Byrd represented what’s wrong with the U.S. Congress
The column dated July 11 stated that Sen. Robert Byrd was “One Of A Kind,” and it went on to praise his long career.
What the article didn’t mention were the following points;
1. Robert Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1940s and later became a Kleagle (recruiter) and then the Exalted Cyclops the top leader of his local Klan in West Virginia.
While he left the Klan when he went to Congress in 1958, he continued to correspond until the late 1960s.
2. He strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and then voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
3. He voted against both of the only two black Supreme Court members.
4. He as a result of “earmarks” sent over a billion dollars of taxpayer money to West Virginia, and in a real show of humility had over 30 major projects named after him.
Thank God this is the “End Of An Era,” with hopefully the last of his kind in the Senate. He was a bigot, and used the taxpayers money to elevate himself, while staying in office until age 92, long after he was effective in any way.
Robert Bryd was exactly what is wrong with Congress, and the voters who elect and re-elect people like him.
The article, by major omissions, made a “silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
— Neal J. Ganly
Terre Haute
Charities doing strange things
This letter is about these charity groups who claims they’re doing good for the communities.
The only thing these charities is doing this for is media attention.
It makes them feel like big shots if they get their name or pictures in the paper.
They ask for donations claiming it goes to a good cause.
But yet I read in the paper where some of these same groups turn around and sponsor some kind of events like golf tournaments and other game events and give away expensive prizes to the winner, not to mention the high price admission they charge to attend or participate in these events.
If they are so hard up for your donations then how can they afford to sponsor these high-priced events.
Oh, it all goes to charitable causes, so they say.
Puts me in mind of a job I had in my younger days working on a trash disposal route.
I and my partner didn’t own the route or the truck but we worked for a guy who did own it. It was up to us to see that his paying customers were taken care of and to go easy on the low-income people.
But then we came across this lady who lived in a fancy house with a fancy red Lincoln sedan, an in-ground swimming pool, a two-car garage, in a rich neighborhood, and asked us if we could wait until the next month to pay her monthly $15 trash bill. She already owed our boss $15 for the month before.
Finally my partner spoke up and said, “Lady, we’re not in the charity business, but if you’re looking for charity, then try the United Way or Eli Lilly or get another trash hauler.”
It must have worked because she sent our boss a check for $30 to catch up her bill and she paid her trash bill on time after that.
We usually went along with people who were really struggling to make ends meet.
— John Weddle
Brazil
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