After reading the My Turn by Jim Pappas, I have to give him a 30-minute standing ovation. At least he states the facts.

The letter by Doug Miller was the most hateful trash I have ever read. According to him, if you are a parent and your children are on the free lunch program at school, then you are a bunch of lazy takers. Apparently, no liberals have jobs, they just lay around collecting food stamps. Speaking of takers, how about the big oil companies and their government subsidies. Typical Tea Party hypocrisy!

If you paid attention to the movie, you would see that the scarecrow was the smartest of them all. That’s a typical tea bagger’s remark, a personal attack on one’s character with no facts to back them up. You bring up the same old crap (Bengazi, IRS and spying) but it was OK when Bush started the spying. How about two wars that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, based on lies?

Let’s talk about the good things President Obama has done. He took out Bin Laden, stopped two wars, negotiated Syria’s nuclear stand down peacefully and is making progress with Iran (yes, Phil, at least he’s trying). Of course, the Republicans’ answer would have been to bomb them. The stock market is at a record high, the job market is increasing, the housing market is up and the deficit has been cut in half. Pretty good, considering the mess he was left with in 2009. The insurance companies knew what the laws of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be, and are using it to raise premiums to get rid of junk policies.

Let’s not forget about the Canadian from Texas, Cruz, and the government shutdown. That $24 billion could have fed a lot of the so-called takers. Phil, I’ll bet you give to the poor, but never forget to deduct it on your income taxes. Now that the Pope has spoken out about the poor, you Christian hypocrites are starting in on him. Real Christians don’t hate and try to take away from the poor. Read it! It’s in the Bible.

DAN GRESSLER

Rathdrum