Airport Authority is careless with money
The Airport Authority has once again acted in a manner that would bankrupt most businesses, and they are using taxpayer money. Tac Air is a privately owned business that has basically been run out of town after the Airport Authority met behind closed doors and agreed to buy Tac Air out since their own publicly owned Wilson Air can't make a profit. When Tac Air is gone and the Airport Authority has all the private hangers, maybe they can make a profit with city taxpayers footing the bill for the $7 million dollar buyout of a private company that is making a profit. The whole airport authority should be investigated for its careless spending of taxpayer money and its own agenda and vendetta against Tac Air. Please call your city council person and demand that our money not be used to purchase a private business that is making a profit.
R. D. MINCEY
Injustice for Tasha Bates
I will add my voice to the lady's who spoke out about the injustice of the first degree murder and aggravated child neglect trial (and two life sentences) for Tasha Bates whose two children died in an overheated car. Drunk drivers get in their cars and kill people. Some get stiff sentences, others get off with very little punishment. Is there any difference in what each one has done?
The Matthews family should never have received the sentences they got.
The rich kid kills four people and gets away with it. I was raised in a poor family. Does that give me a right to commit crime?
We all know that with money or influence, justice can be bought. I can name many cases here in Chattanooga.
Judges are not God. They will have to live with the judgments they hand out. I hope, before they make any more decisions, they get on their knees and ask the great judge to help them.
JANETTE ROBERTS
Will Obama be impeached?
Finally, the mainstream media is forced to defend the results of the 2012 presidential election as a series of "misunderstandings". They are not misunderstandings, they are outright lies, and are easily identified: Census figures were changed, union payoffs were disguised, coal industries were misled, Obamacare problems were covered up, IRS and NSA spying was used for Obama reelection purposes, the Benghazi attack was blamed on a worthless video, armed Acorn thugs and others intimidated voters, Jews were deceived as to Iranian nuclear talks, senior citizens were never told of Medicare cuts and were also promised a large cost of living increase (ultimately 1.5 percent!), GM shareholders were assured their stocks were safe, illegals were promised a quick "path to citizenship", young people were told their medical insurance premiums would be reduced substantially, military leaders were assured there would be no cuts in their budgets, and the biggest lie of all -- "If you like your insurance carrier or your doctor, you can keep your insurance carrier or your doctor".
Obama, the ultimate narcissist, doesn't care what you think, because Obamacare is the law, and his ultimate goal is single-payer medical insurance, approved by him. The election was a fraud; wonder when impeachment proceedings will begin?
JOHN BERGEN
A better life for our children
Congratulations to TFP's Joan McClane, Todd South and Doug Strickland for arduous research into a crisis situation which reveals the devaluing of life. The story focuses on murder and the fear of retribution for witnesses and makes obvious the need to handle the present crisis with great energy and resolve. Chattanooga cannot accept this violent behavior nor the silence which protects it. But the real crisis these journalists uncover -- as if we have not heard it before -- is the loss of meaning for children who do not receive the same educational opportunities from an early age as those with more resources in our society. Each of the young men described in this story had in their early years the possibility of achieving the very best in life. They were not born criminals, rather children with hope.
This story is a cry for better family planning for both young men and young women, for critical educational services from birth to kindergarten, and for outstanding educational opportunities from kindergarten through 12th grade. These are citizens whose lives we cannot afford to let be thrown away. We all thrive with their accomplishments; we all suffer with their failure.
FRANKLIN McCALLIE
What about the unborn?
There is an interesting juxtaposition on the left side (The Times side) of your editorial pages on Dec. 14. The Bennett cartoon has a sign, stop the killing, with a Republican character in the corner of the frame pointing to the sign and saying, "If it's referring to the unborn." Immediately below Bennett's cartoon is Times Page Editor, Pam Sohn's commentary beneath the headline, A year after Newtown, still more ricochets. In it Ms. Sohn states, "33,173 people have died from guns in the U.S. since the Newtown shooting..." The interesting contrast is this: Based on statistics of the Center for Disease Control and The Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 1.13 million unborn children were "legally" killed by abortions in the U.S. in 2010, 1.06 million in 2011, and a total of well over 50 million since 1973. Unlike the aborted babies, all of those killed by guns, even the first graders slaughtered in Newtown, enjoyed at least a few years of their young lives before being slain. I wonder if Sohn or Bennett have ever shed tears for those millions?
NED NETTERVILLE, Lone Oak, Tenn.
Thanks to the Times Free Press
In this season of thanks, we hope this letter succeeds in reminding Chattanoogans how lucky they are to have the Times Free Press available daily.
Our parents -- 47-year TFP subscribers -- moved to Nashville and, since moving, the paper has surfaced as a true gem of your city.
Originally Times readers, we would get the color Free Press on Thursday afternoons and Fridays for sportswriter's picks and double high school sports coverage, and on Sunday mornings for color UTC coverage during the Joe Morrison-Shumate-Murray Arnold glory days (at UTC). Wirt Gammon, Buck Johnson, Jack Hodges, Ward Gossett, Larry Greene, Roy Exum, Mark McCarter and the Mark Wiedmer-Jay Greeson-Stephen Hargis sports coverage and the often controversial Bill Casteel-Mark Kennedy-David Cook pieces more recently come to mind, as do the insightful and biting cartoons of Bruce Plante and now Clay Bennett truly make the TFP a treasure which our parents now receive a couple of days behind the print dates.
The time lag for receiving the paper is worth it as the TFP continues to demonstrate a depth of coverage and a willingness to challenge its readers on both sides of the editorial page to which The Tennessean in Nashville can only aspire.
THE BREWERS, Nashville