Praise for BDN obituary section

I subscribe to five daily newspapers (electronic editions), and the Bangor Daily News — the newspaper I have read since leaving Maine 61 years ago — has the most readable and attractive obituary section of the other four papers: the New York Times, Salem Statesman Journal, the Oregonian and the Herald and News.

Irvin Fletcher

Woodburn, Oregon

Trump has earned impeachment

Perhaps the American public will get a chance to see in the Senate those witnesses who the administration refused to let appear in the House. For example, it would be good to hear from the president’s personal lawyer Rudi Guilanni, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

Then the Senate would have a trial based more on facts, rather than on Republican denial. I am not holding my breath. I believe Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already violated his pre-impeachment trial oath.

Not surprisingly, House Republicans have failed to live up to the standard set by Fiona Hill for bravery, facts and rational consideration of presidential misbehavior. It is truly ironic that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former spy, a hostile opponent of our country and an authoritarian admired by President Donald Trump, has come out in support of Trump and echoed Republican disinformation.

I hope both our senators vote in support of Trump’s removal. This is not something being done to the president; Trump has earned this impeachment all by himself.

Jim Owen

Belfast

Focus on the president’s actions

While I haven’t watched all of the current sessions surrounding the “marking up” of the proposed impeachment of President Donald Trump, I did happen to catch one in particular that I have to admit made me sick to my stomach.

A Republican congressman droned on about the purported issue involving Joe Biden’s son being involved in drugs. What does that have to do with the current person sitting in the White House and whether he has failed to uphold his oath of office, is a security risk to the country, or has constantly obstructed Congress by withholding evidence of his actions?

When will these Republicans figure out that by not understanding the gravity of what is going on within our government, they are not upholding their own oath of office to defend this country and our Constitution? All they seem to be concerned about is keeping their cushy jobs and the benefits that we as taxpayers pay for.

I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but I can see what these Republican elected officials are doing, and they should be ashamed.

Richard Barclay

Holden

What we don’t know

Spencer Tracy played a retired Maine judge in the movie “ Judgement at Nuremberg.” One scene places him after a day’s work in the “room & board” house where he resided. He asked the cook as she was serving supper about the terrible atrocities committed by the German command, she replied, “We didn’t know.”

This we do know: that in the 20th century two human leaders on two separate parts of the globe brainwashed millions of humans in some kind of human-worship. Adolf Hitler was one, Japanese Emperor Michinomiya Hirohito was the other.

This could never happen in our free society, could it? Our freely elected representatives are facing some kind of realization that maybe party politics are messing up our essence. Does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi know something we do not realize? Is she attempting to use the letter of the law address some kind of human worship in our society?

And does she know that if President Donald Trump is convicted, and Vice President Mike Pence knows “too much,” then he may be forced to resign — and that would leave her “holding the bag.”

What a mess we are in, and to borrow from “Judgment at Nuremberg,” we do not know.

Robert Fournier

Bangor