoln recover its courage and for once act in the best interest of the United States. And will the American public also realize its patriotic duty and remove this cancer upon the politics of America?

As Adam Schiff stated in his closing impeachment statement, “We’re better than that.”

Are we?

CHARLES GARNER Albuquerque