Photos are in every newspaper: Peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights (freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition) being pummeled by federal troops in American cities. Isnt this the scenario for which the National Rifle Association of America and its supporters have been waiting decades? Isnt this how U.S. citizens validate their collections of military-grade assault weapons? Isnt defending states rights what tea party members advocate?

Our federal government has employed old-school military tactics on its citizens the past couple of years: amaze, dazzle and stun the population with an outrageously audacious action and just as a citizen may shake her head clear of what cannot possibly be, jump out of the melee and into the moral right, denying anything occurred. Should one fight? Nah, illegal and only causes great bodily pain. Flee? This choice causes problems for those family and loved ones left behind. OK then, freeze? This seems the go-to response of our citizenry and by the time we shake our head of the shock of what we see our federal government doing, the perpetrators bounce away from the scene, only to later pop-up elsewhere in the country in another guerrilla warfare tactic against its citizens.

But to the question of where our defenders of assault weapons and state rights are during this time of peaceful protest and vicious federal response: what say you? The lack of response in any manner suggests you to be all mouth and no heart. Or, perhaps you have followed into the fourth category of human response to adversity assimilation by the entity trying to cause you harm.

Milan Simonich cant seem to get over the grievous personal injury he suffered at the hands of City Clerk Yolanda Vigil, who failed to give him the results of our last election at the demands of his personal deadline ("Mayor reinvents the wheel, spins it as ingenuity," Ringside Seat, July 24).

A couple of years ago Vigil was walking through her office and noticed that I was struggling to stay awake at the microfilm reader after an hours searching for the minutes of a City Council meeting that took place in 1997. She stopped and asked me about my search, then invited me to sit near her desk, found the minutes in record time, printed them out for me, and sent me on my way. Her behavior that day was typical of the clerk and her staff, who are consistently cheerful and helpful when the public comes in with a request or a problem.

Did it occur to Simonich that on the evening of an unprecedented election Vigil might be kind of exhausted after what must have been weeks if not months of overtime? Did he recall Vigils warning that preparing for ranked-choice voting would present her with huge problems? Did he notice that in fact she did bring off the election without a hitch? That Vigil had made a huge and successful effort to explain how ranked choice works and how to understand the ballot? Did it occur to Simonich that the failure here might have been with his sympathetic imagination?

Instead he continues to criticize a city employee who, in my experience, is outstanding and who exhibits behavior that should be a model for all of her colleagues in City Hall.

Under coercion from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Richard Nixon released subpoenaed White House recordings suspected to prove his guilt in the Watergate scandal to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The same day, the House Judiciary Committee voted a third article of impeachment against the president: contempt of Congress in hindering the impeachment process. The previous two impeachment articles voted against Nixon by the committee were obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential powers.

I suspect that, like Jim Jones' death cult, President Donald Trump will offer us a fake vaccine in late October that comes in any flavor that Kool-Aid markets because, without an election, he will cease to be president at noon Jan. 20. That would create a most opportune moment to execute a plebiscite in the many states which care to have one to secede to a new republic whose Constitution actually guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, ends slavery (a property right), and provides for one person, one vote.

In Nueces County, Texas, where Corpus Christi is, 85 infants under the age of 1 have tested positive for the coronavirus. It is clear that children can get this disease. The disease has little-known effects as well. It is been found to cause brain damage and we dont need our children to get a disease with no symptoms that may affect future brain function. We require children to have vaccinations before going to school. I believe it is essential that we require all school students and all school faculty and staff to be tested for coronavirus before going back to school. There is no reason that any children who might have coronavirus, but no symptoms, should go to school and possibly infect someone else. This should apply to all public and charter schools and all universities as well.

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As feds attacks freedom, where's the right wing? - Santa Fe New Mexican