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U.S. Postal Service needs help

Talk for months about how inefficiency and lax security in the U.S. Postal Service may affect the upcoming presidential election has had an unfortunate side-effect: It has distracted attention from the agency’s very real, deeply rooted dilemma. Any private company suffering as badly as the Postal Service has for long as its problems have been allowed to continue would have filed for bankruptcy protection years ago. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has been caught in the partisan battle over mail-in election ballots. DeJoy, nominated by President Donald Trump, has been accused of ...

Voter intent is paramount

There is one safe bet regarding the upcoming presidential election: If vote totals in any of the states are close, there will be controversy over how ballots were handled. That will be so whether President Donald Trump or Joe Biden appears to have the edge. Ballot battles are nothing new, of course. Many people remember the infamous “hanging chads” argument over votes in Florida during the election 20 years ago. That will seem mild this year, unless we are sadly mistaken. Much of the disagreement this time around will be because of the enormous number of ballots that will be ...

Help the people who need it the most — now

It was to be expected that when Congress approved about $3 trillion in emergency aid to Americans hurt financially by the coronavirus epidemic, the criminal element would seize the opportunity for ill-gotten gains. Both as individuals and criminal organizations, they have been doing just that on a massive scale. It is doubtful we will ever know how much in unemployment compensation has been paid out wrongly. Millions of people need the benefits badly. Though the economy is recovering slowly from business slowdowns linked to COVID-19, it still has a long way to go. Officials in ...

There is no doubt about who is in charge

President Donald Trump often shoots verbally from the hip. Many voters like that. Many others deplore it. But Trump, while holding the most powerful office in the world, understands fully that he is bound by certain rules and traditions. One of them is that when we hold an election, the result is binding. The winner takes office. The loser, if in office, steps aside. Much has been made of Trump’s response to questions about how he would react to a loss in the Nov. 3 presidential election. He has been asked if he would abide by the result. “We’ll see,” Trump replied ...

Law enforcement needs to self-police

Breonna Taylor’s family is right: The system failed her. She should be alive today, but she is not. It is too late to save Taylor, who died in a hail of bullets from three police officers in Louisville, Kentucky one night in March. It is not too late for law enforcement officials throughout the country to ask themselves if what went wrong in Louisville could happen in their towns, cities and counties. Grand jurors in Louisville investigated Taylor’s death and came up with violently controversial decisions. One of the three officers was indicted for reckless behavior because ...

Thank you Minot AFB for the important work you do

A big congratulations to the men and women of the 5th Bomb Wing and 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base for their recent accomplishments in receiving Omaha Trophies for their outstanding support to U.S. Strategic Command’s strategic deterrence mission. Navy Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, announced the recipients of the 2019 trophies last week. For a military unit to receive an Omaha Trophy is a very prestigious and coveted honor. The Minot AFB bomb wing is being honored in the Strategic Bomber category and the Minot AFB ...