Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

Dear Sir: It was with great disappointment that Allan Kerr, a person I almost always agree with, has decided to continue to support Senator Susan Collins. In his September 20th opinion piece, Mr. Kerr seemed to overlook many of the times Sen. Collins has supported Donald Trump in ways that were contrary to the best interests of Maine and America. He gave a great deal of credit for supporting the Bath Iron Works (BIW) and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY). He also praised the Senator for her support of the Thresher Memorial. It took absolutely no political courage on her part, or cost her any …

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[Note: This fortnight we received several letters which shared two characteristics: they were written in support of the same candidate, but arrived too late to be published in advance of the election. We’re going to publish two of them anyway. They won’t be able to influence primary election voters, but they illuminate structural problems in the governance of this state—problems that are unlikely to be solved by Hereditary Governor Sununu Two, or any other members of his party. – The Ed.] –=≈=– To the Editor: The Democratic primary for Governor has two outstanding candidates with very different talents. While it will not be easy to …

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To the Editor: In 2006, in an attempt to strangle the Postal Service financially, Congress mandated the Service to prefund each employee’s health and retirement benefits, not only through their career, but through retirement. This is costing the Service an extra $5 billion a year. If you owned a business and had to prepay 40-plus years of health insurance premiums, plus their pension, as soon as you hired someone, would you add an employee or ask your current employees to work some overtime? For the most part the Postal Service has found it less expensive to pay overtime. Now we come to the current situation. …

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Dear Editor: Really, Trump shows his true self often. It is not the rosied-up self from Republican Convention time, with its hype, through to November 3rd voting. I just came across Trump’s true self in an Oct. 19, 2017, news article, found while cleaning around my computer. True Trump shows in gone-public interaction with the widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, killed in an ambush in Nigeria. Trump called and told Myeshia Johnson, “He knew what he signed up for,” and called her husband, “your guy.” Sgt. Johnson’s mother called the President “disrespectful.” Trump characterized the exchange as “a very nice conversation.” He does …

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