I look at the Sunday TFP Rant section as a voting booth versus a debate forum.
You get unfettered opinion when the writer doesn't have to publicly divulge their identity.
Many elections have gone differently than expected because what people say they are going to do in the voting booth and what they do are two different things.
Bill Hayes, Hixson
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Boosting immune system paramount
There have been several lists of ways to protect ourselves from the spread of viral diseases this winter.
All of the methods presented are surely helpful. I have noted, however, very little mention of doing things that boost the activity of our own immune systems. There are many ways to do this. Good nutrition, appropriate vitamins and minerals, certain mushrooms and other things are known to boost our immune systems. It isn't hard to do.
I recommend that folks talk to their doctor about it and see if it might be helpful to them.
Eric Ashby
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USA not 'winner take all' nation
South Carolina statesman John C. Calhoun argued that a government based upon majority rule still had to respect minority rights. States opposed to majority legislation, Calhoun wrote, could "nullify" it and, in the extreme, secede from the union. It was the "states' rights" to do so. Such thinking gave Southern states points to argue and led to the Civil War.
Nullification and secession are now invalid, but the struggle to maintain minority rights is imperiled yet again today. That conservative Republicans control of all three branches of government (well, just half of the legislative branch) has led to a bingeing of presidential power and constitutional peculiarities that threaten our way of governance. More moderate and liberal minority rights are in jeopardy.
Winners of elections are not free to do as they please. "Winner take all" is not the rule. Dissenting opinions are not "corrupt" or "fake news." Democrats aren't "thugs," "dumb" or "deranged."
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently called our current situation "majoritarian domination" and that Bernie Sanders would do it, too. Either way, it's wrong and puts opposing opinions and minority rights in jeopardy.
Grady S. Burgner, Ooltewah
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Trump is trampling on our core principles
There is no such thing as a trial without witnesses. Senators, prohibiting documents, evidence and witnesses in Trump impeachment violated their oaths of impartiality and to participate in a fair trial.
Trump was not held accountable for extortion of a foreign leader to obtain detrimental information on an American citizen for use to his political advantage. In addition to what John Bolton has written and said, there was sworn testimony to this same effect from honored military Col. Alexander Vindman and William Taylor privy to Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president amounting to quid pro quo.
Trump had said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not be charged. As president, he claims that the Second Amendment gives him the right to do anything he wants to do.
The founding fathers warned against this, providing in the Constitution impeachment for a president who abuses power with potential to become a dictator, the situation in which we find our country today.
John Bratton, Sewanee