Endless division
I thought the Mueller Report would put an end to the division Putin has created, but obviously it hasn’t. One side wants to investigate how it started, and the other how it ended. As for the obstruction, the best description I came across is explained by the following: “While we recognize that the subject did not actually steal any horses, he is obviously guilty of trying to resist being hanged for it.”
Ted Raia
Camden
National popular vote effort misguided
Very glad to see the Maine House of Representatives reversed itself on the Electoral College. The proposed national popular vote compact with the other states, if successful, would clearly and baldly rob Maine, and other small states just like it, of the clout now enjoyed in the Electoral College. For our Legislature, and perhaps our governor who has not yet announced her position on this issue, to adopt this measure would be a mindless of surrender of the maximization of our rights as a state and as citizens of Maine and of the United States.
Brian Striar
Bangor
Welcome refugees with open hearts
The Bangor Daily News article about the Vietnamese refugee family that arrived in Bangor 40 years ago is an example of America at its best. The family of five spoke no English and arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They were welcomed with open hearts and arms by the Bangor Jewish community.
Now forty years later, we see too many examples of America at its worst. Our government is taking refugee children away from their parents and imprisoning them in cages. Our government is restricting lawful immigration and breaking our American tradition of treating those who seek asylum as criminals because they are fleeing their countries out of fear for their lives.
Remember, Pham Do and Mui Tang and their three children were desperate refugees fleeing their country because of violence, and because they were welcomed here, they were allowed to become valuable American citizens who have given back much to their new country.
It is time for compassion to return to religious communities in our country, demonstrated 40 years ago by Bangor’s conservative and orthodox synagogues. Rather than the fear and hate that is being demonstrated daily in our country, it is time that a generous spirit returns to the heart of the United States of America.
One of the members of the Jewish community said about helping the refugee family 40 years ago: “I feel very blessed to have them in my life.” Let us all seek such blessings in our lives.
Rev. Charles J. Stephens
Blue Hill
Immigration hypocrisy
I will never understand how illegal immigrants feel they have the right to illegally enter our country! I have seen our politicians from Washington, D.C., saying that in order to stem the tide of illegal immigrants coming to our country, we need to do more in their home countries. Really? We do not take care of our own citizens, and now our elected officials want us to give more of our tax dollars to help out Central American countries?
When did the US become the bank of the world, when in these countries, their leaders squander money and we are supposed to give them more? I do not understand how some politicians in our Capitol have the gall to criticize others about immigration policy, when they have done nothing for years! Democrats only want immigration reform if it includes a pathway to citizenship for supposed Dreamers? How much have towns, cities, states given to these dreamers that they were not entitled when they were in this country illegally, no matter who brought them here? And now the taxpayers of the US are supposed to just give them citizenship? I wonder if the Democrats only want to help them so they will vote for them in the years to come.
Our Congress has failed to act for years to stem the tide of illegal immigrants into our country, then they make inflammatory statements against all other immigration policies — and they have done nothing to fix the problem. Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Robert Tomlins
Aurora