Facts needed for balanced political discourse
MS. Sheila Gresinger’s assertion last week (“Considering all sides is paramount,” Dec. 15), that the media are not balanced because they do not stress that former President Donald Trump called for participants at the Jan. 6 riots to stay peaceful and support law enforcement, is jawdroppingly disingenuous.
In fact, the former president only said that many hours a er the rioting started and, as it has come out, only a er his daughter, senior sta ers and congressional Republican leaders begged him to do so. Witnesses have testi ed that he said it under duress, his true aim being to see the subversion proceed to its conclusion. Whatever calls to peaceful protest he might have made earlier were drowned in a sea of in ammatory language suggesting ghting and violence.
What was Trump’s basis for all this? The lie that he had won the election, knowing full well as subsequent evidence has shown, that he had lost. Mr. Edward Hughes is correct in his caution (“Balance and chaos,” Dec. 8) that balance in political discourse must be grounded rst in facts. As to her comments about immigration, Republicans have scuttled any kind of comprehensive immigration reform since 2014, when in Virginia right-wing Dave Brat deposed Eric Cantor, a senior House leader, over the issue. Once again, this week Senate Republicans rejected the current package attached to the Federal funding bill, which provided more money to border control, processing centers, judges and asylum o cers.
And it would have resolved once and for all the status of two million “dreamers” born, educated, working, and paying taxes in the U.S. Ms. Gresinger is right about the urgent need to address current severe issues. And one of those is that manufacturers, retailers, hospitality providers, health, child and aged care service providers, farms and vineyards, large and small, across the country are scrambling to nd workers. There are just not enough workers to ll the jobs, even at higher pay, because immigration has dried up because of this Republican obstruction of even sensible immigration reforms.