Letters to the Editor

Again, Louie Gohmert has shown he does not deserve to serve as our representative nor receive lifetime insurance and other benefits from being elected to the House.

When did it become normal to spout Russian propaganda and falsehoods from that beautiful leather chair he gets to sit in up in Washington?

I haven’t heard him yet, but I will not be surprised when he states it’s OK to ask foreign governments to interfere in our elections. This guy and his president are becoming such embarrassments to our country and the rest of the world.

It will take years for the U.S. to regain our leadership status on the world stage. Unfortunately, our allies and enemies know that these guys can’t be trusted. That the U.S. has just become so much hot air and nothing else.

Stan Lynch

Center

Simple pleasures: coffee in the morning

I agree with John Moore on his column (Tyler Morning Telegraph, Nov. 15) about “coffee complexity, funny ‘foo foo’ names, high cost, etc.” in these modern times.

I also get up early each morning to make the family coffee. I use a slightly more modern “drip” coffee maker, while John prefers his old percolator. Also, I prefer an older coffee brand like John, but a different one. And I still grind the fresh coffee beans every morning. (On rare occasions, I also indulge in a caramel macchiato at a well known coffee shop — John may not approve. In East Texas that three-syllable word is typically pronounced “Car’-Mel,” but I digress.) So this is how I got interested in coffee.

When I was 10 or 11 years old (WWII era), living in the small town of Barbourville, Kentucky, I sometimes bought bags of coffee at the store for my folks’ early morning coffee.

The store was the A&P Grocery, located on the town square, about four blocks from our house. This distance was just a “hop-skip and jump” for an energetic young kid.

The coffee brand of choice then was Eight O’Clock, the store’s house brand, and it came in bags of beans. Part of my job there was to grind the beans. I opened the bag, dumped the beans into the top of the store’s large grinding machine, put the bag properly at the bottom of the machine, and turned on its electric motor.

Quickly the coffee grounds came streaming down and filled the bag. I removed it, closed it up with the two side tabs (just like we do today), paid for it and headed back home.

I didn’t drink any coffee in those Barbourville days, but later in my growing up years, “early morning coffee” became an enjoyable routine that continues to this day. No longer a house brand, but a widespread independent, the coffee of choice is still Eight O’Clock — whose beans I still grind but in a small kitchen coffee grinder.

“Jack” Gibson

Hideaway

No one above law, including the president

President Donald Trump’s attempt to pressure Ukraine’s president to help him in the 2020 election by investigating one of his potential opponents was a clear signal to the American people that Trump thinks he is above the law.

It should also be a clear signal to lawmakers that it’s time to hold him accountable and move forward with impeachment as quickly as possible.

Soliciting a foreign government’s help in American elections is an impeachable offense, but it’s even worse that Trump threatened to withhold critical military aid unless Ukraine complied. This is leveraging taxpayer-funded resources for personal gain, plain and simple.

I am tired of seeing those in power play by a different set of rules than everyone else. No wonder public support for impeachment grows every day. If Trump were any other American, he’d already be in jail. The mountain of evidence against him has even convinced some high-profile Republicans to come out in support of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry.

Trump has positioned himself in opposition to everything that makes our democracy worth protecting: the rule of law, constitutional norms, justice and transparency.

That’s why it’s time for lawmakers to stand up and defend our democracy from Trump before it’s too late. No one is above the law, not even the president.

While they continue to focus on important issues like health care and jobs, it is time for the Senate to act swiftly to bring Donald Trump to trial.

Nancy Nichols

Tyler